Day 387: Loneliness is the result of my passiveness

16022014

A couple of days ago I went into a kind of a hyperactive state, where I became extremely social and where I was really cheerful and on a good mood. This lasted until today where after a day of socializing and kilometers of walking (which did me good, I haven't been exercising lately) I crashed back home and was tired to the point where I had to recharge for several hours before having the energy to do something (the writing I'm doing at the moment).

This is an interesting point to look at, because I went through some points regarding socializing before my hyper-state began. My partner left a few days ago to his home country and at first I was not OK with living alone again. I felt disconnected, dead, stagnant and joyless, which I saw to be because there was nothing in my apartment that lives on the same “level” with me (house plants and even pets don't really compare to another human being), thus making my environment lacking in external incentives for self-reflection: in other words, I no longer had the mirror that I had grown to enjoy.

When I reflected upon this point I came across thoughts regarding my friends, mainly consisting of hoping that they would reach out to me – which is when I asked myself: why should they come to me? How would they even know I would like company? Why am I not going to them?

And so while pondering upon all this on Valentine's day – I day I have had a heavily charged relationship towards, with all the expectations of romantic gestures being flung towards me while I sit on my ass – I worked my way through certain levels of discomfort and took myself outside to where some of my friends were, as I realized that if there is something I need, I am responsible for somehow delivering it. I continued this trajectory also yesterday, enjoying my work shift at the bar to the fullest, and today as I met a lot of people and really embraced their company for the first time in what seems like months. I kinda realized something new about the importance and function of friends as mirrors, and also discovered that I, somehow surprisingly, have quite a lot of them. If I catch myself thinking “I have no friends”, I'll now know it's a delusion I create out of passiveness.

So in a way having my partner live with me was the easy way to socialize, because he would always be available at home. When living with others the basic need for socializing is fulfilled within my easy-to-access zone that doesn't require extra effort for me – but the downside of this is that every social connection that does require effort starts to feel like “too much” in comparison, not to mention the stagnation that comes from only socializing with a limited number of people.

So: the hyper-social state caused by some new realizations and the following practical application, combined with a lack of sleep and plenty of exercise and fresh air, caused me to become tired for a few hours. Doesn't sound unreasonable when I put it like that, lol.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect myself to have a social life without myself doing anything to construct, support, uphold and develop it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect others to approach me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if others approach me it is a sign that I have friends, and that if others do not approach me it is a sign that I do not have friends – not realizing that a balanced and sustainable relationship of any sorts cannot come out of a situation where one is constantly passive and the others are constantly active.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to my need to socialize – the moment where I notice I am alone and would rather be with someone – by looking for signs of someone approaching me (checking facebook, email, phone, physical surroundings) and feeling satisfied/fulfilled when someone is approaching me or disappointed when I am not being approached.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to not being approached by blaming myself (for not being good enough) and by blaming the world (for not giving me a good life).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the world owes me a “good life”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to turn my back to the world (the people) when it hasn't (they haven't) given me a “good life” in terms of the social dimension, thinking that “if they don't approach me, I don't have to approach them” - not realizing that I am in fact acting out of FEAR as I am afraid of being rejected if I take the “risk” of approaching another and thus revealing the fact that I (gasp!) like the person – as if it was a fucking secret! - and that the other person might be just as much in the need of company and just as afraid of reaching out to others to get it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the unfairness of always expecting others to approach me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect that friendships are created, upheld and developed while I passively sit on my ass and make no effort whatsoever.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the answer to “why should I if others don't” in this case is that if I don't, the others never will.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize it is my responsibility to ensure myself a fulfilling social life.

I commit myself to further explore and investigate the social dimension of life. (So far so good!)

I commit myself to enjoy the people around me, whoever they may be according to circumstance, by seeking how we could mutually both give and receive.

I commit myself to teach myself to approach others when I am in need of company.

Day 376: Reflecting upon living with another

07012014

I misread "loneliest", lol - http://dallion.com/comics/

My partner left today to travel for a few weeks. He has been living here in my apartment for about 3 weeks and he will return for another few weeks before he returns to his home country. Because I have lived alone for the past 4-5 years having someone live with me has been a very interesting challenge, and now that he is gone and I am alone again I am starting to notice some peculiar things.

At first once he had left I started noticing these little things I had learned to do under his influence while he was here, which is when I just felt immense gratitude, even though they were relatively small practical changes. Second, I tried to glorify solitude by thinking of how cool it will be to have some “me-time” and whatnot, without success however, which left me sort of empty and unenergized.

