Days 363-364: Play is real

06-07122013

A theatre improvisation practice, 2013.

I have been thinking about playfulness. Play among children is seen as natural and what they ought to be doing, because in addition to being a venue for self-expression it works as a way for children to practice becoming participants in this reality and members in a society. But what is it when adults play? Is there even such a thing as an adult?

To define an adult is to draw a line in water. One can look at sexual maturity, but it is a well-known fact that even young children already have a sexual drive, and that even though teenagers may be able to reproduce they are not yet capable of parenting. So adulthood does not go hand in hand with sexual maturity.

Neither is adulthood about seriousness. The myth of adulthood is commonly seen in people becoming more “serious” when they reach a certain “adult” age, letting go of old hobbies because they seem “childish” (yet secretly missing them), resenting obvious toys (yet getting new gadgets like smartphones), considering oneself as “above” all children (yet envying them for their freedom) and by no means “sinking” down to a child's level and playing like children with children among children and adults alike. Adult-adult relationships become charged with adult expectations mostly to do with power and sex, which work as means of control when the fear of one's survival in a dog-eats-dog world is one's ultimate motivator.

This is why I am always happy to find adult-aged people who have not forgotten the importance of play. Because I did theatre throughout my childhood and teen years, I grew up into an adult while constantly playing. I never really let go of play or became ashamed of it, and I've noticed that this is not very common even within my age group of 20-somethings.

I came to think about playfulness after an evening where all kinds of spontaneous play took place among adults. I found myself thinking: what are the limits here? How far can play extend? Am I allowed to do whatever? Afterwards I found myself thinking that the evening “meant nothing”, “contributed to nothing”, that “nothing was real” and “it was all just play”. These thoughts were an outcome of my disappointment, because I had secretly set expectations for the evening. With these after-thoughts I downplayed all that happened to negate the meaning I had imagined for what happened within the playing – to soothe my disappointment.

I realize that the main line of play I'm looking at here was a kind of an indirect flirtation scene, where the play just goes on and on without either one really “making the move” to make visible all the desires underneath the surface. (The fears that stop me from speaking up are not my topic this time.) What play is in this scenario is a kind of a test, a warm-up: getting closer inch by inch, little by little, to see how the other one responds, within a setting where you can say “just kidding” if the other one rejects you. It's also a way to for example bring out one's sexual drive in a safe “just kidding” kind of a zone, where you can dance and touch and move to quite an extent while still being able to say “just kidding” - although, if one only looks, what is going on is obvious and doesn't have to be brushed aside. What is here is here, and it is visible if one only looks.

So what bothers me here is the “just kidding” back gate, because to me that seems like an abuse of the concept of play. Within play one can express oneself in ways that would otherwise seem “unacceptable” or “too much”, and from within self-honesty play can then be a really cool way for self-exploration and self-expansion. If for example a flirtation play happens, it can be used to begin to communicate what draws people towards each other and what the following actions could be. The “just kidding” back gate functions as long as play is considered as something that is “not real”, when in fact play IS real, many times more real than the patterns we live our daily lives according to. When play is considered “not real” it is easy for one to accept and allow others to dismiss what they saw of themselves within play, but when play is considered real, there will be no place to hide. This is where I can change myself, so that in addition to supporting myself I can also support others within play to see themselves for who they are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that play is “not real”, when in fact everything we do and are is some form of self-expression and thus very much real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore who others are within play, thus accepting and allowing them to suppress and hide dimensions of themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore who I am within play as I have been afraid of what I have seen, thus suppressing dimensions of myself and hoping that nobody saw me (or pretends that he/she didn't).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from who I am within play, not realizing that by embracing who I am within play I “expand” myself by giving attention to dimensions of myself I have so far neglected, thus becoming a “fuller” being as I unlock parts of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse the concept of play by escaping who I am within play with the words/thought “just kidding” and excusing my behavior with play.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that play is some kind of a field of its own separate from the reality, a parallel universe in a bubble, that what happens within play is “not real” - not realizing that even though who I am within play is not the personality I usually portray in my life, who I am within play is still real as it happens in this physical reality even though I imagine it to be happening within a conceptual reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the personalities I “wear” in my every day life are my “true self”, thus dismissing everything outside those personalities as “not real”.

I commit myself to explore the concept of play within and as self-honesty to support myself and others to learn and grow from what is exposed of us all within play.

