Day 395: Mapping out the experience of "falling in love"

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Type "falling in love" into google image search, and you'll see just the other side of this coin.

I have recently been walking through the energetic experience many call “falling in love”. This has been interesting, because even though I have gone through this experience many times before, I have never before had awareness of how the experience is created, and thus I have always been “swept away” by it more or less.

First off, I am frightened about this experience, because I fear it will warp my relationship to the person the energy is directed towards. My experience so far has shown that every experience of love eventually turns into an experience of hate. I have ended up resenting every person I have “fallen in love” with – and god dammit, I do not want to resent this person, or anyone at all, I really don't want to create a relationship that is doomed to become charged with underlying negativity and fall apart. To build on the experience of “love” is to bring about the polarity at some point, and it would be irresponsible of me to just ignore it and “go with the flow”.

Secondly, I am a little overwhelmed by the massive energy build-up that I've accumulated through feelings, reactions, thoughts and imaginations. I can see the thoughts and fantasies when they're here, and I have been trying to map them out to see what need it is I am fulfilling in the thought/image. I haven't been writing any of them down, and this has made it more difficult to track what's going on. During my highest energy peaks I've been trying to teach myself to channel and release the energy and direct myself according to common sense, although here lies the risk that I am suppressing myself, which is no good either.

I realize that this energy build-up has already started many years ago when I have first met this person, and that now the circumstances have simply been favourable for acting upon it – I've thought to myself that I am “finally ready” to face this person. In a way this is accurate. I've come to realize that who I've believed the other to be is not in fact who he really is, because the image I've had of him has been shattering when I have changed my positioning within our interaction into one based on self-honesty (occasionally I am still scared shitless and play along with the usual social patterns on auto-pilot). So yes, in a way I have been “ready” to see him as he is. I used to react to him with a mixture of fear and awe, but with the image of him being replaced with knowing him as a human being both the fear and the awe have vanished. This hasn't decreased my affection, quite the opposite, it has simply brought me down to earth.

Having released those reactions, the “love” aspect still remains. I can see that it's an accumulation of energy that has been triggered in reactions I've had within our interaction – many small moments of “oh!” turning into a fucking fanfare. These reactions require precise mapping, because right now they're still a blur to me.

• seeing him (wanting his presence / fear of not having his presence) –> fulfillment / unfulfillment
• touching him (wanting acceptance/attention / fear of rejection) –> gratification / disappointment
• discussing with him (wanting to succeed / fear of failure) – looking for signs of approval –> success / failure

• reacting to opportunities: when the circumstances are right, seeing a storyline that could be fulfilled –> choosing to want/resent the outcome –> creating anticipation –> blocking myself with tension

There are probably many others, but these are the most basic ones I could find based on memory. I need to start paying attention to these reactions when they occur – not to suppress them (note to self) but to know myself and to direct myself according to who I reveal myself to be. Fuck, I still have a big issue with self-suppression, because on some level I still believe that I “shouldn't feel like this” or that I most definitely shouldn't act upon any of this. Some of the guilt aspects I have worked my way through, but some remain.

I don't believe I should be too hesitant, though. I can trust myself to see what I'm doing and if nothing else, to carry responsibility for the consequences of my actions, whatever they may be. I, like many others, fear making mistakes above all, and I haven't yet solidified the fact that as well as on other fields of life one learns through trial and error, so does one learn in relationships as well. I've already done some of the major mistakes and learned a lot, so I don't think I can fuck this up that badly, lol.

Continuing with self-forgiveness and with more mapping.

Day 394: Failing at life

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I have thought about my participation within the Desteni group and how it's been wavering quite a lot within the past 6 months or so. I make commitments to keep up a steady pace of producing content, to interact with the other group members, to partake in the maintenance of the group projects – and I always end up failing more or less. I haven't been able to keep up my pace of writing this blog at least 3-4 days a week – a drop from the 7 days a week I used to do for several months – and this blog is pretty much the last piece of participation I've been holding onto, because I have really not wanted to let it go. I have seen the practical value of writing and publishing my writings, and I feel that if I were to completely drop the blog I would completely and utterly FAIL, like giving up on myself in some way.

I just now asked myself about this, and I was surprised how clear it all suddenly was. The reason I fear taking on this commitment and investing my time on it is because I fear losing the people around me. I fear that if I were to change into the next gear (“next” here doesn't imply “better”, just a stage of movement to a direction), the people I hold dear would scatter away. But I can see that whoever I become, there will always be someone to agree with me and get into the car with me – lol, such a good metaphor – and that me holding onto people is an act of fear and not one of practicality. Of course this doesn't mean that I will lose the people around me, but I am not even giving them a chance to face that decision.