Third, towards the end of the day, I started paying attention to something we had on some level already discussed with my partner. Because we have both been very solitary in our living, we had both noticed that living with another person does change the way one positions oneself to the “empty moments”: the pauses in activity when one simply wonders about what to do next, how one is feeling, etc. I have noticed that when he has been living here I am more inclined to spend those “empty moments” being social, by sharing my thoughts and experiences, by suggesting shared activities or by reflecting out loud upon what I was doing. Having another person present was like constantly looking into a mirror, as everything I did was reflected on him and off him in various ways.

So when I was just now doing some house work on my own, I noticed that in comparison to how these every-day activities were with another, I appeared lifeless, joyless, motionless – like a walking carcass, a shell of a living being. I am not entirely sure whether this is just my inability to enjoy my own company (or an expectation of entertainment?) - even though I am not feeling emotionally down, just empty – or if my state of being compares like this because life is actually best enjoyed when shared. What if I don't want to live alone anymore? What if I'm just DONE cherishing personal space? Whatcha say about that, Miss Seclusion?!

Due to practical reasons I might have to live alone for some time yet, so I do need to find some way of coping with it, even though the downsides are becoming more and more accentuated as years go by. Arranging shared living, then again, is at its core a practical task, and if I do decide that it would best support my living to share housing with others, all I've got left is to act upon that decision.

Self-forgiveness next; we'll see if something else relating to this pops up by tomorrow.

Day 357: Who should I be?

22112013

A scenario I sometimes conjure in my mind as an insecure vegetarian.

Because my chronic shoulder pain is one of the major points why my moment-to-moment living is currently “unpleasant” in such a way that makes me want to “unwind” through different means of relaxation (alcohol, socializing, video games, TV, sleeping), I am now focusing on the shoulder point as representing survival systems. Because this pain has arisen during these past 4 months, where I have also had a lot of changes and faced new challenges, the question I'm asking myself is: What survival systems have been activated within myself in my new surroundings and positions?

Whenever a person interacts with the world, the mind activates to ask: what should I do to make the best of this (to survive)? The human mind then searches for cues and clues for a) what one's surroundings are b) who one is in relation to one's surroundings. If there are other people involved, the mind maps out who the others are and who oneself is in relation to them. This process of mapping out one's reality is often twisted so that one's assessments don't have anything to do with what is actually here and what actually happened, but instead focus on what one believes and perceives or imagines to be true.

For example, one might talk with another person and interpret their tone of voice to mean that the other has ill intentions even though his/her words do not directly imply so. This is when one's perception of the reality is believed instead of interacting with the actual reality to find out what actually happened: whether the other person actually had ill intentions or not.

This tendency to assume that one “knows” what's going on within other people affects our actions greatly. The perspective I am now focusing on are the assumptions I have of other people's expectations for me: “who do others want me to be?” What would be the best course of action for me so that this situation with other people would have a positive outcome for me? Living through this question places a heavy burden on my shoulders (literally!) as whenever I interact with other people my actions are determined by what I believe I should be. This strain and the conflict/friction that occurs when I question this pattern and try to live otherwise is, I'm guessing, the reason I have been in intense physical pain for a while now with no help from external methods (exercise, stretching, massage).

So, I have recently been asking myself the question “who do I believe and perceive I should be (here)” or “who am I trying to be”. After observing myself in different situations I have so far found one common nominator: trying to be “good” / liked. I immediately associated this to my childhood where I have learned to try to be pleasing in school to be liked and to get good grades. The measure for “success” or “appearing likable” varies according to circumstances.

For example, today I had a small singing gig with some people from my choir on a very short notice. It was my first gig with this choir, and I took it very seriously as a “representation task”, knowing that we would be paid plenty of money for it, that our future gig invitations rely on how well we perform and that there would be many “important academic people” in the audience. I was very stiff and serious, wanting to appear professional even though we had had very little practice and I was unsure of the songs, and I noticed that I was projecting my self-demands on the other singers. I saw myself judging their laid-back attitudes, their “lack of ambition”, and even the ways they sat hunched and limp. I realized that I was afraid of “sinking with the boat”: that the audience would judge me along with the group no matter how hard I tried individually. I realized that imposing my self-standards on others is to distract my focus from myself – to accommodate my world to my demands instead of living within and as the world – and that I was causing my shoulder pain to get worse with the stiff way I was sitting.

