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.

Tension & Release - Day 159

In the last two days I have been fortunate enough to have two massage therapists that I know be willing to take a crack at my sciatica. Last night was an especially enjoyable experience because the therapist was my yoga teacher who also practices Thai massage, which involved some very deep tissue work which I had to breathe through heavily and so I was very much in my body and in my breath during the massage. Today followed up in the same area so I'm eager to see how much (or how little) I experience sciatica symptoms over the next week.

I really had no idea that my muscles in my hip / butt could be so relaxed. I mean I have always flinched any time anything or anyone has touched my butt (not that that happens often, but from time to time between massages and chiropractic appointments and yoga assist massages), so obviously there is a LOT of tension there, but he worked it all out and I just felt so free and fluid and relaxed.

Also every time I have ever had a massage on my back, the therapist has commented on how tense the muscles especially between my shoulder blades are, which I'm sure doesn't help with my migraines.

I think it is interesting how this experience of loosening these muscles that are usually extremely tight is coinciding with progressing through the point of the grudge, which is holding onto energy, especially negative energy such as anger and resentment and blame, and getting really stuck there, just like the energy gets stuck as tension in my muscles. I can't tell for sure if these two matters are helping each other along, but it is interesting to me to consider how much tension my body carries and how that translates into my experience of myself, where when I experience freedom and looseness and fluidity in my body, it's like, why continue to hold on in my mind?

Is it easier for me to let go of the energetic charges in my mind because I now see the freedom and fluidity of being loose and tension-free in my body? It feels so good, and so natural.

Or is it just that the point is being reached and faced, indeed was in fact forced upon me, and that I am finally giving up in realizing that it isn't worth it to hold on? Because it definitely isn't.

Plus, I realized yesterday that this grudge is all about me. I mean I could have said that before, but I didn't really understand it and I still projected everything until it occurred to me in the imagined/projected voice and perspective of one of my coworkers (randomly I just thought, what would so-and-so say if we were talking about this? Except I didn't actually ask that; the answer just came as a thought in his voice) that within this grudge I am basically being allowed and allowing myself to play out and relive my relationship with my dad. It's all about replaying and reliving past experiences, trying to find a different outcome, or confirm some beliefs I created about myself in my past experiences with conflict, especially with my dad.

So this is all coming together in a way that seems to be working out for me, and I am going to do my best to use this co-incidence and co-operate with it to walk through this point of letting go and being free.

I also want to continue to explore releasing tension in my body through massage (self- or other -- the yoga teacher / thai massage therapist showed me some cool self-massage techniques as well, which is a really cool way to support and care for myself) and see how that coincides (or not) with being able to release energy in my mind.

I am tired of being clenched and tight and tense. I am tired of holding on! I will have resistance to work through, but if I stay with it, if I hold pressure on the point, then the energy will release, just like as in massage.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to exist within my body and mind in a state of tension and clenching and holding-on, and grinding and stiffness and inflexibility and obstinance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to exist as this for so long that I have forgotten what it feels like to be loose and free and fluid, indeed have even feared that experience of freedom so much that I have purposely created energy to block it.

I commit myself to continue to explore this dynamic between body tension and mind energy to see how I can assist and support myself in my totality for optimal body and mind health and freedom.

I commit myself to not become discouraged by what seem like impossibilities within this process, such as continuing to experience bodily pain, because I realize that this is a process and it will take time to clear this energy.

I commit myself to always remembering that prior to this recent instance of becoming evermore enmeshed within this point I rarely experienced migraines, whereas prior to starting process my migraines were nearly daily, as they are now as I have existed within and as this mind energy. So I commit myself to supporting myself, body and mind.

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.

Looking at Myself as My Patterns - Day 152

I see that I have to do something different than what I have been doing, because it's not working, and because I am giving myself migraines.

At the end of this post are the statements of patterns and characteristics of codependence from my CoDA packet (see Day 150). I emboldened the ones that I feel most strongly serve as representations, per my ability to self-see, of my experience of myself, and italicized the few ones that, at least for now, I do not see myself in hardly at all (although I see myself in all of them to at least some extent). I think it is important to note that these are common patterns and characteristics of human beings in general within our creation of ourselves through our minds, but that experiencing enough of these particular patterns/characteristics means that looking at oneself through the lens of codependency might be supportive. Otherwise, simply reading the statements and noticing yourself in any of them is a cool way to see yourself as a pattern of operation. 

