Showing Up for Myself Part 3: Self Support through Reading Blogs - Day 89

This post is a continuation within a series about "showing up" for myself, embodying and reuniting with myself as life.
Showing Up for Myself - Day 83
Showing Up for Myself Part 1: lONEliness - Day 85
Showing Up for Myself Part 1.5: Abandoning Myself through Participation in My Mind - Day 86
Showing Up for Myself Part 2: Walking Through Points in Writing & the Writing Process - Day 87

The following is an excerpt from Day 83, and is here as reference for the main portion of this post.

I also know that I have not been doing a good job keeping up with my commitment to read at least 3 blogs per day. I've barely made a dent in the BIG blogs. So I'm not supporting myself there. I'd rather sleep. Or play Candy Crush... which is why I resisted playing for so long, in part.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to once again open up multiple pages of blogs that I "want" to read but to not actually read them. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to scroll through a blog and see that it is long and basically wish that I already had it read and already had the information, rather than actually reading it and learning from it. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get distracted when I first start reading a blog, like thinking "I can do this later" where I believe that eventually it will get done but I never actually do it. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to force myself to read blogs and then sort of zone out while doing so so that I do not even know what I am reading. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sometimes feel overwhelmed and intimidated when I read some blogs because they seem so clear and to the point and concise and I want to have written them or I want to have had those conclusions within myself, rather than realizing what an excellent resource this blog is and being grateful that it has been shared for me to read, and benefiting from it in this way. 

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to "show up" for myself, to be here for myself, within reading blogs, where I have all of these experiences listed above instead of simply focusing my attention on reading and understanding the blog and reflecting on myself within the blog to see what I can learn to support myself, where here it's like just by reading a title that seems pertinent and like it would benefit me, I believe I have supported myself. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to read titles of blogs and think "oh that's an interesting topic, that seems beneficial" and then not bother to read it because I believe something like "it's already out there" and "someone already figured that out" so "now I don't have to" so that within this I become more apathetic about myself and my direction of myself within this process, where not only do I not read the blog to support myself but I also then believe that this is no longer a point I need to bother looking at within myself -- very very silly. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to prefer to play a game on my phone or watch a tv show or sleep rather than read a blog or a book or do something which is self supportive like cleaning/organizing my environment. 

When and as I see myself resisting reading a blog, I stop and I breathe. 

I realize that I have opened this blog up in this page because I have identified it as being something I "want" to read within a belief that it will be beneficial and self supportive to do so, and also because I am interested in what others are learning and what points they are walking and what all there is to discover about ourselves and our minds. 

I realize thus that it is only self supportive to actually follow through and actually read the blogs I identify within myself as wanting to read. 

I realize that when I open up so many pages it is easy to then feel overwhelmed at how many I have identified as wanting to read, so I recommit myself to reading blogs as I open them, one by one. 

I also commit myself to remembering that it really does not take that long to read a blog. 

I commit myself to directing my attention and focus onto the words on the screen and being here with myself and with those words, comprehending and integrating them within a reflection of myself and all as life.

So as it turns out I've been pretty good about reading at least 3 blogs per day, sometimes more. Nonetheless I still have a ton of them open in my browser that I put off until later and generally choose to do other less productive things in lieu of reading the blogs. So I have to push myself one by one to go through them, and push myself to make choices in each moment that are aligned with what is best for me/all.

So this is a resistance to supporting myself through reading these blogs, a resistance to educating myself and accessing information that is out there for me to learn and integrate into myself.

As I mentioned in the next section of the original post, I have felt like I need a guide, like someone to help me through this process and basically feed me information in response to whatever it is that I am presently going through/facing. I have in many areas for the majority of my life always wanted someone to "hold my hand" basically, or even to do things for me, like instead of me. I have not wanted to be the self directive principle of myself, taking action to better myself or actually change myself. I have wanted to simply already be changed, without doing the work. I have wanted simply to be content, without having to figure out how and act on it. I have wanted simply to be smart and educated and already have the answers, without realizing that I must do the work to become this, to be this.

