Day 397: Compiling secret spite

01042014

A couple of days ago I faced harsh and direct judgement to which I reacted to quite strongly. I took the message personally and felt really bothered by it with an awful feeling in my gut. The message I received pointed out a mistake I had made, but it did so with a tone that I responded to with a negative reaction, and so I missed out on receiving the valid feedback and only focused on the element of judgement.

Now, a couple days later, the situation came to a culmination point. Because of my reaction of taking the judgmental tone of another personally, I had made decisions to act upon my self-judgement and in a way punished myself for being judged – not for the mistake itself, but for the fact that somebody wasn't pleased with me! So in a way I was trying to redeem for my mistakes, but not the ones I had actually made. I perceived my fault to have been the fact that I was so “bad” that another had judged me, and again ignored what I could have originally done better.

So these actions of mine were noticed and responded to with common sense, which is when I realized I had been wrong all along. I was acting just like my father has in similar situations: compiling secret spite under actions of self-punishment. And with the same people, even! I realized that in this situation I was the spitting image of my father, with every tone, posture, gesture and word, and having seen the consequences of my father's actions on himself I will not accept and allow myself to follow in these footsteps.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to X's tone of voice and choice of words as I have learned to fear aggression as a child.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that aggression directed towards me is valid and always my fault.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to submit to aggression without questioning the validity of the aggression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore the message under the aggression as my focus has been on the way the message has been delivered.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see past my fear reaction to aggression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to aggression by shrinking and withdrawing instead of standing up and breathing myself open.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe when facing aggression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear X as an authority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear receiving feedback from X – be it delivered with any tone, aggression or not – as I have known her feedback to be (mostly) valid and direct and thus feared facing conflict within myself, forgetting that conflict is an opportunity to change and develop myself for the better.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to measure my worth according to how much/little feedback I receive from X, wanting to be “ready” so that she would have nothing to criticize.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my relationship to X has been created on a basis of imbalanced power relations – when I was a child and she was my mentor – and that for this relationship to work now that we're both adults equal in power I need to change my stance towards her from fearful to fearless.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that these complications in my relationship to X are not surprising at all, as we have started off in an unequal relationship, and that now that I can see the cause of the complications the dynamics of this relationship can in fact be changed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refuse to see the feedback behind X's aggressive message as I have not wanted to admit to having done something “wrong” (not as well as possible).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to deny myself the opportunity to learn from the feedback by not looking at what was said and instead secretly blaming X for being “inconsiderate”, “irrational” and “hysteric”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and appear as if I was redeeming for my mistakes by acting upon self-punishment, not realizing that I was doing this just to appear submissive while I was secretly compiling spite towards X.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I “shouldn't” be making mistakes now that I am no longer a child within my relationship to X, not realizing that people of all ages make mistakes as mistakes are an inevitable part of learning.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refuse to see and embrace the mistakes I make around X.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making mistakes around X.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that my father reacts and responds to X in the exact same way as I do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by mirroring my relationship with X to my fathers relationship with X I can easily see what mistakes I have made.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as the spitting image of my father, not realizing that as I do so I also repeat the same mistakes he has made and end up suffering the same consequences.

I commit myself to focus on moving from fearfulness to fearlessness in practical application within my relationship to X.

I commit myself to accept and allow myself to make mistakes around X and to receive feedback for them.

I commit myself to support and assist myself with breathing when and as I react to aggression with fear.

Day 372: Taking angry reactions personally

27122013

During the christmas holidays I was spending time with my family, and while we were busy cooking I noticed something interesting about my relationship towards my sister. There was a pan that I would have needed for cooking something and she had already used it for something else, to which I reacted by indirectly and jokingly blaming her for it. She reacted to my words with an angry and defensive manner, which is how she usually reacts to (unexpected / unprepared for) criticism, blame and accusations. I have usually taken her defensive reactions personally and questioned her tendency for being so aggressive, mainly because her reaction has felt threatening to me. But now as I was looking back on the situation I realized how and why she has developed the habit of violently defending herself (a history of bullying and low self-esteem). I realized that me taking her reaction personally is not really helping her at all and is just adding fuel to the fire. I see that in order for me to be of support to her and assist her in stabilizing and seeing her own tendencies I need to stop counter-reacting to her reactions and see them for what they are: remnants of a fearful past that need not be any longer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take my sister's aggression personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to my sister's aggression because I have perceived and believed aggressive people to be dangerous.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my sister's aggression means that she thinks less of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my sister's aggression has nothing to do with me and that her aggression is in fact her expression of who she is at the moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire for my sister's approval / acceptance, thus reacting with fear when it appears as if she does not approve / accept me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my interpretation of my sister's aggression is not in fact true.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to my sister's aggression with irritation (“she's doing it again”) and to blame her for my irritation (“she shouldn't do that”), not realizing that I create my irritation by thinking that her reaction is “wrong”, as I have not seen, realized and understood that her reaction is an outflow of who she has become, and that it is not “wrong” or “right” but simply an indicator of who she is at the moment, an outburst of the reality we live in.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to label “wrong” all the things in my reality that “ruin the world” for me – that do not fit the ideal image of the world that I have built in my mind – as by labeling them “wrong” I create an excuse to remove these things from the reality.