I want to begin to look at this because I don't know how many more times I can bang my head against the wall of energy I am existing in the last few weeks / months. So I am looking now to support myself from a different angle, a more all-self-encompassing approach rather than continuing to look at this one wall and get stuck on how it is just like all the other walls, wishing that the person who "hurt me" this time, like every other time, would come and heal all of my many past wounds, holding all of my past wounds against this present person and situation. Here I begin to heal myself. 

I realized this about myself yesterday, or at least put it to words. So I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, every time I feel hurt by someone, allow myself to open up all of my past wounds, and project anger and blame onto this one new person or new situation that is charged from all of my past struggles and abuses and past self-victimization coagulating with new self-victimization, creating the ultimate un-rescue-able victim. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to somehow want this person to somehow heal all of me, and also take the blame for all of me, which is impossible. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel so helpless and powerless as myself as a victim that I take whatever opportunity I can to revisit past wounds which leads me to confusion about the here-now moment of "conflict" or "abuse," so that as I am facing what is here in front of me, I am also facing all of the great many things that are behind me, that indeed I never really left behind. I forgive myself that I have never accepted or allowed myself to heal myself or learn how to heal myself or even realize that I can and am the only one who can heal myself. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sit around and wait for someone else to come heal me, for some magical fix, and that within this I have started all new relationships and friendships from this starting point of feeling like I need to be fixed, and maybe this person can fix me, so that when they don't, or especially if they end up hurting me in some way, I become all the more wounded and self-victimized and angry and hurt and self-defeating. I commit myself now to take a step back and see myself, hold myself, take responsibility for myself, and heal myself. I commit myself to walk this path of self-healing as is most self-serving in self-honesty. I commit myself to seeing the broader patterns of who I am because, for me, this is the best and easiest way to see myself, and, for me, I become overwhelmed when I try to get too specific, at least for now, because there is too much else to also look at that is directly related, open, and hurting. So now I try a different angle, a different approach -- one that matches my energetic experience and the way that I exist as myself, rather than in opposition to myself: working with myself to heal myself.

I commit myself again to my Self, and no other, not allowing myself to align myself with what I believe another or others want or expect or wish of me, but seeing myself in self-honesty and then working with myself to walk this process in a way that is self-supportive in aligning myself with what is best for all as me. 

Some of these are more presently relevant than others. Some I can see I have already changed significantly in myself, whether through work with Desteni or prior to my participation with the Desteni process. Some are in process now. I will look at some statements individually through writing in posts to come. 

Denial Patterns:

• I have difficulty identifying what I am feeling.
• I minimize, alter, or deny how I truly feel. 
• I perceive myself as completely unselfish and dedicated to the well-being of others. 
• I lack empathy for the feelings and needs of others. 
• I label others with my negative traits. 
• I can take care of myself without any help from others. 
• I mask my pain in various ways such as anger, humor, or isolation.
• I express negativity or aggression in indirect and passive ways.
• I do not recognize the unavailability of those people to whom I am attracted. 

Low Self Esteem Patterns:

• I have difficulty making decisions.
• I judge what I think, say, or do harshly, as never good enough. 
• I am embarrassed to receive recognition, praise, or gifts. 
• I value others' approval of my thinking, feelings, and behavior over my own.
• I do not perceive myself as a lovable or worthwhile person.
• I constantly seek recognition that I think I deserve. 
• I have difficulty admitting that I made a mistake. 
• I need to appear to be right in the eyes of others and will even lie to look good. 
• I am unable to ask others to meet my needs or desires. 
• I perceive myself as superior to others. 
• I look to others to provide my sense of safety. 
• I have difficulty getting started, meeting deadlines, and completing projects. 
• I have trouble setting healthy priorities. 

Compliance Patterns:

• I am extremely loyal, remaining in harmful situations too long.
• I compromise my own values and integrity to avoid rejection or anger. 
• I put aside my own interests in order to do what others want. 
• I am hyper vigilant regarding the feelings of others and take on those feelings.
• I am afraid to express my beliefs, opinions, and feelings when they differ from those of others. 
• I accept sexual attention when I want love. 
• I make decisions without regard to the consequences. 
• I give up my truth to gain the approval of others or to avoid change. 

