Day 394: Failing at life

19032014

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.

Days 381-383: Efficiency - self-judgement, punishment and sacrifice - part 1

19-21012014

A point that I would like to open up in writing is that of efficiency. I have a strong urge to strive for efficiency in various contexts, and when I look at myself in self-honesty I see that this need to be efficient – to achieve, to gain, to get somewhere, to accomplish, to not waste time – is the prime reason for why I am often so stressed, discontent and harsh on myself. I am not sure where this drive for efficiency has begun, although I have a hunch, so let's look at how “efficiency” has manifested in my life thus far.

When I look at my childhood the first instances where I have become stressed with time have been:

• when I have been playing / having fun and an adult comes and tells me that it's time to quit (because we're going home, because it's time to sleep - because there is something that I'm told is “more important”);
• when I had several hobbies as a child and became stressed because I felt like I didn't have enough leisure time:
• when the summer holidays seemed to never last long enough;
• when the school days felt too long (junior high onwards)

I was not a top student at school. My grades were mostly mediocre, but I excelled in some subjects that I was interested or already skilled in. I didn't have to study much until I got to high school where I had to read a lot to pass the courses. I have not been a passionate student until now that I have a better understanding of why I study and what the information can actually be used for.

Looking at my childhood and teenage years, it seems that I was actually pretty lazy. My parents didn't require me to be involved in housework and so I wasn't until my late teens. I used to take good care of my room, but as I fell deeper into an emotional slump in my teens I just stopped cleaning up completely. My room was an awful mess, a dark cave of dust and trash – a representation of the mental state I was in. This state of being continued for years even after I left home and started living on my own – actually, now that I think of it, it wasn't until I moved into this apartment 2 years ago that I made a pledge to keep my living area clean and livable and stuck to that decision for real.

All in all, I have not been that worried about getting stuff done or excelling in anything. I haven't really had a reason to. For the years that I have been floating around and trying to figure out what to do there has been an anxiety about the “clock ticking” - that I “should” be doing something, “should” be getting somewhere. And every time I have tried and failed I have become more depressed, more anxious and more desperate to succeed.

• The only things I have tried to excel in have been singing and acting. This is because I noticed that compared to others I was more skilled, which brought me to the conclusion that these are the things I “must do” - the path I was “destined” to take – but as I got into the competition to be on the top for real I gave up soon because I only saw my shortcomings but not how to practice to become better. I thought I sucked and wasn't good enough after all, which made me feel like I was no good at anything.

The ideal of “getting somewhere” has probably been developed as I have watched the people around me “succeed”. My peers from school have mostly advanced on the career path, some of them already graduated and working; my sister has gained notable positions in her work and other tokens of “success”; and I have felt more and more worthless comparing myself to other people. While focusing on the ideal of “what life should be” I have forgotten that life is not in big achievements but IN BREATH – that life lived HERE without achievements is more worthwhile than life with achievements without awareness of what life really is.

My drive for efficiency comes partially from trying to make up for all the years I perceive to have “gone to waste”, and partially from my increasing panic about the state of the world: “something needs to be done”.

Now, as I try to prove my worth by “not wasting time” I am doing it to an invisible audience of sorts, when in fact what it really is is self-judgement. By being efficient and “getting stuff done” I try to find validation from my environment so that I could stop judging myself for a while (this never lasts). The “something needs to be done” -point is also related to this, as I perceive that by “doing something” for the world I can buy myself validation from specific peer groups. So when I am efficient I find myself worthwhile, worth keeping myself alive, worth not hating.

How cruel can I be?

Me trying to make up for my past is in a way reasonable and in a way insane. The past is no longer here; it cannot be changed no matter how much I'd believe in karma and think that my current actions somehow outweigh my past actions. They do not. The consequences of the actions of the past carry out to this day as they ripple through time, and what I can do about the past is see what could be done to those consequences as they manifest NOW. I can face the ripples here, but the past cannot be changed or amended. I'd find it more advisable to focus on what kind of ripples I am creating right now into the future.

