Defining Myself in Positive Energy - Day 135

You guys. I'm so amazing.

An interesting thing happens when I try to write about family "issues." First a desire for attention from others which has historically been a point within any sharing of "problems," especially family related, since I have often been so confused within myself about how to identify or define said "problems" and so have wanted to read the definitions of others on their faces or in their reactions / words. But then, as I see myself reel (real) that in and begin to like "gift" that attention to myself, I see another "problem" in terms of the positive energy I can give myself and create by myself, which is still not stability, still not self honest, still not what is best for all. I have not listened to this interview but the description leads me to believe it could be pertinent: A Friend in Mind from the Future of Consciousness series.

One thing that stands out in what I just wrote is wanting to read the definitions of the "problems" in others, and yet when I "gift" this to myself the definition becomes purely a positive energetic charge of how great I am for dealing with such "problems" rather than a practical look at the problem itself and a practical solution. So here I can see that when I sought for others to define and explain what I was experiencing for me, what I often got was either a dismissal or a praise of what I was going through, so a definition really of myself and who I was in that experience. Most often this was some kind of praise or laud for being so "strong," which didn't really clear up any confusion on how to deal, just simply kept me doing whatever it was I was doing, which, over the years, has varied, but has never really served as a real solution, and at times has been quite detrimental / self-abusive.


I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see the "problems" I have experienced throughout my life for and as exactly what they are in the physical reality as their components, contributors, and consequences, instead seeing them only through and as my mind as my reactions, emotions, confusion, beliefs, and judgments.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe within confused reactions that I am not capable of identifying and defining my own experiences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to look to others to show me these definitions, although never really outright asking for a definition or asking for help, but instead painting a picture or telling a story and then judging and perceiving based on what I interpret from the other person's reaction who is hearing my story.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to confuse the reactions I have received regarding who another person believes I am with definitive feedback on the situations or "problems" themselves.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to morph my confusion and desire for feedback / advice / perspective into a desire for praise of who I am within these experiences / who I am within the way I present myself in relation to these experiences.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to elaborate upon my stories of my experiences in such a way that I could manipulate the other person to see me as "strong" and so to tell me I am "strong" or otherwise seem impressed and so to give me that positive energetic charge while at the same time reinforcing my position as a victim who does not deserve such hardship.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself thus to assume the victim role rather than seeking out actual practical solutions, so that here I have basically grown out of the situations / problems themselves, and yet am still dealing with and walking through the consequences, many of which I created within my reactions to the problems as delineated above as my participation as victim and exaggeration / seeking out bigger problems so as to receive bigger "support" / attention.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to have ever really supported myself but instead created personalities and characters to deal and cope with the "problems" as familial "issues" that transpired in my childhood, adolescence and young adulthood so that here now I have been left only with these personalities and characters still acting out as me in my daily life as I meet new situations that remind me of these old "problems" and "issues."

I forgive myself therefore that I accepted and allowed myself to react to the "problems" and "issues" within my family during my adolescence through self-abusive behaviors such a self-mutilation and starving myself because I saw these as "solutions" which to me at the time meant in part a way to garner the positive attention of others, to have others pity me, to have others tell me how brave or strong I am, to have others want to save me, and also thus to have the positive attention of myself where, even though I professed to hate myself, I also at the same time pitied myself and believed myself to be brave and strong for living through these trials and for surviving, and I saw myself as a victim, and so I saw myself as my own savior if I was able to survive, imagining into my future when I might have some great story to tell about how I managed through these dark times.

I forgive myself also for accepting and allowing myself to physically abuse myself as a way to gain some kind of control, within this "holding on" to reaction and mind energy, manifested and inflicted then on my body, rather than letting go and seeing and being and breathing. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to exacerbate pre-existing problems outside of my control by creating new problems for myself that I believed to be within my control, but which quickly took control over me, all because I wanted the problems to be so big that no one could deny them, and yet this never happened, and I continued to not trust myself and to deny myself within this exacerbation and self abuse.