When and as my sister (or anyone) expresses aggression, I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that her reaction is an outflow of who she has become through everything that she has went through in her life. I remind myself that to be of assistance and support to her I cannot exert my own reaction onto her, but that I need to instead let go of all my reactions through self-forgiveness and breathing and become a stable point in her field of experience.

When and as I react to my sister's (or anyone's) aggression, I stop, I breathe and I immediately focus on my breathing to ground and stabilize myself in the physical reality. I remind myself that in order to support the other I need to let go of my own reactions. I remind myself that my sister's reaction is not caused by me and that it is an outflow of everything she has accumulated during her lifetime. I breathe and release my reaction in self-forgiveness. I take another look at the situation from her perspective and I direct myself in the situation according to what would possibly be supportive to her.

I commit myself to practice becoming a stable point for others.

Days 367-368: What would you do if you only had one day?

12-13122013

Nature showing us how to express affection. No fancy words needed!

Today I came to think of the phrase “live every day as if it was your last”. First I read a facebook post where a friend shared her realization about the unpredictability of life while supporting her friend in an emergency room: you'll never know when your loved ones will be gone forever, so you'd better tell them how you feel about them while you still can. Next, I saw a video where the average amount of a person's living days was visualized with jelly beans, and where at the end of the video only one jelly bean was left and the following question was asked: “what would you do if you had only one day? What will you do today?”

I answered that question myself and I was surprised at the things I said. (Personal stuff.) Mainly the things I thought I would do involved contacting people and enjoying my last moments doing things with them. I then asked myself: well, hold on, why should I not do these things anyway, even if I would not be dying? Couldn't I just call these people up anyway?

What I faced then was a wall of excuses. “They probably have better things to do.” “They'd think you're just wasting their time.” Most of it revolved around fear. The activities I thought of were purely recreational, and I was afraid that if I'd live my life asking people to join me in fun stuff like that I would be judged as lazy, impractical, childish, irresponsible – a foolish hippie not willing to work.

But MAN would I enjoy life where I could do fun stuff! With others!

So I'm thinking how my life would be different if I would express my feelings towards people more openly and initiate activities more frequently than now. It would certainly be a lot more social and my relations with others would be built on a foundation of self-honesty (which I think is the only way to establish solid trust in another). Why am I not doing this already?

I realize that motivational videos like the one I saw play a lot on the fear of death and loss: when the number of my days is clearly shown to me, I react with a slight panic and disregard my responsibilities just to “enjoy while I can”. What I am looking for, though, is a sustainable way of living. I need to integrate the social into my life in a balanced way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing to another how I experience him/her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my affection towards another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my gratitude towards another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my appreciation for another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing any form of positive experience I have had towards other people, because I have feared that I would then face a negative reaction from the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing myself through self-expression because I have associated self-expression with events from my childhood, where my self-expression was responded to with actions that I reacted negatively to.

