Unconditional Forgiveness of Self and Other and the Process to Actualize this in Reality - Day 170

I recently acquired a book (Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping) that a friend recommended to me when I asked her how I could bring myself to the place of unconditional love and forgiveness that she had created for herself.

I read the first section of the book and found it to be insightful and also in line with many things I have learned through walking process with desteni, although much of the terminology and reasoning differs.

The first section is actually available to read here: Jill's Story

Now, if you've read the story you've probably noticed a lot of talk about souls and I don't know a whole lot about souls although I've heard that according to the desteni perspective, they don't exist (anymore). I'm choosing to overlook this and some other details and simply take from this book and this story that which suits me in healing myself and in forgiving myself and others unconditionally.

I set aside the book after reading (and scribbling all over) this first section and allowed it to "sink in." I then became overtaken by migraine for two days (I'd had them daily for a few weeks, but these two days were "off the charts" in terms of pain) and so even if I had wanted to I was not really functioning enough to be able to revisit the book or the process I have now set myself to walk in relation to this point.

But I see that I have a few resources accessible to me, this book, the new eqafe interviews about resentment (Part 132, Part 133, Part 134, and Part 135) which would likely be excellent resources, and also the suggestion to have a look at something Jack wrote about parents and what I understand to be maybe a kind of Freudian theory in regards to romantic relationships and parent relationships... I've yet to search the depths of the desteni website to locate that document, though.

I also see that since I have released myself out from under the "dark cloud" of energy it would be very easy for me to skip along my merry way and never look back, until suddenly I would again be faced with this point. Part of why I resisted or doubted the decision I made as a boundary for myself to release myself from this chaotic internal energy was that I feared I was simply running away and evading facing myself. Well, yes, that would be one way to move forward. But the "plan" so to speak was to release myself from the energy via this boundary, and then deal with the energy for as and by myself, on "my side" of the boundary, as is necessary to be done to really actually in fact release myself from myself.

And I have been resisting this, or edging on resistance, but that is okay, it takes some time to get "back on my feet" so to speak and then I was hit with the consequential migraine, within which I constantly questioned my decision like as if this migraine was indicative that I was in fact running away or wasn't doing what was self honest or best for all.

But the fact of the matter is that I get migraines and I have had migraines daily now for a few weeks / months, indeed during the time that I was allowing myself to create and then live under that "dark cloud" of energetic storminess. So having released the trigger for that most oppressive energy through the setting of a boundary, and also having collapsed my posture into the pain, and also having continued then in the calendar of what each day brings and the anxiety that I have created in relation to certain events, it seems to make sense to me that I would go "off the charts" in pain on Saturday, and then be even worse off yesterday after having seen a chiropractor which really is rather traumatic for the spine especially after it having been over a year since my last visit. Today, I am up and moving, albeit slowly and carefully, and I am looking now too at what I must do with this energy that is still with me, lest I suppress it and allow it to come up again at a later time.

And another reason that I had not wanted to read further in this book is because I first wanted to process that which I had already read.

So onward now to the section of the book that did in fact support me in realizing that I cannot run away without facing further consequences and so must continue to face myself and release myself from myself rather than trick myself that just because the stimulus is now gone, the energy is too. It is not. It is still here as me as who I am and as how I will automatically react if and when another stimulus comes along. So, to direct it and take control as the creator of myself now through an as-of-yet determined process, but I have the tools, and I know where to get more support.

Early on in the story one character asks the other, "Jill, can you ever remember feeling this same way when you were a little girl?" And immediately I saw myself in this as I had already previously come to recognize that the conflict I was engaging in was simply me re-enacting scenarios and reliving my relationship with my dad. This came up in CoDA as well when a woman pointed out that she just felt like she would break if one more unexpected thing happened, and she reflected back on how she feared she would break when she was waiting her turn for her father to beat her.

So I have to continue to look at how this situation mirrors for me what I have already lived but not healed through my relationship with my dad.

Then there comes the idea that, "Life will always prove your beliefs right," and "If he hadn't [stopped mistreating you], you would have felt perfectly happy to leave him and find someone else who would treat you as though you were enough. We always create our reality according to our beliefs." And so here this plays into the realization that I was unhappy in this relationship / friendship, and I knew I was unhappy, but I did not feel "perfectly happy to leave" because this relationship / friendship confirmed for me my beliefs about myself and thus set reality in alignment with my beliefs.

However, "Looked at from a spiritual standpoint, our discomfort in any given situation provides a signal that we are out of alignment with spiritual law and are being given an opportunity to heal something. It may be some original pain or perhaps a toxic belief that stops us from becoming our true selves. We don't often see it from this perspective, however. Rather, we judge the situation and blame others for what is happening, which prevents us from seeing the message or understanding the lesson. This prevents us from healing. If we don't heal whatever needs to be healed, we must create more discomfort until we are literally forced to ask, 'What is going on here?' Sometimes the message has to become very loud, or the pain extremely intense, before we pay attention."

And so here we are indicated toward the time-loop effect that comes into play when we ignore our reactions and energies and allow them to overtake us to where they will then direct us in our living when and as these various scenarios arise. However, to face, direct, and clear the energy is to heal the wound so as to take self directive principle of oneself and one's life, thus "learning the lesson" that is within the friction or discomfort.

And in this way, "having yet another opportunity to look at and heal this issue is a gift!"

Later, on page 26, "Any time a situation in our life triggers the memory of this pain or the idea attached to it, we emotionally regress. Thus we feel and behave like the little kid who first experienced the pain." An experience to which I can very much relate as I knew full well that I was behaving in a way that was immature and childish and failed to take into consideration what I have learned throughout the years since the first incident and especially what I have learned in process. Hence also my experience of seeing myself as "young" and therefore "inferior" at work.

The story does not really show the work of forgiveness as applied in the physical. Instead it suggests that this is a personal internal process, "There is really very little for you to do... From this point on, it's more a question of how you feel inside yourself. Do you understand that you are no longer a victim? Do you understand that Jeff is no longer a persecutor? Do you see that the situation was exactly what you needed and wanted [created]?" So here I am now to watch myself as my internal movements and direct my energy and heal myself.