In a way it seems as if I was punishing myself. This has been a common theme in my life. Why do I find myself worthy of punishment? Why do I deserve suffering?

--

Alright, continuing on what I wrote last night.

It seems that I am looking at a deep-rooted pattern of self-judgement. There have been some specific major events and influences in my life that have contributed to this (man, I need to start making a timeline of my life to have clarity over this):

• early childhood: learning self-judgement and self-belittlement by observing my parents
• society: learning to fear that authorities would judge me and punish me (parents, teachers)
• primary school: friends turning against me and openly judging / mocking me
• family life: comparison to family members made me feel “less”
• junior high school: not succeeding in the increasing social games; ideals vs. my self-image

By the time I got to high school I was already completely fucked up, but there were some major events later that I used to lash out on myself even more:

• dropping out of polytechnic at the age of 18

• at the age of 19 the collapse of a long-term relationship
• applying to schools for 5 years without getting in
• fucking up all prospective relationships

But during these later events I was simply utilizing the patterns I had already solidified earlier.

I will now have a look at each one of these points specifically.

1. Early childhood: learning self-judgement and self-belittlement by observing my parents

Both my parents had learned to be harsh on themselves due to the circumstances they grew up in. My mother learned to belittle her own skills and capacity, and she would sometimes refer to herself as “too dumb” to do something. She never wanted to “make a number” of herself and would make an effort to be pleasing and likable to others. My father learned to feel guilty for not knowing something, so instead of admitting to not knowing he would lie that he did, presenting an image of omnipotence. He worked so much that he compromised his health and family relations, and he overworked himself because he believed it was justified to sacrifice his well-being to support his children. Because he was responsible for the lives of four children, he judged his life to matter “less”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my mother and learn that whenever I make a mistake the appropriate response is to blame and judge myself, as I had not realized that mistakes are an inevitable part of learning and thus not in fact a negative thing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my mother and learn that when a person is not skilled at something the appropriate measure is to avoid doing these things, always get somebody else to do them and to not practice these skills because of a belief that one is “unable” to learn them, as I had not realized that no skill is inherent (even though genetics may support some traits) and that almost any skill can be learned by anyone through coherent and consistent practice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to learn that I can avoid the things I am uncomfortable doing by defining myself “unable” to do them, as I had not realized that the discomfort is an indicator of something new I can learn and that discomfort is therefore not a negative thing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my mother and learn that when one meets other people one should be nervous (not breathing, tense, restless), hide the nervousness with smiling and laughing a lot and alter one's behavior to making constant compromises on oneself to try and keep the others in a good mood, as I had not realized that having other people around so that I can see myself better through feedback is in fact a good thing because then I will learn to know myself better.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my mother and learn that when there are other people around I should try to not gather attention as every time I would have attention upon me I would get nervous and repeat the pattern described above, thus trying to remain “invisible” by not making noise or creating movement and getting angry at myself whenever I was unable to restrain myself and accidentally gathered attention.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my mother and learn who I should be in relation to other people: submissive, apologetic, “less than” others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my father and learn that when asked a question a person should always give an answer even if they didn't know what they were talking about, as I had not realized that relaying misinformation may have serious consequences and that it's better to give no information at all than to give misinformation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my father and learn that when a person is asked to do something they should never decline, at least not directly, as I had not realized that it is best for all to decline in self-honesty rather than to try and do too much and fail.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to learn that if people request something of me I am obligated to fulfill their requests, not realizing that I cannot help everyone as I am only one human being with limited resources.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my father and learn that when somebody asks me a question I should become tense.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my father and learn that when somebody asks me to do something I should get angry at the other, remember I'm obligated to help, suppress the anger with a sigh, become tense and tired and not decline the request directly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my father and learn that when a person is responsible for many things it is OK to sacrifice one's own well-being.

Continuing tomorrow.

