Subtle Experience Moves Me - Day 162

I've been doing okay with identifying actual thoughts and trains of thought, stopping them, and forgiving myself, before they get out of hand.

In a way it is difficult to tell how "successful" this is because I can't see what would happen if I didn't do that... I can only reflect on what has happened in the past. And I've only been doing it a couple days.

But I have definitely had moments wherein I could have easily allowed myself to be carried away by thoughts and back chat and internal conversations, and I haven't, and that is cool.

What is proving to be far more tricky is to do this with more subtle energies, feelings, and emotions. "States of being" even... I mean here I am laying in bed and feeling rather miserable and pessimistic about my day and about myself and I'm not totally sure how I got here, but I am seeing that it has a lot to do with the feelings and emotions that I've accepted and allowed, even though I've done pretty well with stopping actual thoughts and energies that have taken verbal form.

So I experienced these energies very subtly and wasn't totally sure what to do with them, also wanting to give myself the space to just support myself rather than turn around and push myself hurriedly into some great venture I was resisting, and then it accumulated into the state of being I exist in and as now.

And I actually wouldn't say there are no thoughts associated with this. They're just under layers of energy, muffled, but still there.

And to come back to this: "give myself the space to just support myself rather than turn around and push myself hurriedly into some great venture I was resisting."

I mean I've understood that I am in the process of stabilizing and of really focusing on just self-support. But I have used that as an excuse to not push through resistances and do things that I "want" to do but that I give myself reasons not to do: I am too tired, I can't, I am not good enough, it will not work out, I don't feel like it, and eventually leading into more self-deprecating self-talk like telling myself I have no friends, what's it matter? etc. etc. Also thinking about how much the weekend sucks and how it seems like every time Thursday comes around I'm excited for Friday and the weekend but by the time it's Friday night and I realize I have nothing to do, no plans, and anything I could do will require more effort from me than just watching TV or going to bed absurdly early, and I get discouraged and feel lonely and useless.

I consider substance abuse, but I haven't drank at home by myself in a month now, even though I have wine, and, although I've had sweets when they've been offered at work, I haven't had any ice cream or baked goods in my home in about a month either. And I don't think that these "problems" I am creating for myself through the experiences I am creating are ones I should shove down and run away from through evasive / avoidance behavior.

Avoidance behavior is a really big deal for me. I need to look more closely at that. And since I am having difficulty taking on whatever I am experiencing in writing lately, maybe I should just plan to have a look at statements of patterns and characteristics of codependence until / unless there is something else to address in writing.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to enter a negative energetic experience of myself like "depression" or "anxiety" and to just sit there believing that there is nothing I can do about it, or feeding into the apathy and laziness and powerlessness that comes with these experiences so that I "give myself" time to sit here and justify it by thinking that "tomorrow" or "later" I will "do something about it."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to gift myself with something that is self-abusive and not self-supportive and is self-sabotage.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take the time to write out the space I am in and the energies I am sensing and to try and have a look at how and why I am here. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not want to do this because I did not feel "clear" enough to write something that would be worthy of publishing on my blog, so, "why bother?" I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make publishing on my blog more important than practically supporting myself, so that if practically supporting myself in writing does not result in publishing on my blog, I don't bother.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to wonder if I am going to continue this process, wherein wondering shows that I am taking a passive stance of not directing myself but allowing energies to direct me so that I have to "wonder" what the result will be rather than directing the result for myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to notice subtle energies of emotional experiences but to not realize that I can also apply self forgiveness in the moment of those experiences or in the moment that I notice the experience or simply in the moment that I realize I can apply self forgiveness for that experience, even if it has been subtly present for a little while.

I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to support myself in this way or even to really try to look and see how I could support myself when I began to notice these subtle energies.

I realize some of this has to do with what may or may not happen today, and that I am fearful of how I may or may not react, and that I am allowing myself to live under this dark cloud of not knowing rather than standing strong and tall and stable as myself, supporting myself absolutely and unconditionally, and clearing myself of all of these energies.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to worry about some future event that may or may not happen and how I will handle it and wanting to control the event through my emotions and reactions so that I can abdicate responsibility for myself through these energies rather than taking responsibility for myself and my own well-being by clearing the energies so that I can stand clear and stable.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to look toward some future event that may or may not happen and feel like everything else must be put on hold until then because, hang on, me, and hang on, life, I need to spiral downward real quick and just let myself fall until I find out what's happening -- again outside of my own control or direction, "wondering" and "waiting" to see what will happen.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take a stand within myself and direct myself as I am who I can control, directing myself to be self-supportive and also gracious and patient with myself within the realization that yes, I may experience some kind of inner turmoil, but I am still here, and I can reflect on that inner turmoil to see myself better and to direct myself better.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to only ever feed myself negative and self-deprecating thoughts about my ability to endure certain road bumps or road blocks or my ability to do anything at all, or what I am worth, etc., I realize that if I am going to feed myself anything in the form of thoughts I should at least be supporting myself by affirming for myself that I am capable, and that it might be hard, but I can do it, and I will still be here, and I am not unworthy, and I am alive / a life, one with and equal to all as life, so I do matter, etc. etc. I commit myself to watch what I say to myself about myself and my abilities. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to justify and create excuses for apathy and laziness within an experience of depression and anxiety wherein even though I wanted to draw or I wanted to go to yoga or I wanted to read blogs or a book or do something more interesting, I chose instead to do almost nothing that was self-supportive while under the dark cloud of what the next day (today) might bring, so that I was basically just like biding my time until "disaster" might strike rather than doing something that I enjoy or that would support me to get myself out of this "funk" or support me to see how I can direct myself at this point.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself extensively within all of these thoughts like "I can't" or "it's not worth it" or "why bother?" until basically here I am a fully capable and physically healthy human being with many advantages in life, a job, money, food, etc., and I live as if I am worthless and useless and can do nothing, giving up basically, a living death.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fall back on and access a kind of living dead state any time that I am facing an experience of depression.

I wonder what it would be like if I became "reckless" in this state. Oh, you don't want to draw, because you think it will suck? Well, what's it matter, if you're as good as dead anyway??

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to recognize the subtle thoughts that exist behind my energies just because they are not loud and are not at the fore-front of my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself within my self-support within the belief that "I do not know what to do with those subtle thoughts or energies," because, even though I do see them, they are not as obvious as some others, and so for some reason this makes me believe that they must be addressed differently or cannot be addressed until they react a kind of "crisis" mode.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to be proactive with myself and my self-support so that the moment I see any kind of energy or thought, no matter how subtle, I look at it and how it is directing me and I direct it, I stop, I breathe, and I forgive myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist activities that I "want" to do and believe I would enjoy for really small minuscule reasons such as how I am feeling / emoting, or that my desk is a little messy and would need to be organized, or that my eyes feel tired, or other thought / self-talk related excuses.