So here I see how this whole ordeal is really just basically a way to see who I am as who I have accepted and allowed myself to be and to heal that, and that if I don't heal it now I will have to face it again.


Okay, so:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to create rules and regulations for myself on how I "should" heal myself based on what I believe other people want me to do or what I believe other people think I should do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge and doubt myself as my chosen way of healing this point within myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in a relationship / friendship that I did not enjoy simply because it confirmed a belief within me that I was not worth anything better.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in argumentative communication that sapped my energy and created more angry energy for me because for me this was a way to relive and re-enact my relationship with my dad in trying to find a new solution. I realize there is no solution within this, the only solution is with healing the original pain.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to involve another person in this game that I played with myself and another of reliving and re-enacting my relationship with my dad.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame another person for the things that my dad did or said or was because I saw so many similarities and my energies were so much the same that it became difficult to differentiate, so that all of the past unhealed energy from my relationship with my dad also became a part of this new situation / relationship / friendship and so that person became the target for my anger and blame and hurt.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to go through life thinking that I can just sweep my pain under the rug and that it does not have to influence my living, as long as I keep it tucked away and hidden.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to be abusive and irresponsible with myself and others by not facing myself and taking responsibility for myself and who I am within and as my thoughts, back chats, judgments, beliefs, and energetic reactions to conflict.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see my reaction to conflict as "just the way it is" and not something I can control when in reality it is something I must face and heal so that I am able to stand clear and stable in communication with another even when we disagree.

I realize that my aversion to "conflict" is limiting me in many ways in my life because within it I also have an aversion to open honest communication because I fear that this will birth conflict.

I realize that what I fear is what I manifest and by expecting or fearing conflict I will end up communicating in a way that births conflict.

I realize that conflict can and does exist within and as me even without it existing within and as another or within and as our communications.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take full responsibility for myself and who I am within and as conflict.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see similarities between another person and my father and to not really think anything of this, not realizing that this is meaningful in an energetic way and that the accumulation of these similarities and my noticing these similarities, not directed, meant the demise of the friendship within my mind and my inability to handle the energy that came up while still participating in the friendship, and so I had to create a boundary just to be able to breathe.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create a dynamic within myself still of "winning" or "losing" like in an argument or conflict where I want to withhold my friendship as a way of maintaining within my mind that I have "won" or I am "winning" because withholding my attention from another person is one of the only tools I have ever developed to try and gain power in a relationship.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be stuck in polarities of inferiority / superiority and winning / losing such that I have never accepted or allowed myself to truly exist equal to and one with another individual or all as life.

I commit myself to equality and oneness and discovering how to live this as me.

I commit myself to focusing on myself in healing these wounds and to continuing on in this process using the new tools I have for self support and taking responsibility for myself in self honesty, and abandoning the old tools of blame, judgment, hatred, anger, manipulation, withdrawal, and hiding.

I commit myself to identifying the specific points within this broader point of the grudge, the wall, the father-figure, the desire, the disdain, and whatever beliefs I have created and existed within and as about myself, about others, about men, about relationships, and about life, and walking through and clearing those points as a gift to myself to assist and support myself to living equal to and one with all as life as what is best for all.


I'll be revisiting this topic periodically as I move through my resources and discover points to share.

Boundaries and Control - Day 164

Last night I had a dream wherein I somehow came to reconcile with an old friend from college. I guess this was one of my first really big friendship grudges. There were others, but this one was big.

The dream was quite a few hours ago and I don't remember a lot of it now, but I remember that when I woke up right after, I knew I was telling myself something.

I remember that within the dream, although this person and I reconciled, I was placing clear boundaries for myself in the relationship. Basically, okay, we're not "enemies." But I don't know if we're really close friends either. I didn't want that. Actually I think within the dream it had to do with "we can be friends again, but I don't want to live together again" (we had been roommates in the dorms).

And then I think at some point in the dream I came home, which I guess was also her home at that point, and she was doing something that I didn't like, and then in the dream I stopped and realized that this is also her home, and she can do whatever she wants here.

I guess part of what this dream brings forth in what I can remember of it is: boundaries and control.

Without proper boundaries, I feel very out of control and then try to assert control through my emotions and reactions.

With having placed the boundary in the dream (a little confusing to think back on it because the dream is so fuzzy to me now), I was able to let go of the need for control over another person and simply have control over myself. I was able to realize that in a situation where I didn't like something, I am the subject and the doer in that sentence, so I am the person that I need to deal with to resolve that issue.

Boundaries is something I've been grappling with for a few weeks or months now. I've only recently begun to understand them and understand how I can support myself within them. Basically my perspective is that a boundary is an agreement with myself. That's all, plain and simple.

Control is something that I've been realizing I only have if I am not trying to control something outside of myself. The moment I try to control something outside of myself is the moment I lose all control, which of course perpetuates the experience of trying to gain control of my environment if I have not yet realized that the only thing I can control is myself. Trying to control is to be out of control. Actual control is to just be with what is, within the boundaries as agreements that I set for myself in self support and self responsibility.

So I see how these are two key features of all my failed relationships with others and failure to sustain a trusting loving relationship with myself.


I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to set healthy boundaries for myself within friendships and relationships.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to dislike the things that other people choose to do that do not affect me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to react to the things that other people choose to do that do not affect me in such a way that is detrimental to the relationship.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to also react to the things that other people choose to do that do affect me in such a way that is detrimental and ineffective, making the other person feel like I am limiting them and like I am manipulating them because that is the reaction I am having within my sense of being out of control.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel out of control when things that I cannot control happen.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to realize healthy ways to communicate my needs so that other people can potentially make choices that will serve as a compromise and agreement for both of us within a shared living space or within a friendship or relationship (example: instead of sitting up in bed and making some snarky comment about how I'm trying to sleep, I could have had a calm and collected conversation with my roommate about please not having sex with her 2nd boyfriend that her 1st boyfriend doesn't know about while I am in the room).