Control Patterns:

• I believe most people are incapable of taking care of themselves.
• I attempt to convince others what to think, do, or feel. 
• I freely offer advice and direction to others without being asked. 
• I become resentful when others decline my help or reject my advice. 
• I lavish gifts and favors on those I want to influence.
• I use sexual attention to gain approval and acceptance. 
• I have to be needed in order to have a relationship with others. 
• I demand that my needs be met by others. 
• I use charm and charisma to convince others of my capacity to be caring and compassionate.
• I use blame and shame to emotionally exploit others. 
• I refuse to cooperate, compromise, or negotiate. 
• I adopt an attitude of indifference, helplessness, authority, or rage to manipulate outcomes. 
• I use terms of recovery in an attempt to control the behavior of others. 
• I pretend to agree with others to get what I want. 

Avoidance Patterns:

• I act in ways that invite others to reject, shame, or express anger toward me. 
• I judge harshly what others think, say, or do. 
• I avoid emotional, physical, or sexual intimacy as a means of maintaining distance. 
• I allow my addictions to people, places, and things distract me from achieving intimacy in relationships. 
• I use indirect and evasive communication to avoid conflict or confrontation. 
• I diminish my capacity to have healthy relationships by declining to use the tools of recovery. 
• I suppress my feelings or needs to avoid feeling vulnerable. 
• I pull people toward me, but when they get close, I push them away. 
• I refuse to give up my self-will to avoid surrendering to a power that is greater than myself. (this I edit to: "I refuse to give up my self-ish-want to avoid surrendering to the power that is myself in self-honesty.")
• I believe displays of emotion are a sign of weakness. 
• I withhold expressions of appreciation. 

Bodily Revolt Against the Mind - Day 110

Yesterday I was feeling pretty tired and lethargic for a good chunk of the day, along with feeling short on time. So I wrote some reflection on this experience, and right now I want to specifically share my reflection on sleep and tiredness, followed by some self forgiveness.

What am I doing to my body within my mind that makes me "tired'? Why does sleep feel like such a relief within my mind when I imagine it, and sometimes in reality when I go into it and wake from it? (Other times sleep becomes that battle of judgment and fear where when I wake up I do not want to get up, I am simply avoiding/evading life/myself) Is sleep sometimes the only time I allow myself to really actually stop and just breathe, even if I am not aware? Within sleep I am usually, unless I engage in disruptive dreams or surely if/when I wake up and experience friction within myself, but usually within sleep I am shutting off my mind, escaping from my mind. So it is MIND ENERGY, not a lack of physical energy, which sends me to sleep, where I find sleep as my last resort, my escape from myself as my mind, as all that I am inflicting upon myself through and as my mind as my thoughts, beliefs, judgments, fears, worries, etc. So sleep is not only a way to evade and avoid myself within all of this, but it is also like a way in which my body realizes that I am unrelenting within my mind, that I will not quit, I will not see, so I might as well sleep to give myself some rest, to disengage from the mind. Like my body taking over and telling me ENOUGH, let me sleep, give it a rest. 

So it isn't really "life" itself that "makes me want to sleep," but my relationship with life and the tasks of life and my relationship with myself and all that I accept and allow within my mind which tires me. 

Perhaps however that would only really make sense if I was a narcoleptic, because I still make the decision to sleep. What part of me is directing that decision, and how can I direct myself to do something else more productive (stop, breathe, look at myself, write)? Is the above simply a justification for allowing myself to evade/avoid myself through sleep? Certainly this framing of this dynamic, if nothing else, will assist me in seeing how my participation within my mind affects my body, affects me, and thus how it is the mind energy itself which I must face and address, or to simply stop and breathe, to let it go. 

This is only sometimes. Other times I am moved to sleep through my mind, not as a reaction to my mind, but as a way to truly evade and avoid responsibility when my body is not even tired, when my body has not yet had enough, but I am still unrelenting, I am refusing to stop and breathe. Is that even really so different, though? If I truly tire out my body as a consequence to my participation in the mind, then I guess the best way at that point that I can assist and support myself, if I am really tired, is to rest/sleep. But if I am not really actually physically tired, then no matter why I want to sleep, whether it is as an escape from life through my mind or as an escape from my mind -- really kind of the same thing here, because I am interpreting "life" through my mind and thus still escaping my mind -- either way I need to look at myself as my mind, as within both of these examples my participation within my mind is either what is creating my reality as "life" as being something from which I want to escape, or my participation within my mind is in itself taxing and tiresome and not self supportive, regardless of whether or not it leads me to want to sleep. Wanting to sleep is simply the most common symptom of participation within my mind, another example being migraine, illness, or other physical pain. 