[A memory from 1^st or 2^nd grade: there was a boy in my class I liked a lot. I never expressed this to him because I didn't really know what to do about the things I felt – I'd never received any sort of guidance concerning relationships. Once during class there was a moment where something we had in common (a toy) was unexpectedly exposed and we would have had a chance to bond over it; however, we didn't. I expressed my interest towards the commonality and was waiting for him to meet me half-way, whereas he sort or “retreated”, withdrew himself, not taking the opportunity and not interacting with me. I thought that this meant he did not like me at all, I felt ashamed and I never tried to talk with him again. I did not take into consideration that he may have withdrawn because of the situation (a boy and a girl bonding with each other during class would have required hell-class bravery and defiance of the social code), or because he, too, was clueless on what to do about his feelings. Because I entered the social world with no guidelines on what to do and how people actually work, I have built my fear of rejection based on possible misinterpretations like this.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I express my positive experience of another person, the other will respond in such a way that I might interpret as “judgement”, “rejection” or “resentment” - not realizing that always interpreting things like this is a very narrow viewpoint that does not take into consideration the entire reality of things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when a person responds to my self-expression by withdrawing themselves, it is not because I have done something “wrong” but because of whatever inner processes the entire situation has triggered within them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for the way another person responds to his/her environment, thus reacting to the other person with fear of losing control, helplessness and panic as my world isn't what I would want it to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my self-blame, collapsing inwards automatically with my reaction, not stopping to breathe and realize that “HOLD ON, I am taking personally something that is not mine at all”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by believing another person's withdrawal is my fault (because I am not enough), I am NOT supporting and assisting the other to see and question the mind system that made him/her withdraw in the first place, but that I am instead supporting him/her to carry on living within and as the mind system (because he/she is not enough – through my example I show that self-diminishment is acceptable).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stand my ground when and as I have expressed myself and another has withdrawn as I have not really stood within my self-expression as I have lived as self-doubt, self-denial and self-resentment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for validation for myself from outside of myself as I have not really accepted, embraced or trusted myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the behavior of others is caused by me when in fact every individual creates their own behavior by choosing and authorizing their way of moving according to external stimuli.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit myself from participating in social living because I have been afraid of rejection, justifying my seclusion by judging social activities and thus settling for my solitude.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my wish to participate in social living and make myself believe that “I don't need it” as I have been afraid of taking the “risk” of exposing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that exposing myself through self-expression – by for example communicating to another how I experience him/her – is in fact NOT a risk where I put my self-worth on line but an opportunity where I don't have to lose myself (as I am always here!) but can in fact only gain and learn new things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to fear by choosing to not express myself to another when I hesitate, when I could instead breathe, return myself HERE and remind myself that the unknown is a window of opportunity leaping through which will always benefit me in the form of new experiences to be learned from.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pass by that moment of truth, the moment of fear and resistance, with excuses and justifications, thus not gifting myself with the opportunity to grow by pushing through the fear.

I commit myself to experiment an give myself opportunities to grow out of my old habits by sharing with each person in my life how I experience them, be it in the form of feedback about their qualities or as a statement of how I feel about them. [Be this my christmas present to all!]

I commit myself to explore ways and chances of expressing gratitude.

I commit myself to support and assist myself within the paralyzing moment of fear and resistance by breathing, grounding and reminding myself that change happens one small movement at a time, one word at a time, one letter at a time, one breath a time – by bringing my focus absolutely on my breath, nothing else, and moving myself relying on my breath and physical existence, as my physical existence will not shudder even though my conceptual realities tremble, crumble, scream and explode.

I commit myself to support and assist others to walk through their process by remaining stable when and as they react instead of taking their reaction personally and counter-reacting, AND in order to do this, I commit myself to further investigate why and how I take things personally.

Days 281-283: Succumbing to circumstances

27, 30-31072013

I hate feeling stuck. Because of a many factors in my circumstances I have been falling into a passive state of standing still, lying limp as a carcass, waiting, waiting, waiting around for things to change around me because, apparently, things around me are required to change before anything can happen, before anything can change, before I can move. I hate this state of being because it reminds me of death – it is death – a portrayal of death in flesh, a mockery of the life running through my veins.

On a smaller scale I got stuck today while the company I was in did not offer any possible activities for me to take part in. On a bit of a larger scale I've been stuck ever since arriving to Australia because it is impossible to see the country without a car. On a slightly larger scale I was stuck most of my stay in Vanuatu. On a large scale I have been stuck for all of this trip as I have simply been waiting for my schooling to begin once the trip is over – it's like I'm here just to kill time. All these precious moments of LIFE slipping through my fingers and running to a drain like mercury, because I believe that life is waiting for me somewhere in the future, and that life will take me along with it – not realizing that life is HERE all along and that it is something I have to create, I have to mold with my own hands, because nobody is going to breathe for me, nobody is going to move for me, nobody is going to grow for me – I am the creator of my own life. I may not be the one who gave me life, but it is now placed in my hands, as is the responsibility and freedom to have my way with it.