So I forgive myself then also for accepting and allowing myself to distract myself from the real "problems" and "issues" at hand within reality, instead creating my own internal realities and also manipulating actual reality through my participation in self-abusive behavior, distracting myself from actual real practical solutions, not supporting myself absolutely, instead sabotaging myself, creating more and greater problems for myself through my reactions, because I was confused as to why what was happening was happening and so I thought that if I could make matters worse maybe it would become clearer to me through the reactions of others that something was really wrong, rather than simply trusting myself as my experience that something was wrong, and then doing whatever I could to support myself through those trials to create something right within and as myself, instead turning to more wrongs within to match the wrongs without.

And along the topic of self injury as reflected upon more recent experiences of the desire to hurt myself:
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resort to self injury as a solution to emotional turmoil and negative energetic experiences, as a quick-fix way of stopping these experiences while at the same time growing them bigger, not supporting myself, in fact physically abusing myself, manifesting and inflicting my mind onto my body. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to physically punish myself for the thoughts and emotions that I create and allow within my mind, believing this to be the solution. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine hurting myself at some times of emotional turmoil and to imagine this as a relief and as if it would somehow make things better, so in a way carrying out retribution on myself, wanting to punish myself for my wrongs, but here I see this does nothing supportive for change and only makes matters worse.

And:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to basically want to explain and express the specifics of the "familial issues" that are here in front of me in large part because I want the energetic charge of going into it all and sharing it with others and then seeing their reactions.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want the energetic charge that I get from describing the positive ways I have approached a point so as to believe that others will admire me or think I am doing a good job.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to go into specific details of what is going on so as to garner the attention of others who I believe / project will be like "amazed" that "wow, all of that is going on, and she is sure handling it well."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself also to want to go into specific details about my family as if it absolutely matters and is imperative information for the sharing of what I have discovered through private writings on the subject.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to notice my own strengths and then to want to basically brag about them, to get others to notice them as well, and then to get the energetic charge of either believing that others admire me or in fact receiving such praise.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing my own admiration of myself as who I am in any given moment to be enough for me.

I see that it can be and in fact is enough, if I let it be enough. I see a stark difference now than even just a few months ago in terms of the desire I have to over-share details in order to gain attention. I see the point is still here, but it is getting smaller.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sometimes or often get overly focused on the details of my own family "issues" or other problems of mine such that I believe they are enormous and like the worst things that could happen to anybody.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to sometimes get locked into even the attention I can give myself, even the positive praise that I manufacture within my mind for myself for how strong and stable I am / can be.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get caught up in the "issues" of my own small life such that I ignore the bigger issues that affect all life, that bring death to life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get locked into my own desire for attention either from myself or others such that I become narrow in my vision of what matters, believing that my experiences are greater or more important than the experiences of others, where here I realize that actually despite whatever "problems" exist within my family I am mostly extremely "lucky" in terms of family and EXTREMELY "lucky" in terms of my own position in society / this world system.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself thus to create problems within my mind through and as my mind consciousness system based on my own limited experiences and memories and belief systems without regard for what is happening world-wide or even simply just with my neighbor.

I commit myself to standing in stability always in all ways. I commit myself to standing in stability for the sake of all life. I commit myself to acknowledging when I am stable, but to then continue in the next breath within that stability as whatever is here in that breath, rather than remaining stuck in the positive reaction of the attention or praise that I could give myself. I commit myself to doing this because it is what is best for all, and living what is best for all is my goal -- not gaining praise either from myself or others.


Past Pertinent Posts:

• Self Injury PROCESSING
• My Mother, Myself (Part 1) - Day 134

RE-SPECT: Find out What it Means to Me - Day 116

Today was the first real day at my new job (previously I'd had training). The teacher of one of the classes I sat in on was going over the school handbook with the students, and when he got to the word "respect" he made sure that the students understood what it meant.

The meaning he gave was beyond the meaning I had been aware of. Basically he pointed out that "spect" refers to seeing or looking, as in "spectacles" or "spectator." Then, with the addition of "re," a word-forming element meaning "back to the original place; again, anew, once more," "respect" becomes to look at or see another as you look at or see yourself, or look at or see another as you would like others to look at or see you. Sounds familiar, no? Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Also to see yourself in others, by which we realize ourselves as one and equal, and can turn points back to ourselves to take self responsibility; "seeing back to the original place."

