Reacting in Relationships - Day 67

Something happened recently with a friend where there was a small misunderstanding on the basis of which I reacted and became mad, and then decided to tell this person I was mad, which in my mind was like a way to alleviate the emotion / decrease the backchat (not as much imagining of how the conversation might go) and also to open up for honest conversation of how actions or in-actions impact other people.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to another person as who they have shown themselves to be as what they choose to express from within themselves. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react even when this was actually based on a misunderstanding where the information I thought I "knew" about these circumstances was in fact false and within the new understanding of what is true I have realized that my reaction is all the more unnecessary. 

• I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to tell the other person I was mad as a way to manipulate the other person into giving me what I want or into feeling bad or as a way to create drama and energy around drama and conflict so that I could "be mad" and "stay mad" and give myself justification for being mad within this conflict energy. 

Something I am struggling with here is the line in relationships between being responsible for myself as my reactions and what my self-interests are (which eventually through process I would like to eliminate), and basic consideration of another. So when I "feel" that another person has been "inconsiderate," I question what is most productive to do there, because on the one hand it seems like we should all be considerate of each other, but on the other hand I know that I am very self interested and invested in having another person treat me the way I want to be treated.

And here already I see this is very "me me me" where it should not matter how another treats me. What matters is how I treat myself and how I treat others, and who I am within all of that. Because no other can "make" me feel any certain way, and thus no other can create my experience of myself, and thus how another treats me should really not impact me in any way.

• I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to take responsibility for and ownership of myself as my reactions. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to operate from and as my own self-interest when relating to another human being, where I want or need things from them and wish to possess or control or own them, and then see them as being mean or withholding or rude when I do not get my way as what I want or think I need or deserve. 

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge another as inconsiderate and to create an energetic experience as reaction within myself in response to judging this person as inconsiderate so that I am blaming this other person's seeming lack of consideration for my reaction, all the while not taking ownership for my reaction or seeing myself within who I am and why I desire certain interactions with other people to occur, why I expect these to occur and then judge another when they do not occur. 

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make relationships all "about" me without even really looking at or seeing me in these relationships as who I am accepting and allowing myself to be as what I am accepting and allowing to occur within and as myself as my wants, needs, desires, fears, expectations, projections, etc. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to base my experiences of myself on my reactions to my perceptions of how another person treats me or feels about me. 

I am also struggling more generally, and have for as long as I can remember, with a kind of "co-dependency" where I will identify aspects of relationships or friendships that I do not enjoy, that I feel are damaging or somehow dysfunctional, or unhealthy, and yet I will maintain expectations that I have created where I continue to hope and expect that the other person will eventually treat me the way that I want to be treated, which is also the way that I "believe" I treat them and thus deserve to be treated in return.

So here I basically am having a relationship with my own mind, with my imagination and projection of this other person, where I have created this "person" as this body in front of me to be the person that I wish they would be or I want them to be or I assume/project that they are, rather than having a relationship with that actual person, as who they are in each moment, as who they show me they are.

And when I see (perceive) who they are, when their actions and words show me something that does not fall in line with what I have imagined/projected, I become upset! And yet within this I do not change course and realize that this person is not in fact the person I have imagined them to be, but they are themselves (obviously). Instead I persist in my imaginings, holding onto these friendships or relationships as if they speak to my own value and self-worth, where here I want to prove to myself that I can basically manipulate and influence this person to treat me a certain way, or allow myself to basically punish myself by maintaining connections with others defined a certain way which are not that way, so that I am creating suffering for myself in the dissonance between what I want in relationships and what I actually get, where here I can use this as evidence or proof that I am not worth being treated kindly and thus can assume the victim role.