Note: This SF first goes through a specific event and then moves onto a larger scale.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get frustrated when the people in my company were focusing on their own activities and did not make effort to include me in them, feeling neglected and ignored and thinking that now that I am here it is a “special occasion” which these people ought to “respect” by doing stuff with me and not without me – not realizing that I was reacting to the expectations I had built around the situation by getting disappointed and then blaming my disappointment on others when in fact I was responsible for the scenario I had created in my mind and for its consequences in my emotional state.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect others to create an enjoyable experience for me because of unvoiced expectations of how things “should be” done when people host guests, not realizing that I was abdicating my responsibility to create my own experience and instead passively waiting around for others to make my experience enjoyable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get frustrated when my company did not include me in their activities because when I looked at my situation through my disappointment I saw myself powerless to direct the situation so that I would have an enjoyable time regardless of my unexpected circumstances.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that despite my company not including me in their activities I had many options on what to do - I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make myself blind to seeing all the opportunities available to me by judging all possibilities as “not good enough” as compared to what I had expected the situation to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold on to my expectation of what the situation “ought to” have been and compare all other possibilities to this original scenario where things would have been “perfect”, thus making all other available options appear as less enjoyable/worthwhile as they would have actually been.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel dissatisfied with the activities I chose to do because I was still holding on to my original ideal scenario and hoped that some of it would maybe happen if the people in my company suddenly magically realized that it was a special occasion, gave up on their activities and instead decided to do something that included me as well – not realizing that as I did not in any way communicate my wish to socialize with these people there is no way they could have known for certain what I would like to do, and that thus I did not carry my responsibility of the situation as I expected others to guess what I was experiencing without any of my own input.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hesitate expressing my point of view of this being a situation that presents opportunities that will not be present any time soon again because I feared being judged, attacked, ridiculed and/or ignored – I feared confirmation of what I was already guessing the others to think of me (“I am irrelevant”).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the others focusing on their own activities was an expression of their disinterest towards me – not realizing that it might just as well have been unsuppressed self-expression or passion (or a myriad of other things) and thus nothing personal towards me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when others in my company chose to do things I was not involved in and had no possibility of being involved in, not realizing that this was nothing personal towards me but an expression of who the others were in that moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold onto my expectation of how things “should have” been through the idea of “unfairness” as I judged the choice that the others made in not including me in their activities to be a “bad choice” as it was a choice I would not have made and did not find agreeable or justifiable – not realizing that by judging the others I refused to see and sympathize with (see in myself) the real reasons behind their choices and thus disabled myself from finding a real solution to the situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not address the ideal scenario I had created in my mind about the situation before I was there in order to prevent all of this disappointment, frustration, dissatisfaction and spite as I did not question the ideal scenario on any level.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see it justifiable to expect for a fun, sociable, loud and playful gathering full of laughter and talk without taking into consideration who is going to be there, not realizing that a social situation consists of the combined self-expression of those that are present and thus will not be the same with every different compilation of people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for a night of fun to compensate for the dull, boring, repetitive, stagnant and meaningless experiences I have had recently.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect for a sociable event to be enjoyable in a specific way, not realizing that there are as many ways for a sociable situation to be enjoyable as there are different combinations of people – which is an innumerable amount.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see it justifiable to seek for an escape from my recent stagnation through other people and thus not question my expectations for this particular event I saw to be my “savior”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the solution to my stagnation is not in escapism and entertainment but in me “taking the wheel” of my own life – directing myself out of activities that bear no fruit and into those that do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to let my limiting circumstances bring me down and give up because getting myself up and active has felt like too much of an effort.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I am helpless at the face of my limiting circumstances and to thus justify becoming passive and doing nothing of relevance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use my limiting circumstances as an excuse not to do shit.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the circumstances I am in are always in one way or another limiting as all the things in the existence are not available in each and every moment of time and space, and that the challenge is to make the very best out of each and every moment as it truly is – and that using the “limitations” of my circumstances as an excuse not to do things is just utter bullshit when and as I am motivated by laziness and thus am not making a clear assessment of the situation and the possibilities at hand.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not investigate and assess my circumstances “with eyes unclouded” - with the purpose of finding the solution that is the best for all - and that I have instead filtered my view on reality through the purpose of remaining safe and sound within my comfort zone unstirred, still, soulless and dead.

I commit myself to assess my actions, activities and choices throughout the remainder of my trip by asking myself: “what is the point of this?” or “what is the fruit?” - and, after a thorough and self-honest investigation, I commit myself to direct my actions, activities and choices according to that which is the best for all.

I commit myself to live out the commitment above with the intention of carrying it on to my “normal life” after the trip.

