"Self-X" Exploration - Day 177

Something occurred to me today and I am not totally sure what to make of it... I need to "flesh it out" more to understand it or see if it even really makes any sense. But here I will just introduce it, "it" being a re-conceptualization of terminology I've frequently used here.

It occurred to me that in all of my difficulty over "self-trust" and "self-support" and "self-responsibility" and all of this self-stuff, these are all avenues sort of to move myself toward and down in the midst of mind-possession and instability, like directions to go toward as I struggle in my mind-possessed state -- avenues, perhaps, toward myself. But these are also "avenues" thus away from myself and who I am as counterparts such as "self-abuse," "self-sabotage", and "self-doubt." However, these things (self-trust, self-support, self-responsibility, etc.) no longer really exist separate from me in a state of stability -- at least, it seems this way from my very limited experience of feeling (or believing I am) stable, where I exist as support and as trust and as responsibility and there is no need to change my behavior except in practical consideration of that which occurs in physical reality. Trusting myself or supporting myself is not something I can do if I am stable and in the physical, because it simply is me here now. It is who I am: complete, whole, one with and equal to all as life.

This occurred to me while reading Practical Desteni Patience and Time Part 2, specifically this passage:

I in fact disempower and so limit myself in relation to time within this Physical Reality through my Mind/Consciousness reaction of Patience/Impatience – which means, Time-itself has power over me, Patience/Impatience has power over me – because Time, Patience and Impatience changes who I am in a moment of interaction within/as physical reality.

Well, who am I? Who am I before I am changed by those and other relationships? Who am I when I am stable, before I become unstable? I am just doing what needs to be done, continually moving alongside time, continually in the physical, not even regarding those relationships / the energies I create in those relationships. So the moment that I even begin to identify those relationships as separate from me is a moment that I can know I am unstable -- and at this point, not to DO support or DO trust or DO responsibility or even DO forgiveness unto myself, but instead to breathe and come back to the physical and thus embody these as me, one with and equal to me, where what I am equal to is what I am, thus: one.

What even is self-support or self-trust when and as I am existing through and as my mind, lost within the maze? Just about every time I have looked at these, I have been one with and equal to their counterparts: self-sabotage, self-abuse, self-doubt, etc.

I mean I have conceived of "self-trust" and "self-support" and "self-responsibility," etc., as me trusting myself or me supporting myself or me being responsible for myself where there is me-the-actor and me-the-receiver -- separation, where it becomes self-relationship-to-support, self-relationship-to-trust, self-relationship-to-responsibility. What about Self AS Trust and Self AS Support?

Some interesting things therefore to look at:
Self as trust
Self as support
Self as honesty
Self as responsibility
Self as forgiveness
Self as awareness
Self as directive principle
Self as acceptance

Also:
Self as sabotage
Self as deception
Self as abuse
Self as doubt
Self as judgment
Self as victimization


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to conceive of "self-x" as an action or process that I do unto myself by and in which I separate myself from myself as actor and myself as receiver.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see that if I am seeking to, for example, support myself, this means I am not self-support, self-as-support, and instead in this instance I might be, for example, self-abuse, self-as-abuse (so here I must become self-as-forgiveness and self-as-commitment and self-as-change: a process of self-as-support).

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand that nothingness comes in the physical where there is no need and no separation, only me, here, now, and that as long as I grasp and scramble for "self-support" within and as my mind, I will only find my relationship to support, which includes my beliefs and judgments and doubts about my (in)ability to support myself, and not real support as me in the physical as my breath.

I realize my relationship to anything is exactly the same as my relationship to me and who I am as that anything.

I commit myself to consider and investigate this point further to understand it and to see how changing my relationship to "self-x" can change who I am, as I shift my conception from "doing x unto me" to "myself as x" so as to embody myself and embody these qualities or states of being as me as who I am in stability in the physical as life.

Stability in Effective Communication - Day 176

My current theory that I am working with is the importance of being stable in order to be effective in communication, and also of basically "meeting someone where they're at" in order to assist and support them through and out of their reaction / experience and understanding that their experience is the extent of their perspective / their sense of "reality".

Here is a really cool post by Emmi about effective communication / sharing perspectives / support: http://thespianjourney.blogspot.com/2013/10/days-334-335-giving-feedback-to-friend.html

This comes up a lot for me at work, as I have written about some in recent posts. It also comes up sometimes with the students, who sometimes might lie or stretch the truth about their experience either at home, in their childhood, or in the classroom as to why they have been sent out for some kind of discipline / intervention.

What I am learning here, and got some confirmation in terms of my approach from one of the therapists, is that it really doesn't matter if they're lying or stretching the truth. What a person communicates as their experience is apparently what they want to work with. So if a kid for example is lying about their behavior in the classroom and says that the teacher sent them out for "no reason" (example: the student was whistling while other students were also talking, and the teacher sent that student out without any warnings), we can still approach the situation thus from understanding the shared perspective of the student and implement solutions based on their perspective (even if, when asking the teacher, we find out the student cussed at the teacher when asked to stop whistling and may have also been play-fighting with a peer) (example: explain to student that during class time no one really should be talking or whistling or singing; just because other students were doing this does not make it okay, and although it is unfortunate that this student was chosen to be sent outside, other students engaging in similar behavior does not make it okay -- you are responsible for yourself).

I had another student the other day that I talked to for about an hour who told me she had been to a juvenile detention center and had friends and family there, and so she did not care if she went back, and therefore she did not care about the consequences for if she were to follow through on her desire to break a specific staff member's nose.

I found out later that according to those with access to her record, as far as they know, she has never been to juvie.