I have wanted basically to sleep through life and have others do the living for me. Time and again this is what it comes down to.

So this relates not only to what I had previously written about commitments to educate myself through reading other blogs, but also to what I wrote about the perceived desire/need for some kind of guidance, someone to show me the way, someone to tell me what next step to take. But with my lack of action in the former, I am exacerbating the latter, where it is in the former that I can be my own guide and show myself the way by seeing where others have gone or are going.

The problem sometimes arises that I feel intimidated when I read other blogs. As I said before, they seem so clear and concise.

Sometimes I read them and think "I have thought the same thing!" and then go into like a competition and jealousy where I wish that I had been the one to say it, basically so that people will like me and approve of me and think I am smart -- so assuming the reaction of others to what I say as being self-serving of my ego, rather than, if I were to "be the first one to say that," saying it simply for the sake of sharing perspective.

Sometimes I read blogs and they are clear and concise and not really something I had ever realized or thought about before, or at least certainly not with such clarity, and so then I go into inferiority and fear that I will ever be able to see myself that clearly, that I will ever be able to write myself that clearly, or that I will ever be able to contribute like that to this body of work. Still competitive. Still not self supportive but self serving of my ego. Still not embodying myself within the here and now, still judging myself for not being some certain idealized way already.

This is all interrelated too to the crossroads I am approaching where I am nearing the end of my coursework in DIP Lite and will thus have the opportunity to apply for sponsorship for DIP Pro. And there is a lot going on in my mind in reaction to this crossroads and the consideration of whether or not this is something I "want" to do. 

On the one hand I hope that the DIP Pro "buddy" experience will be more involved, and from what I gather, it is. But I also realize that I have not been as involved in this process as I could be in terms of guiding myself in my own education or in seeking out support on the forum.

I also know that DIP Pro is a larger commitment than DIP Lite and that I fear that I will be able to keep up this commitment. I still have yet to even really fully commit myself to this process. It has remained something that "I just started doing one day" and have kept doing almost every day. Quite a few people in my personal life know at least a little bit about my involvement, but I keep my online identities separate as much as I can, not posting desteni material on facebook for fear of what others will think and how they might judge me or criticize me. This is something about which I have seen many write and that I have yet to write about and really consider for myself. I've hardly even admitted it as the justification I have had for my failure to integrate this as myself as who I am at all times in all ways.

Me? Afraid of what others think? No, never.

Ah, so then yes, always. Too afraid even to admit that I am afraid.

One of the fears in that is that I do not want to espouse to support something I do not understand and therefore cannot explain properly to another. So I continue thus to educate myself -- coming back again to the commitment to keep up with reading blogs, watching google hang outs, listening to interviews.


So when and as I see myself feeling stagnant within my process as my interaction with material and integration of learning, I stop and I breathe. I realize no one else can really teach me -- I tried this in school for 16 years and learned only a fraction of what I was "taught." I realize only I can teach myself, and only I can direct myself to learn and to seek out understanding. I commit myself to re-prioritize once again my own education and understanding of the material created by those who have come before me so that I can guide myself by these maps and forge my own path within my journey to life.

I commit myself to investigating who I am within this process and within desteni. Why have I participated thus far? Why should I continue?


One reason I can see is that time is running out. It could already be too late. This world is dying. Earth is dying and we are all walking atop it, dead, dying, and killing as we go. Zombies really. But it might not be too late. I have a choice to make: Do I want to be dead or a life?

Information Retention as Self Identification - Day 55

The other day Dan and I had a lengthy conversation about ourselves and life and reactions and communication and a whole breadth of topics. It was very interesting and we noticed that we were able to both "observe" and "participate" in the conversation to where we would be engaging in conversation and then take a step back and notice our reactions or the assumptions we were making about each other based on word choice and how those words are charged for each of us and clarify these reactions through further communication. It was very cool indeed and I am grateful that Dan introduced me to Desteni and that we have the semi-unique opportunity of knowing one another "in real life" while we walk our processes.