So here it is not that I have maintained many friendships/relationships throughout my life which have actually really been unsupportive/damaging (although there have been those as well), but simply that I expect more support/specific interaction than is given, and yet I continue to hold onto my expectations as a way to feel bad about myself and the other person when those expectations are not met.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be codependent within relationships where even when I have seen physical reality evidentiary reasons that a relationship or friendship is not what I have constructed and imagined it to be within my mind, I continue to expect that it will be that way and continue to hold the other person to those expectations without them even being aware, without even myself being fully aware that this is what I am doing. But even when I have become aware, I have not stopped. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see myself and then ignore myself where here I have seen what I have done and continue to do it even though I see the consequences for it and see that it is not self-honest or self-responsible as what is best for all, living in a delusion in my mind that another person can fulfill for me that which I refuse to fulfill for myself, believing that another person can meet these expectations I have created. 

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create relationships within and as my mind where I have never really actually related to another person as who they are as one and equal to one another as life as what is best for all, but instead have created expectations and desires and fears and projections where I have basically imagined a person and embodied them within the body of the people around me where I have seen who they are at first and then have built up personalities for them within my mind which are not based on who they are next and in each moment, where I have based these personalities and expectations on my own wants and desires and self interest, and I have not allowed myself to allow the other person to simply be themselves and express themselves as who they choose to be in each moment and then relate to them from that level in a common sense best for all manner.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pull back reactionarily from relationships when I finally do recognize within seeing that another person is not who I have created them to be in my mind, where basically I become mad at them and also at myself, but mostly at them, that they have failed to fulfill this image of them that I have created, and so here I withhold myself from them as a kind of punishment for not being the person I have wanted or expected them to be, all the while they know nothing of all that is occurring within my mind in the context of our relationship, because here we do not have a relationship, it is only I who have a relationship with my own mind.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I am able even to really see another person as who they are without projecting or assuming or interpreting through and as my mind as my perception within my own fears and desires and personalities. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to see, realize, and understand that all I have is myself as my mind and that I have created layers upon layers of filters for seeing everything around me including other people so that even if they are expressing themselves as who they are, chances are great that I will "misinterpret" that and I will construe it and construct it to serve myself as my self interest to feel a certain way or react a certain way or have a certain experience. So here I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that it is up to others to express themselves as who they are and then up to me to respond to that in a common sense manner because here it is only ever up to me to respond in a common sense manner regardless of how honestly another is able to express themselves, and it is always up to me to treat others as I would like to be treated, as one as equal as life as what is best for all.

• I forgive myself that I have never accepted or allowed myself to really treat others as I would want to be treated but have always bastardized this concept within self interest as what I can get out of a relationship on the basis of what I give, so that I only ever give in order to get, and I withhold my giving or want to withhold my giving when I do not get. I forgive myself that I have never accepted or allowed myself to really actually exist as one as equal to all life as what is best for all. 

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to first create expectations of others, and then to become upset when those expectations are not met, and now most recently to believe that I should adjust my expectations in reaction to my perception of others, where instead I should eliminate my expectations altogether and equalize myself with all life as one as equal as life as what is best for all.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from others in value in competition of having needs met and getting what I want from others and giving others what they want where we are in a commercial exchange of services to serve one another's personalities and self interests rather than serving life as life as one as equal as what is best for all. 

And in all of this there is a failure on my part to really look at and see myself, in any of this. As who I am to myself, as who I am to the other person, as who I am in these expectations, reactions, wants, needs, desires, as how I give myself these things that I want, how I give the other person these things that I want, or if I don't do either of those. What I noticed in this particular instance and in some others was this thought along the lines of, "I'm mad at this person, and I realize that I need to write this out and forgive myself for my reaction here, but I can do that later, for now it is most important that this person know exactly what's on my mind!" So here I am realizing that my reaction as "mad" is self-interested and is a reaction I have created, and yet I insist that it is "valid" and that it deserves to be known, that this other person deserves to know how they have "made" me feel.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see myself as my reactions and then to disregard myself as my reactions, within the belief/justification that my reaction is more important than who I am within my reaction, more important than the fact that I am my reaction, and thus my reaction is more important than myself because here if I were to be self honest and to really see myself I would release myself from my reaction and I would see that my reaction does not matter, but what matters is equality and oneness with all others as life as what is best for all, not my created reaction which I have built up as being more important than being equal and more important than taking responsibility for myself and more important than loving another and myself unconditionally. 