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use my emotional reactions as manipulation to try and control other people because this was the only tool I learned how to use in many instances.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to and try to control other people in ways that do not affect me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel out of control when other people are simply living their lives the way that they want to.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to place boundaries for myself when I see that the things I cannot control are not things that I want to accept or allow myself to be around or impose upon myself (example: instead of staying in a harmful friendship too long, I can first communicate why I dislike the way another person treats me and then, if it does not change, go elsewhere, rather than holding onto that friendship as a confirmation of my belief that it is what I am worth and that the only way to prove to myself that I am more valuable is to stick it out in the hopes that I can change this person or convince them to treat me better).

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to place my self worth and my quality of life outside myself into the hands of others so that because of this I have felt like their choices, actions, behaviors, etc., are direct reflections of who I am, and so therefore I want to control them to create a picture of myself that I can live with through others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from myself and others as life through this dynamic such that then if the other person does not bend at my will and be "a good friend" to me, I am able to then create a superiority complex for myself while at the same time continuing to live under the premise that who they are is a reflection of me, so that within myself I feel both superior and better-than and also inferior and worthless.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see realize and understand how what these other people have reflected to me in these instances is my self imposed need for control which is in fact unnecessary, within this showing me how I have not taken responsibility for myself in having control over myself and in making choices and decisions for myself to support myself, instead depending on others to stay within some kind of undefined imaginary boundary that I am not even fully aware of, let alone them. Also how I have not been a good friend to myself or to others, how I have not created boundaries for myself to assist and support myself in choosing healthy friendships and how I have not accepted myself as who I am, instead needing others to show me who I am through who they are through again my perception of them, a perception which is sick and toxic because I have not been self honest, self responsible, or self supportive.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to place healthy boundaries for myself of how I will respond in any given situation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to stay in harmful situations for too long.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to stay in harmful friendships for too long.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold out and hold onto the hope that another person might be able to change and be the person I wanted them to be.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to accept other people for exactly who they are, and then direct myself accordingly, according to who I am and what I need in self support, instead trying to change other people to meet my needs for support.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have unclear and unmarked boundaries so that really the only boundary that has been in place has been my reactive emotions which of course is not consistent and is pretty nonsensical within the physical because my reactive emotions are based on all my many memories and beliefs and other internal mind things that other people do not share with me because they do not share my specific experiences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to within this often make many friendships all about me in some ways because here I am delineating the appearance of the relationship based on my shit that I carry around as memories and reactions and beliefs.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take full responsibility for myself and realize what is mine and what is another's.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to always want to take care of what is another person's business, leaving my own business to rot or fester or grow.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am so worthless and so untrustworthy and to doubt myself so much that if, when, and as I see a boundary that needs to be set, I feel like I have to justify it or explain it with emotional reactivity or some kind of impending danger rather than simply seeing, realizing, and understanding that this boundary is what is best for me and letting that be enough.



I commit myself to continue to look at boundaries and setting clear boundaries for myself, which, depending on different factors, may be malleable within a moment of experience in the physical in practical consideration of what is best (so, not setting rigid rules).

I commit myself to continue to look at how I use my emotions, especially anger, to try and control outcomes.

I commit myself also to looking at how I use my emotions to justify my boundaries when really all I need is to set a boundary for myself and live by it. I do not have to explain myself; the boundary is mine.

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.

Anxiety, Defenses, and Self-Forgiveness in the Moment of Experience - Day 160

Something occurred to me today as kind of a hint as to another component of my recent spike in anxiety, and that is a point of comparison and surprise. Basically in the last few weeks / months I have been exposed to a lot of new people and a couple new cultures, at work and at CoDA meetings. In both settings I have been somewhat disarmed by what I have found, which is people who, much to my surprise, are seemingly quite genuinely honest, open, aware, compassionate, accepting, and supportive.

I say disarmed because that is really how it feels. Like, here I am, with all these defenses up, and they are really very useless and futile here; in fact they are very obvious self-sabotage. (Are they ever really useful? Probably not. That was one thing mentioned at tonight's CoDA meeting, which is that all these behaviors are ones we learned as children, most likely, but we've just grown out of them. These behaviors and defenses were useful at one time, or else I would have never learned them. But I am not a child trying to survive in a dysfunctional family anymore.)

I'm inclined to say I have not encountered people like this much in my life, although I think I probably have but just have not been able to recognize it, or have dismissed them in some way, or believed myself unworthy of having them in my life, and have engaged in patterns that have led me to pursue intimacy / friendships with people who are not these things (patterns regarding wanting to fix others, patterns regarding inferiority / superiority dynamics, patterns of reliving memories and past experiences, patterns of believing I am not worthy of healthy relationships, etc.).

And, instead of learning how to better assist and support myself to find and develop positive and supportive relationships, I have just become more and more narrow in my social scope and less and less trusting of people around me, within the assumption that everyone is untrustworthy and judgmental and self-interested (much like myself and some other people in "my world," or, let's face it: the entire world).

So obviously I have encountered people like this and I have had experiences throughout my life that have led me to believe that this is normative and to be expected. For that reason, and probably others, I have also accepted and allowed myself to engage in the very same behaviors, inside and out, in part as a defense mechanism so as to seemingly avoid getting hurt by these behaviors from others. But I think primarily I probably learned these behaviors from the modeling provided by my mother and from my own attempts to cope as a child growing up.

So this has induced some anxiety in me as I have encountered people and cultures that are not this way, but that have shown themselves to be honest, open, aware, compassionate, accepting, and supportive, and also tolerant of mistakes and differences. Because, I am surprised. And I wonder if I am perceiving things correctly. And then I look at myself, and realize that I am still operating with the defenses up, and I am still operating as all of these really negative behaviors / thoughts / energies that contribute to creating the destitution in which we live, because it's what I expect from others, but here I see I don't have to expect it from these people. In fact, I can be honest, open, aware, compassionate, accepting, supportive, and tolerant of others, and most importantly of myself -- something I've not thought myself worthy of. And I see people actually applying it and living it, openly and honestly, at least as far as I can tell, and it is really cool!

These people in these new environments and cultures are not repeating the dynamics that I've lived out throughout my life. They're showing me something new. Something I've wanted, but didn't really know was possible. Something I thought I had, because I held the ideals, but wasn't ever really living, because I was too afraid and too defensive to let down my walls.