So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to actively not support myself under the guise of supporting myself by "cutting myself some slack."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have like a domino chain reaction effect where when I resist doing one thing I resist doing all things and then mope around and feel sorry for myself, also feeling undeserving of success or clarity or stability.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel like I don't deserve to feel successful or clear or stable, so I create and then hold onto negative beliefs about myself and self-limitations so that I can remain stuck in that darkness and lash out at anyone who tries to help while at the same time periodically reaching points where all I want is for someone to try and help. I help myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel sorry for myself because I feel like I have no or only a very few friends. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to basically throw myself a pity party within this wherein I think about all the reasons that no one would want to be my friend and all the reasons I can't make friends etc. etc., rather than firstly realizing and understanding how I came to this point within friendships and also realizing and understanding that I can make friends and also realizing and understanding that I have had friends in the past and so I am not defective, but often in the past I have not valued those friendships as much as I have in retrospection, so here I realize there is more to look at in myself in how I am never good enough and no one else is ever good enough and nothing is ever good enough and also to take responsibility for myself within friendships as a preparation to actively seeking out new friendships because I realize that if I do not change then neither will the consequences and results of my patterns and behaviors.

I see here that even in positive memories, I am often/always "looking back" and "holding on," so not just with negative experiences / memories but with positive ones too.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself for not writing a blog last night because I chose to do other less self-supportive things instead, but I also realize this is a process and some of the things I am writing about here today may not have been realized last night, so it's okay, it's a process, and today I came to the point of writing, whereas last night I was at a different point.


I commit myself to continue to look at all of these points.

I commit myself, when and as I notice any energy or thought at all, no matter how subtle it seems, to stop, breathe, and forgive myself in that moment of experience.

I commit myself to watching what I tell myself about myself and my abilities and what I am worth.

I commit myself to use the patterns and characteristics of codependence or other patterns and characteristics that I identify with to see myself through writing, because I realize this will support me and will also support me in relationships / friendships and so it will be a work of preparation for healthier friendships which is something I want and so can support myself to get.

I commit myself to give myself the opportunity to at least try whatever thing I "want" to do but am resisting, whether it is art, reading, going outside, calling a friend, cleaning, or any other activity which I identify as "wanting" to do but resist.

I commit myself to moving forward today in unknowing, fearlessly, supporting myself in my breath and the realization that I am capable and I can do this and I am here, here with myself, here in the physical, and that continuing to fear and continuing to limit myself in my beliefs about my abilities is killing me.

"He Did It First!": Perpetuating Abuse and Re-Victimization - Day 151

"He did it first!" That's the number one excuse I hear at the school where I work. Like as if another person doing something makes it okay for you to do the same thing.

Yesterday I was having kind of a hard time figuring out how to support a student who was basically just being grumpy and irritable and only wanted her way, which was sort of no way at all.

I didn't really know what to say to her, so I just sat with her. But then I thought -- why am I sometimes mean to people? Why do I sometimes think it's okay to be mean?

Well, because others have been mean to me. So it seems like it's okay, or it's the most easily referenced example of how I could behave.

So then I pay it forward. I'm not even always mean to the person or people who were mean to me in the first place, but days, weeks, months, even years later, I pay it forward because I've normalized it as okay, and as acceptable, because it happened to me. I mean not even "okay" in the sense of "it's okay to be mean," but more just, that behavior is "okay" -- not even categorized as mean. Especially if I didn't see any consequences play out for the person who was mean to me.

I mean what we experience tends to become what we see as normal. And so if we see being mean as normal, because others have been mean to us, then we go and be mean to others, because we think it is normal, okay, and acceptable, and then we are just perpetuating this cycle of meanness.

What if everyone was nice?

In simple terms obviously.

What if everyone did what was best for all?

What if everyone treated everyone else the way that they themselves would like to be treated?

I like being treated with kindness. I like being treated with compassion. I like being treated with respect. I like being understood.

So what if I did all those things for others? What if I helped make that normal? What if I gave others that experience, so they could also make it normal?

What if we didn't always respond in kind? What if we turned around and stood up? What if we each faced ourselves and all others as one and equal as life? What if we didn't just allow ourselves to perpetuate cycles of abuse? What if we didn't just allow ourselves to perpetuate cycles of victimization and re-victimization, and abused becoming abusers?

The victimization part is especially interesting, I think. Because if others have been mean to me, and especially if I haven't seen any consequences for those others, then I see myself as a victim. And as a victim, I feel powerless. And here I am again, in this same powerless dynamic. How can I have power? It seemed like the person who was mean to me had power. So I can be mean to another. Then I have "power," then I have "control."

But my student seemed to respond to what I was saying. I think she saw the power in changing herself. I think she saw that she doesn't have to be a victim and just go along with the cycle of abuse. I think she saw that power and control actually comes in every moment, as participants in creating this world, and so -- why not create it as best for all? That is what I saw, anyway.


These are questions we are all asking ourselves with Desteni, and many other people all over the world are asking the same. Desteni provides tools for answering these questions and directing self to be the change we all really want to see in this world where we live. Turn around and stand up: http://lite.desteniiprocess.com/



I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, when I encounter an opportunity to interact with another person, reference past memories of other people treating me poorly to use as my guides of how to engage in this new situation, so that I guide and direct myself by my experiences of normalized abuse.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to meet each moment and each person with respect as doing unto another as I would want done unto me -- not as what I can easily remember and reference as what has been done unto me in the past.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use my memories of particularly negative interactions with others as my reference point for guiding myself now, so that it's as if as long as I do behave "as badly" as the people in my past behaved toward me, per my perception, then I am "okay" and it is "normal."

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to reference memories and instances of exemplary treatment as my guiding reference point for how to treat others, also referencing myself in self honesty and self respect to direct myself in treating others with respect.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create myself as one with and equal to abuse, and my past experiences of abuse, perpetuating cycles of abuse and victimization in this world through my participation as a life here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not only tolerate but in fact participate within and as the perpetuation of cycles of abuse.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take a stand and say no more!


I commit myself to question myself in every moment, to ask myself what my reference point is for my behavior, and ask myself how I would like to be treated in this interaction, and to put myself in the other person's shoes as best I can. I commit myself to breathe through this process with patience and compassion. I commit myself to stopping my participation in the perpetuation of the cycle of abuse, and starting my participation in the perpetuation of the cycle of Life. I commit myself to be one among many who stand and change the world, as ourselves, as our examples, and as the impact of our behaviors.

Liking the Boy Who Pulls Your Hair - Day 148

Today two of my students came to me to talk about boy troubles. Both girls were talking about how confused they were because the boys they liked were very hot and cold with them, basically being nice especially when they were alone, but mean to them when there were other kids around, or otherwise being generally hot and cold.

We talked about self-respect and I asked why they would like someone who does not respect them or who treats them poorly. This was more just a question I wanted them to think about and reflect on, since it is certainly something that takes a while for most women (and men?) to learn. In fact it is something that I am only learning right now.

I encouraged them to be reflective of themselves and only act based on decisions they make about who they are, not about what other people do or say, or what they think other people want them to do, or what they think other people think.

I encouraged them to think about how they could best support themselves.

I pointed out how we're probably always going to feel those butterflies in our stomach when we see a boy who we think is attractive. Sometimes that's hard to control. But what we can control is what we do with that. We don't have to "like" someone just because of how he looks. It's how he actually is toward us that matters, and how he is in general. I mean, what do they expect a relationship with that person to look like, based on how he treats them now? And what kind of relationship do they really want? "One where we're kind to each other, we don't call each other names..."