When and as I see myself using my circumstances as an excuse to do or to not do something – in other words, using the external reality as a reason instead of looking at myself – I stop, I breathe and I realize I am using my interpretation of the reality as an excuse not to get uncomfortable. I realize that I am “clouding my vision” from seeing the real possibilities of a situation because I have a hidden agenda to stay within my comfort zone – I have already made up my mind. I face myself in self-honesty and investigate why I truly do not want to leave my comfort zone. I utilize self-forgiveness to release the point. I then re-assess my situation with absolute diligence, accepting and allowing no uncertainty considering each and every possibility/opportunity in the current moment. I make a choice based on self-honest self-expression.

When and as I see myself thinking “I can't, because...” / “Emmä voi, ku...” I stop, I breathe and I ask myself whether this is actually true. I ask myself: “what do I fear/desire?” and I look at my motives within and as self-honesty. I re-assess my situation and, if I see it to be necessary, I do the exact thing that I was previously trying to avoid within and as the realization that growth only happens outside my comfort zone.

Day 227: Unraveling dependency - a new perspective

07052013

nobody likes me - http://efana.deviantart.com/art/Spikes-30DC-258571057

“God, I'm so sick and tired of this point reoccurring!” Good. That means I am willing to move on. So what is it that I am holding onto? What is it that I am unwilling to let go?

I have used people to create a sense of stability, certainty and self-worth. I have done this ever since high school when I got “real” friends as compared to those I had had throughout my preliminary education. I was so happy to have friends that actually liked me and wanted to hang out with me that I completely imprinted on them and got dependent on them – and I never realized that the reason people wanted to hang out with me was that I was likable – not that they were kind enough to stick around. This dependency of mine became a strain every now and then and I realized I couldn't rely on my friends because they had lives of their own. Instead I turned to romantic relationships – they were about lifelong commitment, right? - to fulfill my need to rely on others.

This pattern still prevails. When I do not have any romantic sizzle going on, I turn to friends – when I am in a relationship, I fully hold onto that one person. And this is because I fear loneliness, I fear myself, I fear facing myself, I do not rely on myself. There's this sense of dread and panic when I realize that there is no one here I could turn to with a plausible excuse, when I realize that it would be the best course of action if I just staid alone right now – I can't breathe, the walls start coming in, the room seems darker, the world's more distant. It's like everything around me turns into a frightening demon – when in fact the demon is me.

These moments when the night is falling but it's not completely dark yet are the worst. It's a reminder that the darkness is coming and that the electric light indoors is not enough to resemble the day. My fallacies, illusions, tricks, beliefs and imagery are not enough to blind me from reality – the darkness of the utter, inescapable state of being ALONE.

It has been difficult for me to face the fact that I am just one, I am just me, I am nobody else no matter how much I live through others to make my life seem fulfilling. This means I hold all responsibility of myself, as does everyone of themselves respectively, and that I cannot escape myself anymore.

I am horribly afraid to admit the fact that I am dependent on people and the social relations I have defined “safe”. I fear that when I admit this people will run away screaming. I fear I will be judged and find no support. I fear I will be digging my own grave by admitting my flaws. I fear that by admitting my dependency on people I will lose all contact with people. But this is to pass the responsibility. This is to blame others for possible consequences. If others were to run away, it would be an opportunity for me to learn to be self-supported – not a grave, not the end of the world, not death – even though it would be “the death” of who I used to be.

I feel like I am not enough for myself. I am leaving for this trip and I fear that I will be disappointed with my own company when there is no one familiar there to validate my self-worth. When there is no familiar face to smile at me will I crumble away? If this is the case, who am I then within all my familiar social relations, if not an attention addict begging for others to keep me standing? Who the fuck am I to do that, to beg, to abuse, to wither helpless and whimpering, helpless as a child given up on everything? Who am I to curl up privileged and limp, clogged within my self-interest?

It is weird to write and read these words because I feel like I am looking at a child – and that is who I am, who we all are who have not yet learned to stand nor walk. I am not yet grown. I have posture to find, steps to take, balance to weigh, rhythm to try.