But, the next time I talk to her, if she mentions it, I'm not going to tell her that I know she's never been and call her out on her lie. What does it matter? The motivation, most likely, behind her lying and saying she doesn't care about the consequences is probably as a way to seek out power and control over a situation by purporting that she can do whatever she wants and she doesn't care about the consequences, and also put up a wall to keep others out from even trying to help her calm down or deal with her anger in a productive way. A lot of these kids have very little when they go home, and very little support in their families, so what they do have is their words and their actions and through that, in this culture, they believe they gain the most power by acting tough, getting into fights, or making threats, also basically bragging about how much trouble they've gotten into.

So it doesn't really matter whether or not she's ever been to juvie. It's irrelevant. What's relevant is that I want her to stay in school and I want her to make choices that will support her now and in her future, and I want to encourage her to want the same things for herself (actually, what's really relevant shouldn't start with so many statements about what I want, but you get the picture). I want her to learn new skills for dealing with anger, not just justify her desire for violence with her apathy about incarceration and give up on her because she purports to not care about consequences. I can share with her my own experiences with anger, which I did, and which was cool because in sharing that I am once again given the opportunity to learn more about myself, and I can help her find ways to empower herself rather than giving herself over to her anger / memories of living in fear which "required" violence to survive.

Then this concept is also relevant even when someone is not lying or stretching the truth. A person's experience is their experience. It's where they're at. I recently had a very difficult time with this because I was having some very extreme energetic experiences (I still do sometimes), and the person who was trying to interact with me did not understand this and did not, basically, respect where I'm at, which is not the same as where they're at. Because of this, our interaction and communication was ineffective. For me, I completely lacked tact, because I was completely and utterly consumed by my anger and reactive energy, so that my anger was louder than my words and, I presume, made it difficult for the other person to hear me honestly. For the other person, I believe that the ineffectiveness came from not being able to understand me or empathize or even sympathize with my experience of myself, nor was this person apparently able to even accept or understand / trust the words I explicitly expressed. That is my perspective of what happened, anyway -- my experience that I have to work with.

I could have slowed down and taken the time to express myself effectively by letting go of the reactive energy and just communicating my experience without the anger. And I actually feel that I did that a number of times, but, then, I was still in at least some energy, so perhaps I was not as effective as I thought. What I felt I came up against however was a person who refused to understand me no matter how many times I explained myself (which, because of the energy I was creating, was very exhausting), whether due to incompetence or negligence or simply not being in a position to properly understand me (so, their experience / where they're at / what they understand -- seems likely*). I did try many times however, perhaps not always effectively (I mean, obviously: there was no productive effect) and what I found was that I was abandoning myself in my reaction to the process of trying to be understood by someone who might never understand, and who really doesn't need to understand, at least not as much as I need to take responsibility for myself and my reactions (which is to say, I should have taken responsibility for my reactions by directing and releasing them before trying to communicate / make myself understood because this is clearly best for all -- best for me in terms of taking care of and responsibility for myself and best for the other in terms of me being ready and stable to communicate effectively / not just barrage them with my anger).

*(And what I just noticed here is again this kind of "double-standard" almost where my experience was considered and treated as invalid because it was emotion-based, but their experience was considered valid because it was a "subtle" thing they "had not yet realized"... I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become frustrated by this and also enter a state of like "superiority" in noticing this because it makes me feel as if I am "right." I realize "right" and "wrong" does not matter -- only realizing and then changing self in self-responsibility to live as what is best for all. I do however consider this as a way of giving myself the gift of validation for my own experience and the decision that I made to support myself in my experience, whereby I can trust myself instead of doubting myself, where here I am aware of my experience and so must direct it as I see best in self honest self support as what is best for all, rather than accepting and allowing myself to use this realization as justification for my anger / perpetuating my experience even after seeing it or expecting another person to take responsibility for my experience / trying to take responsibility for another's experience.)

This is a long-standing pattern for me in a way, of really disliking the idea of being misunderstood and so getting stuck on that point and trying to make myself understood even to people who don't want to understand me. In this case I felt that I needed to be understood in part so that I could communicate a boundary and hopefully have it respected (fear-driven). But I just couldn't keep on engaging in the conversations / arguments, because they were so ineffective in terms of having the other person understand me and in terms of self-support, and within them I was really not understanding myself and understanding that I really needed me to show up for myself and take care of myself because I was creating so much energy that I was not directing and that I was allowing to consume me and make me sick.

So I wish that this other person was better at this skill of understanding another person's experience as being the extent of their perspective / what they have to "work with" (and it must be worked with, not just set aside as "not real"). But this is a skill I am still learning, so I support myself now to investigate it and live it. My experience may be created through and as my mind but that doesn't make it NOT my present experience / understanding of reality, if I have not yet figured out how to release myself from that experience -- it is the prison in which I am living and I haven't yet realized I am holding the key or how to unlock myself. So for another person to claim that they want to support me from a place of stability as what is best for all, and then to not even respect what I am communicating about myself and my experience... well this is very confusing, and makes me think that this person's experience / understanding is also influencing their perspective in such a way that we will not come to a common understanding as long as we are both clinging to our respective experiences -- as such I took responsibility to take the experience that was mine and work with it for and by myself. And I realized that my energy was just too extreme for me to contain and direct while continually engaging in these kinds of interactions where I felt misunderstood alongside a great many other conflict-related and memory-related points I was facing in these interactions, also coinciding with difficult points in other areas of my life. So, I was not able to further refine my communication so as to make it (more) effective, and I could no longer produce the patience needed to be understood, because through focusing on this from the starting-point of wanting to be understood by someone else, I was not really taking care of or taking responsibility for myself.

Did I really fully understand the other? I don't know. I was not really in a position to. The idea was that I was the one who was "hurt." I guess that is a victim character of believing that I have no or less responsibility in a solution interaction if I am the one who is hurt; that it is more up to the "perpetrator" to listen to me and do what I need in order for me to begin to heal. I mean it really doesn't seem "fair," does it, this whole phenomenon of the oppressed having to carry the burdens placed on them by their oppressors, and then also having then to educate those oppressors about those burdens, only to have more burdens placed on them as the oppressors doubt, question, or otherwise do not embrace or respect the oppressed's experience as "true" inasmuch as it is the experience they are having, let alone the experience placed upon them via the oppressor's actions (or inactions). And that phenomenon is precisely one of the many ways that these interactions were just allowing me to re-enact my relationship with my dad.