So I think my anxiety spiked in part because I was surprised and was forced then to look at myself and see how, even in environments that are safe, I was still defensive. I am still defensive. So it is not just others. It is me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that other people are all judgmental, nasty, self-interested, and cruel.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to draw conclusions about people in general based on my experiences with a few which were informed and influenced by my memories with even fewer and my interpretations and energetic reactions within myself through and as my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself within my participation within the social landscape because I have not trusted other people and because I have believed that other people will always somehow harm or betray me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to go into a point of superiority sometimes in reaction to these beliefs because of course it is difficult to see myself as equal to and one with all of the nastiness that I have perceived in others, so that within this I tend to judge others before I even get to know them, further limiting my social arena and preventing me from getting to know people who are genuine and have integrity.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to latch onto people who confirm my negative view of people in general and my negative view of myself and what I am worth.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold onto ideals of compassion and unconditional love and respect and support, but to not live out these as living words because I have been too afraid and too defensive and too caught up in repeating old patterns and reopening old wounds and re-enacting old memories.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create such strong defenses that I have used them always, even when they have not actually been supportive or really defended me from harm, because the defenses themselves have been harmful unto me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be that which I do not wish to see in the world.

I commit myself to investigating my defense patterns and how I have created myself as a wall to keep others out and keep myself locked in, locked up.

I commit myself to embodying the ideals I have claimed to uphold and embrace. I commit myself to equality and oneness as living words. I commit myself to realizing how I have not been these things in stability because I have been afraid and defensive and because I have been existing in and as my mind as my memories and fears and limitations.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become anxious and doubt and judge myself when I encounter people who appear to be living out the ideals I have claimed to uphold. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to realize this as an opportunity to learn more about these ideals as living words and to apply myself to live as these words. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel uncomfortable in the face of people who are open and honest and all the things I wish I was or have believed myself to be. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel anxious at the realization that it might actually be okay to be vulnerable in these settings, to allow myself to be seen, to let my walls down, because it is safe. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel anxious in safety and to try to destroy the sense of safety through self-sabotaging behaviors.


And what I notice the last two days or so is that I am still encountering these thoughts and these tumbles of my gut and these urges to enter anxiety. But, I breathe, and I just sort of notice it, and then I let it pass. But I still fear it, I still fear it taking me over, and like, it's still there. I still allowed it. So I see how I need to start to apply self forgiveness in a moment, not just later in writing. I see how I can assist and support myself with that. In fact I have already practiced this twice now, kind of randomly / unintentionally, when I have lingered my eyes on some man I have thought was attractive only to then find myself enter desire and lack, so I saw how accepting and allowing my eyes to linger was detrimental to my stability, so I forgave myself, rather than getting stuck there not only in that initial energy but also further energies of self judgment.

And that is my fear: getting stuck in the anxiety. Or getting stuck in the anger, too. That is a big one. Getting stuck.

So I forgive myself that I have not accepting or allowed myself to forgive myself in the moment of experience, because it had not occurred to me to support myself this way, even though it has been suggested in multiple media and from multiple sources.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my energetic experiences because I realize that within this fear I am giving the energy power over me as separate from me as not my own creation, and this is how the energy grows and eventually overcomes me, by me giving it the power to do so.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take a passive approach in finding stability because I had not understood the tool of speaking self forgiveness in a moment of experience to assist and support myself in clearing the energy before it accumulates.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make self forgiveness about writing wherein I draft and formulate a written statement as a presentation of my process, rather than accepting and allowing self forgiveness to be integrated as my process in every moment just as I integrate and utilize my breath in every moment.

So now I commit myself to forgive myself in the moment that I see the energy.



I got a new handout tonight with more statements of patterns of codependency that I wish to share here, which help to shed light on why I have not chosen healthy and supportive relationships but have instead time and again managed to find people who allow me to play out these patterns and roles because:

• My good feelings about who I am stem from being liked by you.
• My good feelings about who I am stem from receiving approval from you.
• Your struggle affects my serenity. My mental attention focuses on solving your problems or relieving your pain.
• My mental attention is focused on pleasing you.
• My mental attention is focused on protecting you.
• My mental attention is focused on manipulating you to do it my way.
• My self-esteem is bolstered by solving your problems.
• My self-esteem is bolstered by relieving your pain.
• My own hobbies and interests are put aside. My time is spent sharing your interests and hobbies. 
• Your clothing and personal appearance are dictated by my desires as I feel you are a reflection of me.
• Your behavior is dictated by my desires as I feel you are a reflection of me.
• I am not aware of how I feel. I am aware of how you feel. 
• I am not aware of what I want. I ask what you want, or I assume. 
• The dreams I have for my future are linked to you. 
• My fear of your anger determines what I say or do. 
• I use giving as a way of feeling safe in our relationship.
• My social circle diminishes as I involve myself with you.
• I put aside my values in order to connect with you.
• I value your opinion and way of doing things more than my own.
• The quality of my life is in relation to the quality of yours. 

And then we can see quite easily how the "borderline" in me is apt to then go to the opposite extreme of absolutely rejecting someone once I have had enough of idealizing them and making my entire existence about them. 

My mom had an interesting idea, as did one woman in the group (apparently this is a "thing" people do), of re-writing these statements (or other statements, such as the 12 steps themselves). In the case of re-writing these statements, my mom's idea was to re-write them in such a way that is like a new promise to oneself, a realization and commitment basically about the behavior. The woman in group was working on re-writing the 12 steps to put them in a language and verbiage that was relevant to her, a process by which she found herself growing all the more as she found more and more ways to apply the steps to work for her. So this is a cool link to the power of words. 

Falling and Breathing - Day 158

I haven't been writing as much or as honestly about what is really going on for me the last few days because I haven't wanted to accept responsibility for myself. I've known that there isn't much I can say here that is self-honest without that. I have identified and lived as if the "stress" and "anxiety" is "out of control," as if I am out of my own control. I have fed into multiple automated systems which compound upon one another leaving me with migraines and other physical pain that just make it that much easier to excuse myself from having to actually stand up and take responsibility for myself.

