Day 398: Learning to embrace experiences

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I had an interesting experience today concerning music. I have been practicing this big-scale choir piece with the choir I'm in for a few months now, and the past four weeks or so have been especially intense: not just with the rehearsals, but in emotional terms as well. Somehow this piece of music has become woven into my experience with other things in life, and I find fragments of it echoing in my mind daily, sometimes constantly. I can see how this happens as the result of me linking all of my individual experiences in my mind into this one big storyline experience – the story I tell of my life to myself with pictures and words – and how the music kinda serves as current background music to the movie that is my life experience.

Today I was sitting in the bus and spacing out, wondering around in my mind and not really being here in breath, when I suddenly realized that I was not responding to the weather conditions (gray, rainy and cold) at all with the usual gloominess and weariness. I felt as if I was “glowing from within” - because the music was again playing in my mind, speaking words of light and divinity, reminding me of my experiences of joyful living – and that the feeling of light and warmth I got from the music/experience/feelings was kinda acting as a barrier between me and my surroundings. I found this experience positive, because from within it I was able to face other people with clarity and balance, not responding to their apparent low moods. I did not feel like complaining about the weather, because I had not really even noticed it was “bad” weather – to me it was just weather, how it is every now and then; logically rainy of this time of year, lol.

Upon writing this I noticed waves of self-judgement, as if I was “not supposed to” be feeling anything at all and that standing within an energetic experience like this is not appropriate. This shows how I have misunderstood some parts of this process. Rather than denying my experiences and thus suppressing them, be they positive or negative, I could try to walk, live and breathe through the experiences to fully know them and harness them, whatever that means in whichever context. In this case, for example, I am fully aware of the role of this particular music piece in the workings of my mind. I have seen where and how I have given myself permission to embed the music with my experiences. I am not yet sure if this serves any purpose at all, other than crafting myself nice memories, bonding with others and thus structuring my social networks, or just learning to know myself through relieved self-expression. Through this process of “giving in” to music I have for instance rediscovered the experience and state of being inspired (excited, motivated, seeing possibilities where there were none before – and then acting upon it!), and that alone tells me that I have managed to remove a block that has been in place for years, more or less.

What concerns me is the fact that this wave of positive stuff comes straight after a very low phase of depression and being stuck. I fear that this is “just” another “up” and that I will eventually come crashing down. I am working on this at the moment by stabilizing myself with breath whenever I see myself getting carried away by an experience, or rather by channeling the energy of the experience and living through it, after which I stabilize. I know that I don't have to crash down once (if?) this stuff gets exhausted, but I do realize that whenever I go up, the return to stability will always feel like a dip in comparison. I guess a part of it is also to learn how to deal with the state of “coming down”, which I guess I know a bit better than dealing with “going up”.

It might also be that some of what I am experiencing in my life at the moment is not in fact an energetic “up”, but simply a relieved state of balanced being, which just feels “lighter” in comparison to the constraint I've been under.

I'll continue with this topic later. The jumble of stuff from the past few weeks is kinda big and requires more digging.

Day 359: The celebration illusion

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At a wedding (2010).

I would like to share something I experienced a few days ago. I was spending time with a specific group of friends, celebrating the end of the year and enjoying each other's company. Most of the people present were drinking alcohol, and because of my recent re-commitment I had made the choice to not drink alcohol; even though I partially already made the decision when I left for the party without a bottle, the decision was solid only when I was at the party, thinking about what liquids to consume and choosing to fill my glass with water instead of asking others to share their wine with me. I drank water, I felt relaxed and awake, I was enjoying myself.

At one point we decided to walk to the local pub, which was a small place full of people and with a troubadour performing. When walking in I noticed myself thinking that I was “out of place” - that I was a “city beau” walking among “small town hicks” - and that I should have portrayed myself gracefully according to this image. I didn't, however, because I realized that my clothes were so mundane that I wouldn't have been able to pull off that show convincingly. (I realize that with this line of thinking I separate myself from others and attempt to compensate for my insecurity by elevating myself, but that is not the focus of this story as I did not act upon it this time around.)

What happened next was interesting. I had gotten myself a drink, I was listening to the troubadour and singing loud with my friends (simply out of the joy of knowing the lyrics, lol), and since I had had just a couple of sips of my gin and tonic I was fully sober. The troubadour started playing a familiar song that everyone knows the lyrics to, but which is a song I strongly resent. The lyrics are basically about sex, sleeping around, escapism and getting drunk. Everybody around me was singing the song, dancing in the cramped space and fully lost in the experience of the moment – whereas I stopped, I looked around and I saw everything that the song stands for (losing oneself in momentary escapism) in the actions of the people surrounding me. I stood breathing and stable inside a bar during the energy peak of the evening (the “party experience” chain of events) and I stopped participating. I stopped dancing, I stopped singing, I stopped smiling, I stopped drinking, and I just breathed. I put my glass down and left it there. I sat down and just watched everyone around me. All my will to participate in any of it had been drained out of me with the realization of what the culture of drinking stands for.

My reaction towards the song of course plays a part here, because I projected what I saw in the song on the people around me. Thus, I may have seen them in a more “negative light” because of the self-judgement that the song brought up. However, this doesn't negate the fact that at least a part of what I saw was actually there.

So, basically, what I learned was that the illusion of the “party experience” - the story of the party that one tells within one's mind before, during and after the actual events - is in fact an illusion that one can stop participating in. It was easy when I was sober and not influenced by any specific emotional energy, but I am guessing that it can be done even under the influence of alcohol when and as the emotional attachment to the “experience” is dissolved – in other words, when I step outside of the hamster wheel that I keep fueling by myself. I'm kinda tempted to get drunk just to test my theory, lol.