But, that's the way it tends to go, as long as we accept and allow ourselves to be internally influenced and directed by the reactions we have to external factors. I could be a legitimate "victim" of some real heinous travesties and yet maintain stability if this was a skill I had mastered, but I have not yet mastered self direction, self trust, and stability, and so I gave myself over to the victim character in this and many other situations.

And so I learn now to not stay in "harmful situations" for too long, and I learn to only ultimately trust myself (so not to distrust others, but also not to miss-trust (trust by mistake) others), and I learn to clear myself of my reactions when and as I hear another person say something that doesn't seem self honest / trustworthy, or when my reaction is not trustworthy / whenever I see myself becoming unstable and shifting away from my own self-honest perspective -- a skill I hadn't yet acquired for many of these old interactions that I still carry around to inform and justify my anger (so now to forgive myself as these memories as they surface in anger). And I also learn to not engage in communication unless or until I can be effective, which means having a stable starting point.

I also learn the futility of coming up with and trying to point out what the other person should have done differently. I can only take responsibility for myself. Pointing this out only serves to justify anger and project blame / responsibility onto another, as if their actions determine mine.

One thing that I do realize I need to work on and expand within myself is the point of direct communication, which is something this person seemed to be kind of pointing out to me (from their perspective, did they communicate it to me as effectively as I thought I was communicating to them? hmmm haha). When you're paranoid and anxious and in a self-belief of inferiority, it can be difficult to direct oneself to communicate directly. You just kind of hope someone sees your pain or understands your need or can read your mind... you don't believe or trust that you're right, so why would you directly say what you're thinking, especially when living in fear that whatever you share/express of yourself will be rejected or even insulted? Or when what you think is directly contradicted by three other things you also think? That has been my internal experience when I am paranoid, anxious, and trusting others more than myself, anyway. But direct communication is obviously a huge part of effective communication and so obviously this is imperative to consider, and so I am glad that it came up in the communication we did have.

I also definitely should have seen and realized that I was in no position to be trying to communicate while I was so much in reaction. But I was pretty lost, and despite the advice given to me to wait until I was stable, I had to learn for myself. I also didn't really see myself coming out of reaction unless I got some "answers" or some communication / mutual understanding. What I found however was not mutual understanding, and so in my state of reaction, I just reacted more. I was not stable. So therein lies my responsibility, which is total, because without my insistence and sense of urgency in communicating even while in reaction, none of this would have come to pass, and my reactions would not have compiled and accumulated to an unmanageable degree.

But if you are going to try to support someone, you should be stable, no? I mean that is the first question we are trained to ask ourselves when facing a crisis with a student: "How am I feeling right now?" I mean if you are seeing that another person is highly reactive and you are thinking that you might be a good candidate to show up and assist and support them through and out of that reaction, then you should be stable, and not in reaction yourself. And I think if you're stable, and if you understand effective communication, then you'll understand that it is most effective to meet a person "where they're at." I mean you wouldn't help someone out of a maze by simply standing outside of it and telling them what the exterior looks like, would you?

So go into the maze with them. Keep the rope of your breath and self-honesty tied to you as you enter, but meet them where they are and lead them out. This is the approach I take with my students, this is the approach I am learning to take with my coworkers, and it is now too the approach I am learning to take not only in friendships / all external interactions of support, but indeed even the approach that I am learning to take with myself, to ground and stabilize myself in the physical as I delve into the depths of my mind to assist and support myself out of my mind and into and as life.

Unconditional Responsibility - Day 175

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become extremely frustrated and angry when and as I see that another person does not seem to understand the impact of their behavior on me. I realize that the impact is mine and my own creation through and as my reactions and my instability. I realize I cannot make another person take responsibility for themselves, and I realize that I am the only person who can take responsibility for myself, and as such I cannot make another person take responsibility for me or my experience. - Day 174

This is why I set the boundary -- to take responsibility for myself within the realization that time and again I was projecting my own responsibility for my internal experiences of anger onto another person through the re-triggering within our interactions. I realized that I was not letting go of wanting this person to understand and wanting this person to take ownership in a specific way. I realized that my reactions were accumulating to the point of complete and utter instability within myself and so I had to give myself the time and space to deal with those reactions and to take responsibility for myself by not accepting or allowing myself even the opportunity to blame another person for my reactions just by their presence in person or communication.

I've not done this yet. But what I see is that despite minimal interaction, I still easily become very angry. So as much as I would like to pin this on the other person and everything that transpired between us (so, in that, me, too, culpable) in the past year, I realize that it is only me and my own energy I am creating within myself based on memories and that, when and as the anger arises, I do not direct it, but instead go into justification for it. (Thanks, Sally.)

There is a single point which remains in terms of me wanting control over this situation in a way that is not necessarily fair. Although I see it as something that would be "nice" and "considerate" and maybe even "effective" for this person to do, I cannot control this person, and ultimately they can do whatever they want. I cannot pin my reaction in this point on them just because they are not doing what I would prefer they do. I cannot continue to justify this anger, because this is literally making me sick (in and as my mind).