Each day has felt like a big question mark of how it will go, like as if I am completely at the mercy of whatever thoughts and energies pass through me. Each time I receive a text message it's a big question mark of if it will be yet another stimulus for stress, anxiety, or anger. Each interaction I have with another person is a big question mark of who I am and who they are and what it all means, defaulting on panic and self-judgment.

Each day is a new opportunity to live as a victim and abdicate self responsibility and project judgment and blame and become more and more out of control.

I can't go on like this, and I've thought of quitting. I've thought of it as pointless, but it is the point.

One thing occurred to me while laying in bed moments ago. I've been asked by a friend if I am able to be stable or if my energy moves me. It moves me. How can I be stable? And then I reflected on some individuals who have written about their process of waking up and their realizations about the fear and other energies they immediately feed into upon waking. So I saw for example how each day is new. I can wake up each day and start it with self support and self trust to support myself in that day. It is a question mark inasmuch as I do not know what will happen. But I know I can breathe.

And each breath is new. In each breath I have myself; each day I have myself. I mean what the fuck am I supposed to rely on when I am in this kind of a storm? I begin to self-deprecate, and also get all mopey that I have no friends or that my family isn't like some other families, and reflect back on all the many pains I have encountered as if these things somehow squash me and truly make me who I am. Or reflect back on every minor interaction of the day which automatically becomes an infraction in my mind as I conjure up more and more reasons to barrage myself with hatred, judgment, and blame.

This is not stability. This is a deliberate swan dive as an automated response to fear of living.

On the one hand I could say I cannot trust myself, and I cannot rely on myself. But if not myself, then whom? The truth is I can breathe. The truth is I am here. The truth is that I have to wake up each day and support myself, and when I fall, I get back up, and support myself again. I breathe. I forgive myself.

I haven't forgiven myself much lately because I haven't wanted to give myself that kind of grace and compassion. If I can hold onto the energy then I can continue to be a victim. If I can continue to be a victim then I can continue to blame everyone else but me. "I'm different. My mind is too much. I can't help it."

And sometimes it is really hard to trust myself. Sometimes it is really overwhelming to see how all of my memories and past experiences inform who I am today, how I try to play out and relive past pains and make them somehow different now, and creating new pains and traumas to keep me trapped. It isn't working though. There is mind survival, and then there is survival. Survival to live is kicking in.

What am I supposed to do when I cannot trust myself?

I can breathe.
I can have patience with myself.
I can trust in my breath, at least, and be here.

There is so much I believe I cannot let go of, or I do not want to let go of. But it's killing me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to accept and allow the accumulation of energies that has brought me to this point.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to support myself unconditionally and absolutely.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to bring myself to the point of my energy creation manifesting as pains in my body, migraines in my head.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel out of control and really believe that I am out of control, that there is nothing I can do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to turn away from myself in writing so that I have not utilized this tool to see myself through this time. I've been taking space. It's okay. But it is better to at least still write.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel as if every single little thing that happens or item on my schedule or agenda or interaction or every single little thing, is another drop in a bucket that is already overflowing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge and doubt myself at every single turn, and yet still hold tightly onto myself as my righteousness as if righteousness is my life force, as if it is all that I have, because in my past it was so easily taken away and squandered and shuffled about and pushed under the rug, as if I did not matter. That is the past. This is now.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to go into full automated activation of past memories and experiences when encountering new experiences which are similar or reminiscent.

I realize these things happen to me repeatedly not because others are evil and not because I am not worthy of a certain quality of life, but because of my patterns and my participation.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand this automated activation as what is happening, and figure out what to do about it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to replay and relive out interactions with my dad, trying to make a different result this time.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to really understand how all of those similarities I have already seen have actually influenced and informed and directed me as activators of personality and survival systems, wherein I have believed that there is much more at stake than is really at stake, indeed I have mistaken what is at stake, which is not me in my self righteousness but is me in self honesty and self support and self responsibility and self stability.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize what I am doing to myself and others by my participation in this sick automated game.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to identify this as sick. It is what it is. I see it now, or am finally beginning to see it now.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear waking up and feed into anxiety about the morning and the day and what the day will bring and what stressors I will have to face and how I will possibly be able to handle them and within this questioning if I am even capable, questioning if I should even have a job, or this job, questioning why I am alive if I am apparently so inept at living.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to accept and allow every small initial fear or anxiety or doubt to snowball into complete and absolute self-abuse and self-sabotage instead of accepting and allowing myself to stop, breathe, and create complete and absolute self support and unconditional love and understanding.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want others to understand me when I have not even fully understood myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to consider abandoning process as a way of like throwing my hands up in the air and giving up and believing that this isn't "working" and that it would be better to just go back to self-medicating through energy and substance. But I realize how much I have learned and how I would be taking that to support myself even if I abandoned process, because I know no other or better way... So why not keep learning?


I commit myself to wake up and breathe. I commit myself to breathe through each moment. I commit myself to rely on and trust in my breath. I commit myself to practice being fully present and aware in every moment in and as every breath. I commit myself to write out myself for myself or for my blog when I see that I am experiencing any kind of energy that is limiting my living. I commit myself to myself as life for as long as I am living and breathing.

"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.

Work & Negative Energy and Social Anxiety - Day 132

This post brings up a variety of points, so bear with me if it seems disjointed.


I moved through today with a sense of having let go, a sense of moving forward. However, I know that I've not yet lived out the points I've been writing these past couple months. There is still a point coming where I will have to see for myself if I have really let go and if I am really moving forward (I will have to choose to really let go and choose to really move forward). So here I reflect on this sense of "accomplishment" and "freedom" and realize that I could easily suppress further reaction / energy through these positive feelings / pretending that I am "over it," thus self-sabotage, and here I commit myself to have awareness of myself as who I am in my relationship to myself as these points.

"Now, because you did not do self correction immediately when it happened - even with doing self correction now, it's going to happen again - until you correct yourself in real time when it happen. Only real-time Correction, when you Move while you have the discomfort and you correct it until the discomfort is no longer there - is the actual, Real, point of Change." Bernard Poolman

However, I also look at what it feels like to move through life without holding onto energy.

