Eye Contact - Day 143

I had a conversation with a student today about a small conflict between her and another student, although in the middle of the conversation I decided a better approach would be to address a behavior I have seen increasing in this student in recent weeks, which is her lack of eye contact with the people to whom she is talking. She does this when she is hurling insults at peers and also when talking to staff. She did not look at me once throughout the entire conversation, until I brought this up and directly asked her to look at me.

Basically I pointed out to her what I noticed (lack of eye contact) and asked her what she thought that meant. She answered that it shows that she is lying. I asked if that is what she believes or if it's what she's been told, and she answered that it's what she's been told. So I asked her what she believes about it. She shrugged and didn't know.

So then I shared with her my own experience with lack of eye contact, saying maybe she would relate, maybe not. I shared with her that sometimes when I am irritable with my mom, for example, I do not look at her. And that for me, this is my way avoiding seeing the other person as a person, thus a way to avoid seeing the impact or effect that I as my behavior or words is having on another person. Basically because I know I am being rude, disrespectful, and pretty much a brat, and I don't want to take responsibility for that, so I just look away. I asked if that made sense and if she related and she said yes. 

I asked her if she would try just looking at me. She did. I asked her how that felt, and to keep looking at me as she answered (she had started to look down again). She kept excellent eye contact and told me that it felt easier, more normal, more free. I was actually not expecting this answer -- I didn't really know what to expect. But it was a really cool answer because it is the same experience I have had when I have challenged myself to actually look at my mom. I'm not so caught up in my mind in my irritability and mood and my self-interest, but am here, present, and able to see that what I have to do in that moment (communicate with another person effectively) really isn't so difficult. 

I demonstrated how I could just look down and all around and be basically thinking the whole time, "god, I don't want to be here, when will this be over? I don't like this, this is stupid," etc., and so basically being in opposition to reality. I pointed out too that within this I know that I am ashamed of myself, that what I am saying or doing may not be entirely true (self-honest), and so I do not want to see myself. When I looked back at her she was still maintaining excellent eye contact, which I thought was really cool. This is the same student who is usually quite receptive when I am able to have these kinds of conversations with her, so it's cool to see that she is not "slipping away" so to speak as the weeks move forward and she becomes more engrossed in the culture of the students, even though her attitude has become much bigger and more oppositional. So when I looked back at her I said, "but reality is right here, you and me, talking right now." 

And even as I was having this conversation with her I saw myself breaking eye contact a lot, which is something I tend to do even when I am not upset / irritated with someone (usually look off in the distance to the right or left of their head, like as if I am thinking, but really a lot of the time it is an automatic effort for relief from the energy I create in eye contact). So then I shared too that sometimes when I am looking at other people, I feel really vulnerable, like they can see all of me. But actually they can always see all of me; I'm right here. It's me who doesn't want to see me; I'm the one who doesn't want to see myself. So I encouraged the student to not close her eyes to herself, that I'm here to support her but mostly to help her learn how to support herself, and that means seeing herself in her totality, all of her beauty and all of her ugliness -- things we all share in common. And I pointed out that she can do this by looking at others -- not necessarily as a mirror, I didn't really touch on that, but simply by not resisting interactions by looking away, thus resisting taking responsibility for who she is in those interactions. 

So I challenged her here. I dropped the original issue of the minor conflict with the other student, stating that moving forward they would just need to try to be cordial and be sure to keep me informed whenever something happened and we would go from there. But in the meantime for this week I asked if she would be willing to focus on her eye contact, and I would check in with her every day. And I especially wanted her to notice the difference that she felt when she looked people in the eye versus when she did not. 

Sometimes it is hard to tell with these students, especially given their prior experiences at this school / with authority to just say "yes sir" or "no sir," to tell if they really understand or are okay with what I am communicating. I'll ask them if they understand, if they have any other questions or anything else they want to share, and often the answer is yes and no respectively. I try to encourage them to be honest and say that it is okay if they do not understand or if they do not agree, so with their continued agreement I can only assume that it is making sense to them. This student seemed to understand what I was saying and seemed very receptive to the concept of seeing herself by literally looking at others. So it was really cool.

Overall today was a really cool day as I had the opportunity to check in again with the other mental health staff first thing this morning, worked on a relevant project with the school psychologist, and had multiple very positive and supportive interactions with multiple students. 