I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand how what I participate within and as in my mind, what I accept and allow myself to think, believe, perseverate on, imagine, worry about, etc., affects and undermines my body and myself as who I am.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to consider the physical energetic tax on my body when and as I participate within and as my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think / assume / believe that when I am "tired" I am simply "tired" and it is only a physical experience and only needs to be addressed physically.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to so often give in to this physical sensation of "tiredness" without investigating why I am tired even though I have gotten plenty of rest, have fed my body well, and have gotten some physical activity.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to escape "life" through my mind with the behavior of sleep, where it is through my mind that I justify engaging in sleep and/or tiredness.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to stress out my body through my participation within and as my mind, to the point that my body has enough and manifests consequences such as tiredness, migraine, and other bodily pain.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to escape my mind through my body by engaging in sleep or by allowing physical pain to manifest.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to abuse my body through my participation within and as my mind.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to examine why I feel tired given that my physical needs are met. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to ask questions and investigate the real reasons behind my experience of myself, through what I am accepting and allowing within and as myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to divide myself such that parts of myself are like at war with each other, my body against my mind, my mind against my body, and myself not really doing anything to mediate or unify myself as self, body, and mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get to the point within my mind that my body cannot withstand the energetic pull any longer and manifests consequences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to ignore the manifested consequences within my physical body, not allowing myself to see the function of these "behaviors" of my body, wherein my body is communicating to me that I am accepting and allowing something that is self-abusive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to just automatically exist within and as my mind, never having before seen realized or even remotely understood the consequences this has on me and my body, and my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to basically just be directed by my body or by my mind as reactions and consequences, rather than being my own self directive principle, where within this it is now all the more clear that in order to be my own self directive principle I have to take absolute responsibility for myself, my entire self, including my body and mind, and so I have to know and understand myself, how I work, and why these reactions/consequences which I have allowed to direct me are occurring.

I forgive myself therefore that I have not accepted or allowed myself to actually listen to, understand, and support myself as my body or as my mind, seeing and understanding what needs must be met that I am not meeting for myself in these most basic of ways, and then directing myself to support and meet those needs.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to listen to myself as my entire self, only ever listening to my "higher functioning cognitive self."


So when and as I see myself feeling tired and wanting to sleep, I stop and I breathe. When and as I see myself experiencing any kind of physical reaction or consequence or experience, I stop and I breathe. I ask myself why. I check in with myself as my body -- have I met my body's basic physical needs? I check in with myself as my mind -- what am I accepting and allowing within and as my mind? I ask myself what effects may be occurring between my body and mind within and as myself as a consequence of my participation within and as my mind. I realize now that if I am one whole, which I am, then these parts of me must co-exist in symbiosis, and so if one part of me is "suffering" then all of me is "suffering," and if I am neglecting one part of me, then I am neglecting all of me, or neglecting to understand the effects of that negligence. I realize now that my physical body "suffers" consequences of what I accept and allow within and as my mind. So I commit myself to furthering my understanding of this (I have read for example that the mind takes energy from the body -- where can I learn more about this?), and I commit myself to examining and investigating myself as what I have accepted and allowed within and as my mind and how that might be impacting myself as my body. I commit myself to listening to and understanding myself as my body, and meeting the needs of my body, whether that means "positive" support of giving my body certain activities or forms of sustenance, or "negative" support of disengaging from my participation within and as my mind, so as to equalize myself within the equilibrium of my body, mind, and self.


There is a little bit of conjecture here as this is an area in which I have a limited cognitive understanding, and so doubt myself, but have come to these realizations mainly through writing and self-reflection. Next will be research as well as some lived application / living reflection. If anyone has any further insight or perspective on this topic and would like to share, that would be really cool.

Supporting Myself in an Experience of "Depression" - Day 61

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

I spent the majority of my day either in bed or on the couch. I "slept in," which for me on weekends has consisted of feeling anxious about time slipping away and thus not resting, then checking the time and seeing that it's still quite early, so then resting longer, but then eventually still sleeping/resting beyond a time that is really necessary for rest and relaxation. And sometimes when I sleep/lay down too long, I notice that my head just starts to feel so heavy, and I get a headache.