Day 370: SF on Sex & the fear of failure

21122013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 369: Sex & the fear of failure

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “good sex” (success) and “bad sex” (failure) as ideas of what sex is / can be, not realizing that these ideas are not actually real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “good sex” as such where all participants are satisfied according to their expectations about sex.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the expectations I have / others have about sex, or the fact that we expect anything out of sex at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “bad sex” as such where not all participants are satisfied according to their expectations about sex.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the phenomenon of having expectations about sex in the form of ideals, fantasies, images, plans and assumptions, thus believing the disappointment when sex is unsatisfactory/bad/failed and the satisfaction when sex is good/successful.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when/as I have felt like the sex I've had has been successful I have in fact created the experience myself through my expectations and that no such thing as “doing sex right” exists in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when/as I have felt that the sex I've had has been a failure I have in fact created the experience myself through my expectations and that no such thing as “doing sex wrong” exists in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there are no right or wrong ways of having sex in the physical reality – unless one has a practical goal that needs to take the physical reality into consideration (such as reproducing, lol, then you don't really have that many options).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an ideal of what sex “should be” like through the images I have been exposed to willingly and unwillingly through the media of the culture I have lived in (TV shows, movies, photography, fashion, magazines, literature, visual arts, music), not realizing that none of the images I believe to be sex is not in fact sex but an idea about sex – a conceptual painting of a dimension of the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when and as sex is what I have labeled as bad/unsatisfactory/failed, the consequence of this will be that my partner will be disappointed, blame me for their disappointment, judge me to be a failure and decide to invest their time on someone “better” than me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create the fear of this trigger-reaction pattern based on the images I have been exposed to by the media, not realizing that this, too, is an idea about how people behave and what they expect of each other and not the actual reality of human behavior itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I can affect human behavior through my application within the moment of interaction.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my partner leaving me because I have learned, believed and perceived that it would be a bad thing to be alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my belief that being alone is a bad thing, thus not realizing that both being single and being in a relationship have their own benefits and limitations – the conditions are simply different with differing opportunities available.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when sex is what I have labeled as good/satisfactory/successful my partner will be content, project their positive feelings on me and believe me to be the source of their satisfaction, believe me to be a worthwhile person and decide to continue to invest their time on me because I'm “better” than others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by always anticipating my partner's response to the “quality” of sex I keep the relationship a target of a constant gamble where the platform of the relationship is not stable at all as it has not been built on a mutual agreement but is instead based on competition.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create my relationships into a place of uncertainty and instability as I have believed and perceived that the relationship depends on my “success” in sex, thus building my tension, anxiety, fear, stress and pressure about sex and thus causing myself to very often “fail” in sex as I have been doing it through tension and fear for others instead of doing it relaxed and open for myself.

I commit myself to focus on communicating directly and self-honestly about sex with the people whom I have sex with, as I have seen, realized and understood that when and as I communicate about the things I fear their control over me dissolves, thus enabling practical correction.

I commit myself to explore sex through physical movement and the senses instead of the ideas I have about sex.

I commit myself to map out and walk through the ideas I have about sex – the conceptual reality of layered shit that I have piled on top of the simplicity of the physical reality.

