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.

Days 210-211: Misunderstandings

20-21042013

As I have now been studying for my entrance exams I have been thinking about different studying techniques, and today I came across I memory from my teen years. When I was in junior high school (age 12-15) I had a friend who did very well in school. She once shared with us some of her methods for studying, which were i.e. reading the most relevant information right before going to bed so that it would have time to “brew” at the “back of her head”; and also keeping her school books next to her bed so that if she happened to wake up in the middle of the night she could read something from the book and then go back to sleep. I remember myself being overwhelmed by this as I could not conceive why anyone would want to study so much – my motivation to study was not that high – and I thought she was “odd” and “crazy” to study at times which I considered to be reserved for resting and when I would rather just read comics or prose. I remember myself and some other girls in the same group voicing this opinion of her being “odd” for doing such things – I did not mean ay harm by it, but was simply expressing my bewilderment.

So I realized how she might have actually interpreted this expression wrong. I realized that as I called her “odd” and “crazy” she might have taken this as a malicious act and experienced herself to have been teased, bullied and/or belittled by me/us. I then realized that some of my experiences of being bullied may have been similar misunderstandings, where I take the self-expression of another personally as it is not directly communicated that “I am now expressing my overwhelmedness”, lol, there are not many children who know how to do that.

As I was writing out the memory I also realized that I am not sure how my self-expression affected the expression and opinion of others. Within that group of friends my expression was quite powerful and unlimited – I had friends whom I could relax with and I was testing out different levels of dominance as my friends were somewhat submissive themselves. So when I expressed my overwhelmedness I remember the group being supportive of what I said – that she was “odd” and “crazy” - but I just now realized that I may have overridden people who were easy to influence with my opinions, causing them to agree with me as I was in an authoritative position because of my dominant expression. Which means that I just now realized what my responsibility was within that situation. This dominance that the group accepted and allowed me to uphold and execute was one of the things that led to the group breaking up later on, as the others started to resent my self-expression and later on excluded me from the group.

So what I'm seeing here is that a lot of my experiences with bullying may have been similar incidents where spite was suppressed and accumulated as I took things personally when they were not meant as such, and that I myself may have caused many similar situations as I have not realized my responsibility to be clear on my communication. This may be occurring even now as I'm becoming more honest and straightforward in my words yet not taking into consideration that my responsibility is to communicate myself as clearly as possible to avoid misunderstandings. Simply voicing my starting point – that I do not mean any harm but am instead communicating from this and this perspective – would be a great start.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take another's self-expression personally as I have misinterpreted their words, tone and gestures to be a direct judgement of who I am, not seeing that it may simply be their self-expression of their experience which I do not fully grasp i.e. because of faults in communication.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not take into consideration the effects my self-expression as words, tone and gestures has on others when unclearly communicated and to not realize my responsibility within interaction to do my best to be understood.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to tell another being that she is “odd” and “crazy” without specifying that this is my reaction to my world-view clashing with another's which seemed “alien” to me as I had not yet at the time realized and learned to express that this is the process that I went through within that moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility as a participant of interaction by assertively defining another being without specifying that this is by no means a valid assessment of her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse my position within the above-mentioned group of friends by testing out different ways to dominate, control and lead others, not realizing that I was taking advantage of people who expressed their insecurity through submission whereas I expressed my insecurity through dominance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility as an equal participant of interaction by not being clear on my communication by thinking “oh well, I guess they got my point” and letting the unclear moments slip by.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be sensitive about the reactions of others as indicators of possible misunderstandings where I could then correct my expression accordingly to do what I can to avoid possible conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify abdicating my responsibility to correct unclear communication with the belief that people understand each other even without everything being voiced, not realizing that I am using this belief to not voice things that I find uncomfortable communicating to others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have noticed another to react which may have indicated a misunderstanding, to react with fear and choose to “skip” clarifying my expression to another by thinking “oh well, I guess he/she got my point” so that I could avoid what I fear, which here is the possibility of conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself within my fear of conflict to ignore possible signs of misunderstandings (i.e. in the body language of others) so that I wouldn't have to solve the misunderstanding, because I fear that the process of solving a misunderstanding would lead to conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that attempting to solve a misunderstanding will probably lead to conflict and to thus fear solving misunderstandings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create this belief/perception that attempts to clear things out will become conflicts based on previous situations where I have tried to clear things out and have failed.

• Numerous memories arise concerning this:
  • In elementary school (age 9-10) when all my friends collectively decided to ignore me and no longer be friends with me I tried to solve the situation but no one would engage in discussion with me > I felt abandoned and powerless > my attempt proved futile because no one would respond.
  • When I was around 19 a friend of mine accused me of “idolizing my sister”, which was a perception she appeared to base on who I had been as a child but was no more. I told her this was no longer true and she would not believe me, and I felt that I was unfairly judged > my attempt to solve a misunderstanding proved futile because another would not listen to my words over her belief > I felt judged and misunderstood.
  • Around the age 20 I tried to speak to a group of friends about a communication issue I had noticed within the group. I sent everyone a message where I directly addressed the issue (people talking shit behind each other's backs and not communicating directly to each other) and nobody replied. I was later on excluded from the group and from this I concluded that the habit of talking shit about people behind their backs continued in my case as well. > I realize that in this case I was reactive within the message I sent as I was frustrated and wanted someone to interact with me instead of “fading away” as they always did > I felt like the interaction was a failure because I got no response.