As much as I would like to be so fucking pissed off and feel justified in that, I realize it is not how I would like to be treated, and so I will not treat myself that way. I realize too that I would not like for another person to be fucking pissed off at me just because I do not understand something. As much as I would like to believe that this person is maliciously trying to hurt me and send me into reaction by refusing to respect this one simple boundary, I do not know that this is the case, and they claim that they are not "trying" to be disrespectful. I realize that no matter what happens, malicious or not, my reaction is mine and it is something I do unto myself more than any other. So I realize that I am giving myself a great sickness by accepting and allowing the reaction and anger and that as much as I might believe that my reaction somehow impacts the other person, I see, realize, and understand, that this is just an attempt on my part for power or control because: I feel as if their behavior impacts me (and so believe that my behavior can impact them), which it does not in-fact, it is instead my reaction that I accept and allow which creates this experience / "impact." So here I am only sabotaging myself and holding myself hostage in misery and dis-ease in an attempt to sabotage another and "make" another person feel the way that I do, or to feel the way that I think they have "made" me feel.

I mean it's difficult to let go of this if I think it actually works.

But it does not.


I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to destabilize even after setting my boundary such that I really lost sight of even why I set the boundary and what my expectation / commitment to myself was in setting that boundary.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continue to enter into anger within a projection of blame for that experience being the responsibility of another as either creator or trigger.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continue on in anger and to accept and allow anger when and as it comes up and to accept and allow the thoughts and back chat that accompany anger which only serve the function of justifying the anger and fueling the anger, the sickness, the disease.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to poison myself within the belief that this will somehow harm the other person or teach them a lesson or something nonsensical like that.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sacrifice myself, my integrity, my responsibility, my safety, my sanity, my stability, to serve as a slave to the false presumption that my internal experience somehow garners power or control for me, rather than over me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give myself over to anger time and again and for accepting and allowing myself to grasp at nothing to try and resolve my anger rather than seeing, realizing, and understanding that my anger is my own creation and that I am the one who is accepting and allowing it within and as me, so no other intervention will work except the one where I take responsibility for myself as self directive principle of myself, my experience, and my life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to donate and devote my experience of myself to this anger as my god and idol and savior and protector as if anger is somehow on my side.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to side with anger by which I have separated myself from life.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to lose sight of my responsibility to take responsibility for myself as the only person who can do this and as the only thing that I can do. I realize however that it is all a part of the process, of my process, and that now I can move forward from here in self-responsibility, also now with increased self-trust so that:

When and as I fall again into anger and blame and judgment and resentment, I stop, and I breathe. I realize I can only take responsibility for myself -- no other can do this for me and I can do this for no other. It is the extent of my ability and it is an ongoing process, so I better get back to it, because sooner or later I will either be at it again, or I will be again diminishing myself as and separating myself from life. I realize I cannot survive in survival mode of my reactions. I realize freedom comes through responsibility for myself. So I commit myself to, when and as I see myself entering again into anger, stop, breathe, and take responsibility for myself in that moment of anger, as well as in that moment of the memory or interaction which triggered the anger, myself as my own hand holding the gun.

I commit myself to the process of unconditional self-responsibility as this is inevitable as the alternative to death and re-realizing this as many times as I need to until it is me in stability and actual-ized and real-ized in reality as my lived expression.

Guiding Principles as Stability Points - Day 174

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take the way that I see others treating me and interpret this as what I am worth and so in turn I also treat myself this way (or 10x worse) and also expect others to treat me this way (or 10x worse).

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to selectively choose what interactions I will use as evidence of what I am worth so that I end up only choosing all the negative interactions that I have with other people wherein I am able to interpret that another person has "hurt me" and so within this I can blame them and I can abdicate my responsibility over myself and also abdicate my own ability to define myself and determine my own self worth.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to be worth the same as / equal to all other selves as one and equal as life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that others are worth more than me and that especially those who treat me poorly are worth the most and have the most power over me and the most power to determine who I am.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that any other person has power over me or who I am or how I express myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself extensively within these beliefs and patterns of allowing the way that others treat me or the way that others behave to dictate for me who I am or who I can or cannot be.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to accept and allow negative interactions to influence me and tell me about myself as if the way that another person treats me, when they treat me poorly, is indicative of what I am worth, but if and when another person treats me well or as an equal, I dismiss this as probably wrong, probably a fluke, or maybe even a sick joke.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself by the ways that others mistreat me so that the very thing which triggers my own creation of anger and injustice becomes true because I become the person that deserves to be treated that way by my internalization and personalization of mistreatment and abuse through a lack of understanding as to why anyone would treat me that way -- thus personalizing their mistreatment as indicative of who I am rather than indicative of who they are.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become extremely frustrated and angry when and as I see that another person does not seem to understand the impact of their behavior on me. I realize that the impact is mine and my own creation through and as my reactions and my instability. I realize I cannot make another person take responsibility for themselves, and I realize that I am the only person who can take responsibility for myself, and as such I cannot make another person take responsibility for me or my experience.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to internalize the mistreatment of other so that I in turn also mistreat others and become abusive of myself and others because I have some misconception that this is where "power" lies... precisely, it is lying to me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe and entrust myself to "power" and power dynamics that I experience through how I am treated in interactions with others so that I give my power over myself over to others for them to abuse as they wish and I accept and allow myself to be changed by these interactions, overpowered by these interactions and my interpretations and reactions to these interactions, instead of maintaining self directive principle of myself in stability.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to lose sight of the two basic principles of oneness and equality, whereby I can trust that I am "okay" and I am not "inferior," and treating others as you would like to be treated, whereby I can firstly treat myself as I would like to be treated, and secondly always be looking toward productive and constructive changes in this world by being the person who changes interactions into what is best for all.

When and as I feel as if I cannot trust myself, I stop, and I breathe. I realize I have principles by which to guide myself in oneness and equality and so can trust that I am not inferior, and treating others as I would like to be treated, and so can honestly consider my actions and behavior within and without. I commit myself to guiding myself by these principles in all moments, and especially to come back to these principles when I feel lost or like I cannot trust myself. I commit myself to use these principles as cross referential points to see myself and how my behavior within and without is or is not aligned with these principles and then to adjust myself accordingly through self forgiveness and further self commitments.