Day 358: SF on "Who should I be?" - group work and competitiveness

25112013

This post is a continuation to my previous post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create myself a “choir personality” - a survival system to get me through the challenge of a new environment – within which I am social, active, funny, encouraging and driven by the desire to succeed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to be a good singer within the choir as I have been afraid of being the “weak link” in a group.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to develop the fear of being the “weakest” in a group out of childhood experiences in school gymnastics classes where I did not measure up to other kids.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear group work because I might appear the “weakest” (a loser).
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to work in a group when and as I have believed and perceived I would be one of the “strong players” (winners).
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I enjoy group work and that I am good at group work, not realizing that my prominent experiences from group work are such where I have been a “strong player” and thus have felt confident and good about myself, which has made it easy for me to feel good about the work done in a group.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have only perceived myself to be “good at group work” when I have been “winning”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look at the many occasions when I have been a “weak link” in a group and consequently not a functioning team player (fearful, competitive, spiteful).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to superimpose my self-standards (being appreciated by others) on the group I am working with, expecting and demanding them to be what I want them to be so that I wouldn't face bad consequences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “failing” in front of an audience: doing something that will break the illusion of an artist/performer as a god-like superhuman that cannot fail.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that if I fail in front of an audience that expects me to succeed I will be judged.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that every individual in an audience expects me to succeed / to not fail.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when an audience member's expectations are not met by disrupting an experience with something unexpected, all the individuals in the audience will react with disdain, irritation and/or anger and believe and perceive that it is my fault that they reacted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a stereotype of an audience member / a spectator, believing and perceiving that everyone who passively looks at a performance of any kind does not want to be interrupted or challenged because they expect to be allowed to remain passive and find it vexing when it is not allowed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to label this act of allowing another to remain within their comfort zone while providing the kind of stimuli they expect as entertainment, not questioning the need to be entertained nor the profession of entertaining.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a learning process comprises almost completely of mistakes, and that making mistakes is thus not a negative thing as it can be used to develop understanding and skill.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear others seeing my mistakes, not realizing that others witnessing my learning process is not a bad thing but is in fact educational for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even if a performance goes exactly as planned, everything that I'm yet to master is still visible to the audience that sees me, whether they're consciously taking it in or not and whether I'm aware of my misgivings or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that hiding my mistakes and misgivings is not possible and that if I try I will only show others my fear of failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though it would benefit the entire choir if the people doing the gigs would do their job carefully, if I press the point through my fear of failure I will only create resentment, and that even if I discussed the point through practicality I cannot ultimately make others perform well but can only focus on my own application.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will fail in life (not survive).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire succeeding in life (surviving).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that life is a linear story in which the end result is what matters and defines how well my life has been lived, not realizing that life exists only in the NOW moment, within and as this moment of consciousness where I as the will within this organism called the human body am in constant motion, and that life is not measured only in the end result at the moment of my death somewhere in the future but in every moment that I am alive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that life is a competition where I need to succeed in order to “make it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order to become a competent human being I do NOT need to outrun everyone else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I attempt to outrun others out of fear of losing to others, I am abusing myself, eating myself up with fear and stress and thus sabotaging myself and making way for my own failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is possible to become skilled and competent by becoming what the skill requires – changing who I am and living out the consequence – instead of pushing myself towards an ideal through self-judgement without figuring out the practical steps to get there.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though life is about “competing with myself” to see and realize what my potential is and understand how to live up to it, life is in fact NOT about competing with other living beings because we as a whole form one big living organism – humanity / the Earth / the universe - which functions best if its particles work together and not for themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I live according to my self-interest at the expense of other life forms, competing to become the best and the biggest, I am the cancer cell in this organism feeding on other cells, either taking down the entire organism as the cancer spreads through my influence or being eventually removed so that the organism may keep on living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that competitiveness is considered a positive trait only within the human consciousness system - in the conceptual reality we live out through our minds – and that when looking at nature it is not competitiveness that we see in ecosystems that thrive but co-operation, development, support and sharing that leads to progress and prosperity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the human species has proven itself to be the “king” of all species by being competitive within itself and with other life forms and thus conquering land, developing technology and making scientific breakthroughs, and that competitiveness is thus a positive trait – not realizing that while doing so the human species has eaten up most of the Earth's resources and thrived at the expense of ALL LIFE even though it appears as if the human species has been “successful”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my desire to compete.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to set myself goals on what I need to achieve during my life as a measurement of success, feeling that if I would now die without achieving those goals I would have failed in my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my life will have had worth only if I achieve something “big” (a clear improvement in the field of life I am able to influence).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to imagine life being a game of tasks of different sizes, difficulties and rewards, thus giving bigger value to tasks that are “bigger” (improving the world) and not valuing the tasks that are “small” (breathing) – not realizing that since all that exists is the NOW moment, what may or may not happen in the future is not relevant, but only what I do HERE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if my focus is in the future, my focus is not in the present moment in my present actions, and that my actions are thus half-assed as my focus is not fully HERE.