I commit myself to stop pretending to not see who others are within play even if they'd directly ask for it.

Day 332: Attraction, part 8 - refusal

 11102013

This post is a direct continuation to:

Day 328: Attraction, part 6 - intermission

Days 329-331: Attraction, part 7 - resentment

And a part of the following series:

Day 323: Attraction, part 1

Day 324: Attraction, part 2

Day 325: Attraction, part 3

Day 326: Attraction, part 4

Day 327: Attraction, part 5

“The thing is, I fear getting too close to people whom I perceive to be “beggars” - looking for company out of dependency. These kinds of people I usually kindly turn away, and one of the guys from yesterday to me appears to be “one of them” - although I really can't say because I've only met him very briefly. I do not want to support anyone's addictions, and this is why I find this principle one that I will stick to, as long as I take care to not assume people to be what I believe them to be and to communicate myself properly to the other.”

I am now increasingly anxious about the person I am referring to here, because I agreed to meet him and simply the discussion on how we should meet has revealed some points about the both of us that I find worrying. For now I have been able to direct myself according to self-honesty, but it has required immense effort as I am not completely clear on where I stand and how to communicate that to another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that rejecting a person based on nothing but my initial feeling of resentment only serves my self-interest and does not support the other to understand the real reasons behind my refusal, not to mention I neglect my own process while doing so.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to reject another person based on my initial feeling of discomfort instead of refusing the proposal of another based on the incompatibility of our starting points at this point of time and space.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for rejecting another person, not realizing that it serves the benefit of the both of us to not direct our time and effort on something that most likely will not “work out” (become a platform of actual support for the both of us AND consequently benefit the rest of the world as well) and that in such a case where this seems likely it is reasonable to let go and move on.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have negative expectations about dating, not realizing that a meeting with a person doesn't have to be about “falling in love” (creating dependency) and “planning a future” (writing a story in one's head), but that it can in fact be utilized to map out the foundation each one's life stands on and to see if they would benefit each other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider canceling a date because of the meeting place the other suggested, not realizing that instead of escaping possible conflict I can actually direct the situation by communicating why I do not think the meeting place is good for our meeting and suggesting something else. [This is what I did after a long-ass struggle with myself, lol, and it worked out well.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when/as/if I refuse to keep meeting this person it will create a “disturbance” in the social structure we interact in – that we would feel uncomfortable in each other's presence – not realizing that this can be avoided (or at least I can do my share of preventing such a situation) through self-honest communication where the “air is cleared” and no points are left to accumulate under the surface.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to be able to communicate myself properly in a situation that is loaded with expectations.

I commit myself to attend to this meeting from the starting point of mapping out the both of us.

I commit myself to support and assist myself to be clear with myself throughout the meeting by returning myself to breath and focusing on my breathing and grounding, thus slowing myself down, and by keeping track of any reactions/points that may occur during the meeting.

I commit myself to pay attention to my negative expectations (wanting to see the other in a negative light so that I would have an excuse to escape him) and to carry responsibility for them by ensuring that they are not the starting point for my actions and choices.

Days 298-300: Ego as an Idol

24-26082013

For the past two days I've been writing about a situation in which I accepted and allowed my ego to lead me blindly into seeking fame and glory at the expense of children. I was asked to be a judge in a children's singing contest and also to speak to the audience on behalf of the entire jury. I did all of this and in my own terms I managed “well”, I was pretty to look at and comfortable to listen to, I was setting an “admirable” example to the children, I was making the “right” choice on the winners – except that this is all bullshit. I justified participating in a system (competition) that supports inequality and creates separation by thinking that this way the children “get experience on performing” (which they could actually get in a simple concert without the setting of a contest) and all the while the reason I really wanted to be there was to be seen, to show off myself and build a self-image of an admirable public figure.

The consequence of this was that I became anxious and paranoid while walking in the middle of the crowd because I started judging myself on how “well” I did on the speech and the appearance and then projected my self-judgement on others and believed them to now think less of me. I could not stand the eyes I imagined to have been on me and I had to leave.

