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?

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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 309: Using “time” as an excuse not to face things

05092013

Continuing with a realization from yesterday.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use “not having time” as an excuse not to face things I have a resentment towards.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that “not having time” is the real reason I “cannot” do the things I resent.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be dishonest with myself about the resentment I feel and believe it to be justified to escape the things I resent because I “don't have time”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I am asked to do something I resent, to react to my resentment by saying “I don't have time”, refusing to have anything to do with it, expecting people to believe my excuse and to leave me alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent a request to arrange a meeting to a group because I assume this group to not have any substance in their meetings – which I do not actually know as I have never been present – using “not having time” as an excuse with which to escape the situation and avoid voicing my disagreement about the group.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use “not having time” as an excuse to escape a situation I fear will turn into conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent a request to meet a person because I assume this person to want to see me out of addiction/dependency, thus using “not having time” as an excuse to escape having to communicate my doubts about this person's behavior to the person directly.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use “not having time” as an excuse not to communicate in self-honesty because I fear it will lead to conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent a request to arrange an event when at a meeting because I did not expect to be handed tasks and responsibilities when I went to the meeting – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to agree to be in the organizing committee even though I knew I cannot take any more tasks or responsibilities due to my studies, as I did not want to tell the group directly that there's something more important to me at the moment and rather came up with a “back gate”, a plan B where I can later tell them indirectly that I can no longer participate because “I don't have time”.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that “not having time” is a valid reason to drop out of projects mid-way and trust that others will thus not hold a grudge against me – that I will through this avoid conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent attending any events organized by a group because I perceive the events to be based on escapism and entertainment, thus feeling relieved when I have a solid excuse not to participate (“I don't have time” because of studying) because with this excuse I can avoid voicing my point of view which I fear will trigger conflict.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to wait around for an excuse which will “save me” from doing things I don't want to do as I have not wanted to communicate directly and face the conflict that it might possibly arouse.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility to direct myself and my life by living in a compromise until something/someone comes up to “save me”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resentment towards chatting online with a person who is asking for my help because I have felt like chatting with him is wearing me out, as if I was carrying the mantle of “authority” or an “educator” during our discussions and thus draining myself by upholding a “higher” position, therefore reacting to his attempts to contact me by thinking “not again”, “I don't have time for this” and sometimes ignoring his attempts.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make these discussions tiring for myself by not wanting to explain myself many times (refining and simplifying my words time after time so that the other would understand) as I have believed and perceived that my effort is in vain as our discussions “lead nowhere” and that the other is “not getting it”, not realizing that I do not see the actual process he is going through and thus cannot really make an assessment of whether he is “getting it” or not – and that through this process of explaining, refining and simplifying – which requires great effort from me – I am actually learning A LOT precisely because it is painful, uncomfortable and requires me to push over and over again.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent discussing with this person because it requires me to step out of my comfort zone and to justify avoiding this person by thinking “I don't have time”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use “not having time” as an excuse to avoid facing conflict and stepping out of my comfort zone.

When and as I see myself using the phrase “I don't have time for X” I stop, I breathe and I ask myself if this is really true – if in fact my schedule is full - or if I am just saying this to avoid doing something. I ask myself: why do I not want to do X? I investigate the point (in writing if necessary) and I release it with self-forgiveness and breathing. I then proceed within and as the realization that only by stepping out of my comfort zone and going towards that which I resent I expand myself and my reality.

I commit myself to investigate my fear of conflict and how it links to practical application (or the lack of it).

As I see, realize and understand that time alone is not a real reason to do or not to do things – because schedules can always be rearranged as they are not “set in stone” but created in our conceptual realities – I commit myself to no longer use and present “not having time” as a reason for doing/not doing things but to seek for the real reason why I will/won't rearrange my schedule for something/someone and to communicate this actual reason to the ones involved.

To support the commitment above, I commit myself to communicate my actual reason for “not having time” even when/as/if I am not specifically asked for a reason, as I see, realize and understand that people have a tendency to assume a reason and to believe their assumption in complete silence – which, if not actively corrected right away, may have consequences in the long run. In other words: I commit myself to not accept and allow myself to use this “silent agreement” to avoid communicating the things I fear voicing.

Days 307-308: Stolen time

03-04092013

I'm totally stealing ALL your precious moments! ... oh, but this is just a clock.

Recently my schedule has filled up explosively due to university, work, social life, organizations and recreational activities, and I am getting increasingly anxious. I see myself thinking of others as “time thieves” when they seek for my attention/time/effort and I easily get frustrated with others because I'm thinking “I don't have time for this!”, yet I don't actually do anything about it – I never address the fact that I am busy but rather try to participate in everything out of obligation. I end up not finishing my tasks because after all the struggling with the “time thieves” I am too exhausted to properly utilize the time that remains of my day and rather just indulge in entertainment to “recharge”.