I remember this has always been the case with me and crushes. I would develop a crush. Then usually I would tell someone about it, which would make it "real" -- also reinforce it because that person would usually get excited and want to talk about it / entertain themselves with the idea of my crush. Then I would go through a whole series of bullshit surrounding the crush, basically resulting in my own torment because none of it was real, and I wanted it to be real, but it wasn't real and I couldn't simply just make it real. And then I would notice with great relief after a crush had finally "passed," I would realize, "wow, there's no one I 'like' right now, what a relief." Or the same would be true with a grudge. Hah, a grudge or a crush. Not really so different. Reminds me of yesterday when a student came to me and told me another student had said to her, "I want to fight you. Do you want to fight me?" So I find companionship through crushes and grudges. Interesting. Anyway, when I wasn't engaging in a crush or a grudge, I felt the most stable and capable and free. Crushes and grudges both are prisons.

That in between time, though, in between crushes or in between grudges, that was the time I would try to notice and look at and see how it felt and why it was actually better for me to live that way. I would try to learn from myself in those moments to see who I could be if I didn't allow the crushes or grudges. Of course I didn't really have the tools to REALLY see myself in ALL moments until Desteni, so now here I am again, ready to move forward and see myself in a more stable place, without a crush or a grudge.

Holding onto a personality
http://www.taramarynowsky.com

During the last week I struggled some with my relationship with work and myself at work. I think in part this had to do with what I've been walking with the point of the grudge, where when I let go of the anger I felt empty, and so I needed more reasons to exist in negative energy. So I created negative energy about work. However, I also think that the lack of the anger and projection of blame that I carried with me daily through the grudge left me without a throne to sit on as superior and thinking something like, "well, I've got this serious grudge going on, so I'm important, so I can stand up and take care of business, no problem." Something like that. Also a sense of superiority through work, where if I am successful and doing well at work, then I can feel like I am successful and therefore superior, and can continue to not look at myself as the creator of my own negative experiences. So then, without the grudge, I was no longer successful at work for the sake of feeling superior -- superiority didn't matter anymore because I wasn't trying to win anything. And I've not yet learned completely how to live for myself. Being successful at work simply for myself is maybe one or two steps away still. I am grasping it more here just in seeing myself now. Doing anything at all for myself, living for myself: this is still a big lesson to learn, much more of my process ahead of me will likely involve this. 

But one thing that triggered my downfall was the admittance within the email reply wherein I felt relief, at the end I said I was really enjoying my job. 

And so a part of me here is superstitious and believes that somehow by stating this I magically manifested the opposite. I also see how the day before I was excited about a few different things for that day, and so when my mood didn't carry over into the next day, and the things I was excited about weren't actually all that exciting, I of course had a worse experience than I anticipated, like a bigger drop from what would have been if I'd been neutral (or perhaps if I'd been neutral / stable, I'd have actually enjoyed the day for the same reasons I was excited). Lastly, though, I see how I have a habit of not wanting to admit to a person I am mad at or blame for my misfortune that I am actually "happy" and doing well. I have done this a lot with my mom, where I have wanted to blame her for my "mental health" or lack thereof, and so around her I have always gone into a depressed character or otherwise a very unhappy expression of myself. I have not wanted to show her that I am actually happy because then I feel like that lets her off the hook. I have to remain unhappy in order for her to see the consequences of her actions, ie to show her it is her fault that I am so unhappy. 

So this is obviously holding myself hostage in order to punish another person, thus punishing myself. And it doesn't even work anyway, it's not like the other person ever feels "punished." And in fact many might say that you can best "punish" someone by showing them how "happy" you are / "kill them with kindness" in a way to show that their evilness does not affect you. But the thing is, none of these other people are even really to blame. If they REALLY were to blame, maybe I would take the alternate route, try to compensate by being "happy" or focusing on my own achievements / abilities to support myself. Instead, I know I am the only one to blame, and I do not want to see that. So instead I project blame, and I torture myself with some twisted belief that this will make the other person feel bad for how I have perceived them as treating me. 

So in that context, the moment I wrote out that I was actually really enjoying my job, and it seems like a great fit, there was this twinge of cringing and firstly expecting this now to somehow magically superstitiously not be true, and secondly also this feeling of, like... well great, now I don't have anything to show them for how unhappy I am and how useless I am because of how they treated me. I found myself wanting to take it back. 

And then of course I found myself actually having negative experiences at work, for all of the above reasons, which I'll now summarize here:

1. Let go of grudge, needed replacement negative energy
2. Lack of sense of self-importance through holding grudge and believing I am better / superior for also having this job
• So it's "okay" to be "happy" and enjoy my job, as long as I keep it to myself / don't let the other person in on that secret
• A grudge IS self-importance. So letting go of the grudge in a way also let go of my sense of self-importance, thus no longer seeing myself as important, thus no longer seeing what I do as important / not valuing myself/what I do. Like "if I can't 'win' this grudge/battle, I must not matter" / "why would I care about me if this other person doesn't care about me the way I want them to?"
3. Not living for myself / working successfully for myself 
• Instead doing this for another or to prove something to another or to justify my energetic experiences. 
4. Admitting that I enjoy my job
• Superstitious in belief that saying this too many times will make it not true
• Wanting to hide my success from the person(s) I am mad at / blame for my experience 
• But if I really indeed blamed the other person, I would probably be more apt to want to achieve success and show them that they had no effect on me, so maybe even lie that I am happy and doing great and neener neener neener they don't matter. 
• But since I know that it's not really their fault, and since I know that they actually want to see me as successful, I choose instead the opposite, so as to "punish" them, not giving them what they want (my success), thus also punishing myself by denying myself my own success
• This is a point I wrote about more extensively in private a few weeks ago, perhaps I will edit to be able to share. 
5. Having created excitement in anticipation of events on a particular day, where when I faced those points they were not as enjoyable as I expected, in large part due to drop in my mood
   