When I was writing through all this (in extensive and messy writings which I will not publish) I came across self-hate when I realized what I had done. I need to forgive myself for falling.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate, despise and loathe myself when and as I realized I had listened to my ego when making a decision to participate in the contest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that self-hate will not assist and support me to grow as a being because hate is an act of holding on to the past and judging myself in the present (and future, “I will never be good enough”) according to who I was.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that self-hate will not assist and support me to move on because from within hate I cannot truly forgive myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I should lash myself into “being a better person” through guilt, shame and self-hate, not realizing that doing so is an act of punishing myself which will eventually kill me, either through exhaustion or through the culmination of self-hate in suicide.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not have mercy on myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that making mistakes is inevitable, and that the way to deal with mistakes is not to hate myself (which will only incapacitate me and make me “even less” than I already am within my moment of falling) but to recognize the consequences of my mistake and to carry responsibility for them.

I commit myself to consider participating in contests like this from a wider perspective: what are the implications of the existence of a contest like this? What is a children's singing contest as a system? What does it serve? What are the consequences for the children? What are the consequences for the families? Who are the parents that bring their children to contests like this? Who are the children we see competing? What would rewarding one individual do for him/her and what would it do for another? [I will shortly write an essay on what I saw and have seen about all this.]

If I am asked to participate in a contest like this again, I commit myself to consider what my field of influence there would be and decide my participation accordingly; I also commit myself to discuss the purpose and necessity of a children's singing contest with the people arranging it.

--

Another thing I went through is my desire to be famous, which I have already written about quite a lot. I realized that there is a certain set of memories I need to go through to access the root of this desire, which is in the birth of my self-hate when I compared myself to my sister and later on to my female friends.

Some SF on fame I wrote earlier:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to be famous.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to be famous because I wanted to be loved by as many people as possible – I wanted to make sure everyone liked me, or that enough people liked me so that I'd be “untouchable” / immune to judgement.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the energetic “high” I would get from the adoration of the public would be the only way for me to ever handle negative attention because it would act as a “buffer” or a “shield” as long as many enough people were there to “accept” me.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I am “too weak” to handle negative attention and that to deal with it I “need” the “love” of the audience (the confirmation that I am “good enough”).
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have actually been escaping my tendency to take negative attention personally and avoiding facing this point by blaming my reaction on others and avoiding ever facing what the negative attention (bullying) actually was.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have been reaching for fame so that it would work as a “shield” to protect me from bullying or, in fact, my own self-judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that being exposed to many people's attention would bring me acceptance because I had a skill (singing) that everyone I had met so far had appreciated.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I could expose as many people as possible to my skills I would be accepted and loved by all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what I was actually seeking from fame was the acceptance I was not giving myself; a placebo to my self-hate. [Note to self: the birth of my self-hate would be a good point to open up – specific memories of a certain era to be mapped out.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the acceptance I would receive from the audience would never be enough to sustain me throughout my life AND death because in essence I am alone – I'm born alone, I breathe alone, I die alone; if I were to depend on others for sustenance I would have to keep on pulling the tricks that bring out positive reactions from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “adoration”, “love” and “acceptance” that I have believed and perceived myself to be getting from the people who admired me was actually me taking the reactions and experiences of others personally, believing I was the cause of another's experience when in fact I was “just” the trigger.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire for others to look at me with adoration and submission instead of hate, ridicule and dominance – not realizing that I would just be exerting a sugar-coated revenge by dominating others in turn as I did not see, realize and understand that I could be equal with others as I had never seen an example of equality.

I commit myself to proceed next onto going through these memories of how I came to hate myself as a child/adolescent.

--

Forgiving the ego point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like I was doing “the right thing” when I got compliments about my appearance, thinking that it was justified for me to be doing the judging/performing/appearance because I was so good at it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that by looking pretty, calm and composed I would be a good example for the children, not realizing that the children pick up who I live as, not who I appear to be, and that because I was appearing pretty, calm and composed as an image driven by the ego this is what the children will learn: to appear confident because it is a part of their self-image and because they're afraid of being anything else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “letting loose” (expressing myself however the hell I wanted) in front of the audience because I wanted to maintain an appearance and feared that breaking that appearance would mean that I would no longer be appreciated or respected.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I need to appear serene, beautiful, calm, balanced and stable to be the kind of a public figure that everyone would respect / not hate.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being exposed to the public because some people might not like me and exert their disapproval on me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I am exposed to the public as myself I am bound to not be liked by all as the things I have to say/express are such that not everyone wants to hear; someone is bound to react.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order to be liked by everyone I would have to keep on changing my appearance according to my audience and that this way of living would be based on dishonesty: I would live as a multitude of characters instead of living as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the price I pay for “being safe” is too much; it is not worth sacrificing myself for.