But in reality the schedule seems much worse than it actually is, and a lot of the things I have taken into my life are flexible and even removable if that's what's required. When I take one day at a time, one activity at a time, one moment at a time I see that I actually have time quite plentifully, especially because of the flexibility of things. So this is about my perspective as well as feeling obligated to participate. I am intimidated by my calendar stretching to weeks and months ahead when I should be focusing on the NOW.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at my schedule and perceive it to be “full”, flipping through the pages of my calendar and getting intimidated by the amount of work I have to get done in a short span of time – not realizing that in between this moment and (for example) the moment I get my last exam of this year done are countless of inhales and exhales, countless of moments of breath when I can little by little through consistency work my way towards getting my workload done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my workload seem bigger than it is by thinking about how little I get done each day, not realizing that that little in time accumulates up to big results.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with frustration to people I perceive to be “demanding” for my time, effort and attention, blaming them for “stealing my time”, not realizing that I am the one who chooses how to “spend” my time – not them – and that it is thus my responsibility to make sure that I have enough time to complete my tasks.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not refuse a person requesting for my time because I have not wanted to insult them – I have wanted to avoid conflict – I have not wanted to tell another that I perceive them to not be “worthy” of my time at the moment – that I have something “more important” to do; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to please and to help others because if I wouldn't they might react, feel bad and blame their reaction on me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to neglect my tasks and responsibilities because I have feared being self-honest with others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I spend my time on others out of obligation I am living within the experience “I don't want to be here” - and when I'm still there even though I don't want to I create friction and strain within myself as I am “pulled” to another direction that I am walking in, thus making myself more exhausted than I would be after simply being there and moving myself within and as breath – thus requiring a “recharge” by pumping myself with energy through entertainment (media, food, people, excess sleep) to be able to function again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will “run out of time” - that my life will not be enough for all the things I want to / should get done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that time can be “stolen” - that time is a resource I have stacked in a vault somewhere – not realizing that time is a measurement for the movement of matter, not matter itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that time is something that I “have” or “possess” - “I don't have time for this”, “I'm wasting my time”, “my time is precious” - not realizing that I do not “have” time because as movement and Life I am time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that time is the relationship between that which exists and how it moves – and that time itself doesn't really exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I think “I don't have time for X” what I mean by it is that I don't want to move to the direction of X – I don't want to rearrange my life in such a way that would allow me to move to X.

(For example, I could say “I don't have time to cook”, when in fact it is just about me not wanting to rearrange my other activities so that I could cook, usually because it feels like too much of a burden.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that eventually I will run out of time – when I die – and that it is the inevitability of the loss of all time that scares me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my “time” (life) will run out before I've completed everything that I want/need/desire to do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that Life is not about gathering up experiences into a “perfect life story” which I could after this Life look back on to feel successful and good about myself – I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that Life is not about how much I live but about how I live.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “successfulness” of my life is not measured in stories I gather into my mind but in each and every breath because the stories do not exist in the NOW - only breath does.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “success” of my studying is not measured in how fast I get my degree but in how effectively I learn.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel that in my life I am in a hurry, as if I was running somewhere, wanting to already be 5 years from here when I'd have my degree and could “get on” with my life – not realizing that the 5 years ahead of me are crucial concerning my future and that I should not try to “fast forward” them, but instead slow down and live each and every moment of these years within and as breath.

--

I also did some private SF on a specific "time thief", and while doing it I realized that most of these cases are actually not about time at all, but about a resentment I feel towards the "time thief", be it a person, activity or an organization. In this particular case the resentment was about a person with whom I can't seem to be able to bring any substance into our interaction. So here the issue was apparently about time - "wasting my time" on something that bears no fruit - but underneath that it was actually about me wanting to escape a person in the presence of whom I felt like I couldn't direct myself, which I then covered up by thinking "I don't have time". I think I need to open this point up a little more later.

--

I commit myself to slow myself down in breath to focus on one task at a time within and as the realization that if my focus is on the things I have to get done in the future I will half-ass what I'm doing NOW.

I commit myself to assist and support myself to get my tasks done properly by making myself a realistic schedule which also allows me space to rest.

I commit myself to focus primarily on my studies and the activities that directly support my studies, and only focus on other things when/as/if there is time left for other things.

When and as I get frustrated with something/someone that I perceive to be “stealing my time” - I stop and I breathe. I realize that I am blaming my own experience of anxiety on the other and abdicating my responsibility for managing my own life. I realize I am driven by the fear of “running out of time” (death) and the fear of failure, which have nothing to do with the “time thief”. I release the blame with self-forgiveness and breathing, and I do the same with my anxiety and fears by grounding myself in breath and reminding myself I am HERE. I check myself for any resentment towards the “time thief” which I might be justifying with “not having time”. I ask myself why I resent spending time on the “time thief” keeping in mind that time is most likely not the actual issue. I direct myself within and as the realization that I will learn the most where I feel uncomfortable.