Self-Judgment and Self-Support - Day 173

This post ended up being the opposite of specific, but that is okay... I did use my new little notebook today and that was very cool. It fits right in my pocket so it's perfect.

Mainly what I started writing within was the realization that I often lose sight of the "golden rule" in terms of treating others how I would like to be treated, and how this is sort of the most basic thing that must be understood and applied, and if this is really lived then not much else is all that relevant. But then I also realized how I utterly fail at treating myself the way I want to be treated... I mean if I can actually see how I would like to be treated, why don't I treat myself that way? Why do I take the absolute most self-abusive relationship with myself that I can possibly have? So that is what I was trying to write about when I began this post, but it became something much different, and that is okay, perhaps I will write more specifically on that point some other time. There is a lot in this post that could be written about more specifically at another time.

---

I'm coming to see recently that when and as I experience joy or laughter or a smile on my face, it's, like... surprising, or unexpected, or novel, and also sometimes judged as something I should not experience. For one thing this indicates to me how little I have allowed myself to enjoy myself and enjoy life lately, to see that these instances are note-worthy because of their scarcity. For another it suggests to me that I must have some underlying permeating belief about myself and what I deserve, and apparently I do not deserve to experience happiness or joy or enjoyment. I am not sure the root of this belief.

I also know that throughout my life I have experienced depression and often once I enter a depressed state it has been very difficult to emerge back out of it, so that I kind of get stuck in negativity, pessimism, and depression, also helplessness, hopelessness, and beliefs about my own incapability. So knowing that I have been very stressed and anxious lately, and also in moderate to severe pain most days with migraines, I can see how this might come into play.

I also know that I continue to judge myself for a decision that I made, believing that this decision indicates I am a bad person or I am a failure and also believing that other people are judging me for this decision even though I don't really have any evidence to support that other people are even aware of the specifics of the decision.

So I enter into a lot of self-doubt that prevents me from even really embracing the decision and moving forward in my new creation of myself and my experience, instead still stuck in the past and also stuck in the point of this decision, also stuck in anger, and still stuck in whatever may or may not happen on one of my two days off where I might be forced to encounter a trigger that I have not yet figured out how to handle the reactions within myself that are triggered by this person. So even though I made the decision to "release myself" from myself from the energy that I created in this situation, I am still living under that dark cloud of not knowing what is going to happen, if I am going to be triggered, and thus have not been able yet to move on. But, apparently it is asking too much to ask this person to give me space. So I have to figure it out on my own.

"Figure it out on my own" -- another thing that I struggle with repetitively, where I isolate myself in thinking that I am just supposed to figure things out on my own, figure myself out by myself, without any guidance whatsoever. Some of this is a lack of trust of others. Much of the problem with it however is a lack of trust in myself. Also the isolation breeds paranoia. I can practice self-trust, though, by seeking out perspectives and support from others, and then making my own decisions for myself based on my self-honest investigation of what is best, so that still I am my own self directive principle, but I am not completely alone and I am not isolating myself from walking beside other beings and interacting intimately with others by sharing myself. And that is something I practiced somewhat today, with some success I would say, where I took an opportunity to share myself in a vulnerable way.


It is frustrating to me to see who I am today, because it is not the person I once was; or at least not the person I lived as. It is frustrating to me to see how much of who I am I can link to experiences I have had only recently and especially with a specific person whereby in our interactions I was led to believe certain things because I allowed myself to use that person as the example they represented themselves to be. It's frustrating that I allowed myself to lose myself to these experiences and interactions with others / another, because I had things I embraced as true and self-honest and they were effective, and I abandoned them when I saw they did not fit with a person I trusted or a person who I wanted to have like me. It is also frustrating to see how time and again I have felt hurt by people that I trusted to not hurt me, and yet at the same time I have in the past known that it is pretty much impossible to never hurt another person, mistakes happen, we're all selfish, we cannot read each others' minds. And so why did I expect to not get hurt? Why do I continually trust others to not hurt me, and so abdicate my responsibility to protect myself? And why then am I so lost on what it really means to protect myself in self-responsibility, and instead turn to defenses and walls and barriers as protection instead? Turning now to isolation. A part of me feels like this was like the last brick in the ultimate wall of keeping others out.

But I see already quite clearly that if that is true, I most certainly do not like this little isolation room I have created, and I see that I created it, as much as I would like to blame all these other play-actors in my world, so to deconstruct it now instead.


In trying to live in the here and now, I have lost sight somewhat of the "big picture" in terms of longevity of a learning process. I have zeroed in on only my current present experience of myself (rather than the current present reality of the here and now), so that I have forgotten basically that this is not all there is, that the whole point of process is to grow from this and expand my understanding and my stability and my ability to direct myself in every moment. A coworker reminded me today, for example, to consider 5 years from now and what I would like to have learned at this job. I had lost sight of that kind of perspective, of realizing the impermanence of my present circumstances, and so being able to see the "light at the end of the tunnel," so to speak, in terms of the things I am presently facing and experiencing.

So from that perspective I actually have more control and more self directive ability because I can choose the direction that I want to be in, say, 5 years, rather than feeling like all I have is right now and then tumbling around in all the chaos of the circumstances of my life right now. Looking forward toward the solution of the present "problems" rather than just sitting in the problems that are here.

Now I cannot depend and rely on the future. It is not here and now. But somehow recently I have lost sight of this bigger timeline picture, where getting any project completed is a process which requires steps and sometimes it is important to have an idea of what future steps one wants to take or accomplish. Realizing that all I have is the here and now is useful in terms of enjoying the present moment and also finding ways to be as effective as possible. But it is not effective for me to become mired in my present circumstances without consideration of what I want to learn or where I'd like to come out "in the end."