So I question really how productive it is to tell another person how I have reacted, especially when I have not yet taken ownership and processed that reaction within and as myself as my creation. In some instances, especially face-to-face conflict, it is probably very productive to explain, "I feel X right now" as a way of identifying all of what is factoring into that conflict and the way that each individual is directing her or himself, to take ownership of those feelings as they come up. But this was over texting and there was no real need for me to explain myself as my experience except perhaps:

1. Create drama
2. Attempt to "make" the other person feel a certain way or to elicit a response which I hope will "make" me feel "better"
3. Open up for honest communication (?) 
• Seems to only be productive after I have already processed for as and by myself. 
4. Inform the other person of the effects, at least inasmuch as I have allowed myself to be "affected," of their actions or in-actions, in case this person is unaware that this has been the interaction/reaction. 
• Because here I see that I am tempted to tell myself that I should see what others do as indicative of who they are, and thus if they do something that "displeases" me within the context of how I have defined the relationship, then I should adjust my definition of that relationship. But this also means that I will likely be adjusting who I am within that relationship and thus who I express myself to be to that other person. Is this something the other person wants or is aware of? 
• It is not fair that I have already expressed myself as something other than who I am in any given moment but instead as who I am within the definition of this relationship. But here it's like I want to warn the other person that who I am might change within appropriate response to the information they have given me about who they are. ... 
• I don't know, it's like "setting boundaries" for myself in creating some kind of "safety" or "security" for myself where I do not allow myself to expect more of others than they will actually show themselves to be, but this seems very out of line with equality and oneness, at least within the context of the fact that I have already placed these expectations and now I am taking them away and taking myself away from them as a kind of punishment for them simply being themselves, as they have always been as who they have allowed themselves to express themselves as. 
• So it seems this is not the solution, although I do need to release myself from my self-definition within relationships within my definition of relationships, and allow myself to simply be myself as who I am in every moment out of relation to but as equal to and one with all as life as what is best for all... presently a vague difference here for me. 
• So to stop defining relationships and defining others and myself within structures of relationships as expectations as self-interest and simply allow each to be and to express in each moment. 

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to purposely seek out and create drama in relationships so that I can feel self important and self righteous and energetically charged in order to feel like the drama is important and therefore I have something important going on in my life which requires my attention and requires the attention of another. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek out and create a need for attention from another. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to require another to attend to me. 

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to manipulate another to make another feel a certain way or to elicit a certain response from another in order to "make" me feel a certain way. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be manipulative and deceptive and want to control another or possess another and influence how another feels, where here I think "now they feel bad" and then I can "feel better" because I have "made" them "feel bad" and because they feel bad I must matter to them and they must care about me and here I am special and important. 

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify my search for attention or drama as a way of opening up "honest communication" where here I have not even been self honest within myself to face myself as who I am within my reaction before bringing up my reaction to the other person when it is not necessary or even really helpful to do so. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to be completely self honest in my motivations for communicating with another person. 

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that another should be aware of how I have reacted to them so that they change/adjust/adapt themselves rather than seeing how I can or should change/adjust/adapt myself and taking care of myself and maintaining equality and oneness within and as myself with all as one and equal as life as what is best for all, where here I am placing expectations on others in order to keep "peace" between us so that we can continue on in feeding each other's egos and personalities and so that I can maintain my imaginations of our relationship so that I do not have to take responsibility for myself as my reactions. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself within and as relationship definitions and projections where I believe that who I am is dependent on who another is, where I believe that my quality of life or of this relationship is dependent on the other person as who they express themselves to be. I forgive myself that I have once again accepted and allowed myself to place my self worth and well being outside myself where I have expected others to be a certain way in order for me to "be okay." I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to inform another of my reaction in the hopes that they will change. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to change another. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to take responsibility for and assist another in changing when I have not even taken responsibility for or changed myself. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to punish another through my reactions, whether they be me being "mad" or me withholding myself from that other as a way to protect myself from my own expectations not being met. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create these fucked up dynamics within relationships where I have so much to deconstruct and break down in order to achieve equality and oneness within and as myself as life to all life as one and equal as what is best for all.