In a way I am living within and as a compromise: I see that to change my living would be impractical in terms of coping, and so I adapt to my circumstances. I adapt myself because I fear there would be no one left if I didn't.

What I mean by this in practice is that even though I am currently very busy with my studies and work, I am also spending plenty of time on recreation and procrastinating (not that they're the same thing). I realize that recreational time is important for me because through it I give myself freedom to create and express in ways that do not fit within my work schemes, and through recreation I also give myself time to rest and recover from any possible stress my body and mind have undergone. But not all of my “free time” is used in this manner. Sometimes I simply avoid doing anything of relevance because I have driven myself into mental exhaustion, and I justify this with the need to “rest” without asking why the fatigue is there in the first place and whether it could have been avoided. There's also a guilt aspect to this, where I accuse myself of having “indulged” in recreation, even though when I honestly look at my doings I know that this is not the case. I have taken care of my responsibilities – except for this commitment to participate with Desteni.

It might also be that I am simply trying to carry too much, that I am only starting to recognize my own limits. Maybe I am way too occupied at the moment to add on any more responsibility without turning it into a stressful compromise of a life. I know that my studies will be over in a couple of months, and that I will then be able to for a while focus on other tasks. I know that stressing about it will only make it worse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not living up to my commitment to participate in Desteni.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to take on responsibility as a part of the Desteni group.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear failing to update my Journey To Life blog because I have defined upholding the blog to mean that I am “doing OK”, that I am active and willful, that I am consistently walking my process towards becoming a competent human being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have already failed at upholding the blog, if not a year ago when I broke my writing rhythm for the first time, then at least this winter when I failed to write even once a week.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I have failed my process by not writing a blog post every day, not realizing that I have in fact been walking my process in practice and in private writings, if not every day of the week, then at least more than half of the days, and that I have not failed my process but simply failed the task of reporting about it to others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fail the commitment to report about my process to other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear failing to walk my process because I perceive and believe that I will then fail at life and as a living human being, not realizing that “failure” and “success” are simply different outcomes of different choices and actions, and that I have just decided to charge some with positive meanings and others with negative meanings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when I die there will be someone/something to measure how “well” I have lived my life and that I would then feel shame / pride according to the result – not realizing that shame and pride have to do with this world and this reality and how things work in this dimension of existence, assuming that life after death will be as it is here when and as the human mind dictates how life is experienced, not realizing that life after death could be ANYTHING unimaginable – and that to fear possible feelings of shame by judgement – which can be breathed through and released, as they can be in this reality - is thus to focus on the irrelevant: if I cannot know something for sure and prepare myself for it, why stress about it at all?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that there is an authority who decides whether my life has been “good” or “bad”, not realizing that it is ultimately up to me to decide and carry responsibility for my decision.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to secretly wish for there to be an authority to decide upon the “preferable” and the “unpreferable” so that I wouldn't have to look for the truth myself and make a stand as myself, not as a vessel of God/universe/whichever authority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to participate in Desteni so that I could feel better about myself, as if I was then “saved” from The Judgement, and not from the starting point of wanting to work for this world as a whole.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in Desteni from the starting point of self-interest and fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that to really contribute to the Desteni group and not only slow it down, my starting point needs to be selfless, as it needs to be in whatever I do with other people for all of the world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that selflessness doesn't mean that I'm excluded from everything else, but that the concept of “self” disappears in favor of All.

I commit myself to map out and revise the ways I use my time.

I commit myself to focus on my main responsibilities – studying (to establish a position for myself in the world system / to educate myself), working (to sustain my living / to apply what I've studied into practice), and civil society participation (to rehearse working with people / to create networks and relations) – and to thus give them my full focus and energy, only taking into consideration other possible responsibilities when/as/if I have time left over from my current main responsibilities.

I commit myself to regularly revise my responsibilities to see if some need to be let go and replaced with others.

I commit myself to take into consideration the fact that my capacity is in fact limited even though it can be expanded to some extent, and that I cannot take on too much responsibility without the quality of my input decreasing.

I commit myself to build my life to be enjoyable, constructive and fulfilling in a way where I give to Life more than I take from it.