I mean I've said before that I am the constant in all of my experiences, and so learning to support myself comes first in terms of what to face first. If my internal experience of myself is negative and detrimental to my ability to live effectively then this is going to be true across environments. So I have to look at myself first, at softening with myself and not being so hard on myself all the time. I have to look at how I can actually practically apply self support in a way that works.

And I have to really make this process mine, if I am going to walk it. I really have to reject and disregard all of my projections of judgment from others or what others want from me or how others think I should be directing myself.


Okay.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it is "bad" for me to believe in myself, have confidence in myself, see that I have done a good job, see that I have done something well, see that I am smart, see that I am capable, see that I possess other positive qualities which support me in navigating this world effectively as I utilize these qualities as my tools and assets for getting shit done and living effectively and enjoying life.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see and appreciate my own strengths.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see myself in a "positive" light because I have identified "positive" as one side of a polarity and I have identified polarities as "bad" rather than seeing, realizing, and understanding that what matters most is effective living as what is best for all, and my strengths can be utilized in a way to express through my living choices and applications that are best for all.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see getting support or validation from others as "bad" and as such taking this tool away from myself because I have seen it as mostly ineffective, but I have not yet replaced the tool by building enough trust and stability in myself for me to support and validate myself, so as a result I am left with nothing and no reason to believe that I am valid or worth anything because I am not allowing myself to hear this from others and I am not allowing myself to tell it to myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to only ever interact with myself in a negative way so that the most negative and abusive relationship I have is the one that I have with myself.

My mom recently tried to encourage me by saying that she admires how I lean into the painful aspects of my life (I don't really see it that way?) and that one day all of my hard work would pay off in a healthy relationship that I deserve.

But all that I really want is a healthy relationship with myself. How do I achieve that?

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to live each moment not in the "here and now" of whatever I am facing so that I am thinking about other stressful things in my life that I am not presently having to face in that moment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to live each moment to the exclusion however of other future moments in terms of progression through process and learning and expanding myself so that I can support myself in directing / guiding myself in a way that will result in success and effectively utilizing present challenges in a way that will support me to learn and grow by looking toward the future in terms of what I would like to learn and what I would like for my life to be like and thus how to effectively get there, also giving me the opportunity to realize that my life will not always be the way it is right now and so it will not always be so stressful and so I do not really actually have to be in "triage mode" where I am just trying to "survive," but I can actually stop, take some deep breaths, and then look at what it is here and now as an opportunity and challenge to learn and grow and change so that whatever I face "tomorrow" I will be prepared for rather than getting stuck here treading water.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to consider others in terms of my projections of how others might be judging me in relation to my process and how I am walking process and what decisions I have made. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continue to doubt my decision because I fear that it was the "wrong" decision because I do not give myself the gift of believing that I can trust myself and my own decisions. I realize that there really is no "wrong" or "right" decision, there is simply what is, and this is what is now, so to move forward within the circumstances I have created for myself in whatever way is most self supportive, which is most certainly not to continue to judge and doubt myself and also continue to think of myself and my process in relation to others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I have to do this whole process on my own because I have beliefs about what I should be capable of and also beliefs about how other people do not want to see me or talk to me or do not want me around / feel burdened by me, so within this I isolate myself and try to carry everything on my own even though I am not stable and even though there is much that I do not understand and even though conversation with others can be extremely supportive in gaining new perspectives from others or in seeing self through conversation.



Okay... That's enough for now.

I commit myself to continue to watch my self-talk and see how I can actually support myself and believe in myself and trust myself, none of which I can do if I am constantly tearing myself down and apart.

I commit myself to continue to focus on the present moment as the here and now in terms of where my mental energy needs to go, but to also now integrate the "big picture" timeline so that I can realize more of a "long-term plan" kind of support for myself to realize that this will not all happen overnight and I have to take steps and it will change, but it will take time.

I commit myself to find ways to enjoy and appreciate myself each day.

(I mean even in yoga for example, when so often teachers end class with saying "thank yourself for showing up on your mat today," I always dismiss this as irrelevant, as not useful, as not something I need to do, not something I deserve, like whatever, I'm here, but it's only because I would judge/hate myself if I didn't come... hmm...)

Practical Support Idea for Stressful Environments - Day 172

I've realized that one way I am actually sabotaging myself is by not looking at specific points and investigating just that point to find a solution. I get stuck on the "big picture" which is sometimes effective, but in this case it's actually more like trying to look at multiple different pictures at once (work, family, friendships, self: physically and mentally), which is pretty much impossible and leaves me feeling overwhelmed and wanting to give up. So here I just started writing about some of the internal experiences I have at work, trying to focus in on just one of the things that I feel like is out of control. I ended up realizing that my day is so chaotic structurally at work, and then it doesn't take much for my internal experience to seem chaotic, and so obviously I need some way to organize myself. So I realized that although I have already intended to purchase a small notebook to carry around and write in for work-related reasons, I can also use this as a tool to record my internal experiences as a way of seeing myself more objectively on paper and also of assisting and supporting myself to be able to process whatever reactions come up in me throughout the day, since there is not much time to process during the work day but if I can jot down a few things then I might have an easier time seeing the points and then writing self support on them later, or just seeing myself in the moment and like keep myself accountable in a way to not let myself drift off into some cyclical reaction because I will be able to become more aware of my internal experiences and whether or not I am directing them or if I am just having to move on to the next task while ignoring my own needs (to the degree that I end up wanting another to drop everything and meet my needs for me).