So that's what happened this morning. Nonetheless I got up and made some breakfast and coffee with the "intention" of making it to my obligations, but as the morning wore on the headache got worse. I laid on the couch. It got worse. I canceled my obligations. I went back to bed. I slept another two hours. I decided all I really expected myself to accomplish today was to eventually go to the grocery store. I stopped fighting.

In some ways I was totally okay with this. I think it's perfectly okay to give myself time and space to rest, even if it is more rest than is physically necessary. I work hard all week, and I have been pushing myself to work hard at home too. I still waste a LOT of time, but it's minuscule compared to the amount of time I used to waste. Also over the last week I'd noticed myself feeling somewhat "blah" (aka depressed) and procrastinating on some obligations out of a feeling of resistance, overwhelmingness, and/or simply not wanting to and thus not directing myself to fulfill those obligations. In some ways too, I "reason" that perhaps it is supportive to give in to patterns/resistance/depression/etc. and to really give in full force, without judgment. Say, this is what I'm going to do, and I'm okay with that. Stop the fight -- act. Then:

1. "It gets it out of my system," and it really gets it out so that I can actually DO THAT without judging myself and believing I "should" be doing something else, so here I can experience it fully, here if I am going to "be depressed," at least I am really actually BEING "depressed" and not fighting with myself over it. 
2. I can see for real, not perceive through judgment, that it's not necessary, not worth it, not productive, not actually self-supportive, etc. OR I can see that maybe it is! I don't know. The point isn't to judge myself and place unreasonable expectations of myself to simply suddenly be something I am not and have not been and thus to wear myself out and be hard on myself and unforgiving with myself. The point is to support myself. The point is to forgive myself. The point is to direct myself as myself, not as some expectations I have created for myself under the guise of what I "should" or "shouldn't" be able to do at all times, self-expectations which I have created through the internalization of what others have established as expectations for themselves. 

And within all of that above, obviously, the point is also to be self-honest and self-responsible. So to not fight with myself relentlessly but to allow myself the time and space to see for myself, to trial for myself, what is really best for me/all in a self-supportive, self-honest, self-responsible manner. 

I notice a lot in general in any way that I try to change myself or try to push through resistance that within that all I am really doing is judging myself and fighting with myself within and as my mind. So here the point I think is to CHOOSE what to do and DO it, all the while being self-honest and self-responsible and self-aware of what that doing is actually doing for me and for all. I will not change overnight. I cannot know what is best without trying. 

• This is actually how I quit smoking or drinking every day. Rather than make some lofty commitment to myself to "quit," I simply became aware of myself in every moment, and made commitments in and for each moment. I did not tell myself what I would do tomorrow, or in a week, or even in an hour. I simply made self-honest self-responsible decisions in how to direct myself in each moment. And it's been 4 months. 

But back to today/this past week:
Even small, potentially fun/enjoyable things that I would put on my to-do list would go by the way-side, like browsing books pertinent to my new job on amazon (oh how I love adding to my enormous amazon wishlist), or looking through a magazine I got in the mail full of recipes. Pretty much the only things that were appealing to me were: sleeping, eating, watching my tv show, and sleeping a lot more.

Obviously yesterday I went on that great bike adventure by myself and that was great and obviously I went to work all week and obviously not all I actually did was sleep, eat, watch tv, and sleep a lot more. But that's all I really WANTED to do the majority of the time, and today I finally let myself do basically just that.

That is until I woke up today again with just enough time to either make it to the obligations I had canceled, or go to yoga. I decided to go to yoga. I used to go to yoga 3-5 times per week before I started this job at the beginning of May. Since then, I only go 1-2 times per week, if that, and it's always on the weekends, so it's not like the beneficial effects of relaxation, exercise, stretching, and an opportunity to be alone with myself and my breath are spread out throughout the week as they have been previously. I know that exercise in general is purported to be a top tier solution or remedy for "depression" and I know that from my own experience, it works, which is simply to say that the "symptoms" of "depression" are alleviated and not as prominent or even existent when I exercise regularly. I also know that yoga in particular is a form of exercise that I particularly enjoy for a variety of reasons. So to me this seems like the poster-child of practical self-support inasmuch as I can support myself within and through the activities that I choose to engage in. And I was able to go to two yoga classes back to back this afternoon and it felt pretty great. I'm standing taller, I'm stretched out, I sweat out a lot of shit, and I breathed. I left feeling a lot more ready to take on my various obligations as simply tasks necessary to accomplish. I went to the store, bought some healthy food, and now I am re-assessing my to-do list with the realization that I can get a lot more done than I had originally expected of myself today.