At the end of the conversation I saw myself feeling a bit frustrated as I told Dan that I felt like I wasn't going to remember any of what we'd talked about. We discussed the potential outflows of the conversation itself and all of the energy that was put into having the conversation and how we will both experience consequences of that energy, and discussed the potential of being able to engage in a conversation without polar outflow if/when we are able to really be with our breath and not experiencing so many reactions and other energies during the conversation.

For me, I often experience myself as not retaining/remembering (not being able to readily access within my memory) points of a conversation, especially one which is lengthy and insightful, after the conversation ends. So this then would be the natural consequential outflow. However, I also experience anxiety about this, to where I have established within myself that it "is" a pattern that I "will" forget, and therefore I manifest this fear as reality as I engage in the energetic charge of anxiety/worry about what I may or may not remember and also judge myself/feel upset with myself that I will not have "access" to what has been said, all before I have even experienced any "forgetting."

An inability to retain information has also been an excuse I have used within my learning capacities and approach to education, where I have seen that although I have achieved good grades, I do not experience/see myself as always having actually learned as much as was taught or offered in courses. So I have seen this in myself and I have assumed about myself that "I do not retain information," which obviously has many implications, not the least of which is that it negates my own participation in educating myself to where I am expecting myself to learn merely by having information presented -- very passive.

A few weeks ago I had a similarly lengthy/productive conversation with my mom which I decided to record and then I was able to refer back to what was said and I found this to be interesting and supportive. Similarly in college I was often able to take notes during lectures and then refer back to those notes. During this end section of our conversation, I expressed to Dan that we should record our conversations or take notes or something.

I don't really know the best solution to all of this -- is it practical to try to record conversations that I expect to be supportive? I know that when I recorded the conversation with my mom, I was aware that I was recording and I remember that awareness influencing how I chose my words, so that it was not a completely "natural" conversation in that way. Jotting down some notes if necessary seems relatively practical, but is it really necessary?

I remember, too, many times throughout my life either in conversations with my mom or friends or therapists, usually conversations that developed some kind of progress within understanding myself, where I or the other person might say something that really stood out to me and then I would want to hold onto it and remember it word for word exactly -- not just the general concept, but the exact words, like they were a powerfully insightful answer or key that I needed to preserve in that exact form in order for them to retain their power (so here I am looking to the words to do the retention for me, rather than for myself to understand, integrate, and BE rather than merely retain). And what I would realize during the times that I was actually able to record the words, was that when I would go back to them later, I wouldn't be so impressed as I was when I first experienced the words. So here I can see that it wasn't just the words themselves that were so "insightful" or meaningful to me, but probably a combination of the words within the context of the conversation and whatever energetic charges were being experienced during the conversation and at the moment of "insight." So here I have placed extensive value on the exact phrases themselves rather on the content that they communicate, to where I rigidly hold onto the exact verbiage rather than identifying, considering and integrating their meaning.

Along with this desire/anxiety about recording and retaining conversational information, I also have noticed and already mentioned here that I have a difficult time letting go of certain information, such as the many blog posts I have drafted but not published. Some of them I will go back to and eventually finish and publish, but many remain only as a kind of record-keeping strategy to not "lose" some "part of myself" that has been placed there. So here the information I seek to retain is actually adopted as part of my identity, but here it is outside myself on a computer screen and clung to as if that part of my identity will be lost if I delete the words -- I'll forget myself.

So in general I am noticing that I have an anxiety about self-identification and self-definition within information retention where I want to "know myself" through retaining information that has been established about myself or information I have participated in creating where I believe I will experience a kind of "loss" or part of me "missing" if I cannot "remember" pieces of information. Further conclusions could be drawn here but I am not ready to go that far within my present understanding of this pattern.

--

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become energetically charged within reactions, assumptions, interpretations, emotions, beliefs, thoughts, etc. when conversing with another person, to where it can become very difficult to really understand one another because I am engaging within and as my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become energetically charged within and as insightful meaningful conversation to where I will then experience a polar outflow/consequence of that energy in the aftermath of the conversation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create and then participate within and as an anxiety/worry/fear about retaining information.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate within and as the thought/belief "I'm not going to be able to remember any of this."