Day 294: Dressing up

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 Me in 1993 (?) and 2012 dressing up the best I can!

I was asked to be one of the judges in a children's singing contest and I agreed to go. The night before the event I was thinking of what to wear to the contest because I realized that these children will look at me as a role model: I would be appear to be in a position of authority, plus for all the small girls a young woman like me does show an example of a kind – and as it turned out, I was the only 20-something in the jury, which makes me the person there that the children most likely relate to, as everyone else was the age of their mothers.

So I thought to myself: I am giving these kids the model of a woman, the model of a grown-up, the model of a human being. What do I want to show them? Or in other words: If I wear this and this, who am I while wearing those clothes and do I want kids to see that?

I realized that in terms of clothing there were many bad choices I could have made. I thought about a really neat black dress with a business woman type of feel, and I realized that I would wear a dress like this to gain authority, to appear powerful, and I would thus set an example that women have to be intimidating and serious, or even man-like to be appreciated.

I concluded that I would wear colour, I would be feminine and that I would show kids that one doesn't have to be serious about clothing – that it's OK to play around with what you wear, because what you wear doesn't define you. With the clothes I wore I felt comfortable, light, mobile, girly and silly. I noticed that I was nervous/anxious about “setting an example” so I kept myself in breath throughout the contest, trying to keep myself as “me” as possible. It was a little challenging with so many eyes following my movements and drinking up everything.

After the show I received feedback not only about my clothing but also about how I carried myself: I had appeared “graceful like a movie star”. That comment showed me that it's the combination of wearing clothes as self-expression and the way you carry yourself within the clothing that creates your appearance – not just one or the other. Sometimes clothing becomes an armor behind which I like to hide, as if the clothes would make me “bigger” than I am (this is the case with the black dress), and I have to start paying more attention to what I wear and why, so that with every piece of clothing there would be no fear but only self-expression – and practicality, duh, lol.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that with what I wear and why I set an example for the future generations on what the purpose and use of clothing is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I wear clothes out of fear, I teach the future generations that clothing is used so that we may hide behind them and thus present an image of who we would like to be, believing our own fabric facade and hoping that everyone else buys into it too.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I wear clothes out of practicality I teach the future generations that clothing is used to help our bodies adjust to the conditions of our living environments and to assist and support us in our activities. (This is why I never wear jeans, lol)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I wear clothes out of self-expression I teach the future generations that clothing is used to express ourselves to the world as who we are, not as our self-image, and that this can be fun, enjoyable, lively, not serious and non-personal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what I wear does not define me – that I could wear goth, hippie, business, farm, hobo, hollywood or prisoner clothes and remain the same within all of them – that I am not the costume I wear but the being within those clothes carrying those clothes and moving within their limits.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to what I wear, morphing my posture and personality to “fit” the clothes I am wearing, not realizing that real life is not about theatre stereotypes and that I can in fact re-define the clothes and disassemble my image of what a person carrying them must be like by stopping, breathing and through the touch sensation feeling what the clothes are, testing their qualities, how they move, stretch, weigh and breathe and carrying them according to who I am / who I become through creation within and as breath as self-expression within these kinds of clothes.

I commit myself to pay attention to what I wear and why.

When and as I see myself thinking of wearing a piece of clothing out of fear – to present an image, to gain power, to be a character – I stop, I breathe and I realize I am not utilizing clothing for practicality and self-expression but for fear and hiding. I ask myself what I am trying to convey with the particular clothes and why. I realize it is not necessary for me to present a dishonest appearance in order to gain something. I forgive myself for the fear and I release it by facing it and breathing it out. I re-assess the situation I was dressing up for and I choose my clothes based on practicality and self-expression asking myself what I would actually want to convey in that situation without fear driving me.

I commit myself to explore clothing by slowing myself down when dressing up to actually feel the clothes on me and what their qualities and limits are, and to re-shape the clothes if it serves a purpose; I have scissors and a sewing machine, so better make use of them!

Days 276-277: Self-suppression

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I have mastered the suppression of my own emotions to such an extent that I become blind to them. There's been something bottling up in me for a while now, and when this experience was triggered in me today once more I realized that there is something way wrong, that I am headed towards a falling point like a car directed towards the edge of a cliff. I realized that I need to stop and face myself, because I knew that if I kept on going I would end up bringing about my own destruction. The problem was, I had no idea what I was experiencing.