Some things that I think are going to be important to consider moving forward:

• Continuing to investigate self-support in daily lived applications of myself and my time as well as my responsibilities. 
• Cleaning regularly
• Taking care of my body through nutrition and exercise 
• Continuing to investigate the ways that I feel imprisoned by this heat, the ways that I allow myself to be bogged down by this heat. 
• Continuing to investigate my regrets over not living in Denver. Since writing that post, the regret has actually only been more on my mind. The weather doesn't help, as the summers in Denver are much milder. 
• Continuing to investigate how to support myself in resistance and how to stop the fight and simply make a decision, and to make that decision, as all decisions, fully: to live it fully rather than continue to keep one foot on either side of the line, or judge myself, or question myself. Is this self-supportive? 
• Continuing to investigate TIME and time management and how I seem to think that all these obligations I must fulfill and have established within myself as being chores and things that are not fun or enjoyable and therefore I resist doing... well, investigate all that, for one thing, but also investigate for myself to further my realization and understanding that none of these things actually take that much time if I can just stop dragging my feet and actually DO them. 
• Then they are done, and then I still have time to do whatever else is so much "more important" which I might have done in resistance, or even better to move myself toward other enjoyable tasks, and to release myself from the heavy weight of procrastination and resistance which tends to push me into an experience of depression when I let that weight get too heavy or be there for too long, and to show myself that I am capable, I am responsible, I can take care of myself and my obligations, and in fact life is not just one big chore with mess after mess and obligation after obligation and blah blah blah until I hate life. 

Week 9 reflections tomorrow probably. 

The Migraineur - Day 16

It has recently come to my attention through the responses I received in a forum post I made that one prominent source of migraines, which I have experienced chronically for the last 6 years, is mind energy. Prior to this I had identified the following as the primary sources of my migraines:

• Not enough water
• Too much chocolate
• Poor spinal alignment/posture 
• Stress (within this I see now that it is more my accepted & allowed reactions to and as stress, not the actual "stressors" themselves)
• Too much strenuous thinking (which is mind energy)

I now add to the list:

• Cognitive dissonance, wherein my mind (un)reality is not in alignment with actual reality 
• Living within and as self-dishonest behaviors (thoughts, words, actions)
• The approach of a change or shift within myself (not sure how much this is my experience within and as my migraines, but I want to consider it)
• Fear
• Living within and as a need to control my environment and other people so as to suit my self-interests 

The second list is preliminary and is just a starting point for looking at and considering an expansion on my understanding of the sources of my migraines. 

I also, upon searching for confirmation of the spelling of "migraineur" (a person who experiences migraines), found as a suggested search in google the "migraineurs personality," so I clicked and found a page about the prevalence of "personality disorders" in migraineurs, one of which was suggested to be "borderline personality disorder." This is not a point I have discussed at all here, but I have been wanting to at some time. I have not been "diagnosed" with borderline personality disorder by any of the numerous therapists I have seen in my life, but even despite my awareness of my tendency toward hypochondria I have come to accept many of the "symptoms" of BPD as appropriate identifications of various patterns I have accepted and allowed within and as myself. So, it seems I must also consider the link between these various "symptoms" and patterns and my migraines. 

Having experienced migraines for the past 6 years and gone through various forms of intervention from therapeutic massage to chiropractic care to abortive/onset medication to daily suppressive medication to over the counter drugs and most recently to yoga, increased self-awareness within and as migraines, and the sometimes-utilized ibuprofen pm before bed, as well as heating pads and ice packs, I... actually see myself as somewhat prepared to take on this next step of increasing my self-awareness within and as my migraines within the context of mind energy. 

The funny thing is, when I started writing that sentence, I was not going to end it that way... I was trying originally to say that "I have experienced migraines for 6 years, so this is going to be really hard and deeply ingrained to figure out!" Which was a way of excusing my resistance to really facing this point... But as I wrote out the many ways I have already attempted to face this point throughout these 6 years, I see that by facing myself within and as my migraines within and as my mind energy, I am simply progressing to the next step as I should be, which is cool! It is still intimidating to me, though, to think of trying to face my migraines as mind energy, especially since it has been suggested that I do so while I am experiencing a migraine. Typically I live within and as my migraines as incapable and in "too much pain" to function properly, and just want to sleep. 