In all of the above-mentioned memories the common nominator for “failure” is [the lack of response], which I now see, realize and understand to not be something I can influence, as each and every person makes their own choices and I cannot make another person engage in a conversation to clear things up if they do not want to. I see that I have felt myself judged in these situations through “silent rejection” and thus started to fear situations like this. I have thus connected [attempting to solve a situation] to [rejection] which I have blamed on myself through feeling judged, which is in fact self-judgement through the eyes of others. I have not seen, realized and understood that the lack of response from others is “out of my hands” - I have done all I could, and if others haven't joined in it is their responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame it on myself when another person does not respond to my attempt to communicate.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel unfairly judged when another person chooses to believe their perception of me instead of seeing who I actually am, clinging onto the feeling of unfairness because I have assigned the perception of others the power to define me and thus feel conflicted because I do not want to be defined like I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that if another chooses to believe their perception of something over the actual reality it is their loss and not a choice I can make for them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I was not listened to within a conversation, to get frustrated with the other person(s), thinking “why are you such idiots?”, “why won't you listen?”, “hello, I'm right here!”, “what's wrong with you?”, “come ON, just speak to me!” - as I have not seen, realized and understood that the choices of others are theirs to make and that I cannot make another reply, becoming frustrated as I have taken this failure in communication personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to the lack of response from others, assuming others to judge me and talk shit about me behind my back if they do not respond, thus trying even harder to get them to respond as an attempt to stop the judgement and bad-mouthing, and getting frustrated when I fail as I see my attempts to stop the habits of others to not be working.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get desperate when others have ignored my attempt to face them in honesty as I have feared the judgement they appear likely to pass on me as I have taken the risk to speak straightforwardly about what's actually going on.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of it as a “risk” to address what's actually going on because I have seen how few ever seize that opportunity and how many choose to ignore it and what the consequences are to me (judgement, loss).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when others choose to ignore a window of opportunity.

Alright, bringing this back to the original topic.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear solving misunderstandings in conversation and other communication because I have feared that the response will be rejection or “silent rejection” through shown or covered judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear another's decline to solve a misunderstanding because I fear their perception, opinion and evaluation of me and that the decline indicates that I am seen as “less” than I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give value to another's perception/opinion of me because others have been my only source of acceptance for all of my life so far.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself through the eyes of others by believing the perception/opinion others appear to have of me, not standing within and as myself in self-certainty here in the physical where there is no doubt of who I am but only looking at reflections of myself within the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when another ignores the opportunity to solve a misunderstanding and feel disappointed, and based on this create a resistance to even try to solve misunderstandings because I fear the reaction of the other will be negative.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it upon myself when an attempt to solve a misunderstanding fails, not realizing that within interaction there are multiple participants and that each participant carries an equal responsibility over the interaction – not just me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that it is my responsibility to try and solve a misunderstanding when and as I see the possibility that there is a misunderstanding, because I as the one who notices am responsible, and that my best attempt to solve a misunderstanding is to carry my responsibility no matter how the other responds.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that if another will not try to solve the misunderstanding with me but instead ignores, belittles or judges the opportunity, this is their choice which I cannot make for them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that it is important to walk through these situations where “nothing appears to change” because they might have an effect on the other's process in ways invisible to me, and also because within them I practice assertiveness, self-honest communication and self-leadership.

I commit myself to do my best within communication to be understood as I see, realize and understand this to be the purpose of all communication, and I commit myself to do this by:

• being clear/self-honest on what I mean with the words I use
• being sensitive to others to see if there is understanding
• when noticing a possible misunderstanding, addressing it and clarifying myself when/if necessary

I commit myself to not let misunderstandings slip by by facing my fear, realizing it is not valid and pushing through by opening my mouth and speaking even if unplanned.

When and as I notice a misunderstanding and think “oh well, maybe they got my point” - I stop, I breathe and I realize I am using this belief that people understand each other without direct communication as a justification to avoid the possible conflict that may come from attempting to solve a misunderstanding. I realize this belief to be bollocks. I realize that if others were to react negatively to my attempt to directly address what's going on, it would be nothing personal towards me but others choosing to ignore a window of opportunity. I then proceed to solve the misunderstanding according to the situation – mainly by asking if there was a misunderstanding or not and clarifying myself when necessary.

I commit myself to keep myself grounded within my physical in self-certainty when communicating with others by stabilizing myself in slow and steady breath, sensing my entire body from head to toe and being aware of my centre of gravity – thus living as a physical expression of self-acceptance.