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react when and as I encounter conversational points that I find insightful or meaningful to where I then charge those points within an energetic reaction and also simultaneously react within the thought/belief that I will not be able to remember that point, and then enter fear/disappointment about myself and who I will not be able to be without retaining that information.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place greater importance on specific strings of words as being meaningful rather than on the meaning itself, the insight, and how I can see, realize, understand, integrate, live, and be that meaning as self-honesty as what is best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify/rationalize/excuse my passive approach to learning through and as the thought/belief "I don't retain information well," where within this, even if I do have a hard time retaining information, I do not seek out any solutions to this to assist and support myself in learning better or more easily but instead resign myself to that being "the way it is" as if there is nothing I can do to retain more information.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place my self-definition and self-identification outside myself in words/information to where I believe I cannot see/know myself without those words/information. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I can only know a certain thing about myself if I can hold onto the exact way that the insight was first communicated/expressed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have attached energetic charges to the insights that I have encountered and that within this I have believed that it is the words themselves which are creators of these charges and not myself as the creator of the charges.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that other people can better define me than I can define myself through and as words.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold onto a hoard collections of words that I have created about myself as if the existence of these strings of words on a page makes them real and makes them true about me and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place my existence within and as these words to where I experience anxiety that without these words describing or detailing parts of myself, I cannot know or see those parts of myself, or those parts of myself do not exist, to where the written or spoken word is the definitive whole of who I am.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing who I physically am, who I live as, to be definitive of who I am, to where I am in every moment existing and being and thus defining myself as long as I breathe, whether there are words to describe me or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that information requires mere retention and not integration as lived as and by myself.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to be the living words I have identified/defined as myself.

When and as I see myself participating within and as an anxiety about not retaining information/insight that has been gained, I stop and I breathe. I realize that learning is about more than just remembering. I commit myself to changing my relationship with information and insight to teach myself to integrate insight into and as myself rather than keep it separate from myself within an externalized verbal definition of myself which must be held onto and retained and referenced in order to be real. I commit myself to stop defining myself through and as information but instead define myself as who I am in each moment in each breath. I commit myself to be real, to be the living words in the physical in and as my breath as who I am as one as equal as life as what is best for all.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Money - Day 51

"Touching money can reduce physical pain and feelings of social alienation." 

This was the "completely random yet true" fact at the bottom of the agenda for our team meeting at work this week (unfortunately there was no source). A coworker and I pointed out how this is actually really depressing. For me it was depressing because of all of the monetary/financial obligations that weigh us down to where we are not able to participate in life in enjoyment but are constantly under the strain of bills and payments and needing to have enough money in order to lead a life that we enjoy or to simply survive. 

But what was especially telling for me was what happened yesterday morning. Well, firstly, the night before last I was experiencing some anxiety where I couldn't quite place the source... I wrote about it briefly to try and pinpoint potential sources and I came up with a few. Yesterday morning some of that anxiety persisted, until I checked my bank account. Yesterday was payday, and when I saw the number in my bank account I felt such RELIEF. No longer was I anxious about various relationships, insecurities, ineptitudes, or, obviously, paying my bills. I realized that I was existing in the thought/belief that, since I had money, "I am okay, everything is okay." Like, literally, I went from participating within and as "feelings of social alienation" to simply not caring and being happy that I had money and that now I can do x, y, and z and not have to worry because my needs are met. 

So what's going on here? I'm not totally sure. But money is linked to survival and security, and survival is linked to self-interest, and self-interest is linked to almost everything about me, every endeavor I pursue. So when I feel anxious about if so-and-so likes/approves of me or how I am going to find assurance about myself from an external source, and then experience respite from that anxiety when I see that I "have" "money," this indicates to me that money must hold some meaning, charge, or utility that serves a dual purpose as a resolution to my anxieties. What I "need" in a social relationship seems very different than what I "need" that I can buy with money. But whatever is motivating my anxieties in the social arena must in some way be the same factor that is solved when I have money. What is it? 