And what did I really expect that relationship to look like? More of the same? I hoped it would be different. I hoped he would change. I hoped I could make him change. I hoped I was special enough to make him change, to make him be the person I originally thought he was, or wanted him to be. I hoped. Hope is not real. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create my experience here and now based on what I hoped for the future. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to exist in the here and now of reality, responding to what is here, now, and moving myself in self honesty from the starting point of stability in this moment. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to change another person for the sake of my own ego, of feeling good about myself as being important enough to another person to make them change. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to wish that I could have that power, to change another person because they care about me that much. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to equate caring and love with a person changing to be a better person. I realize this goes back to my dad, who said he loved me, but who was abusive. I realize that I wanted him to change in order to show me he loved me. I realize maybe I have a hidden belief that he didn't really love me, since he never changed. So I commit myself to investigate this further. What is "love" in this belief? The belief that I do not matter. That I only matter if I can get another person to change, to treat me better, then I will know I have value. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe this, to put before myself this impossible task that is completely irrelevant to my actual value as life, and which is self-abusive by design. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can be the person that makes another person change. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to be that person. I see that in this instance I have helped another person see themselves, but only after engaging in much frustration and self-abusive behavior of arguing and not supporting myself. It is not my job to change another. It is not my job to make another see himself. I will not be enticed by this ability -- I am tired! It is not worth it to do this when I am not stable in myself, supporting myself. I cannot support another instead of supporting myself, and I cannot accept or allow myself to be drained by another person who does not understand and respect (see himself as one with and equal to) the consequence of these interactions. I will respect myself and stop my participation. I will create myself now here as the person that I want to be, supporting myself, trusting myself, respecting myself, and taking responsibility for myself NOW, so that I no longer hope for the future to be a certain way. I am here now, I will be here now, I will create myself here and now as what is best for all as best I can in self-support. I stand. 

I also pointed out how, from the sounds of it, it seemed like these boys just wanted attention from them in order to stroke their own egos. And so, when one girl stopped talking to that boy for 4 days, he started giving her a lot of attention on facebook, trying basically to coax her back into the position he had been keeping her in: at arm's length, but still feeding his ego.

Maybe I was projecting from my own experiences; I don't know. But the girls said they could relate to what I was saying. One girl felt sympathetic about a boy who was going through a difficult time with a break up. I pointed out that for me, in the past, I would use that as like an excuse for a boy to be mean to me, and I would think that if I could be stable and consistent, then eventually he'd get over it, and he'd want to be with me, like he'd see how great I am, and we would be together, and everything would be perfect. She laughed and said that's how she feels. The other girl wanted to "blast" one of the boys she had liked but who was being mean on facebook, which I gathered meant that she wanted to basically post a lot on his wall about what she thinks of him. I pointed out how that might feel like taking control, but he's probably not going to reflect on anything based on that. He's not going to say, "you know what? you're right!" or at least he won't say that and mean it. I pointed out how here the three of us were having a nice conversation and we were learning from it, but when other staff, for example, shout at them, it's easy to look away and say "yeah, okay, whatever, oh my god, this is so stupid." So when someone is really reactive at us, we tune them out. But when someone comes to us calmly, or otherwise stops participating in the game / dance of reaction, we realize that something's up, and we look at it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be abused and mistreated with the hopes that a boy / man will see me as valuable. How backwards! 

I realize this only shows what I am accepting and allowing. This communicates that I accept and allow and even invite abuse. 

I commit myself to respect myself by no longer accepting or allowing others to abuse me. I commit myself to set boundaries for myself and live by them. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I will be heard if I am loud, that I will be seen if my actions are big or extreme. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be directed by my reaction with a belief that it will communicate better than me communicating for myself. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feed into the desire to have retribution through reaction, through "showing another how it feels" or trying to convey my emotional intensity through anger. I see, realize, and am beginning to understand how effective communication comes from a point of stability. I realize that giving myself over to reaction, giving myself over to retribution, is abandoning myself and abusing myself. I realize that I am most easily heard when I am calm. I realize that others do not typically react well to reaction -- they will react in turn, whether by also becoming angry, or discrediting me, or something else. But if I am calm, then I am supporting myself, and there is a better chance I will be heard and understood. So I commit myself to keeping my reactions to myself as much as I can, as much as seems appropriate. I commit myself to not using my anger to communicate. I commit myself to abandoning the belief that if I can show others how much I am hurting, they will feel bad. I realize people don't want to see themselves as bad people, so seeing the consequences of their behavior sometimes makes them just turn away. So I realize this is not effective. So I commit myself to effectively support myself and effectively communicate by finding stability before I communicate. I realize the other person understanding me is not paramount. Understanding myself is what is paramount. Respecting myself is paramount.  

I've been kept at arm's length, and I've been in the position of thinking someone was quite mean to me, disrespectful, and also seeing his behavior as contradictory and even irresponsible. And yet, for some reason, I succumbed to his charm and charisma, and his CONfidence, and his physical appearance, and I decided I "liked" him. I didn't listen to myself in self-honesty. I believed that the other person must genuinely be that great, since he acted so great, since he acted like he was hot shit, since it seemed like other girls liked him too.

I directed myself from what I thought I should do based on what other people thought, based on my perception of how other people received this person -- not how I actually received him, which was a lot of really negative interactions, that I just overlooked, because I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, or I thought he would change, or I thought I was wrong for perceiving things that way, because I trusted him more than I trusted myself.

And this is mainly why I am mad, at myself. And I am mad too because I finally let it be known how I felt, and I fear now that this is just being used once again for this individual to stroke his ego. But mainly, I am mad that I abused myself and rejected myself in favor of hanging out with, liking, and pursuing a guy who wasn't nice to me, who didn't treat me with respect, and who behaved egotistically and arrogantly. I'm mad at myself for trusting someone who was obviously not trustworthy. I'm mad at myself for not trusting myself. I'm mad at myself that I believed it was just the way it would be, that it only made sense for us to be together, so it's like I was "stuck" with that, so I found a way to be okay with it. I'm mad at myself that I SAW all of this, and I ignored it. There was no lack of awareness, there was simply a lack of self responsibility. And now I am here as the consequence for that.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to be self-dishonest and twist my own words / memories / experiences to deny that I liked someone because I feel embarrassed and because I do not want this person to have even more food for his ego. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to lie to myself in order to manipulate this other person to feel or not feel a certain way. Again this is holding myself hostage in order to manipulate another's experience. I forgive myself. I let it go. 

I'll make absolutely no excuses for myself. I was only just beginning to receive and learn the tools. But it doesn't change the fact that this is what I accepted and allowed, and now I am here as the consequence of that. And now I must take responsibility.

I realize that my liking this person had a lot more to do with me than it did with him. I realize that the fact that I liked this person shows me myself, and what I have not given myself: Trust, Respect, Support. I realize too that I have not given myself the responsibility to give myself these things. I realize that it is who I was as who I have been in my life that led me to the point of liking this person, as a consequential next step from who I have liked in the past. I realize that even though I thought that every relationship after my first should get "better," they have all actually gotten "worse," because my self-esteem, self-respect, self-support, and self-trust have diminished with every experience I have had with men, and it has not been until now that I have been able to see this as the root, that: I have not allowed myself to trust myself, I have not allowed myself to respect myself, and I have not allowed myself to support myself; instead I have done all of this unto another, without first doing it to myself.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an extensive belief system within myself centering on the core belief that "my life will finally start when I am in a committed relationship," and so I should hold off on really creating myself, so that I would be more available and free to conform to whatever man decided I was good enough for him, so that I could become whatever he wanted me to become, so that I could finally be in a committed relationship and my life could finally start, and I could finally be happy, where the "start" of my life becomes the end of my living, the end of the only thing I have: myself, my ability to direct myself. I realize this belief is central to how I have accepted and allowed myself to be abused by men, to how I have abused myself through men, and abused myself through this belief. I realize through this belief I have abdicated responsibility for myself throughout my life. I realize I have not trusted myself, that within this belief I have cultivated and nurtured self doubt. I realize I have not allowed myself to really live, as myself, as life. 