The dictionary says something else:
re·spect
/riˈspekt/
Noun
A feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.
Verb
Admire (someone or something) deeply, as a result of their abilities, qualities, or achievements.

So according to the dictionary, respect is a feeling-state of admiration that is contingent on perception / interpretation of another person's abilities, qualities, or achievements. Even as a verb, this definition of respect is limited to an internal feeling-state, and not action or behavior. I think I like the math teacher's definition a lot better.

Earlier in the day I'd had a conversation with the principal and a student where I mentioned respect for self and respect for others. After the student left the principal told me that he doesn't really like to talk about respect because kids think that they shouldn't have to respect anyone who doesn't respect them, and they also think "I don't respect that person, so I don't have to treat them a certain way." So apparently the principal tells the kids he doesn't care about respect, instead encouraging them to create "personas" and "facades" in order to behave a certain way regardless of their internal feeling state in terms of respect.

I mean in some ways this "works" in the sense that yeah, it gets you through the day. But it doesn't really work because it's not honest, so it's not sustainable, and as a starting point it won't really get you anywhere. I mean we shouldn't be teaching that it's okay not to respect someone (anyone!), and we shouldn't be teaching that it's okay to create facades for ourselves as the presentation of who we are. We shouldn't be teaching the kids how to ACT a certain way, we should be supporting them to BE a certain way: self honest and unconditionally respectful, regardless of behavior, merit, achievements, abilities, etc., within the realization that we are all one and equal. We should be teaching them how to take responsibility for themselves by seeing themselves and who they are in all points.

So it will be interesting to see how my job unfolds in general, as there is a lot up in the air. I can see though that I am meeting some uncertainty within myself in terms of trying to fit into a standard that already exists in order to do my job "well" (so, a facade basically) versus being honest and really doing the best job I can do (within which I of course have to constantly check myself, because just because I disagree with some of the set standards does not necessarily mean that I yet know a better way).

This topic also brings up a memory for me of one father's day when my family went out to dinner at a semi fancy restaurant, and my dad told us that he wanted his father's day present from us to be to treat him like the father we wished he was. And we all reacted quite strongly and angrily to this, like he's the parent, why should we treat him that way, does he really think that's going to change anything? Reflecting back, maybe it would have, maybe it could have. So our egos as children were in the way of taking the first step to respect our father as ourselves, to maybe shift and change the relationship that had been established as a standard status quo.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have within myself a conception of the word "respect" as being a feeling state that only occurs if / when I create a feeling of admiration for another person based on their merits, behaviors, qualities, etc.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself thus to use respect as a commodity that I can either keep or give away based on my reaction to another person not as who they are but as what they do.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to respect all other individuals as myself as one and equal as life as what is best for all, each of us a living being deserving of respect, deserving of having done unto each of us what we would have done unto another.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that my dad should have treated us a certain way before we would treat him back a certain way. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to play the victim as the child as the person who cannot or should not have to take the first steps, or any steps, toward promoting a supportive equal and one relationship between parent and children. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist immediately without any contrary consideration the idea of changing my own attitude and behavior toward my dad within the realization and understanding that it takes at least two people to create a relationship dynamic.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand how respecting another as I respect myself or as I would have another respect me is the same as taking responsibility for myself within doing everything that is within my power and control to bring about a world standard that is best for all.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself for accepting and allowing myself to doubt myself within my job performance already on the first day, and to fear potential disagreement or conflict or conflict of my interest in terms of how I would like to do my job versus what is expected of me in doing my job.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to worry what will happen if I continue to disagree with things that coworkers say about their philosophy / approach in supporting the students.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get a little bit ahead of myself as the present moment within my mind by worrying about how this all might unfold and making assumptions about how it "is" when actually no matter how it "is," it is going to change, because that's why my position was made -- I was hired in order to help create change in the philosophy of the school's approach with supporting the students. Which is cool!