I commit myself to flag any and all moments when I see myself limiting my expression for the sake of my appearance and to investigate them in writing.

When and as I see myself limiting my expression for the sake of my appearance – thinking/experiencing “I have to do this” or “I cannot do this” - I stop, I breathe and I realize I am living as my ego and serving my self-image. I ask myself: what am I trying to portray and why? I answer myself in self-honesty, not accepting or allowing myself to believe any bullshit excuses or justifications, demanding myself for the truth. I forgive myself for whatever I find, allowing myself to face and realize who I am within the moment, yet understanding that we all make mistakes and that now that I see mine I am able to make amends. I look at the consequences of this self-limitation and I carry my responsibility for what I have caused, within or outside of myself.

I commit myself to carry on with my process in order to become an example I would be happy to have children live by, and I commit myself to settle for no less.

Days 289-291: Approaching relationships through negativity

13-14 & 16082013

A friend told me about a notion he had made while dating a girl from a foreign country. He had noticed that it is in the Finnish mentality to look at being attracted to someone a negative thing: that when you notice you're attracted to someone, your reaction is “oh no” instead of “oh yes”. I realized that I had never really thought about this, and when I started looking back on my relationship history it seemed to explain a great deal of things. I don't know if this is exclusively a Finnish trait, but the overall negativity even in relationships certainly is a part of this cultural mindset.

For me having a romantic attraction towards another has always been a burden. Whenever something like that has come about it has felt like a great deal of trouble instead of being a reason for joy. When I look at my first crushes during my childhood and teen years there has always been this despair, a hopelessness, a knowledge that it would never amount to anything anyway because I'm not good enough for the other – and this disempowering way of thinking led me to never act upon my feelings.

There was also a horrifying fear of being “discovered”. I feared that if other kids or family members found out about my crush they would tease me about it. There is this specific “ooooooh” or “aaaaah” people would make when they found out, as if they discovered a juicy secret, as if they knew something super intimate about me and now understood what all of me was about – which they didn't, or that's what I wanted to believe. I didn't want anyone to know because then they would think they knew how I felt when they could not in fact know. I thought of my experience as something “special”, “unique” and “mine” - which in a sense was true – and did not see the value in sharing and cross-referencing things with others.

I still get this embarrassment of sorts, this feeling of being bare in front of others. It's kind of like I'm holding this steel mask of not being emotional at all, and when people hear of me doing something that is perceived to be emotionally charged, like being in a relationship or dating someone, it's like the mask falls off. I don't like it. I am used to being “the stable one” wherever I go and so expressing emotions/feelings is something that is somewhat limited for me. I rarely feel emotions, not always even on a daily basis, but how do I know how much exactly do I suppress? How do I know how much of my non-emotionality is pure blankness and how much of it is suppression?

I know I have picked up this ideal of being “the stable one” from my father, as well as the behavioral pattern of doing it at my own expense by suppressing what I feel. When I look at my parents, the ones who gave me the relationship model I started to follow, I do remember them being openly affectionate towards each other, if not a bit shy about it. There were older siblings who were in their teens when I was a child, and I remember seeing them all embarrassed about their relationships, angry and ashamed when my parents teased them about it – perhaps this is where I picked this up, because my older siblings were a huge role model for me, both consciously and subconsciously.

This is a topic that is (again) on the surface as I have recently met a person with whom I am in a process of building a long-distance relationship. Just writing these words here is difficult for me even though I know that not many people read my blog (voicing things to myself is the most difficult step I guess), and when I think of talking to people about it I notice this nervousness rising immediately. I realize that this is because I have adopted a negative attitude towards the whole concept of two people gravitating towards each other – a filter of shame, worst-case scenarios and negative expectations caused by a poor self-esteem. I'm not saying I should jump to the other extreme and go crazy with excitement, joy and over-confidence (which some people actually do, which is news to me!) but to allow myself the enjoyment of the situation.