   I would add:
6. Continued lack of understanding about some aspects of the population I am working with, so that in the place of my lack of understanding I subconsciously place myself as "knowing already" because I believe I have to operate from "somewhere" rather than allowing myself to operate from a place of not knowing yet, and then finding out, learning, and coming to understand. 
• Because the population is "new" or "foreign" to me in terms of "the kinds of kids" and what their interests are, I find myself "at a loss" for understanding the reasons behind their behaviors and personalities and interests and the culture to which they subscribe. And so I assume simple answers, not realizing that there are systemic reasons having to do with family structure / environment, poverty / socio-economic status, neighborhood, etc. etc. that all contribute to the experiences these kids have and the experiences which have helped create them. 
• In many ways it is not so simple as my old job, in the sense that at least at my old job the majority of people who played any role in the lives of the students, either at school or at home (group home, foster care, or original family), were at least on the "same page" of "supporting" the student to succeed, even if we had variant approaches / beliefs about what this meant. However, here, myself and the other new staff are pretty much the only individuals in the lives of these students who are seeking to support them to be successful. This isn't a "problem" per se, in the sense that it does not have to be problematic for me in the enjoyment of my job, it is just something I haven't understood, and once I understand it I will be better suited to actually support the students, because I will understand them and their experiences better. 
• Example: I've not really understood why it is so bad to be a snitch. When I was young, I always went to adults for help with my problems. With most of these kids, snitching is one of the absolute worst things you can do. 
7. And I see myself even after the last two days having been improvements in my relationship to work and myself at work, nonetheless beginning to revisit memories of my old job in Denver and how much I miss it and even comparing within "better/worse" contrasting. 

But today was a very eventful day in which I learned a lot and also saw more and more the support coming from my coworkers to implement the changes we are here to implement, so I have a more eager sense about me in regards to work again. I also got paid which helps, haha. I differentiate here between being "eager" versus being "excited" in the sense that eagerness is like an excitement to see what happens whereas excitement is excitement about what I expect to have happen. And I would definitely at this point say I am "eager" because I see that there is much more to learn, and I do not really know what to expect, but I am glad and excited to be along for the ride and see what I can learn, how I can grow, what and how I can understand, and how I can help to the best of my abilities. 

Another point that is cropping up for me now is that of social paranoia / anxiety. It seems that staff at work have semi-regular hang outs, and this is cool, but I have not really faced the anxiety that arises when I think about actually attending one of these events (I've not been invited yet; I don't think anybody's gotten together yet). I also was asked tonight by an acquaintance after yoga what I was doing with the rest of my night, and I said I didn't really know, and I left it open, but still I felt anxiety about her asking if I wanted to hang out, and what that would mean, and did I want to, and what would I do instead, and if I didn't how would I decline, etc. etc. Not so frantic as all those questions make it sound, which is cool, but I can see that the point of meeting / hanging out with new people in a social setting hasn't come up for me in a while and so I have to be aware of myself in these reactions / fears / anxieties. Lastly I've been contacted by another destonian and we are trying to schedule a possible meet up this weekend and this brings up anxiety in me as well, so another point to face and write about.

One of the points here is a belief of myself as a failure in friendships/relationships, which, even though now I am working on walking through the point of a grudge, thus not allowing myself to fail in a friendship, I actually believe moreso that I am a failure, perhaps because it would be "better" if I did not get to the point of a grudge in the first place / I am now facing the shame of who I am in friendships / relationships. And related to above, when I have a grudge, I have a belief then that anything I do proves I am "superior" and so I can move more confidently in other friendship / relationship endeavors because I believe success in these areas simply proves that I am not to blame for the failure in another friendship. Admitting I am "at fault" / taking responsibility means that it is me who created this experience (here I see that admitting "fault" and "taking responsibility" are actually two different things -- so to focus on "taking responsibility," which indicates changing myself and being my own self directive principle outside of (self-) blame and (self-) judgment.) Also a belief that friendships / relationships are "too difficult" so I avoid them. Also a belief that I have nothing to offer, and why would anyone be interested in getting to know me? And so on and so forth. 

So there are many points in this one post, some more ripe for expansion and self forgiveness than others. I will return to this post tomorrow or soon, and probably will have to revisit over time. I might be going to Tahoe so I might have limited internet access this weekend. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Job Jitters - Day 107

I know, another new job?? Yep, another new job.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I cannot do this job, that I will have an emotional break down, that I will somehow demonstrate fear and an inability to do my job well, or will not have a strong enough work ethic, or will get wrapped up in arguments with people, or will not be interested in this job description anymore, or will somehow otherwise fail utterly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine some of these scenarios wherein I will feel hesitant to perform my job duties and will thus force my co workers to do more than their fair share, or I will doubt some procedural decision and will thus engage in conflict with a co worker or even my supervisor.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe/fear that I am not capable of being tactful in my communication when I do not understand a decision or when I think that there is another option for a decision that also makes sense or maybe makes more sense.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear conflict at work that will make my job difficult and because of how I often like "check out" in conflict, because I have such a difficult time with conflict including within my physical bodily responses as shaking, I will enter conflict or perceive conflict and then just like check out and not even be aware of myself anymore and thus not able to direct myself to communicate effectively or to even breathe effectively.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel like starting this job is like the end of something where, sure, it is the end of this little vacation I've had, but it is also just another day, and it is also the beginning of something new, and also I have to work to survive.

So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to wish that work wasn't a priority or obligation in order to survive. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear work precisely because it is a requirement and so I fear my failure within work because if I do not work I do not have money and I do not survive, whereas if work was not tied to my survival I would not fear failure so much as not so much would be "at stake" within my job performance but I would be able to simply go to work and do the best job I can do and learn and enjoy the job rather than worrying about my survival as it is based on my performance at work.

So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have my survival in the back of my head when I am engaging in fear or worry about work, so that this preoccupation with my survival fuels my fears and anxieties about work and becomes like this force outside of myself that is pushing me into work, so that I feel resistance because here I am not the one actually moving myself to work, completely, but am also being moved to work by the social and economic system in which I exist, so that now there is an outside force literally forcing me to work in order to survive, and so psychologically I react to this with resistance and like rebellion, as well as fear of the consequences of failure.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to slip into a fear/belief system again that how easy it would be to just let myself go and pretend like I am somehow disabled/inept and pretend like I am somehow incapable of supporting myself as my own survival, so that I could then just rely on my family or on the state, because it is so easy for me to become overwhelmed and fearful when I am entertaining these thoughts and accepting and allowing myself to fear failure, and my automatic reaction is to shut down, check out, and evade responsibility as even being an option.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself therefore to fear failure at my job, because in reality I am capable, and in reality I have shown myself in my past that I am very capable, that I work hard, that I have been good at pretty much all of the jobs I have ever held, and that I am an effective communicator.