I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to normalize the phenomenon that men are abusive of and mistreat women, and this is okay, in fact this is a sign of a good relationship.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold onto the small few positive interactions, choosing to ignore the negative / abusive interactions, in favor of believing the positives are what is "real" or what will become real, rather than seeing all interactions as what is real, and using all interactions to show me who another person is, and to show myself who I am being, as what I am accepting and allowing within my relationships with others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think that another person is better than me or superior to me simply because they treat me poorly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take memories of past relationships, especially with my brothers, where these were boys I was supposed to look up to and who were supposed to protect me, who sometimes teased me and treated me poorly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / believe that it is acceptable or allowable for someone to treat me poorly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / believe that if I accept and allow someone to treat me poorly, they will like me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / believe that if I accept and allow someone to treat me poorly, they will realize that I am valuable, and they will start to treat me better.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / believe that my value to another person comes from what I accept and allow them to do to me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be used and abused by men, to stroke their egos, or stroke something else.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be used and abused by men sexually, because I want them to like me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use and abuse myself sexually.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / believe that accepting and allowing others to use and abuse me is how I can get other people to like me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it is important or even imperative that other people like me.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to like myself.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself liking myself to be enough.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I need others to like me in order for me to be okay or happy, or for my life to be worthwhile, for the fact that I am alive to be worthwhile.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to trust myself, respect myself, or support myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give gifts to others that I have not given to myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I do not matter, that only what I can do for other people matters. I realize I cannot really do anything for anyone, only myself, or only once I have done that for myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to "like" someone just because I think they are attractive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to "like" someone just because it seems like other people think they are attractive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to hide this experience because I do not want the other to use this information to continue to stroke their ego.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel embarrassed when it seems as if I have been more transparent than I realized, that what I was trying to hide actually showed through.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to "like" boys / men who are not kind to me, who do not treat me with respect, and who are not actually supportive of me as life, as an equal.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to "like" boys / men who treat me poorly, who treat me as less than them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think this is normal, this is just the way it is, and I don't deserve any better.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make excuses for boys / men / people who treat me poorly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to accept and allow my own abuse.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to identify what I perceive as "weaknesses" in another person / areas where they have room to grow, and to believe that I can be the person to show them this, and to help them grow, and within this I find value in myself, I believe I matter.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to go out of my way to support another person with the ulterior motive of feeling valued and validated and like I matter.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to validate myself, or realize that I am valuable and I do matter, as all life matters and is valuable.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to direct myself from the starting point of what I perceive about what other people want or think, so that, since I never communicated my intent, I didn't know for sure what the other person wanted, so I held onto the hope that maybe this is what they wanted, so I kept that door open as an option, kept imagining that as a possibility, so that rather than listening to myself in self-honesty, and directing myself therefrom, I was more enticed by the possibility that this person might like me, and then I could be liked, even if I did not really, in self-honesty, like this other person, but only liked my idea of who this person could be someday, or what this person represented for me, or what I had imagined about this other person, but actually rather disliked this person based on our actual interactions.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be led on.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want another person to like me who I did not even like. I see this is abusive. I see this is not self honest. I see this is irresponsible.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to do what I could to get another person to like me, to stroke my ego. I realize this is also what they did to me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to be wanted, and want to be liked, so that when I saw the possibility that another person might like me "like that," I fed into it, and allowed myself to be led on, even though I was always kept at arm's length, even though I never felt good, even though I was always confused, even though I felt like I had no control of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to trust another person to be responsible and self-honest because he claimed to be these things, so that, within this, I abdicated my own responsibility and I did not trust myself, because I thought trusting this other person was safer, because he knew more. But I realize it is not about what a person knows, it is about how they live. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to recognize the reality of the interactions and the reality of living, instead engaging in ideas in my mind and ideas as communicated by another, ideas and "knowledge" about who a person is, rather than the reality of who the person shows me he is.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to be a person who is self-honest absolutely, because even though I was communicating with myself, I did not listen to myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold onto "what ifs" and "buts" and wondering how things "could" be rather than looking at how things actually are / were and moving myself from within reality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing all of this bullshit that has occurred over the past almost year of my life. I forgive myself for that. I forgive myself and I realize I have learned so, so much about myself through this experience, not only about myself and relationships, but myself and self trust, myself and boundaries, myself and honesty, myself and responsibility, myself and grudges/conflict, myself and friendships, myself and listening to myself, and myself and the desteni message. I realize that I made mistakes. I realize that now I know, and with that knowledge I can now live better, as what is best for all.

I commit myself to continue to work through the reactions.

I commit myself to trusting myself, as I listen to what I communicate to myself.

I commit myself to calming myself and soothing myself when I see myself doubting myself, I commit myself to breathing and investigating the self doubt and the function of the self doubt.

I commit myself to respecting myself. I commit myself to not accepting or allowing others to abuse me. I commit myself to not accepting or allowing myself to abuse myself through accepting and allowing others to abuse me.

I commit myself to support myself absolutely. I commit myself to create and live by boundaries for myself as what I learn to trust in myself, and what I learn is best for all.

Standing as Equals

Here is a cool post by someone else who wrote on a similar topic: Why do I like the guys that do not like me?

Lack of Understanding as a Stopping Point - Day 119

I was hanging out with someone and they said, "I don't understand why some people... Well, maybe he didn't see me," when a neighbor we were driving past didn't smile or wave back at them.

It took me a bit by surprise because their usual statement is something along the lines of stating that they don't understand why some people just don't do this thing that they have expected them to do, or that they do for / to others. And then in this instance here they were acknowledging that there might actually be an alternative reason for what they have observed, beyond what they know or understand.

And this was pretty cool! I mean I have done this a lot too. "I don't understand why some people do/don't...!"

Well isn't the answer in the statement? I don't understand. I don't have the answer. There is an answer, and I do not have it, I do not understand it. So why do I judge? Why do I expect other people to be like me? Why do I expect other people to do what I would do? Why do I reject things I don't understand as being "foreign" or "confusing" or "I don't get it" or "I don't know what to do with that"? Why do I believe that if I don't understand another person, there must be something somehow wrong with them? Why do I assume that all behavior should be obvious as the reasoning behind it? Why do I believe that if another person behaves differently than how I would behave, there must be something wrong with them / they are wrong?

This is coming up for me some now at work too. There are some behaviors with which I am quite unfamiliar among these students. Fighting, for example, or threats to fight or talking about fighting. I don't get it. Or I haven't. I am starting to understand it more, as I am allowing myself to maintain stability instead of retreating into excuses when I meet something I do not understand. I am starting to understand the mind systems and beliefs and examples and life experiences that support a person in desiring to fight. And in increasing my understanding of this, I am increasing my ability to support the students.