Security?

If I have money, I can buy what I need. If I have money, do I need others? If I had more money than I knew what to do with, would I get lonely? I'm sure I would -- we've all heard that "money can't buy happiness" and I'm sure that "rich" people get lonely or perhaps even lonelier than most. But nonetheless money holds a place and value in my mind that negates my needs for others, for social acceptance or connection, to where when I am experiencing social anxiety, it is relieved by substantially increasing the amount of money I have -- at least temporarily. 

But really, honestly -- how often have I in some part of my mind established within myself that I "need" a "partner"/"spouse"/whatever in order to be financially stable, or even to absolutely support me financially? This is a whole different can of worms obviously, but it does show that a lack of money is a partial motivation for connecting with another human who I believe can support me financially in case I can't support myself (or because I don't want to...?). At the very least, I allow myself to factor money/income in when considering or imagining romantic partners. 

Invincibility? 

Invincibility is a big one, because I am not one to "manage" my money "well." I have very little savings and a lot of debt, and there's really no good reason for that other than that I have been irresponsible with my money. When I have money, I feel relief, and in that relief, I spend carelessly. Then I obviously end up again with not having very much money, where I then build up negative energy charges in stress about money and bills and possibly/probably spend recklessly until the next paycheck. Then the cycle continues. 

So then this illusion of invincibility where, within money, I sense that I am provided for or can provide for myself, that I am not in need, I do not lack -- well money isn't infinite in this system so I can't really operate within a sense of myself as invincible without facing consequences for that. And obviously money is also an illusory solution to any sense of lack within and as myself, such as the lack that leads me to "feelings of social alienation" as described above. But the feeling of relief that came with viewing my bank account was accompanied by a sense of myself as untouchable, like nothing could get in my way or get me "down." 

There is obviously a LOT to understand about money and for starters I need to understand my own personal relationship with money and finances and spending and saving and take responsibility for myself here. But eventually I would like to understand a lot more, including for example the increasing division between upper and lower classes to where the middle class is disappearing and why this is happening. Economics has always been something I've basically ignored because "I don't get it," and similarly I've never really learned how to be responsible with my own money because "no one ever taught me" and "I've had bad examples." Well those are just excuses and I'll no longer accept or allow them as valid. 

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to believe that I can enjoy life even without money or even under financial strain. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to experience relief/respite from my anxieties to where I no longer face/address them simply because I have seen that I have money. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to direct myself within and as my self-interest for survival to where money is a primary motivating factor for me. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to build and sustain a relationship with money that is more important than my relationships with other people. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pursue relationships with other people from the starting point of what they can do for me, how they can support me. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to replace relationships with people with a relationship with money.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, within my mind, believe that someday I will like to have a partner/spouse who will support me financially so that I don't have to work. Within this I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to support myself financially. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to support myself within my education about economics and money management. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be careless and reckless with money. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify and excuse my abstinence from appropriate money management. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be passive in general when it comes to my education. 

When and as I see myself spending money carelessly or recklessly, I stop and I breathe. I realize that I often spend money within and in reaction to energetic experiences. I realize that I want to support myself financially and that in order to become financially independent of members of my family I must take actual responsibility for my spending. I commit myself to learn more about responsible financial planning/management and to hold myself accountable to myself for my spending and saving. I commit myself to set goals for myself in paying off my debt and in saving and to free myself from financial ties with my family within a matter of years. I commit myself to stop making excuses for myself both in my education of myself about economics/financial management and in my spending habits. I commit myself to learning more about the equal money system to understand why it is purported to be best for all. I commit myself to continue to investigate my relationship with money and how society relates to money and what money really is. 

Intimidation in Education - Day 35

Tonight I attended an open house for some various graduate programs in a professional school of psychology. I noticed a few things come up for me within this, primarily an interesting interaction within and as intimidation.