--

I commit myself to explore group work from the perspective of co-operation instead of competition.

I commit myself to investigate how power dynamics within a group could be supportive for all, so that the “strongest” would utilize their strength to assist the “weakest”.

I commit myself to map out how I manifest competitiveness and how I manifest co-operation within the groups I am working in at the moment (choir, theatre, university, dancing group, work, organizations, friends and all the sub-groups within these).

I commit myself to explore performing situations from the perspective of allowing others to witness my learning process through whatever mistakes and misgivings I manifest.

I commit myself to continue mapping out who I believe and perceive I should be and how I apply myself according to this belief/perception, and to thus investigate what is causing me to feel burdened, resulting in the pain/friction in my shoulders.

I commit myself to make a written note of all situations where I see myself competing (fear of failure / desire to succeed) and to investigate them with written or spoken introspection.

I commit myself to teach myself to map out my goals through practical steps and realistic timelines, starting with the projects I am working on now (e.g. studying).

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.

Days 313-315: Singing to impress

12-14092013

I am bothered by a choir audition I went to, which is one of the things I mentioned in my previous post. I was surprised by the fact that I got nervous in the audition, and as I was nervous and my core muscles were trembling, my singing wasn't the best it can be and my voice was shaking a little. There are two points here to look at: a) why I got nervous at all, and b) why I take “failure” so harshly.

After years and years of practice in performing I rarely get as nervous anymore as I did yesterday. Mostly I can trust myself to know what I'm doing and to figure it out if I don't. I wasn't nervous about the audition until I heard that a friend of mine would be in the jury. The fact that there was something personal on the line increased the “stakes”: convincing someone I know personally of my skill, of my value, is more important to me than convincing a roomful of strangers. This is why I would, for example, have my most “special” friends come see me perform something rather than have a hundred strange faces looking at me. This is because my attachment/attraction towards a person makes them appear “more important”: both failure and success feel “bigger”, because I believe I risk losing the appreciation and company of a friend if I fail in their presence, and on the other end I believe that if I succeed in their eyes I will confirm and strengthen the relationship.

This starting point led me to interpreting the reactions of the jury through my fear of failure / desire to succeed. Certain expressions that I interpreted as “judgmental” or “not impressed” are flashing in my mind again and again like snapshots, and I realize that these memory-images in my mind are not an actual photographic evidence of what the situation was in reality. I realize that what I'm carrying with me and holding onto as “signs” of my “failure” are not in fact what happened, but my filtered view of what I perceive and believe to have happened – random moments that I decided to burn into my memory because of what I believe I saw in them.

One reason this bothers me so is that I have to wait for the results of the audition for two weeks. If I would get the results straight away I could use them to determine whether I “succeeded” or “failed”. So instead of finding balance through self-honest self-assessment I torture myself with insecurity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for getting nervous, thinking that I “should have” not been nervous because I've had a lot of practice in performing, not realizing that I am whipping myself for not living up to an ideal I have created for myself – the self-image I would like to be for real – and that when I am goal-oriented I only see the end result and not how to get there, which ends up with me trying to force myself into a mold I don't know how to fit myself into, like trying to shove a cube into a round hole.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate myself for getting nervous, getting disappointed with myself for not living up to my own expectations, not realizing that my expectations were constructed on assumptions that did not take into account all the factors there are to a situation (for example, all the hidden points I am not yet aware of) and that my expectations are thus always bound to be flawed one way or another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect various things out of myself and from others, not realizing that my expectations are never exactly correct – at best they're my best guess – and that as I live according to my expectations I bind myself to inevitable disappointment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect that after several years of practice in performing I should have already mastered it, not realizing that because performance in its essence is to reveal myself to others – which constantly reveals new aspects of myself to myself - it is a life-long process that I can probably never during this life be entirely “done” with, let alone in a couple of decades.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to the information that my friend would be in the jury, from that moment onwards accepting and allowing my reaction to accumulate into underlying nervousness which reached its peak during the audition.