So: on to self-forgive, so that I may find it comfortable sharing this experience with other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to feel ashamed of being attracted to another person because I have feared that people would question the target of my feelings – in other words, think less of the person I am attracted to and thus think less of me as well.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to fear telling my friends/family who I was attracted to because then they would see more of me as well.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to fear sharing my attractions with others because on some level I understood that within the process of becoming attracted to someone I become in touch with the sides of me which have been hidden – sides of me that have been “secret” because I have not known how to be self-intimate – and that in my choice of who to be attracted to I expose the hidden side of myself.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to fear admitting that I was attracted to H because all the other girls were attracted to him as well and I saw myself to have no chance within that competition.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to fear admitting that I was attracted to H because attraction was a new feeling to me and I had no idea what it was and how to deal with it, and because I did not know how to express an uncertain experience and to seek for answers from others.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to fear admitting that I was attracted to T because he wasn't “good-looking” in the usual way, as I was afraid other kids would tease me for liking someone “ugly” and think less of me as well – that other kids would not understand why I liked this person and instead assume him to be “less” and me to be “less”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to fear admitting that I was attracted to T because I believed he did not like me back and I did not want to take the risk of getting rejected, not that I would have known what to do with another person anyway even if he would like me back.
  • I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to fear expressing my attraction because I had no idea what would happen as a result; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to fear doing things the outcome of which I could not foretell or, in other words, control.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to fear that I will be defined by who others believe my target of attraction to be and who they believe me to be in relation to that image of him.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that people will assume me to be something I am not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as others have discovered I am attracted to someone, to distance the whole affair from myself and try and avoid the intimacy of sharing something so personal with others.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold myself back from sharing the early stages of a relationship with others because I have wanted to avoid exposing myself in such a sensitive state, rather sharing the news only when a relationship has stabilized and when I can pretend to be all cool about it.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe that my experience of attraction was something “unique” because it felt so overwhelming, not realizing that everyone else experiences basically same thing as the same patterns of thought and behavior create the same experiences.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though my feelings were overwhelming in my subjective experience, other people too have had these overwhelming subjective experiences and that the subjectiveness of something is not an indicator of its uniqueness.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel embarrassed when people have found out I am attracted to someone, feeling as if they were looking at something private and wanting them to “not look at me” or to “look away”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist exposing myself to others as I have not fully exposed myself to myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive relationships, attraction and sexuality through negativity, thus denying myself the enjoyment of embracing the situation.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for having enjoyment in my life through relationships.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel undeserving of enjoyment through relationships.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to being attracted to someone by conjuring up worst-case scenarios, summoning a fear that I will screw things up, that the other will not like me, that things would get complicated and troublesome, that my attraction won't stay hidden, that the other one will abuse me, that the relationship will advance too quickly, that I would have to be tied to a relationship – thus pulling back from the interaction with the other, interacting from behind a defensive personality and being careful not to expose myself until I feel “safe enough” to lower my defenses – which may in fact never happen with a person, or may take a lot of time.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have been in relationships during my life, to not question my defensiveness and fearfulness and thus put a strain on every relationship (also some friendships) by not being “myself” (defenseless) until enough time has passed, if at all.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as a relationship has ended or been in conflict, to blame others for “not having patience” with me, not realizing that I am responsible for being in such a state that requires patience from others.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize I am harming myself by holding onto my fearfulness and that it is unacceptable that I keep on living as a “porcupine” that requires others to approach me in a certain way for me to feel safe.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear showing others that I experience emotions and feelings because it would require me to be honest with myself.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being honest with myself about my emotions and feelings because I have perceived and believed emotions and feelings to be a weakness.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to idolize the model of “stability” that I saw in my father and want to become like him, not seeing, realizing and understanding the damage he did to himself as he played out “stability” through self-suppression, and thus doing the same damage onto myself unquestioned.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order to be stable one should have no emotions/feelings.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that stability is to embrace my emotions/feelings as an indicator of who I am and to direct who I am according to how I see best – not to accept and allow my emotions/feelings to direct me; stability is when I am in the wheel and emotions/feelings are riding along.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that stability is to see myself as a whole, embrace myself as a whole and direct myself as a whole – emotions/feelings included.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear admitting to an attraction because I have believed and perceived that attraction makes me “weak” or “less”.