Before I can move myself as a functioning human being I've got to first learn how to stand. I've got to let go of the hands of others, take a breath and make a leap into the darkness of being ALONE. If I fall, I get back up and try again. Eventually I will find the balance, the step, the pace.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live through relationships of dependency where I have asked for others to carry me through life so that I would never have to face myself, carry myself, move myself, make decisions for myself or take responsibility for myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as a cancer cell within the human kind as I have used, abused and consumed other people instead of being a single, individual cell unattached to others and thus functional.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feed on the “life force” of others – the activeness, self-honesty, uncompromisingness, self-expression and self-directedness I've seen manifested in others – by making my life experience reliant on the presence and company of others and the lives they live, seeing no life for myself without/beyond these people as most of my time and energy is spent on wanting to be with them, fearing to lose them, fantasizing about being with them and, eventually, being with them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear admitting having been extremely dependent on others because I have feared facing the shame of revealing myself to myself, this justified with the fear that others will “judge” me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself in one of my previous partnerships to manifest dependency by defining the attention, affection and appreciation of another to be the only source of acceptance for me, feeling as if I had been “saved” from loneliness and from the compulsory competition to find a partner, thus within an extended period of time building this relationship into my “nest” and stability point, without which I perceived myself to be unable to live, as if I no longer existed as an individual – all of this from the starting point of not gifting myself with self-acceptance as I believed acceptance had to be found through other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that behind my dependency is the gratification I get from the approval of others – that small moment of joy when another gives me confirmation that my company is enjoyed – because I have not seen myself to be “likable”, “enjoyable”, “nice”, “cool” or any other kind of an acceptable being and believed this experience of being accepted only to be found with/through other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that by telling myself “I am fun to be around!” I will start seeing myself as fun to be around – not realizing that spouting mantras will only cover up the real reasons behind my negative self-definition as they never address the problem and thus never offer a solution – mantras simply repeat the outcome but do not offer the tools to actually get there.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that people will abandon me because I have been unable to comprehend why anyone would want to spend time with me because of my negative self-definition, believing that people spend time with me out of pity and duty or because they plan to hurt/abuse me and not because they actually enjoy my company.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust my friends to like me for who I am and fear that they will abandon me, thus having to constantly remind myself that “he/she does really like me!” - not realizing this too is a mantra because I do not fully believe these words and try to make them real by repeating them enough.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make it a big deal that I am liked, not realizing that it is quite common for people to like each other, and that people liking each other is actually most likely the closest we'll get to a “natural” state of social interaction.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to glorify the fact that another likes me, not realizing that this simply means that we have shed fear from our interaction (or at least most of it) – and that people liking each other is thus not “more” but is actually less as there is less shit inbetween us.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to how much people appear to like me, not realizing that me being liked has actually nothing to do with me in fact, because when one's company is enjoyed (without dependency/addiction) it is a sign that the interaction is fearless – not that I am something “more” or that my “likability status” has been upgraded, but that the interaction between me and another is developing towards trust – which is not “who I am” per se but the movement of who I am and who the other is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when another likes / dislikes me, not realizing this to be an indicator of the amount of fear in the other's starting point and not a statement of who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive it to be about the other when I like / dislike another, not realizing this to be an indicator of the amount of fear in my starting point.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive my experience of liking another is caused by the other, not realizing that I am creating the experience by allowing myself to interact with the other as myself.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive my experience of disliking another is caused by the other, not realizing that I am creating the experience by not allowing myself to interact with the other as myself because of fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to glorify those whom I have liked.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge those whom I have disliked.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to be glorified by others as the cause of their experience of liking me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being judged by others as the cause of their experience of disliking me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I cannot take credit for the experience of another no matter how willing they'd be to hand it over to me.

I've come a bit far from what I originally wrote about, but this is really cool – I started to unravel a new point by writing through this anxious experience/emotion I was within and just going with it, pushing myself as I realized a new point was beginning to open up. This has actually been tremendous help.

I commit myself to embrace the moments when I enjoy the company of others – and the company of myself with others! - from the starting point of realizing we are now here without fear and seeing the vast possibilities within such moments.

When and as another expresses that they like / dislike me in direct or indirect communication, I commit myself to remind myself this is nothing personal towards me but more an indicator of who the other is, and that I should not glorify / judge myself according to this because I would then be claiming credit for the experience of another.

I commit myself to flag the moments where I experience myself to like / dislike another and to stop, breathe and look into myself to see if I am passing the blame/credit on the other in order to realize this experience is an indicator of who I am and not who the other is.

I commit myself to investigate and further open up this point of what makes me “likable” and to show myself my company is in fact enjoyable by allowing myself to be in my presence – not by repeating mantras that separate me from myself by not addressing what is here and instead focusing on “what I should be”.