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Here I walked the point of my relationship towards this friend in specific SF in private. It helped me see why exactly his presence got me nervous: without going into details I was hiding my experience about this person from myself and thus silently accumulated the energy of that experience until it erupted in an uncontrollable way (nervousness). While writing I realized what it was about and I will now explore my relationship with this person while being self-aware of who I am in his presence.

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The fact that there was something personal on the line increased the “stakes”: convincing someone I know personally of my skill, of my value, is more important to me than convincing a roomful of strangers. This is why I would, for example, rather have my most “special” friends come see me perform rather than have a hundred strange faces looking at me. This is because my attachment/attraction towards a person makes them appear “more important”: both failure and success feel “bigger”, because I believe I risk losing the appreciation and company of a friend if I fail in their presence, and on the other end I believe that if I succeed in their eyes I will confirm and strengthen the relationship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “shine” in the eyes of another as I have believed and perceived that by doing so I will “confirm” our friendship – that the other will not want to walk away from me if I convince him/her that I am “good enough”.

Now, this point intrigues me. It keeps on reappearing in different circumstances and in different shapes and sizes, but the base point is the same: “Do not abandon me. Please don't leave me. Please tell me I'm alright.” I keep returning to this point because I am not sure where it comes from. There are no major events of abandonment in my childhood and I had a very supportive family, and all that I can think of are events from later on in my life. When I was around 10 years old all of my friends turned their backs on me because I was “weird” (I was somehow behaving “out of line”) and I took this sudden loneliness really harshly. I used this event and the emotional pain that I experienced then as a source for my upcoming depression, anxiety and introversion. The thing that eludes me is: how did I decide to start begging for acceptance through my skills and traits? That's not the reason I started having friends again later on. I didn't somehow enchant the people who became my friends: we just “ended up” together because in a school environment you don't really have much choice.

So what I'm asking of myself is to look at my past and search for events where I would have felt accepted because of a skill, trait or quality of mine that I got positive feedback of. I find this essential because through this belief that I can convince others to like me I have created a survival mechanism of “pulling the tricks” to avoid facing my fear of “losing” another person – and my dependency/attraction towards the other. Instead of asking myself: “hang on, why do I react to the possibility of this person not being present in my life?” I instantly believe and validate my fear and my “need” for this person to be around.

Day 295: Singing to succeed

21082013

A few days ago I was a judge in a children's singing contest. It was a semifinal and we had to select a few children who would not be continuing to the final round which is held this weekend. After the contest a father approached me and another judge, telling us that his daughter had been dropped from the final and asking for specific feedback on what his daughter could improve; why exactly did she not make it?

I went through my notes and remembered this girl having been the least developed singer of the bunch, mainly because her singing was really forced and violent. I explained to the father the technical issues and basically told him that the girl needs to relax, and that she has to be given time to develop, because the voice of a child goes through a huge maturing process simply through the growth of the physical body. The judge I was with also gave her point of view which followed along the same lines as my feedback.

As I observed the father I noticed a huge tension in him. He told us how disappointed the girl is, because she has been in many contests never succeeding. I could see him anxious for his child's happiness and success, and the way he was doing it out of fear was pulling him, straining him; the feedback we gave was difficult for him to take because there was no comfort there; there was no quick fix to the child's “issue”, the boulder keeping her from happiness – what she believes she needs to be happy. I don't know how he broke it down to the child, but I hope he got my point about relaxing about it.

This got me thinking about my own childhood. I was taken to numerous singing contests ever since the age 6. I won the very first contest I attended, and ever since then I went to more and more contests in search of more success. I enjoyed the contests because it usually meant I could learn new songs and perform in front of people, and we usually also took a trip somewhere special so that I could attend the contest. It was a good way to motivate me to practice singing and performing and I learned a lot through it.