But within that there have been so very many times when I have had a migraine but also had something I really wanted to do or participate in, and I have been able to, either through the migraine, or in fact through the cessation of the migraine. So motivation & resistance are really the main factors there. I am my migraine and so I direct my migraine; it does not direct me. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from my migraines such that I allow them to influence and determine my ability to direct myself and think, converse, and interact with and as life. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from my migraines such that I dislike my migraines and blame them for ways that I have accepted and allowed myself to be. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use my migraines as an excuse to not fully express myself and participate within and as life. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not recognize my migraines as my body communicating to, with, and as me. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to assume that my migraines are out of my control aside from physical interventions. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to identify "stress" and "stressful situations" as a trigger for migraines even when and as I see that it is really my reaction to and as stress that influences whether or not I experience a migraine. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to neglect my body's need for water such that I get a migraine. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not diligently and seriously adjust and align my posture in every moment so as to live within and as optimal spinal alignment so as to respect my body and prevent the experience of a migraine. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to for so long feed myself strong prescriptive medications with moderate-to-severe side-effects as a way of staving off the symptoms of migraines rather than facing the causes of the migraines. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to live within and as being intimidated at and overwhelmed by the prospect of self-honestly and self-responsibly facing my migraines, especially within and as my mind energy. What's up with that? A potential solution is seen here, and I resist it! 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want the easy way out, the quick fix, or the way that allows me to not take full responsibility for myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give up on myself and my activities when and as I experience a migraine. 

Getting close to starting Self Corrective Statements in DIP Lite! :) 

New Job Nerves - Day 12

Today was the first day that I noticed, as I let my mind wander to the future, feelings of nervousness about starting my new job in one week. I had figured previously that nervousness would indeed come. I had also recently felt very ready to start my new job and impatient about having to wait. Now, especially when I get into my mindspace and consider the timeline of days until my new job starts, I notice a feeling of nervousness manifesting especially in my stomach as well as a creasing between my brows. This nervousness is uncomfortable and sends me into a reactionary loop of supplementary thoughts and emotions wherein I equate physical and emotional sensations of nervousness with automatically thinking I am incapable, I will fuck up, I am not actually worthy of the opportunity, and I want to hide / avoid / escape, instead of just seeing that I am nervous and trying to understand why.

The weird thing is that I'm not even really imagining any scenarios with the job or interactions to make me nervous. It really just seems to come down to time, and impending doom... I mean change. Which I guess makes sense because within that change there is a lot of unknown, and within that unknown there is a definite lack of pictures and ideas about what to expect. I wonder if there is more to it that I am not allowing myself to realize, maybe that I am suppressing as I try to suppress the feeling of nervousness and go into hiding / avoiding / escaping. Maybe if I actually do try to imagine scenarios and outcomes I can show myself how there really is no need to feel nervous, because whatever I might face, I can handle.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project myself into a future event such that I have an emotional energetic reaction to something that is not here in the physical with me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to equate the physical sensation of "butterflies" in my stomach and a furrowing of my brow with the emotional state of nervousness, and within this I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to react to my identification of myself as nervous with all of the negative connotations that the word carries for me wherein nervousness is not something I want to feel.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to go from a place of nervousness seemingly automatically into thoughts about how I am not capable, or I am not good enough, or I am not worthy of the opportunity that has been offered to me. It's as if I believe these thoughts to be true merely because I feel nervous, and that I feel nervous because these thoughts are true, because I did not even entertain these thoughts before the sensation of nervousness arose. They feed each other.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to suppress my nervousness as a way to avoid facing it honestly. Suppression will only make it grow. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give the sensation of nervousness so much power that I react to it with escapism. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am not capable even of facing nervousness honestly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to identify change as a "bad" "scary" thing wherein anything new or different is a struggle for me to encounter and I permit feelings of anxiety to permeate.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to doubt myself and my ability to stand in each moment with my breath. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to shut down or off in order to avoid / escape uncomfortable thoughts and feelings when I could just breathe and practice being here and now with my breath in the physical so that I can do the same tomorrow and the next day and on my start date.


I have a growing migraine right now and I don't feel very capable of concentrating or articulating. So, that's it for now.