So I commit myself to continue to take the job one day at a time, one breath at a time. I commit myself to constantly checking in with myself so that I can really be there to support the students and communicate effectively with the staff / my coworkers. I commit myself to considering at all times what changes I might suggest and how to implement the best support for the success of the students and getting them back into regular school programs. I commit myself to being open to suggestions and observing the way things are already being done, and within this remaining self honest and self responsible in terms of how I move myself within this context. I commit myself to patience and understanding. I commit myself to cooperative collaboration. I commit myself to dedication to changing this school and supporting the students. I commit myself to respecting myself and respecting all others as one as equal as life as what is best for all.

Jealousy, Inferiority, & Superiority - Day 93.1

The point I am looking at here was first described in Reacting Before I Even Realize What I am Doing - Day 93. I believe this specific example can very easily be generalized to any experience of jealousy, inferiority, and superiority. Some of what I have been able to see and realize within myself in this instance has been facilitated through the private writing I have been doing over the last week.

So first of all I noticed that I was rather bewildered at the start of the evening because it was my first time in a casino (the concert was outdoors behind the casino which was very pleasant), and I was so surprised at how it reeked of cigarettes, and then I noticed myself becoming jealous and judgmental of what other people were wearing, where I reacted to this by feeling jealous internally at peoples' clothes or how attractive I judged them to be, and then mentioning to my friend about what silly things people decide to wear to "look cool" at shows -- where obviously they are succeeding at "looking cool" because I am allowing myself to get jealous. Another point unto itself!

Jealousy makes you nasty in your face!

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become jealous of other peoples' clothes or physical appearance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resort to negative judgments in order to deflect and avoid my sense of inferiority that comes with jealousy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to second guess what I had decided to wear (which was basically what I wear every day), thinking I should have "dressed cute" or been more "creative" with my outfit because I saw that I felt jealous of these other women and I wanted other women to feel jealous of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if other people feel jealous of me, I will somehow know this and also somehow benefit from it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want other people to feel bad about themselves / inferior within the belief that this will somehow mean I get to feel good about myself / superior.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel inferior / jealous such that I have wanted to experience the polar opposite of this and have wanted to strategically position myself to feel superior, not realizing that this is just the other side of the same coin, and not considering that this is certainly NOT equality, oneness, or what is best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that the way out of my mind as my experience of inferiority is through and as my mind as an experience of superiority.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to simply stop my participation within this dynamic/polarity and walk out of my mind into the physical within and as my breath, supporting myself here, within this particular instance accepting that my clothes are doing their job, and I am here to enjoy this event.


When and as I see myself experiencing a point of jealousy or inferiority, I stop and I breathe.

I realize that here I am tempted to jockey for a better position, to place myself as superior no matter the cost, and I realize that the cost is one and equal for myself and any others whom I am trying to make feel inferior.

I realize it is NOT better to feel superior, as I have seen through my own experiences.

I realize that, in this particular topic of clothing, when I have dressed "cute" and created for myself an "outfit" based on what I believe will make others view me a certain way, I usually end up feeling very uncomfortable and self conscious and wishing I was wearing something more normal (as in what I normally wear).

I realize too that there I have been times when I have worn clothing that is not particularly comfortable and is not normal attire for me, but that at these times I have used the clothing as an expression of myself, where the starting point for wearing the clothes is as an expression of myself without trying to estimate how others will or might react.

So here I realize that some of these women who have "creative" outfits may well simply be expressing themselves as who they are, and that is really cool of them to do so.

I realize that judging another person for their expression, no matter their starting point, is self dishonest because I cannot know their starting point and I cannot know why they make the choices they make and it's really none of my business anyway, at least until I get myself sorted out, if even then.

So I commit myself to equality first within and as myself as self honesty in my expression of myself, self honesty in seeing myself, and self honesty in taking responsibility for myself.

I commit myself then to equality with others as life as self honesty in my interactions with others, self honesty in seeing others as myself as life, and self honesty in taking responsibility for the reactions I create as perceived to be triggered by others.