---

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want other people to do something about my internal energetic experiences because I feel like I cannot do anything about them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use my age or my gender as a reason to call myself a victim when I am having interactions with men who are older than I am who seem to be peeved with me because they dislike the changes that my position represents.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make these stressful situations about me through my energetic reactions wherein I feel hurt and need someone to come coddle and comfort me and reassure me that I am not a bad person and that I am doing a good job.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want someone else to make me feel good about myself or make me feel like I am good enough.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand that I am here to do a specific job and that there might be people who do not like the job I have been asked to do, but within this they are actually not doing the job they have been asked to do, because in fact we have all been asked to do the same job.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make the stress and friction that other individuals are experiencing within themselves in relation to the changes in their job descriptions, energies which are manifesting in their behavior and attitudes, about me, like as if I am somehow the victim or to blame for them reacting the way they are reacting, and as if me going away would somehow make their reactions go away.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to perceive myself as the center of this drama and conflict like as if it is all about me and it is just that these people hate me and are just about to explode on me at any moment and tell me what they really think of me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become paranoid that other people perceive me as a representative of the things that they do not like about their jobs.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become paranoid that other people blame me for the way that they experience their jobs.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine other people blowing up on me and giving me a "piece of their mind" in terms of what they really think of me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take it personally that these people will walk by me and not smile or say hello or anything, that for the most part they avoid any interactions with me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take this personally and then judge myself through my interpretation of their behavior wherein I perceive that they blame me and target me as the reason that they don't like their jobs or as a person who is making their jobs not fun for them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to internalize and personalize the way that others have assumed that I am basically snitching on them and their behavior at work even though this is not what I am doing but because I learned that they originally thought I was the one who was doing this, I have held onto this within an assumption that they do not like me.

I realize that a few weeks ago I did not feel this much anxiety about these people and about my job performance because a few weeks ago I felt more confident in myself and my job performance and I also at that point had only just then learned that these people did not like me and so I had not yet destabilized myself within paranoia and instead was able to respond in saying that I do not dislike them but simply I am here to do a specific job and I think that each person should do the job they are asked and expected and paid to do.

So I see that somewhere along the way I began to internalize and personalize the reactions that other people were apparently having about me and as a result my behavior has changed and I have stopped saying hello as much and I have avoided conversations with these people because I have believed that they do not like me and I have victimized myself within this belief like as if they should like me but they don't so they're "mean" and also within a fear of conflict where I do not want to get into an argument with these people.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be directed by my fears of conflict and my fears of argumentative conversations especially with men.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear things happening at work that would not be at all appropriate if they did happen and I realize I would actually be protected by law if anything inappropriate like that did happen such as discrimination on the basis of my gender or age.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to shy away from interactions and also my job duties as a professional adult because I fear that other people do not like me and I imagine in my mind saying disrespectful things about me because of my gender, my age, and my philosophy / approach in my job performance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel uncomfortable in my own skin at work because I feel like people are always judging me, whether we agree or disagree on the approach that we take in our job performances.

I forgiven myself for accepting and allowing myself to always think that people are talking badly about me behind my back.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself therefore to feel wounded and small and like I need someone to pick me up and make me better and give me confidence and affirm to me that I am doing a good job.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to trust the interpretations and paranoia of my mind more than I trust the real actual interactions I have with my coworkers, many of which show that they appreciate what I do and enjoy me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to ignore physical evidence that I am okay in favor of embracing conjecture within my mind that I am a horrible person.


When and as I see myself feeling paranoid, anxious, like a victim, or stressed at work, I stop and I breathe. When and as I see myself projecting my own internalizations and personalizations onto others in belief of how they feel about me or what they think of me, I stop, and I breathe. I realize that I am there to do a job and I am doing that job and I have received a lot of positive praise for the job I have done. I realize that if I do anything wrong, someone will probably let me know. I realize that people may or may not like me, it doesn't really matter because as long as I can stabilize myself and act from a starting point of self honesty, then anything another person does not like about me is either their own energetic reaction, or something that I can resolve and face in myself if it is brought to my attention. I realize that I am my own responsibility and although sometimes when I feel stressed it is okay to seek out support, it is not really okay or appropriate or self responsible for me to expect others to give me positive feedback or even just positive interactions like as if keeping me afloat is a priority in such a stressful environment. Each individual is his or her own first priority and if I am not supporting myself to be stable and self-confident in myself, then I am not going to be able to be effective in my job. I realize that when I am doubting myself at work, I am not present at work and I am not able to be effective in my job.

So I commit myself to really focus on my breath and being in the here and now at work, facing whatever is in front of me and taking care of whatever tasks are asked of me.

I have committed myself to this job and so I commit myself to this job, meaning that here this is the job I have for the next however many months, and so I need to find a way to make it work for me.

I commit myself also to carrying around a small notebook with me so that I can take notes on work-related ideas, log incidents, and also support myself through writing as a physical expression of the many thoughts and feeling I face throughout the day but am never able to express or direct because it is always onto the next thing and showing up and basically performing my job.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to put myself in a position of performance, of acting, of pretending, because I have not properly supported myself with my breath, with presence in the physical, or with the ability to process while I am at work, so that instead I will be caught up in my mind and my internal experiences while at the same time trying to perform a stressful and demanding job that involves a lot of social interaction.

So I commit myself to carrying around a small notebook for the above reasons and I commit myself to support myself through writing, breathing, and being in the physical moment, within this applying self-support to create self-stability to foster self-trust at work.

I commit myself to utilize this notebook as a way of seeing myself and understanding my experience throughout the day at work, because work is chaotic enough without my internal experiences, and when I add in my internal energies and beliefs and judgments it becomes extremely convoluted and difficult to manage. I realize there are better ways therefore to support myself at work and so I commit myself to trying this notebook idea, alongside a focus on my breath and a focus on the physical as whatever I must do to direct each moment effectively as what is best for all -- which thus does not mean giving priority to my energetic creations as most important.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get caught up in being self-ish in my direction of myself so that my self and my internal experiences of myself are what are most important to me so that I begin to feel like panicked in terms of having certain needs met and I feel helpless in meeting those needs myself and so I push those needs out onto others and then allow myself to further create whatever internal experience I have of myself based on my perception / interpretation of what others think of me because even those that I want to support and "save" me sometimes are busy and so I take it personally that they are not available to support me or I become so victimized and anxious that I want them to like read my mind that I need some help but instead we just talk about something unrelated to my internal experience where I feel like I need help, because they can't read my mind and I have been too anxious to ask for direct support.