I knew I had to be alone to reach the required level of self-intimacy, so I shut myself in the guestroom I'm sleeping in, turned the lights off, wrapped myself in blankets and hugged a hot water bottle. Here I started to ask myself questions. The problem was, my answers would always digress. I would start blaming others and forgetting that I too had responsibility to carry; I would see clues and hints were there weren't any; I would go through different scenarios in my mind as if they were already happening and forget that all of them were possible only through my interpretation of my perception – which is not the equivalent of truth. After following these traces in my mind for a while I realized that I was on the wrong track, that I was making no progress but only making things worse. So I returned to the most prominent experience I had had and started putting it into words. What exactly did I experience? What was my reaction? What was the trigger? Why did I experience this? And underneath this I found the core fear, the worst-case scenario I had been fearful to voice, and when I put it into words and found a way to express it I broke into tears because I was finally in touch with myself again, I was being honest with myself, I knew who I was. But it required a tool of expression, language, and the mental tools to get through the layers of shit I had been piling up.

When I was sitting there crying wrapped in blankets, wearing oversized garments and holding a hot water bottle I thought that I must look like a child and I felt ashamed. I was ashamed for feeling the things I felt. I thought that I should be more than that. I was comparing myself to other people whom I perceived to be much more “adult” than myself because apparently they don't get insecure like this and their lives are all fine and stable. I thought that my problems are like children's problems, ridiculous and immature. And so I realized that a key element in my emotion suppression is shame: for some reason I have learned that emotions/feelings should not be shared, maybe because they should not exist in the first place, maybe because expressing them leaves me vulnerable. I noticed this exact pattern with positive feelings just a couple of days ago when a child I had gotten to know was expressing his affection towards me and I hesitated in responding even though I wanted to. I thought of it as an expression of weakness. Luckily the child did not see it that way, and in his actions I saw that it was in fact a strength, because him expressing his feelings was an act of self-honesty. I intend to learn of his example.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel ashamed of my emotions and feelings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel ashamed of my inner experiences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my feelings, emotions and other inner experiences because I have wanted to hide them and not admit that they exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pretend that my emotions and feelings don't exist when I suppress them - and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my own deception.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see emotions and feelings as a weakness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that experiencing feelings/emotions reduces my worth – makes me a less of a person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though emotions and feelings are a sign of mind patterns I have not transcended yet, they are an inevitable part of the process and cannot be bypassed no matter how much I would like to “be there already” - which may or may not be a state of transcendence that is ever achievable in this life (I won't know until I die).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe emotions/feelings to be a sign of weakness instead of realizing that they are a manifestation of who I am within that moment, and that to express who I am is to live as self-honesty.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to emotions/feelings with fear as I remember the mind pattern [emotion/feeling = negative] - and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to respond to my reaction by suppressing these emotions/feelings because I fear that letting them out would only have negative consequences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that expressing myself will result in negative consequences for me.

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I know that this has begun somewhere early in my childhood. I have been an introvert child for as long as anyone can remember: I have asked my parents and siblings about this, and according to them I have always “kept to myself”, which everyone thought to be normal because of the belief that some people “just are born” introverts and some extroverts. I realize that this is a pattern I have picked up from my parents, different aspects from both of them, and integrated their issues into a manifestation of insecurity. I have lived as the crystallization of my parents' issues.

--

[Here I did detailed SF on my parents in private, which I will continue with and expand on.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize nor understand that every action of self-suppression that I commit supports this pattern of suppressing my emotions/feelings, and that thus in order to overcome the issue with emotional expression I need to tackle every single moment of self-suppression – which means that the process ahead is going to be demanding and thus require my full attention. (No half-assing!)

I commit myself to from now onwards focus on the point of self-suppression in my writings and lived process in order to map out and comprehend how it manifests in different ways and different situations.

I commit myself to for now focus on the point of self-suppression – which directly affects all of my social relations - as my biggest challenge at the moment is to get the social aspect of my life into a balanced state where I could actually utilize relations with others to support and assist me instead of using them to abuse myself and others.

I commit myself to open up the father and mother insecurity patterns with self-forgiveness in private and to share in public whatever I can, if anything at all.