Now, what is relevant here is who I believe and perceive “the audience” to be. After 20 years of performing in front of differing audiences I have come to define “the audience” as this faceless entity with the power to either appreciate what I perform (acceptance) or to resent it (rejection). I have defined “the audience” to have the power to define me, or more specifically, my self-worth. I have not realized to question the “power” of the audience and how I have handed it over.

Another point I'm seeing here is the fact that for me performing is a very selfish thing, even though I have done it in a group for 15 years. What matters is ME, my ego, my success, how I look, how I appear, it's always been underneath all the fancy words about teamwork. Today during that choir gig my anxiety arose from how it would make ME look bad if the gig didn't go well. I wanted the others to stop being careless because it would made me look bad, not because their carelessness has consequences on themselves and the choir as a whole. In other words, I was not focusing on the best of All but on my self-interest, which is why I was working "alone" instead of working as a group.

I'll continue from here with self-forgiveness.

Day 339: Balancing the social

24102013

I have recently been very busy with studying so I haven't had much time to spare for my daily writing, and the little time I would have had I have spent with some form of entertainment in order to “relax” or “unwind”. I have required “unwinding” because I've been stressed about failing my tests, and I have added on top of that stress by worrying about this pause from writing and by being distressed about some personal matters as well.

I haven't been too worried over any of this, but now it's turning into intense physical pain that I cannot ignore. During the weekend a couple of friends massaged my shoulders (they told me I was really stuck, which I was, but when I was stuck I was not in pain because I was so “crystallized” into my stance, like a fucking statue) and ever since I have been in pain constantly. My back has been in really poor condition because of studying positions where I have to hunch all the time and now the massage somehow released some physical points in my shoulders that I have previously “locked” underneath.

During the past couple of days (since the massage – thanks, guys, for probing around) I've been experiencing moments of depression. They stand out to me because I haven't felt depressed in a long time. They have occurred in moments where I have felt like I am “left outside” a group or a social activity, even though none of the moments have been such where I would have been refused access out of malice, but such where I have walked away voluntarily because it has been a practical choice.

This shows me how much the social life that I have built during these couple of months actually means to me: it has been immensely enjoyable and fun, there's been a sense of belonging and group spirit, I haven't had to be alone or secluded if I haven't wanted to. My life hasn't been this happily social yet independent in years (if ever) and I have simply been enjoying all of it, taking in the joys of being a social creature.

So now that the “high” is starting to wear off, I begin to fear losing it all. What if these people will abandon me? What if they start to resent me? What if I alienate my friends? What if I will lose all this “happiness”? Thus in moments of separation the fear is triggered - “what if I will never have it this good again” - and because my mind is used to such patterns since childhood, I start thinking of theories to support the negative outcome / worst-case scenario and I make myself depressed. In the beginning everyone has been kind of hyped about these social circles, but now that things are kinda stabilizing back to “normal” (people return to living their lives on their own terms, not sacrificing everything for the social activities) it's like there's a withdrawal that for me turns into heavy depression. And the answer to that is NOT to hang out with people more, no, but to look a what all this socializing has been “fulfilling” in me and what is missing when I'm not socializing.

Again (talking to myself), I do NOT mean that being social and having friends is a “bad” thing. I have made myself believe that solitude is a “good” thing because I have feared reaching out to people, and I have even demonized spending time with friends simply because I have been jealous, sad and depressed for not having that kind of a stable social environment myself. So what I'm dealing with here is the addiction and attachment to having company, so that I could bring myself out of the polarities (refusing all company – being dependent on company) and utilize the social aspect of life in a way that supports the well-being of all.

Will continue with SF.

Day 319: Who am I with others?

21092013

A little while ago after some kind of a social situation I asked myself: is there anyone I would be completely relaxed with? In other words, is there any person in the company of whom I would be completely “myself”, as I would be alone at home with no one watching?

I answered no, and it shocked me.

I realized that no matter who I am with, I am always a little bit tense. There's always something about me that I am trying to hide from my company, which of course varies from person to person, group to group. Be it big or small, there is fear in me wherever I go.

I have been socially very withdrawn and defensive ever since I got bullied in school starting from the age of 9. I got depressed and kept to myself, and I rarely actively tried to get myself any friends because I was so afraid of rejection and abandonment. I only had friends who had approached me first. This tendency of never approaching people and always waiting for someone else to make the “first move” (so that I would be certain that the person is not attacking me) continued on to my adult years and resulted in a solitary and insecure life that I would not want to return to.