The same then too would go for self injury. Throughout my life I have been more aware than some of what peoples' reactions or opinions are to and of self injury. There are many people who don't "get it" or understand it, and they leave it at that. It's scary. I mean when we don't understand something, we sometimes react in fear. We resist trying to understand it, perhaps because we are afraid of what the actual reason might be, we are afraid of what is behind the behavior, of what would make a person behave "that way." And self injury is a topic that can be very difficult to understand if one has not encountered it much, or if one continually resists understanding it.

Neither self injury nor fighting are "valid" ways of dealing with "problems" or taking responsibility for oneself. They are both an abdication of self responsibility. But that doesn't mean they don't serve a function. They are "maladaptive" behaviors which serve some function, some purpose, some gain or avoidance. So the point is to determine the function, the why, and to figure out a functionally alternative behavior, and also to provide the tools to have needs met functionally and appropriately.

So for example, when I was self injurious I wrote a lot, but very rarely in my writing did I take responsibility for myself or discover strategies to support myself or learn anything really about myself. I defined myself as and through my emotions, and the writing was a real-ease of those emotions, just as was the self injury. So I did not have the tools at that point to support myself functionally. I chose to engage in behaviors that were not adaptive, but they still served the function of releasing some of the tension that had built up in me and giving me some sense of control over myself and my life, even if it was false.

The same is true for eating disorders. I engaged in anorectic patterns of eating and exercise for a period in high school in large part to try and gain control in my life. But actually I had absolutely no control once I handed the reins over to the eating disorder. And the eating disorder maintained control within my mind for years and years after I stopped engaging so heavily in the behavior. In fact the programs I installed in myself during that time still have control over me in many ways, when I look in the mirror, when I feel anxious and guilty about what I eat, when I shop at the grocery store, etc. But, at the time, in both instances, I thought I was gaining something.

And so the same is true then with fighting. Something is gained there. A sense of control and power. A sense of admiration and respect from peers. Entertainment. A belief that it is how problems are solved. I don't know, it could be any of these, and it could be much more. I still have a lot to learn about it. But I cannot just simply say "I don't understand" and leave it at that.

It's like the students here who for almost every academic question they get asked, the answer is "I don't know" and that's the end of it. Well, that's okay, you don't have to know. But you can try to find out. You can consider. You can come up with an idea, a suggestion, a possibility. And then you can get feedback, and you can learn, and as you do this, you can build trust in yourself to actually be able to know.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to meet an unknown entity and react as thinking "I don't understand."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have the thought "I don't understand" be an end point rather than a start in seeking understanding.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to by default say "I don't understand" or "I don't get it" or "I don't know" when I meet an unknown, rather than stopping, breathing, and seeing if there is anything there that I do understand, or if there is anything there that I can figure out.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to meet an unknown entity and react in fear of that unknown, and also dislike for the fact that I do not know -- because I want to be smart -- and within this retreat from the question, answering simply that I do not understand.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see realize and understand that every behavior has a function or a reason, that there is a reason for everything, and that it can be understood.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to assume that there must be something wrong with the thing that I do not understand, that if there was nothing wrong with it then obviously I would understand it, so since I don't understand it, there must be something wrong with it, not realizing that I do not understand everything, and that there are experiences I have not shared with others, and that there are entities I've not yet met, and so it is up to me to come to understand these things, not up to these things to stop existing so as to satisfy and appease my desire to always understand.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see a lack of understanding as an opportunity to learn and grow and expand myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist things that I do not know or understand because I fear them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist understanding why kids would want to fight each other or make violent threats toward each other where my fear comes not really from the fighting and threatening but from the lack of understanding.

When and as I see myself reacting to an unknown entity with an attitude / energetic experience of "I don't know" or "I don't get it" or "I don't understand," I stop and I breathe. I ask myself if I might actually understand more than I realize. I realize that I do not need to be afraid of what I do not know, because here it is, existing within and as reality, already here, and so therefore not scary, because it is here already. I realize that what I fear is my lack of understanding, not the topic I do not understand. I realize that as I begin to investigate topics I do not understand, my fear and resistance dissipates, because I come to see and realize that I can understand. So I commit myself to seeing these instances as opportunities to learn and to push through this point of resistance to unknowns. I commit myself to remaining stable within and as myself, within this pushing myself to stand clear no matter what unknowns I might encounter, ready to observe and learn and seek out understanding. I commit myself to expanding my understanding rather than retreating and resisting in fear. I commit myself also to continuing to understand those behaviors which remain elusive to me at work so that I can best support the students as one and equal to and as myself as life as our experiences as living beings, as what is best for all.

A Wrench in My Plans or a Bump in the Road - Day 102

I've now returned from Tahoe (7/28) and have come home to find that my apartment manager has not finished the project he was supposed to finish two days ago, and also my entire apartment, except my bedroom because the door was closed, is covered in dust from the grout mixture from tiling my shower walls (which had to be replaced because the previous walls were caving in / rotting). I became very very very frustrated with this and felt like it put a huge wrench in my whole plan that I delineated on Day 99. I tried to keep pretty calm and just express my interpretation of the problem to my apartment manager to see what solutions we could find, and had relative success in this, so that is in the works.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become reactive as angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, and feeling like my plans for how to use my time in organizing my apartment are ruined.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become reactive with emotions that do not do anything to actually practically solve the problem in front of me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become overwhelmed with emotions and then to use these emotions as a bridge to other emotions that have been coming up inside me so that I almost allowed myself to decide that it was "all too much" and almost allowed myself to just break down dramatically because of "everything that has been wrong" where here I wanted to cry and whine and complain and feel sorry for myself rather than supporting myself and taking responsibility for myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that this means I cannot continue with the plans I laid out in Day 99.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that this ruins my last week of vacation / break time before starting my new job.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to go from my reaction to this specific situation into creating emotional energy about my experiences living in this apartment, in this complex, with this manager as a whole.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to consider briefly simply moving, as my mom suggested I do since there are "all these problems here," and to within this thought become very overwhelmed and frustrated and angry because I have not really been settled in a home anywhere for almost 2 years now, and I do not like being in limbo / transition, I really want to just be settled and have stability in my living arrangement.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create and maintain instability in my living environments for reasons of my own creation, including like as discussed in Day 100, so that when things like this happen which are outside of my control, I become not only reactive about the situation in front of me but also activate a build up of anger at myself for having neglected to get myself settled here after all this time.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have a negative relationship with my home as my physical environment and then to become attached to the idea of getting settled here such that now the thought/idea of moving is frustrating / overwhelming and I am vacillating between polarities of disliking my environment vs not wanting to leave.



I'm not going to move, I don't think, and after deciding to simply clean off my work space and kitchen and to set myself to the tasks I had decided to accomplish today, I am seeing that this "problem" is not really that big a deal and that my reaction was not really necessary / did not assist me or my apartment manager in resolving the problem. Nonetheless there are some practical expectations with renting and repairs, so I still have to figure out what exactly to do here. My mom wants to complain to the landlord so that the landlord will hopefully see that he is expecting too much of the apartment manager, but I do not want to do this if it will get the apartment manger "in trouble," but then this isn't really my responsibility either way. I am a tenant who pays rent on time and it is appropriate to expect certain quality of work and to expect that my living space be habitable / my belongings not be damaged in any way, no? Undecided on how to proceed.