I noticed first during the tour of the "campus" (which was not a campus, haha, just a floor in an office building), when we were in the library, and the admissions counselor pointed out all of the dissertations of previous graduates and all of the research of faculty: I felt intimidated. I thought: "that's right, now I remember why I haven't looked seriously at graduate school recently" and within this I saw that I believed I could not participate in meaningful research and that I could not productively and effectively communicate my findings within research, and within this I saw that I believed that I was not smart, did not have good ideas, was not good enough / other people are better so I might as well just not try, etc. I didn't see all of this right away, of course. Mostly at this point I was just seeing the thoughts within myself, not so much the beliefs behind them. 

Then a little later we were listening to the director of the PsyD clinical psychology program and he was listing the components of the program, one of which is of course research. I was taking notes and when I wrote out "research" I noticed that I felt a little excited at the possibilities, the potential to explore and investigate ideas, the potential to discover something new or contribute something meaningful. So here in this instance I was approaching the word "research" in a much more positive way, to where it really kind of "turned me on" and made me feel open and unlimited within possibilities. 

So at this point it was very easy to notice the stark difference in these two reactions, where within one I felt intimidated and within another I felt inspired. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am not capable of pursuing a doctoral degree. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am not capable of contributing something meaningful to a field of research and practice. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be directed by, within, and as my energetic experiences of intimidation and fear, wherein I limit myself and my potential and shy away from opportunities. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to interpret the extent of my potential from the basis of what I have already achieved, within which I have already limited myself, and therefore I participate in a cyclical understanding of myself wherein I often limit myself by believing I cannot do something if I have never done it, or something similar, before. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to be intimidated and "confused" at times during my undergraduate studies to the point that I would do just enough to get good grades but in fact did not learn as much as my grades reflected and did not take advantage of the many opportunities I was afforded by attending a large research university. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to use my grades rather than myself as the measurement of what I have learned. Even when I did not get good grades, I blamed this on a difficulty with test-taking rather than a flag-point for my learning or my study skills. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to claim that I am "confused" by something as an excuse or justification for feeling intimidated to where rather than trying to see what it is by which I am confused, I give up and/or feign my understanding. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, within my education, not address and face times when I have felt confused as opportunities and flag-points to push myself to understand and to learn and have instead just assumed that I am not smart or that I cannot understand.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to build a shoddy foundation within my education to where when and as I saw myself feeling confused, I feigned understanding to the point that I was able to get good grades but not able to provide myself with a foundation for further learning of more advanced concepts. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my educational choices back to as early as 7th grade when I chose to go to a particular school and "my mom let me" and therefore it is her fault. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am incapable of doing something to which I aspire. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that "others are better than I am" and therefore I should not try. That's a big one to come back to in many forms: jealousy, inferiority, intimidation, etc. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to look for an easy path or course for myself to get by and to make enough money, like getting good enough grades, without actually contributing to my growth so that within this lack of trying I do not have to face failure. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to in fact fail by not trying. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to miss so many opportunities within my educational, career-related, and personal growth. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to at times become "hung up" on these missed opportunities to where I regret them and believe that there is no decision or way to direct myself now to "make up for" these missed opportunities. Within this I miss even more opportunities, the opportunities that are in every moment with every breath. I forgive myself for missing those, and I commit myself to, when and as I see myself regretting missed opportunities: stop, breathe, and see how each breath is a new opportunity, and to take at the very least the opportunity to release myself from regret, then go from there. 

When and as I see myself participating within and as an energetic experience of "intimidation" or "confusion" when facing a challenge, I stop and I breathe. I realize that within these experiences I am telling myself non supportive thoughts and reinforcing negative beliefs about myself and my capacities. I realize that I am running the risk of using these experiences as excuses to limit myself if I do not stop, breathe, and commit myself to pushing myself through intimidation to where I test my own capacity and see for myself as myself of what I am capable, and pushing myself toward the topics of my confusion to where I can see and understand them by myself or with assistance. I commit myself to stop limiting myself by, through, within, and as my beliefs about myself. 

"Argue for your limitations, and, sure enough, they're yours."

- Richard Bach