I started actively moving myself out of this behavioral pattern at the beginning of 2012, about 8 months before I started to walk my process in the form of writing this daily journal. I had realized that I cannot continue this way, waiting around for others to “pull me in”, and so I took small “leaps of faith” in situations where I was so heavily emotionally burdened that without me approaching another person and dealing with things I would have collapsed. I opened conversations. I shared my feelings. I showed my interest. Later on I have continued to walk myself out of my social fears with more precision, targeting specific points of resistance.

The process still continues, and at the moment I'm at a very interesting spot in my life considering this process of de-assembling my introversion. I've just started studying in university, where I meet new people every day. I also work as a bartender, which is a position where I get to meet and discuss with all kinds of people – including the ones I disagree with on many things and would never associate myself with! I am utilizing these social environments for my growth, but I feel like I could be doing it more actively, more specifically. And that's why I'm writing here right now.

I realized that this process of walking myself out of my social fears is not structured well at all. The realization I mentioned at the beginning of this post provides one clear solution model: when you meet people and you feel tense, make a mental note of it: stop and breathe in the moment and ask yourself what is going on, why there is a tension, what am I afraid of, what kind of a mask am I wearing, what is the role I'm pulling, what do I hope to gain? The answers are usually very simple and self-evident once I give myself the chance to look at myself by stopping and no longer just “going with it”.

This may require me to go through this mapping with every single person I meet. With some there might be a generalized pattern that applies to many individuals, but for example with family members and long-time friends there's such a long and unique history of interaction that no general patterns necessarily apply. I've been avoiding doing this in precision because it has felt so burdensome and “big”, but I see that now (as I am not going through a bigger crisis) I have a great chance to allow myself to focus on this specific point (social fears, desires and tensions – who am I with others), which I will in time be “done” with, because all it takes is time and consistency. The shit I've compiled within myself is not infinite, as are not the people I interact with.

Thus,

I commit myself to write about who I am in the presence of specific people or groups and to write myself clear directions on how to change my behavior, and I commit myself to share in public what I can without violating anyone's privacy (including mine).

I commit myself to write down what I face of myself in social situations, even if it's just a few words, because a small note can be expanded later in more specific writing.

I commit myself to start walking these social points in the order that they occur – meaning I start with the points that I notice when I interact with other people today.

I commit myself to be patient with every point as a single aspect to my social fears can be incredibly vast and require several days, weeks, months or even years of writing and corrective action to be “done”.

Days 261-262: Pushing myself to be social

20-22062013

Today I realized that the awareness of the possibilities of the situation I am in does not mean that I'd have to seize each and every one of them. I have lately felt that I am somehow supposed to be socializing all the time with the people I come across and so I have been feeling guilty if I haven't, pushing myself more and more to open up next time.