When and as I see myself becoming frustrated with an unexpected "problem" / "wrench" in my plans and feeling like this ruins my plans, I stop and I breathe. I realize that things come up and that I must assist and support myself through these points as they arise. I realize that it is very unlikely that my plans are actually ruined, they simply must be adjusted. So I commit myself to assisting myself with my breath and writing if necessary, and to address the first problem that it makes sense to address. I commit myself to seeing how I must rearrange / adjust my plans and doing so. I commit myself to not going into a reaction of overwhelmingness where I want to give up and scratch the whole thing just because of this one bump in the road. I commit myself to flexibility with movement and existence within the present moment, where sometimes (often) things happen that are not planned / foreseen / in my control.

I commit myself also to realizing how often I am my own wrench in my plans, how often I create my own problems, how often I deter myself from my own path, and so I commit myself to continuing to learn how to direct myself in self honesty as my own self directive principle and not to be influenced / swayed by my emotional states / reactions such that I neglect my responsibilities / the things that I have established for myself as wanting to accomplish.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become shaky within the perceived "conflict" in having to have this conversation with my apartment manager.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to expect that this conversation would not go well and so to fear engaging in it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become frustrated at the evasive conversational style of my apartment manager where he did not really want to take responsibility for the ineffectualness of his work in this project or for the fact that the methods he used left a thick layer of dust throughout my apartment on all of my belongings.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel sympathetic toward my apartment manager because I know how much work he has to do and how he works far beyond that which he is paid, and he is depressed and stressed and is not doing well with his physical health.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, within this sympathy, want to just tell him it's okay and basically just suppress my reaction and pretend like it isn't a big deal just to not make him upset or give him more stress / grief, deal with the mess myself and just move on.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to also however be quite mad and irate with the quality of his work and the consequences as the inconvenience/hassle to me / mess on my belongings as well as his lack of communication, so that I had a difficult time balancing my reactions which made it difficult to engage in conversation from a starting point of self honesty and stability in consideration of what is best for all.


I really feel bad for the guy; he has way too much work on his plate and I know his personal life is in shambles as well. There are things he could and should have done differently but he is also not receiving any support from the landlord and the expectations of his duties are unreasonably high. So it is hard for me to tell what is best, even though as a tenant it seems obvious that I should not have to deal with this: damage of my personal belongings, ineffective communication of schedule of project, ineffective/combative communication about what is happening, and possible/probable unsafe air to breathe for myself and my dog. I do feel satisfied at the results of our conversation however and he knows that I am not upset with him personally and that I understand the circumstances of why/how this panned out the way it did. So it would seem that everything is going to be okay. Obviously it is not the end of the world. I have a place to live and things to get dusty.


When and as I see myself with conflicting emotions/feelings in regards to a point of communication, I stop and I breathe. I breathe and I consider in self honesty what is my responsibility here, how am I reacting and what is actually supportive of the situation. I commit myself to writing if I have the opportunity and otherwise to tread lightly and carefully, communicating myself clearly, taking ownership for the emotions I am displaying and acknowledging that they are just reactions. I commit myself to finding what it is that really needs to be addressed in communication and finding a mutual understanding within that point.


---


And now later I have had further interaction via text with my apartment manager in which it has become clear that he has been talking about me behind my back to another tenant and wants to laugh with this person about me within this situation. (He accidentally sent a text to me that was meant for another tenant about coming over and reading "what the red head tenant I did the tile for said....lol.")


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel bad for my apartment manager and within this excuse him from the duties of his job for which he is paid (the scale of which is none of my business / not my responsibility) and for which I pay my rent.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in a blurring of the boundaries between what is professional and personal such that I have been friendly toward my apartment manager and sympathetic and allowed him to do a bad job because I feel bad for him, and also have offered him some of my own food because I know that he is not taking care of himself through feeding himself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself therefore to participate in this blurring of boundaries which it is clear that he is participating in heavily within his work/living arrangement here so that I am also participating in this so that I cannot say that I am not responsible for this dynamic where he believes he can get away with doing a shitty job because we are on friendly terms.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to accept and allow shitty workmanship when higher quality is expected within my lease agreement and my consistency in following through on my end of the contract so that I have set a precedent that it is okay for my apartment manager to not follow through on his end of the contract because I have accepted and allowed this blurring of boundaries of professional/personal relationships.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress my reaction to him calling me "sweetie" or other things he has said/done that have "creeped me out" such that I have probably actually behaved in ways that have indicated to him that I am uncomfortable which he has then been left to interpret however, so that here I have participated in the creation of a dishonest communication between myself and my apartment manager by not setting boundaries and keeping those boundaries in terms of comfort, respect, and professionalism.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to let these things that "creep me out" and also the shitty workmanship to "slide" so that now I see there are consequences where there are secrets on both ends where clearly my apartment manager does not actually think/feel about me the way that he displays openly by being nice and calling me "sweetie" and acting grateful for my sympathy, and also as I have described above I have opposing energies in regards to my apartment manager and who he is and the job he does where I feel both angry and fed up but also sympathetic and protective (enabling).

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to really take responsibility for myself in my living arrangement through communication, relationships, and establishing appropriate expectations/boundaries.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be swayed by the manipulation of this person who has not wanted to face himself / me and take responsibility for his work ethic or the results of his work but has tried to avoid direct conversation and has sought to appease me through being nice / also showing that he is in physical and emotional pain.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel both angry and sympathetic, to want to make things easier on someone else at my own expense while suppressing my anger so that my anger does come out in some form eventually.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in the creation of these consequences which have come to pass in this recent development.


See more photos and explanation here. 



This is also very frustrating because I have JUST established for myself to really finally actually get settled here and enjoy living here and make this space my own. Like I have cleared all these points on living here and how to make this place work (although these same points apply to any place I could live) and now this comes up where I am not sure I feel comfortable living here with an apartment manager like this.


One definite drawback to living here, aside from the other obvious ones, is that I do not get cell phone reception in my apartment. This has been quite frustrating in terms of keeping in touch with people, making plans, and also making necessary phone calls for various things. So I suppose one thing I can do is write out all the pros/cons / different sides of this situation to see if I can determine what is best / makes the most sense.

Self-Efficacy in Time Usage and Practical Daily Living - Day 99

My to-do calendar up to Wednesday 7/24

As I mentioned in Wednesday's post, I ended up painting without it even being on my to-do list.

Normally each day I will make a to-do list which will have on it various tasks which either must be completed that day, were not completed the previous day, or need to be completed soon and I think I can "fit them in" that day.

I say "fit them in" because the reality is that they will fit into the schedule, on paper. A day is a long time. And especially right now, while I am currently between jobs, I have even more time each day. But even when I am working, my free time is pretty open.

But normally I imagine things taking a lot more time than they actually do, and so I limit myself in my estimate of how much I can accomplish.

And too much time is spent looking at the to-do list and deciding what to do next. "Oh, I don't really want to do that. Maybe I will do this," and then typically just get distracted or sit around and not do much of anything (facebook).