Days 198-199: Searching for comfort when life is "too much"

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my experience more dramatic, heavy, burdensome and difficult than it actually is by saying things like “oh god this is too much”, “how am I ever going to manage this”, “this is never going to end” - making my experience seem bigger than it is and believing it to be “too much” so that I would be justified to seek for attention, care and sympathy from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see my situation as it actually is, as what is really here without all of the emotional connotations, just things that need to be taken care of, and to thus not carry responsibility for the situation and what needs to be done as I have refused to look at what is here and have instead only seen and held on to my dramatized view of things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abandon myself and refuse to take care of myself as I have seen myself helpless and powerless to deal with my situation as I have perceived it to be “too much” for me, thus excusing myself to look for attention, sympathy and care from others when I should in fact be gifting it to myself by considering the practical reality of things and the best possible course of action within these circumstances I am in right now.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize when to give up on things even when the practical reality so requires, holding on to ideas, plans and concepts that would have served their purpose in different circumstances but which right now no longer do not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a desire to give up on everything as I have perceived my situation to be “too much”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disempower myself from having energy to fully commit myself to my work by perceiving the amount and difficulty of my work to be “too much”, thus acting through a constant resistance and making every movement heavier.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as the “helplessness character”, purposefully appearing powerless and magnifying my fatigue in order to receive sympathy from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to wish for someone to give me sympathy, attention and care so that I wouldn't have to face myself and the self-sabotage I am living as.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel disappointed when I haven't received attention, sympathy and/or care.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel uplifted when I have received attention, sympathy and/or care.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a relationship of disdain towards those who didn't give me attention, sympathy and/or care when I hoped for it. (disappointment)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a relationship of love towards those who gave me attention, sympathy and/or care when I hoped for it. (relief)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my responsibility of taking care of the things that need to be done by escaping to the attention, sympathy and care received from others.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not discern between the actual reality and my perception of reality as I have rather believed my dramatic interpretation of life than the undramaticness of what is actually here.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to associate the word “undramatic” or the opposite of dramatic to be “boring”, “dull” and “uninteresting”, thus charging the word “dramatic” with positive values such as “interesting”, “edgy”, “fascinating”, “entertaining” and creating a desire for dramatic events – not stopping to realize what drama and dramaticness actually is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what I have dubbed as “dramatic” within my life experience – conflict, great emotions, varying events, “good stories” - are things that only have value on the mind level as thoughts, images, concepts, stories and ideas but have no practical value whatsoever.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign conflict a positive value in terms of “dramaticness” because conflict is required in a good story.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive big and powerful emotions and feelings to be a good thing because I have confused them to be what life is about – that the “essence of life” is folded into these moments of highs and lows – not realizing that life is here non-stop, constantly present within each and every breath equally and not “more” in some moments and “less” in others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign eventfulness and the great variety of experiences a positive value in terms of “dramaticness” because a great amount of varying stimuli keeps the mind busy and fed with energy and allows me to avoid facing my fear of boredom – fear of emptiness – fear of death.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think that life is about drama – that life is drama – when in fact drama and storytelling are simply tools to convey abstract concepts about the practical reality, which can then be brought through realizations into actions in the practical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get so caught up in drama and its tools and methods that I look at life through a drama filter to see my life as a movie-like story in which some moments are highlighted and others are completely skipped.

To bring this to what I went through yesterday:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive myself to be living through a “low point” in the story of my life, reinforcing and feeding this perception by creating a status difference between me and life (helplessness vs. overwhelmingness) and thus separating myself from life as I believed myself to be powerless to direct my life experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to imagine how the story would continue from this “low point” onwards by thinking of ways I could work my way towards a new “high point” - not realizing that this would then again lead to another “low point” from which the cycle would go on and on with me never reaching actual stability.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to mistake the “high points” to be stability, when in fact they are just the other polarity in the endless yin-yang-loop of energy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to imagine a story line to my life in which I am “saved” from the “low point” I am living in – not realizing that as I have caused the “low point” myself I am also the one to pull myself out of it back into stability.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hope for intimacy, closeness and tenderness from others so that I would be distracted from the discomfort I am in and thus "saved" from my “low point” of anxiety, lostness, neglect, abuse and despair – not realizing that I am blaming my self-induced troubles on others and thus also hoping for others to save me when I should be carrying responsibility for all of this myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hope for a comforting energy high, not realizing that in this case what I mean by comfort is in fact escapism and abdication of responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive an experience to be “dramatic” and “big” because it feels overwhelming, not realizing that I in fact create the overwhelmingness by refusing to process the information within the situation as it is but instead filter it through emotions and clog up my system of processing information and moving it onto action.

When and as I feel like something is “overwhelming” I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am clogging up my cognition by filtering the actual information through filters in the mind. I then investigate what it is that I am filtering the information through - an emotion, a feeling, an idea, an assumption, a guess, an expectation, a character/personality – and I clear out this starting point for my experience of overwhelmingness and I re-assess my situation to see what is actually here in terms of the physical reality of time, space and matter.

I commit myself to be stern to myself like a parent to a child when directing myself away from the “high points” and “low points” I am tempted to go along with, as I now see, realize and understand that the only way to stop the loop of desire is through consistent non-participation.

I commit myself to realize that no one is here to save me from myself, and that the good old saying “everyone should clean up their own mess” is actually very much true.

I commit myself to carry responsibility for “my own mess” by assessing each bit of adversity that comes along my way to see how much of it is of my doing and how much of it I can “clean up” or influence – and I commit myself to be absolutely self-honest about this by immediately flagging all points of uncertainty and wavering and investigating further, not stopping until I am steady and clear about the point at hand.