When and as I go into resistance to share the fact that I am involved with or attracted to someone, feeling that inwards pull in my chest as if my physical body was trying to collapse into itself to hide itself from the eyes of others – I stop, I breathe and I realize that this resistance is a sign that I have not fully embraced what is going on and that I am not standing within and as myself in self-honesty. I realize that it is not other people I am trying to keep away from me but myself. I breathe and I release the tension from my physical body and I fix my posture so that I am open, relaxed and balanced. I ask myself: what am I hiding? What am I ashamed of? What do I not want to be seen? And I bring the answer back to myself as I see, realize and understand that I am in fact hiding from myself and not from others. I release the point through self-forgiveness (written, spoken or experienced) and I push through my resistance to share myself with others by speaking through words that best describe my experience.

I commit myself to with myself go through what is going on in this relationship in spoken and written word so that through absolute self-honesty, self-certainty and self-integrity I may stand within and as my decision to be in a relationship and share my decisions with others.

I commit myself to observe and investigate how approaching relationships through the negative polarity manifests in me.

--

Another aspect of this point surfaced. In communication with the person I am in a relationship with I noticed in myself a fearfulness, carefulness, behind actions that were necessary – but not necessary to be done through fear. I realized I am scared of losing this relationship and that I am acting through that fear, trying to make sure that I am doing everything possible to maintain the relationship now that for the first time in my life I have some understanding of how to actually do that and NOT mess things up from the start. I regret all the mistakes I have made in my previous relationships and now try to make sure I make no more mistakes, that I would finally “succeed” - and this idea of “success” indicates that there is a relationship ideal I am reaching for, some kind of a goal that I believe to be possible to get to.

I will continue with this point in later writings.

Day 250: Appearances

05062013

I have recently made a new friend in the company of whom I accept and allow myself to see myself in self-honesty. I have noticed this because people like this are extremely rare in my life, and while traveling I have mostly just been keeping up an appearance with the new people I've met. In the company of this person, however, I have been seeing myself in a “new light” as we have discussed our lives very openly and I have seen my appearance “cracking”, as if I was just getting a glimpse of myself underneath who I believe myself to be.

I noticed a new kind of a worry concerning this today: I fear that our interaction will regress, that we will return to our appearances and lose this level of communication that has been very helpful to me. At the same time I realize that I would very much like to crawl back behind my masks because I fear what this kind of interaction might reveal of myself. A window of opportunity like this should not be dismissed, and that's why I need self-forgiveness to support and assist myself to seize it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to keep up appearances with the people I meet and spend time with because I have wanted to enjoy myself, “have fun” and live a smooth life of no conflict, not realizing that by living as an appearance I am not really here and that I am thus dishonest in everything I do or say, making the interaction with others superficial, shallow and a facade, like actors in a play who believe themselves to be the illusion they portray.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to keep up appearances with others because I have been afraid to face myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by keeping up appearances I support others to do the same and thus am more likely to only interact with appearances, characters and personalities instead of the actual people behind them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the appearances others keep up by not looking at who they actually are (or might be) within their actions and by not questioning their appearances because I have been afraid of conflict and loneliness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to keep up appearances because I have wanted to socialize and have friends and have believed and perceived that I have to be a certain kind of a personality to gain acceptance from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order to gain acceptance and friendship from others I need to be ignorant of who others actually are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order to gain acceptance and friendship from others I need to ignore and hide myself underneath a likeable appearance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when and as I give others only an appearance of myself and not my real self, as ugly as it is, the friendship I receive in return is just as fake as who I am within it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that the quality of the friendship is determined by how I live within it – I get what I give – and that in order to have constructive relations with others I need to get down to what is real, to what is actually HERE as the fuck-up that I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like I have been regressing back to my personalities when my conversation with X turned back to superficial things after having been about our actual living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with self-judgement when and as I noticed myself regressing back to my “sociable personality” instead of stopping, breathing and directing myself out of this personality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for comfort and stability from my “sociable personality” when and as the conversation has reached a point where I have had nothing to say as I have felt uncomfortable about having nothing to say thinking I should be saying something.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the moments in interaction with others when I have nothing to say, believing and perceiving that another will judge me and think I am not good enough company, not realizing that I do not know what actually causes a line of conversation to “die out” and that whatever the cause I am not alone responsible for an interaction that involves someone in addition to myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself when and as a line of conversation has “died out”, blaming myself for this and making this a point of self-diminishment, when in fact it is no big deal if a conversation ends because then another form of interaction may take place.

[I was unable to finish this text at the time, but I will return to this subject shortly.]