On Wednesday I had a rather "full" day. I woke up pretty early and read some blogs. I ate some breakfast and messed around on facebook a little. I texted my sister in law about our plans. I drove over to her house, then went to the park with her and my niece. Then I had lunch at their house with my brother, sister in law, and niece. Then I went to the med clinic to have my TB test read. Then I went to my new job's office to turn in my TB test and meet with HR about my paperwork and physical. Then I came home, where I walked my dog, talked to my mom about our vacation plans, took care of something regarding my car insurance, got the mail (this is something I put off a lot, so I had to put it on my to-do list haha), painted, dug through some boxes looking for my good brushes, hung a painting that's been laying around, moved some stuff around, packed for my trip, dug through more boxes to find my hiking and water shoes to pack, took a shower, cleaned out my bathroom so that my landlord can fix the tiles in there, wrote my (final!) DIP Lite assignment, watched the last episode of my current TV show while eating dinner (well, ice cream), and finished the scarf I made for my mom's birthday. And still I had time to mess around and waste.

I mean normally I would not have painted, dug through boxes, moved anything around, hung a painting, had so many errands, done anything social... Some of that just came up because I had to pack and there were these shorts and two pairs of shoes I wanted to bring but didn't know where they were, and then once I got started moving around boxes, it was actually easy and enjoyable. And what is so hard about actually moving myself to dig through (unpack) boxes? Nothing, once I am doing it. But I limit myself in the starting: I resist and avoid.

My point here is that I often lock myself into like this battle with time and this battle with the tasks I have to accomplish, this battle with myself in actually DOING something with my time other than sleeping or eating or watching TV or wasting it in some other way. Some days I see that I do not have a lot to accomplish and sometimes those days are actually "worse" in terms of how I end up spending my time, because I almost do not want to get to that point of having nothing else to do, because I fear I will sleep (literally go to bed for the night at like 5pm) or just watch lots of TV or otherwise waste the time, because if it is not on my list, then I will not do it. And yet if "paint" is on my list, as it has been many times before, I also will not do it.

So this is like suppressing myself not in my writing but in my daily LIVING, suppressing my ability to act and move and accomplish and do. And I think it has the same effect as suppressing that which is in myself that I must see/write about: Depression. Stagnation. Obviously. I'm not moving. I'm the only one who can move me. So if I do not move me, I will not move: I will stagnate, and sink. Like quicksand. Except in quicksand I think I've heard you aren't supposed to move too much... Okay not the best analogy.

And this is nothing new to the human experience or unique to me. So I have to figure something out here.

In the meantime, here are just some of the many things that I could do in my spare time, of which I have a lot, that would be productive and self-supportive, showing myself and thus building self trust that I can direct myself in my daily living to be productive / effective / efficient and take care of myself / my environment / my responsibilities / tasks:

• Unpack boxes, including boxes of art supplies so that I can make more art
• Make art or plan art projects
• Make digital art in photoshop or create references for paintings/drawings
• Read a book about art
• Be crafty in some other way
• Go through my books and figure out which ones I can sell (make some money to pay off my debt)
• Go through my clothes and figure out which ones I can sell (again, make money)
• Go through other things like DVDs and knick knacks and figure out what I can sell or get rid of
• Clean, sweep, wipe things down
• Make a meal, look up recipes, learn to cook, etc. 
• Teach myself something
• Do yoga at home -- I used to only do yoga at home and it was great! Now I haven't at all in almost a year. 
• Run somewhere with my dog, or play fetch, or rub her belly and that spot on her back (ooh, that spot!)
• Decorate my apartment
• Figure out ways to better light my apartment
• Write! 
• Go outside
• Read a book
• Read a book outside
• Clean off my patio, which is covered in dried leaves and spider webs 
• Clean off my camping chair, which is covered in the same
• Read the forum
• Read blogs
• Listen to interviews / videos on youtube
• Call up a friend
• Write a letter
• Find new music
• Watch a documentary
• Spend just 10 minutes (or more! but 10 minutes can be productive) on some project, or any of the above

The list could really go on and on. And I suspect that if I can do these things, like if it is no longer such a chore to do things like this, and I just do them on a regular basis, use my time well on a regular basis, LIVE on a regular basis, then I will feel more effective, more capable, and actually trust myself more. And I will BE supporting myself, practically speaking, in my physical environment, not just writing about supporting myself. I mean, I have done a lot (and there is still a lot more to do) in terms of coming into my breath and getting out of my mind and of course writing during times that I am worried/anxious/reactive and overactive in my mind. But the times that I am passive and lethargic and apathetic and avoidant and suppressing myself as actually living and directing myself... these are the times that I've only really just begun to get a grip on through writing, and not hardly at all through living. Except for doing the dishes. I do the dishes pretty regularly now. Haha. 

Okay, so I had a lot that was on my agenda to accomplish during this time off between jobs, and I have only done a very little of it. I have been surprisingly busy, compared to how I normally am, which has been cool. I've enjoyed this time off a lot and have accomplished some, but not all of what I want to do. Nonetheless it is clear that I actually do have plenty of time to still accomplish these things, mainly actually getting SETTLED into my apartment where I've lived for 7 months now (I thought I was moving again early on, so waited on unpacking many things for a couple months, then found out I was staying and never unpacked). 

Easily manageable list of tasks:

• Unpack my art supplies and organize them in an easily accessible way, also getting rid of any empty paints or damaged brushes or anything else that is just taking up space. 
• Will require getting my old art desk or something similar from my mom's garage as a structure for organization. 
• Unpack the boxes in the hall closet
• Probably a lot to get rid of here! Find actual places to put these things, not just stuffing in the closet / nooks / crannies. 
• Go through my books and clothes and whatever else to sell / purge
• Decorate more / hang art
• Lights, especially in my bedroom and over my art desk
• Will require help from my mom's boyfriend to hang some of the overhead lighting
• Clean off my patio (and probably start keeping my bike out there so as to create space for yoga inside)

So those are the things I will do when I return from Tahoe and before August 5th. One week! That's about 1 bullet point per day, along with whatever else needs to be done (nothing in excess of what I typically do on any given day that I go to work, and here I will not even have to go to work). I can do it. I will do it. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to distort my view of time and within this estimate that I do not have enough time to do something productive, and so therefore I do next to nothing at all. 

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to see just how much time I waste, especially the time that is wasted in self judgment or indecision of what to do next with my time. 

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to see and realize just how little time various tasks take, where I can actually accomplish a lot and be very productive / effective in a short amount of time. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider the various things I could do that I "want" to do but to judge/identify them as like chores and to sort of just sigh like "well, sigh, I'd like to do that, but..." and then not even really have a reason, at least one that I am aware of as of yet, but just not do it because "I don't feel like it" or I simply do not actually direct and move myself to do so.

I forgive myself that I have still not accepted or allowed myself to really fully see realize and understand that I am the only one who can move myself: if I do not move myself I will not move, if I do not do these things they will not get done, if I do not make myself effective I will not be effective. 

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to apply myself in every activity that I engage in, really being here and present for it rather than just getting it done, getting through it, getting it over with. 