So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold on to memories of conflict at work or paranoia about my communication style being too abrasive such that I fear that this will become a problem at work.

I realize that part of what makes my communication style abrasive is when I allow myself to become locked into my own ideas and perspectives as my ego, and so I commit myself to letting my ego go, humbling myself, and realizing I do not have all the answers. I commit myself to breathing before I speak so that I can consider what I am about to say and how I want to say it. I commit myself to self honesty and patience, to rejecting urgency and rejecting reactivity, which in itself is an urgent response without breath or consideration.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become fearful and anxious about meeting my new coworkers, about getting along with them, about how they will read / perceive me, but actually more than that I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I will judge them and be dissatisfied with who they are and feel like, "ugh, I don't like my coworkers, they're too ____."

So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear something I might do, such as judge my coworkers, or engage in conflict, or fail at my job, where all of these things are again CHOICES I can choose or not choose, where within this fear it is like I am assuming that I am going to start this job and then promptly let go of the steering wheel and just hope that it works out, hope that I don't crash, not realizing that I actually do have control over these outcomes as who I am in every moment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the unknowns that are within starting this new job, many many extensive unknowns, and so with a lack of ability to imagine what the job will be like, I simply assume that, as I am at "the steering wheel," my eyes will still be closed, I will still not be able to see what the job is like, and so will be left to the good graces of like "fate" or happenstance to determine the outcome of who I am in this job, not realizing that obviously I do not know much about the job YET, but I am going to learn more today, and Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, and that I will then learn even more the next Monday when the job actually starts, and I will continue to learn, just as I learn every moment now, even in familiar spaces I am always learning and adjusting to the physical requirements in front of me.

I realize that if I am with myself within and as my breath I am prepared thus to respond to anything in my environment, including my work environment, and so I commit myself to continuing to stabilize myself within and as my breath, learning to do this for every single breath in every single moment, continuing this practice in all environments.

And when and as I see myself fearing failure at work, I stop and I breathe. I reject the thoughts because they will only lead to more thoughts about my own survival, or my own desires to give up on myself and let others take care of me, which is so beyond unnecessary that it is ridiculous to even consider -- within that thought I am completely ignoring what I know I am capable of. I commit myself to attending my meetings and trainings over the course of the next few days, to giving myself the time and space to integrate the new information, to aligning my focus on myself in this transition and completing this transition effectively, to being here with myself as what tasks I am physically facing, and so therefore to temporarily setting aside some of the other things I have been focused on these past few weeks, so as to be with myself here in my requirements in the physical as this transition, supporting myself through this transition to the best of my abilities, writing out my fears and taking care of myself.

-- post-orientation meeting --

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continue to hold on to memories of my old job in Denver so that every job I have had in the same field here I have compared to that job, so that even this new job as I went to my orientation I compared it to my old job, where rather than acknowledging that any job, this job, will be different, and refusing to place a value judgment on that, and also being open to whatever I encounter, I am always comparing within the context of better or worse, refusing instead to give a new job a chance if it does not seem at first glance to be equal to or better than my old job in Denver.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to be open to new things, a new job, and having it be different, and having it be whatever it is. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself within my employment because I miss my job in Denver so much, where here I know that actually even if I went back to that same job in Denver, it would still be quite different than it was when I worked there before, because time has passed, people have come and gone, and it just wouldn't be the same. So what's so bad about a new job where nothing is really the same? Seriously, I don't have a time machine. Stop living like I do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get stuck in ruts of what is already known, only wanting to experience what is familiar to me, what is within my "comfort zone" and never venturing out to try anything new.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the unknown and also within that fear to judge it, because I am afraid that I will fail in the unknown and so rather than show up and see and try, I judge the unknown as bad so that if I do fail it is not really "my fault" but it is the unknown entity which ended up being something different than what I wanted, so then I am no longer to blame but the unknown entity is, which is still not even true, because:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to establish values of things that I "want" or "do not want" such that I am setting myself in opposition to reality rather than simply moving through each moment in physical reality and taking it exactly as it is, but instead have established for myself expectations of what things should or should not be like and have made rules basically for how I will respond and why it will be okay for me to respond that way, not realizing that within this I am just manipulating myself to oppose reality and believe it is the rest of the world's fault when I am dissatisfied, when my dissatisfaction is in fact of my own creation.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to move through life with expectations rather than being here in the present moment in the physical exactly as it is, supporting myself unconditionally no matter what conditions I meet or what circumstances I am in.


On my way to orientation it really kind of clicked how I was still comparing this new job to my old job in Denver, how I was thinking back to my orientation at that job, and reflecting on that, and then... I realized when I went to that orientation, I didn't have any memories to frame my perspective. I was just there, ready. Nervous, sure, but ready, and open, and acknowledging that "this is my job now, so I'm going to do it, and make whatever I can of it." So it just clicked at that point. And the fact is that this new job is a really really great opportunity. Although, I am not going to allow myself to convince myself and believe that it is "the perfect job" as I did with my previous job (and how interesting to see what a long way I've come since that transition in terms of my anxiety and ability to stabilize and trust myself!). Nonetheless it is clear to see some tangible facts as to why this job should be at least decent, which is plenty. Anything else is icing on the cake, and I do love cake without icing just the same. :P Besides, the job really is what I make it.

But, still: No expectations. No judgments. Just openness, walking within and as my breath through each moment as what is physically required, and enjoying it! Why not?


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to walk into the future as it becomes the present with expectations of how it will go or assumptions/projections/assessments about the people who will be there, where I base my comfort level on these assumptions so that then if I end up being wrong about these assumptions my comfort level decreases and therefore I have not actually been stable within myself, because I have been assessing myself within the context of assessing what is around me.

I commit myself to really just focus on myself, what I can make of this job, my breath, how to take responsibility for myself within self honesty in my interactions and work ethic, and really to enjoy as like a new adventure.