I have been pretty worn out for the past few days because of health conditions and haven't felt like doing much simply because there isn't much I could do in these circumstances. Today I took a boat trip to a neighboring island and sat at the rear enjoying the ride with a few people sitting close by. Because I was at a talking distance to the others I felt like I “should be” talking to others, taking the opportunity now that there were people around me. But I was worn out, I just wanted to bask in the scarce sunlight and enjoy the sea, I didn't really want to talk to anyone. So I had another look at my situation. I made myself aware of all the opportunities present: I could talk to person A; I could talk to persons B and C; I could change my position to talk to the people inside the hull; I could focus on the activity at hand (riding a boat); I could focus on the environment (the sea); I could focus on my sensations. Once I had made myself aware of all these possibilities that I saw to be present, I realized that I was not obligated to choose the social dimension, and that the social dimension was just one of the dimensions present. I then made a decision to exclude the social dimension (for the time being) and take advantage of the possibilities of the physical environment – and so I had a very enjoyable boat ride during which I focused on myself, physical sensations and movement. It was an experience that was not social, but that doesn't make it any less valuable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to be social.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order to make a moment worthwhile I need to utilize its social dimension, not realizing that the social dimension is just one dimension of an experience and NOT more valuable, meaningful or worthwhile than all the other dimensions of an experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a belief that the social dimension is more important than the other dimensions of an experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to drive myself to be social out of fear of missing out on something valuable/meaningful/worthwhile.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear missing out on socializing because as a child when I was bullied by being excluded from my group of friends I defined socializing as something “inaccessible” and “valuable” that I craved for and felt wronged for being denied access to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will be excluded from the social dimension of an experience and that I will be helpless to do anything about it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to prevent being excluded from socializing by initiating contact with others before they turn against me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear social situations because I fear that people will group up against me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to situations where there are people around me being social because I perceive their bonding to be something that excludes me from socializing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exclude myself from being social by perceiving and believing the bonding of others to be an act that excludes me when in fact this exclusion only exists as long as I believe in it and submit to it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear approaching people who are socializing with each other because I believe I will be excluded as a punishment for intervening with their “special moment”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe socializing to be a “special moment” between selected parties which no one else should interrupt.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that a social situation comprises of all those physically present, not just those who have directly addressed/recognized each other, and that in a social situation all movement and interaction is “allowed” and all limitations are imagined.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I do not participate in socializing early enough others will define each other as “a group” and me as “an outsider”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to approach people out of the fear of being left outside of a group.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the concept of a “group” that forms as a consequence of social bonding is in fact imaginary as it draws boundaries and lines that do not exist in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the concept of forming a “group” through social bonding at its core supports inequality because it inherently excludes some people and “permits entry” to others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being seen as an outsider because I have experienced myself to have been limited through this definition.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to push myself to be social even though I have not asked myself why I resist being social – why there needs to be pushing in the first place.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to force myself to socialize without being aware of why I'm doing it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to push myself to socialize because I have tried to achieve an ideal where I would not be “an outsider”.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an ideal scenario where everybody would like me because I have feared the opposite of being liked, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I can only achieve this by being social with everyone - by presenting a likable appearance of myself to others before others conjure their own opinion of me without my participation.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will form an unfair and untrue opinion of me based on what they perceive me to be without giving me a chance to show who I am - not realizing that by living within and as this fear and acting according to it (by either isolating myself or pushing myself to socialize) I am in fact showing myself as my fears and insecurities through my actions.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I become "an outsider" (not participating in a group) I may have contributed to this outcome in some way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to push myself to socialize because I have thought that “I should socialize” without asking myself why and without being aware of the search for the ideal that drives me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have (often) motivated myself to socialize through fear of being left outside the group and becoming “the outsider”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty if I “miss” an opportunity to be social and blame myself for “failing” - not realizing that setting myself impossible standards and punishing myself for not achieving them is deliberate self-sabotage.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to react to my friends excluding me from the group by creating a dramatic mind-image of the situation where all others had turned their backs on me and I was standing alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at this mind-image and feel ashamed for being the lonely one as I had defined [being in a group] a “good thing” and [being outside a group] a “bad thing”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe this definition I have learned as a child and live according to it unaware during my adult years.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define being alone as a negative thing and to give it a negatively charged name (“being the outsider”) when in fact being alone is a state of equal value to being in a group, and that the only difference between them is the different set of possibilities they offer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to define [being in a group] a positive thing because being with my friends allowed me to enjoy the social dimension of life in a safe, familiar and comfortable way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to react with fear when my friends excluded me from the group because I had never socialized outside of that safe, familiar and comfortable setting and lacked the mental tools (self-confidence and courage) to find social fulfillment by actively creating myself new circumstances to do that in (i.e. by finding new friends).

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I have also gone to the other extreme and isolated myself from people into solitude out of spite. This, however, is a whole subject of its own and I will not write about it this time around.

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When and as I see myself reacting with fear to seeing other people socializing with each other – I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am not excluded from the social situation because I am in the same physical space with the other people and thus have every opportunity to join into the socializing. I realize that my perception of the situation is not in accordance with the physical reality, and thus I focus on breathing, return my awareness to my physical body and, once I stand as my physical body, I move my focus to the space around me in order to become aware of the possibilities of the circumstances I am in.

When and as I see myself thinking “I should be socializing” or asking myself “should I be more social?” - I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that there is nothing I “should be” doing ever anywhere, and that the use of this word indicates judgement towards who I am in that moment. I realize that if the situation allows I have the opportunity to be social, yet not the obligation to. I breathe and return my awareness to myself as a physical being within a space and I assess my opportunities within that space. I take note of any signs of resistance towards socializing and dissolve them with self-forgiveness and breathing. If this does not help, I make a commitment to open up the point in writing. Otherwise I proceed to making a self-honest decision about whether or not I will take the opportunity to socialize.

I commit myself to investigate the process of “bonding” while forming a group within and as the realization that forming a “special” bond to one being automatically excludes all others and sets one to a higher position in contrast to others, and that the process of “bonding” thus creates and upholds inequality.

I commit myself to NOT participate in group activities in such ways that would exclude those currently outside the group, for example by restricting the possibility of others to join in to the group activity.