When and as I see myself reacting to an emotion / a feeling with fear and suppression – with the physical sensation as if I am closing the mouth of a bottle (head area) and pushing the emotional energy down towards my solar plexus – I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am rejecting myself and refusing to look at who I am, and that the emotion/feeling that was trying to surface was an expression of who I truly am within that moment. I realize I am doing this out of FEAR. I remind myself that emotions/feelings are in fact not a negative thing and that it is better for me to express them so that I am at least honest with myself. I realize that the expression of emotions/feelings can be utilized for self-reflection as when I express myself I have a chance to observe myself and learn of myself. I realize that whatever emotion/feeling I express I am able to forgive myself and that I should thus not be afraid to express any emotion/feeling. I stabilize myself in breath and I utilize breath to release the tension and suppression from my physical body. I look at myself in self-honesty by asking questions in order to figure out what emotion/feeling/experience I was suppressing and why I was afraid to express it. I structure my experience into self-forgiveness statements either in speech or writing and continue with it until the experience dissolves.

Day 249: Fear of exposing myself through singing

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Singing at my father's wedding in 2011.

Today I faced an interesting fear. I was spending my day on a nice, calm residential area and had no plans but to sit around reading and writing and maybe connecting with people if I got the chance to. I ended up sitting next to the local subway station and while I was watching the people flow by I realized that this would be a perfect spot and a perfect moment for street performing, which I had planned on doing during my trip if I got the chance and if I started to run out of money. I had thought about doing this a couple times before, but I had always had an excuse not to, but this time I had all the practical elements in order and so there were no excuses left not to do it.

Once the idea got to me I noticed that at first I was already about to do it – like, “alright, this would be suitable now, I'll do it”, just seeing the practicality and acting upon it - but then I was stopped by a paralyzing fear. It was not a verbalized thought that stopped me, but a feeling, something that made my heart beat really fast and hard. I am not sure what the initial starting point was for my nervousness to arise.

So I little by little physically moved myself into a position where all I had left to do was to lay down my money cup and start singing. This is where I got stuck for about a half an hour. I asked myself: What do I fear? Who am I right now? And I moved through many layers of self-awareness, where I admitted to my fears and demons and saw myself for who I was within my fears and my motivation. Eventually when I had already gone through all this I noticed that I was simply looping, repeating the same thought patterns over and over again, and I realized that all that was left to do was to actually move myself. I told myself: “I am not leaving here until I do this.” I tried to move my hand to lay down the cup but I stopped myself mid-way. I tried again with the exact same result. I then decided to move myself completely, got up from the bench, moved around a bit standing up, up and down, laid my cup down and just pushed through the resistance and started to sing – and from that moment on it was easy, things went smoothly, I enjoyed myself, others seemed to enjoy me and I/we had a lot of fun. So I had to actually change my position entirely: the sitting position I had been stuck in for a half an hour was a manifestation of my fear and hesitation and it was necessary to move myself out of it to shake off the fear.

A fucking insanely difficult threshold to cross, especially concerning by background in performance arts, but I did it! And I can actually see that from now on doing the same thing will be easier because I have already proven to myself that my fears were invalid.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my singing is not as good that I believe it to be and that I will embarrass myself by singing in public without a band to back me up.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give authority to the experience of embarrassment by losing my stance and separating myself from myself with self-judgement when and as I have perceived and believed others to judge me.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that embarrassment is an experience I create in my mind based on guesswork, interpretations and a distorted self-image and that this experience is in no way whatsoever based on reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my voice and singing alone is not enough to count as a performance, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use this belief as an excuse not to sing on the streets alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I wish to have a band or other singers to back me up because when I am alone I will not be just a performance but I will be exposing myself in public.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing myself to others in public through my singing as self-expression as I have not faced and embraced myself within and as that act of self-expression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from my self-expression by not standing within and as myself when and as I sing in the presence of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that there is a standard I need to reach to be accepted by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that once I accept and embrace myself I will show myself to others in self-honesty, which enables others to accept me as well as I grant them access to my real self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear scenarios where others would show their disapproval of my self-expression, because I have learned to fear this in my childhood where my peers bullied me because of how I expressed myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my fear of the judgement of others is based on a childhood misconception that I am defined by the opinions of others, and that this fear is thus not valid as I now see, realize and understand that the opinions of others are manifestations of who they are, not of who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my ability to sing as I have perceived and believed this ability to be defined by technical skills alone, not realizing that the ability to sing is also composed of self-expression which has nothing to do with physical technique – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give myself credit for both the technical and expressive ability that I do in fact have when and as I sing without fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use my lack of education in singing techniques as an excuse not to perform and as evidence for my perception that my skills are less than they actually are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit and suppress my self-expression with a distorted self-image and with excuses that put the blame for this on others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to sing from the starting point of impressing others with my skills, not singing to express myself but to present an image of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my fear of singing alone in public is not about facing others but about facing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not enjoy myself when and as I sing by considering what others might want to hear me sing, not realizing that I cannot possibly know this and that the “best guess” is just to sing what I enjoy singing as that is the most self-honest approach.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear singing because I am then fully exposed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making mistakes when I sing because I want to maintain a self-image of flawlessness, reacting to all mistakes by “pulling back” from my self-expression and from then on “playing it safe” - not realizing that everyone makes mistakes and that they can be utilized for learning, growth and expansion of skill.