But there was also a negative side to it. My mother really wanted me to go to these contests because otherwise my “talent” would “go to waste”. She perceived and believed success in music to be measured by exposure, fame, awards and recordings, and I don't blame her because that's the limited way our culture defines music. She wanted me to have all the chances to express and explore myself that she didn't have growing up in a really poor family. Her enthusiasm topped mine, and eventually the contests became a strain to me, I felt like I was forced to do things, I felt disappointed when I didn't win (I rarely did), I felt like I was being forced into a mold that I didn't want to fit in. So in my teens I told my mother I didn't want to do it anymore and so she stopped pushing me, although expressing her great regret about it.

When I return to thinking about that very first contest I attended and won, I realize it has been a turning point, a defining moment. I was a very small girl and I have very vague memories of that situation. I can't remember the moment I got up on the stage and sang, but I do remember the moment the results were announced, I was declared winner and my family told me to get up and get my trophy. What I remember of this moment is noticing my family's agitation. All of my family, my parents and my three siblings, were with me (a rare occasion), and I remember my sister, my idol and anchor, was sitting next to me. I didn't really understand what the announcers were saying, but I remember they announced the results so that my family could guess that I was the winner before anyone said it because I was the only one left without a reward. I remember this wave of excitement coming from my family sitting on my left side, them being all “oh my god did she?” “can it be?” “oh wow you won!”, surprised and overjoyed and excited for me. I didn't understand what “winning” meant, but from my family's reaction I gathered that I had done something positive, I had succeeded. I walked down to the stage to be awarded, and the judges handed me a huge, heavy trophy, making a joke that I might not be able to lift it (I was tiny) and everyone in the audience laughing in approval of my adorable victory.

I see that the reaction of my family defined the moment for me, because their emotional response was overflowing, it was really “big” for me. Their joy represented acceptance, ultimate acceptance, and topped with the huge trophy the moment was somehow “crowned”. In order to get that ultimate acceptance I would have to succeed in the same way. This is where I started to define myself according to my singing: it was my strength, my asset, and I would have to be the best to remain accepted in the eyes of others. The fact that the victory is the only thing I remember of the contest is revealing, because my memory has selected not to remember the singing - the moment of expression - at all. All my memory selected is the moment of positive reinforcement.

So most of my life (ever since the age 6) I have been in search of that ultimate acceptance, which I believed to be found in other people, in my success, and not from within myself. This is probably one of the reasons why I react to disapproval / rejection / failure so strongly. I am afraid that when I express myself I will not be accepted – that I will be rejected as I was so many times in all those singing contests. Of course my history in being bullied in school also has a part to play, but I see that the bullying and the search for approval in contests are interlinked: they are my childhood, who I was back then. Through writing I am slowly piecing together my past so that my childhood/adolescence would make sense to me – that I would see the big picture – and every time I actually go through a specific memory like I did above I see the big picture getting a little bit clearer. I have been postponing going through a lot of things in my past but now I see I can no longer do that. I want to understand who I am now and why I keep messing shit up (there is one major underlying issue I haven't gotten hold of yet), and the way there goes through my past. Thus:

I commit myself to write about a memory from my past every day from now on until I am done with my past.

• I may write about the memory in my blog
• I may write about the memory separately from my blog posts
• I choose whichever memory seems to be “on the surface”
• I will have a specific notebook with me so that I will be able to do this anywhere

I commit myself to this challenge and project within and as the realization that the key to who I am now lies in my past in all the moments that have led up to this moment as everything I am now has accumulated over time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear committing to this project because it appears long, time-consuming and, as my thoughts put it, “daunting” - not realizing that my past is not infinite and that eventually I will have gone through all of it, as long as I do it consistently: a little at a time at regular intervals.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear this commitment because I believe and perceive it is “too much” for me in addition to writing a blog, attending the DIP Lite course AND studying and working and living a life – not realizing that I have already committed to the Journey To Life project, where I will write a blog for seven fucking years, and that an additional project of opening a memory each day is not much compared to or in addition to that – and they might actually contribute to each other!

I commit myself to embrace this new challenge within and as the realization that it is what is best for me and thus also what is best for all.