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to really actually live, where sometimes it's like all I do is breathe (although without awareness), like I have life in me, but I do not LIVE, I do not direct myself... and this is true even when I am allowing myself to be moved by my mind, here again it is not I who is living in self honesty as life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define tasks / responsibilities / even activities as like chores and work and not fun, where here obviously I will thus not want to participate in them. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to enjoy and appreciate various tasks / responsibilities / activities for what and as they are, and also as myself doing them, supporting myself and directing myself, enjoying being with, within, and as myself, doing within, with, as, and for myself.


When and as I see myself with various tasks / projects piling up in front of me and feeling overwhelmed / resisting accomplishment of these tasks / projects, I stop and I breathe. I realize that the only way these things are going to get done is if I do them. I realize that the only way I am going to learn to be consistent in my practical daily living as accomplishment of tasks, is if I do it. I realize from experience that once I start to do one of these things with integrity within my breath, it really isn't difficult, it is in fact enjoyable. I realize that I am the only person who can develop consistency for myself in my self direction, and I am the only person who can embed enjoyment into my daily living through existing within and as my breath in the physical in the present moment. So I commit myself to moving through these identified tasks, re-defining my relationship to/as the accomplishment of these tasks, cultivating consistency within myself (and therefore self trust), and directing myself within and as my breath with awareness of the physical in the present moment so as to actually enjoy that which is before me, because here it is for me to do and enjoy. 

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?

Sunday: We Meet Again - Day 88

I am like in a battle with today. Me against today. Any task on the roster for today -- I do not want to do.

I know that in previous weeks/months I have really disliked Sundays because (1) it is the day before going back to work, (2) I have "always had a tendency" to "not do well" during extended periods of time off, and perhaps 2 days in a row off from work/school is sometimes "too much"? and (3) for the past couple of months I've had an obligation on Sundays which interfered with something else I actually wanted to do, so that was always a battle.

But now I am on break, so no work tomorrow. I had my last day at my old job on Thursday, and this is my THIRD day off in a row, oh my! And my aforementioned obligation has ended, so now I am free to attend the other event on Sundays which I actually "want" to attend.

For the past few months (basically since I stopped working retail and thus working on Sundays), if you look at my blog, Sunday tends to be the day that I experience highest depression rates. Highest laziness and apathy, really wanting to just stay in bed and sleep, wallow. I get like this little furrow in my brow that I don't even realize, and every single task, every moment, even every breath is like a battle, wherein I am basically complaining small and quiet (or sometimes quite loud) within myself "I don't want to" over and over and over again.

Why? Why am I fighting? What am I resisting? Isn't this my day? Aren't these my tasks? Am I not myself, am I not creating this fight? I even want to duck out of the event that I supposedly "want" to attend, in favor of sleeping, or in favor of clearing out my schedule enough to stop this pressure as this storm I am creating.

And what tends to happen is that I am engaging in all of this resistance, right, this fighting, and it's just like the resistance/fighting that happens sometimes in writing, where I'm like holding my breath. It's like this big dark cloud hanging over me of the tasks that I have to get done, and I don't allow myself to finally breathe and be "free" until either I have finally done the tasks or enough time has passed that I can with greater confidence justify for myself that the tasks simply will not get done today, so I excuse myself, and then I am allowed to come out from under my own thumb as this great pressure of these obligations against which I am fighting.

So today, this morning, I tossed and turned in bed, where my brow was already beginning to furrow, where in my frontal lobe I was already battling against known consequences and making supportive choices for myself, where I really really really want to just give in and give up and stay in bed. I "should" really get up. What time is it? Oh it's only 7. Okay well I can stay in bed. More tossing and turning, more brow furrowing, more engaging in battle in and as my mind. Time passes. Repeat.

I finally got up at 9:30 about, I think, mainly just within knowing that I "should" and also remembering that sometimes when I sleep too long, I get a migraine. I took a look at my to-do list, and I got to work. "Okay, I will just get things done, one by one." And I did. I cleaned! That's a rather "big" deal. I made a new calendar, too, that goes all the way up to my first day at my new job, so that I can map out and use this time effectively. I checked a few other things off my list. But my brow was still furrowed. I was still fighting. I still wanted to go back to bed.

"I don't know what I want to write about today. I don't really want to continue that series."
"I still don't know what to write about for my DIP Lite assignment. I don't like this section on memories."
"I should read some blogs... I could do this in bed... And then take a nap..."

I listened to some eqafe, which was also cool. It's not like I haven't had a productive day thus far. I have. So why am I still fighting? And in all of this fighting, why am I judging myself? I've listened to that interview about self-judgment 4 times now. Might listen 4 more times at least. What's with the fight? Why not just accept myself, embody myself, and move myself?

Obviously checking things off a list isn't "enough" to make me "feel okay." Obviously productivity isn't really the "answer" here. Obviously it is this battle I am engaging with in my mind against myself and against reality and against life. Obviously I am once again choosing not to "show up" for myself here and support myself, loving myself unconditionally, and stopping self judgment.


I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to develop a pattern of battling with myself on Sundays, to develop an association with this day of the week and who I am on this day and what I am able to accomplish on this day, where it's like on Sundays I expect this battle, and rather than practically "preparing for battle" I instead gear up for defeat, and want to just give in and give up and wait for the day to be over so that I can move on.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a relationship with myself based in self judgment and conflict with myself where I am against myself and against life -- a battle I can never win.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that merely being productive is the solution, that by simply accomplishing tasks and checking them off my list, I will feel "satisfied" and like I am doing a good job, and the relentless self judgment will cease.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to thereby validate the self judgment as legitimate, and within this contingent on whether or not I am able to accomplish tasks that, left unaccomplished, I utilize to berate myself within beliefs about my inabilities to address practical self care.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that self judgment is specifically linked to the things about which I judge myself, and that in "solving" these things I can eradicate self judgment.

I forgive myself too that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if I can at least accomplish these things on my to do list then I can "feel good about myself" and the other matters which are concerning me / to which I am reacting will not matter anymore.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to look at the root of self judgment as a mechanism to control me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create like a panopticon within my mind where I am always watching for reason to judge myself and reason to keep myself locked up within my self judgments and beliefs that I am not good enough or "I can't" or otherwise limiting myself.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to embody myself and support myself to see myself as where I can change and then to transcend those points and really actually change myself.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to trust myself or to trust the process of changing myself so that I can move through this process with consistency and stability but instead am constantly rocking the boat for myself, or allowing myself to destabilize from the "winds" of my reactions.

When and as I see myself giving up on an entire day, giving up on myself for an entire day, because of beliefs that I have established about myself in that moment or in that day as who I am and of what I am capable, I stop and I breathe. I realize that I move myself in each moment. I realize that within this I am limiting myself and am determining that I am incapable when in reality I am completely capable. I commit myself to investigating what beliefs I have established through writing and to support myself through and as my breath, continuing still to move through practical tasks that need to be accomplished, but understanding that the accomplishment of these tasks is not the solution. Instead I commit myself to be with, to "show up" for myself within these tasks and to see myself as I move through them, and to support myself through these times of resistance.

When and as I see myself furrowing my brow, I stop and I breathe. I relax. I ask myself why I am furrowing my brow -- what is happening behind that brow within my mind that I am using to justify an abdication of responsibility for myself? What beliefs am I creating and participating in when I am furrowing my brow? How does furrowing my brow like this indicate to me that I am engaging in a battle with myself and with reality and with life?