I realize I can in fact support myself, I just haven't allowed myself to, and I haven't allowed myself to come up with solutions for myself to make my work day easier and less stressful, to direct the stress that I face.

I realize that having a notebook will assist and support me both in keeping track of work-related issues as well as keeping track of my internal experiences.

I realize that I need to realize myself as my constant and thus the only thing that can make me stable because anything else that I believe can make me stable is not always with me, only I am with me everywhere I go, I am my constant, and so I can rely on myself to keep myself stable, if only I give myself the tools to support myself and then build trust in myself that I am in fact capable of supporting myself and keeping myself stable.

I Don't Know What it Means to Forgive Myself - Day 171

Wow, sorry for the misleading post title yesterday, everyone. 146 page views and only 5 people gave a +1 haha. Okay: I do not know how to actualize unconditional forgiveness of self and other in reality.

The truth is that I'm not sure that I understand forgiveness really at all. To revisit the definition:

for·give
/fərˈgiv/
Verb
1. Stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.
2. Stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for (an offense, flaw, or mistake).

for·give·ness
/fərˈgivnis/
Noun
The action or process of forgiving or being forgiven.

Within these definitions I see that I do not understand and have not really understood how to forgive myself, how to stop hating myself and actually stop turning on myself and being my own worst enemy eating away at myself from within. I mean just saying or writing words isn't the work itself. How do I actually stop my mind? How do I actually stop myself from continuing to go back to these places of eating myself alive?

I haven't really even understood quite exactly what I might need to forgive myself for in order to stop all of this anger and resentment against myself. I mean what's going on when I just completely turn on myself? I don't really get it, and I'm not going to pretend like I get it. I feel pretty fucking lost quite frankly, and overwhelmed with all the various things I'm facing...

But I am able to reflect on some advice given to me not so long ago when I was experiencing extreme emotions and it was suggested that I just breathe. Just focus on my breath for an entire week and let that be the thing that I push myself to do, rather than expecting myself to deal with everything else.

Well I have plenty to deal with from within and without, between family issues, work stress, friendship problems, and my own tendency to rip myself apart from within through self doubt, self judgment, and self hatred.

I suppose that one point might be having unrealistically high expectations for myself, which is a point I've visited before. Expecting myself to just somehow magically be able to do something or basically not have to walk the steps of the process of getting there. "Forgiveness" is a "process."

So I bring my expectations back to: breathing, doing what needs to be done, and doing whatever I can to support myself through that, no matter what that looks like as long as it is self-honest in its starting point. I can't figure everything else out at the same time, and I can't figure anything out if I'm allowing myself to get overwhelmed and caught up in anxiety and self hatred and self judgments and self doubt.

So:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am overwhelmed and that there is simply "too much" going on and that there is no possible way to proceed or no possible solution or no possible way to support myself practically through everything that I am facing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself for having emotional reactions to the various things that I am facing in my personal and professional life.

I commit myself to no longer judge myself as my reactions and emotions. I commit myself to realize that I am under a lot of stress. I commit myself however to find stability for myself as a gift to myself through my breath so that I do not allow these perfectly understandable and expected emotional reactions to direct me, instead I direct myself to find solutions in very moment that are self supportive and best for all.

I commit myself to no longer judge myself as my reactions and emotions. That will be a tough one.

I will support myself through that by continuing however to realize that regardless of my emotions and reactions, I am the self directive principle of myself, and so to give myself the gift of myself and my own ability to stabilize myself to direct myself in every moment because in any given moment I am probably only really facing one thing, and so to direct myself in self responsible self support in regards to that one thing.

So that when I am at work I am not allowing myself to feel sorry for myself with what is happening in my family or personal life.

I realize that work is an extremely stressful environment. I realize too however that the way that I direct my reaction to the environment is my responsibility. I realize there are resources for support with this when I feel confused or when my reactions get out of my own hands, and at that point I commit myself to seek out those resources of assistance and support.

I commit myself to seek out the assistance and support that I may need as I see fit, and to not judge myself for perceiving that I need or want assistance or support.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself for feeling that I need assistance or support or another perspective in order for me to clarify my own perspective and stabilize myself with cross references of experience and perspective.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that just because I am facing a lot of different stressful situations right now that this is the time that I should abandon process, when really it would seem as if this would be the time to embrace what I have learned and still can learn more of within this process.

I commit myself to support myself in process in whatever form that takes be it writing or reading or listening, or also even taking a step back to reflect and process within myself and my lived application.

I realize I am juggling a lot right now. I realize I do not have a lot of built-in trusted support systems. I realize that because of this it is easy for me to turn on myself even at this time when I most need to be here to support myself. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sabotage and abuse myself just because I feel like I don't have anyone or very many other people supporting me.

I commit myself to seeking out assistance and support at work from my coworkers.

I commit myself to seeking out assistance and support in relation to my family from my mom and other family members, because we are all going through this together.

I commit myself to allowing myself to feel whatever emotional reactions come up for me in relation to what is happening in my family because I realize that I have not allowed myself to see how I really feel and have instead suppressed my emotions and it is only with the most recent development where I see that it is having a direct impact on my life that I am seeing that I can no longer suppress the emotions, but again I commit myself to maintain self directive principle over myself and my life so that I do not accept or allow the emotions or the circumstances to scare me into hiding or suppression but instead face the reality of what is happening as something that we all must face: illness and eventual death.

I commit myself to continue the process of facing myself in my friendships and learning how I can support myself to create and maintain healthy self-responsible and self-supportive friendships.

I commit myself to breathing in every moment that I would otherwise judge, doubt, or hate myself: I breathe. I breathe in and out slowly and I stabilize myself in the physical and out of my mind.