I commit myself to embrace moments of making mistakes when singing as moments of humanity – in other words, I commit myself to embrace my flaws as moments of learning by checking what led me to that particular mistake and what could be done differently.

I commit myself to utilize upcoming opportunities to perform in public and to embrace those moments as self-expression and communication.

When and as I face the fear of singing in public – I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that I can rely on myself to be here for me and with me. I realize that my fear of others is based on the misconception that other people are not like me and cannot/will not sympathize with me. I realize that I am here to express myself to and communicate with others through the tool of singing. I breathe and stabilize myself and align myself with all of my physical existence. I then proceed to push through the threshold of fear by letting my voice flow from me in full strength within and as the realization that the threshold is actually imaginary as I will remain HERE just the same before and after crossing it, and that the threshold will get smaller each and every time I cross it.

I commit myself to sing in the presence of others from the starting point of self-expression as I see, realize and understand that this is the only way my singing will be self-honest communication with others and not an ego show.

I commit myself to investigate the experience of embarrassment by stopping and breathing when and as I experience embarrassment and/or fear the experience of embarrassment, thus becoming aware of it and not accepting and allowing these moments to slip by.

Day 194: Communication patterns from parents

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I realized which communication patterns I have picked up from my parents and how. I was thinking about a situation where I refrained from telling something relevant to another by planning and preparing until I was absolutely certain that what I was telling was fully covered and could not be changed. I could've shared the info a couple of months earlier, but I wanted to be “sure” and so the information ended up being a bit of a shock to the other.

I then remembered that this is what my father does – this is what I have witnessed him do for all of my life – being “absolutely certain” was a trait of his “father character”. I have seen him disguise his fear as certainty by planning way ahead, having all emergency exits and explanations covered before he mentions anything to anyone. This has led to many destructive situations.

So I turned to thinking about my mother and what communication patterns have I picked up from her. I saw that unlike my father she hasn't been that much of a planner, but she has been one to blurt things out of her mouth in emotional turmoil and then feel ashamed and guilty for it. So there's a pattern of self-blame.

It is fascinating as I now combine these and look at how they have manifested in me. I have learned from both that speaking up and following your initial impulse is not a good thing – it is to be feared. Following the impulse might lead to self-humiliation. The survival mechanisms my parents have utilized have been different (attempting to control – succumbing to control), but the core reason has been the same. My father has been at war to save his face while my mother has given up the battle before it even begun.

I have throughout my life planned interactions extensively to such a point where I haven't been sure whether a discussion has actually happened or not. This is really creepy because it fits the description of psychosis (losing touch with the external reality). I still do this to some extent, but it has decreased by some amount after I started walking my process.

And when it comes to the mother pattern, I haven't been that conscious of my words being “inappropriate” or something and I don't see myself to have been a “blurter” – but when I have perceived myself to have made a mistake or failed, I have taken it extremely hard and personally. The humiliation and shame has been crushing. As far as I recall the moments when I have felt humiliation have been moments where I have had other kids around me and created/intensified this feeling through their reactions.

When I look at the father pattern I can see that it is caused by a fear of conflict / chaos which is why the need to control the situation is imposed through planning. I fear that if I do not have all of my bases covered the other might attack a “weak spot”. I do this planning by reviewing things I would like to say based on the image/format/shape I have of the other in my mind: “how would he/she react to this?” And before I know it I play out entire situations as a puppet show in my mind and only then try them out in real life – which quite often is then no longer possible or doesn't work out because of the planning itself.

The mother pattern comes from my mother's (and her mother's and her mother's and her mother's and so forth) childhood experiences where she was violently “put into her place” and she learned to survive by succumbing and making herself as small as possible. So when I react to a mistake/failure by making myself small/weak/guilty I am trying to escape/survive the punishment that my environment is apparently going to give me.

So next I've got to look at how these manifest in my practical living and how they can be changed.