Day 237: Meetings and partings

19052013

Getting addicted to a sense of stability created by external factors apparently happens really easily and very fast. Without too much details, in a couple of days I got attached to a certain environment (people, location, activities) with such intensity that even though leaving it all behind to continue with my journey was at first relatively easy, I suddenly broke down and noticed myself to be utterly torn by it. I have now been writing to pull myself out of this experience.

I notice that here, “on the road”, especially when traveling alone, two things happen. Either I find myself “not connecting” with people because of my independent way of going around, or I completely latch onto others to create my experience for me when I do “connect”. The in-between where I'd connect but also be independent is here every now and then, but then I fall very easily by believing a thought for example. I think this is what has happened here.

A couple of days ago I “joined” a group of people whom I enjoyed very much. At first I did things out of my own activeness, having “joined in” from a stable position, but then stuff happened and I declined – things happened and I allowed myself to fall. I will now go through these events (partly in private SF) to see where I went wrong.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to spend an evening out with the expectation that it will be fun and that I will experience many energetic fun things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with joy and energeticness to my expectations/wishes/hopes being fulfilled.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to spend a fun evening out with a bunch of people so that I could “feel alive” and escape my own company.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the company of others to escape myself and my fear of being alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to subconsciously “scan” my company in search of someone I could imprint on. [I actually noticed this habit this time, yet I didn't know how to deal with it and the program kept running.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attach myself onto a person whom I “connected with” in a different way than with others, not realizing that this moment of “connection” was actually a moment where both really saw each other and faced each other with no fear, which is not something “special” or “more” as compared to the other people present but simply that which ought to be in between each and every being on Earth.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel entitled to the attention of the one I attached myself to because I perceived our moment of connection to be “special” and thus defined our relationship to be “special”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to boost my “certainty/independence character” with the positive energy I got from my expectations being fulfilled.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to inhibit my speech and suppress my experience because maintaining my “certainty character” required so, thus not fully expressing myself to a person I am not likely to meet or connect with again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create scenarios where I do meet the person again and “make things right” and thus believe that by living out this scenario I “fix” that which caused my experience of regret – not realizing that these scenarios do not address the behavioral patterns that led to these events and that by fixing one string of consequences I will still not have fixed the actual cause.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not fully express to X how I actually experienced our meeting, our interaction and our parting; even though I mainly did, these emotional reactions indicate that there was something that I suppressed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel sad about probably not meeting X again, not realizing that in a world of billions of people it is not necessary or practical to attach oneself to others – we are not special, yet everyone is special in their own way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to elevate one person above others because I have perceived our relationship to be “special”, not realizing that when I elevate one I bring all others down and make them “less special”, within this not realizing that each and every being is of the same exact value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the “connection” I had with X to have been “special” because we were approximately of the same age group and cultural background which made it easier for us to relate to each other and thus faster to “connect” - not realizing that even though with others of different backgrounds finding this “connection” might be more difficult or time-consuming it is still of the same value than the fast one.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that X will be insulted, hurt or become spiteful by the way we parted, not realizing that he was there, too, to create that interaction and that I am not the only one responsible of it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attach myself to the people, location and activities within which I momentarily felt very safe, welcome and embraced, thus reacting with sadness, distress, regret and panic when I realized that my environment had changed and would never return to what it had been.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make things more dramatic by i.e. thinking that something will "never happen again" - not realizing that even though a specific moment of life will never be repeated in its exact form, I cannot know what the future holds, who I will meet and what I will do - and that I am the co-creator of my future along with everyone else within this existence and am thus not helpless to just watch my life happening in front of me "never" or "always".

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget that I am the only constant building block of my life and that I have thus accepted and allowed myself to lay my sense of stability on others when I had the chance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get tired in my constant challenge to be self-reliant and thus allow myself to fall when there has been a safe environment to rely on instead. [*This point needs to be expanded on.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to waver in my decision to let go of the familiar environment I had become fond of when I saw X's reaction to it, sympathizing with him and feeling bad for causing him to feel this way, yet suppressing this guilt, regret and fondness underneath the “certainty/independence character” and pushing forward with my decision without addressing these emotions/feelings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to appear strong and independent and thus suppress feelings and emotions that do not fit my definition of “strength” (which is pretty much all emotions and feelings).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for “fucking up” when I realized that I had suppressed myself and thus lived dishonestly and caused myself and another to feel really bad, not realizing that blame will not assist and support me to deal with the origins of this issue, nor will it help in sorting out its consequences.

Alright. I've got to now catch some sleep before I go climb a mountain. I am pretty sure I will keep on processing this point during my solitary hike, so I will most likely keep on writing about this tomorrow.