Tomorrow is a brand new day though, so now to move forward with the understanding that every moment is new and the stability and support that I was able to provide today does not just automatically carry over into tomorrow, so to breathe and be present in each moment to provide support for myself and the students. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to avoid eye contact with others as a way of avoiding seeing myself. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to avoid seeing the impact / effect that my words and actions as me have on another. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to basically know how my behavior / words are not self-honest and so to purposely avoid looking at the other person so that I can avoid the humanistic factor of my existence as life, so that I can avoid seeing myself and taking responsibility for myself. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use lack of eye contact as a way to disrespect others and myself and life. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use lack of eye contact as a way to maintain my participation within and as my mind as my reactions, emotions, back chat, and other energetic experiences. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not want to face or see myself because I know that I will not like what I will see.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to know that I will not like what I see as who I am and then to perpetuate that behavior as my participation in / creation of it, also maintaining ignorance of it by not turning to look at it / myself / another. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to listen to myself when I realize that I do not like who I am, that who I am is not self-honest or self-responsible, that who I am is disrespectful, rude, or even bratty. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take that realization as a cue to look at and change myself. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use eye contact to support myself to co-exist in co-operation with the person with whom I am interacting. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use eye contact with another as a way to assist and support myself in seeing myself.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use eye contact with another as a way to align myself within the principle of equality and oneness through self honesty and self responsibility.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use eye contact as a way to walk out of my mind and into reality, being present in reality as what I am doing within interaction with another person.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use breaking eye contact as a way to relieve the tension that I create in my mind when I hide from myself and participate in my energetic experiences of negativity and opposition. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to use eye contact as a way to communicate with greater ease, which I have experienced as being the case when I allow myself to use eye contact.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to hide from others and thus myself by my lack of eye contact.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel vulnerable when I keep eye contact with another person. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become anxious, nervous, and even panicked when I maintain eye contact for extended periods of time, because I feel vulnerable and become concerned that I will say something stupid or start to think about what the other person thinks of me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become anxious when I maintain eye contact with the thought/energy that "I don't want to be here" and "I want to hide" and "when will this be over? can this please just be over?"

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create pressure in and on myself about who I am in interactions where when I maintain eye contact I feel that pressure to be a certain way, begin to second-guess myself even as I am acting/speaking, and thus doubt myself in the moment of self-direction through participation in my mind as an anxious reaction to eye contact.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to hide from others and hide from myself when I am interacting with another and maintaining eye contact, because I  become embarrassed and self-critical and doubt myself.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to push through that self-created discomfort when I am maintaining eye contact and to continue to maintain eye contact to support myself to stay present in reality.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to utilize my breath to support myself in maintaining eye contact even through energetic reactions / experiences. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to utilize my breath to bring myself back into my body to fully utilize my vision as eye contact as another connection to the here and now of reality. 

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to support myself to see others as a mirror / reflection of myself through the use of eye contact.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to block out / blind myself to the fact that other people are mirrors / reflections of me, that we are one and equal, through my lack of eye contact. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hide from myself through my lack of eye contact.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand that when I feel vulnerable in making eye contact with another, my fear is not really about the other, but about me, and fearing what I will see of myself by maintaining eye contact.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the ease and freedom that comes with actually assisting and supporting myself and actually taking responsibility for myself, because within this there are no more limits, no more boundaries, no more excuses, but only me and who I am in each breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear taking responsibility for myself. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being limitless.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being boundless.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being unconditional in my self support, self responsibility, self respect, self trust, and self love. 

When and as I see myself avoiding eye contact because of my mood, I stop and I breathe. I realize that here I am avoiding seeing myself in self-honesty because I already recognize that who I am in that moment is not who I should be if I were to take responsibility for myself. I commit myself to establish and maintain eye contact at that point, to see what I can see, to support myself to direct myself in physical reality as myself and another interacting, to support myself to align myself within and as the principle of equality and oneness, and to support my relationships through taking responsibility for who I am in reality. 

When and as I see myself avoiding eye contact because I feel vulnerable, anxious, or fearful, I stop and I breathe. I realize that here I am again avoiding seeing myself as who I am reflected by another, and I am avoiding the ease and freedom of expressing myself freely as who I am, I am avoiding the functionality of absolute self-support and self-responsibility. I realize that I am afraid of being accountable, and I am afraid of success because I am afraid of failure. I commit myself to establish and maintain eye contact at that point, to see what I can see, and support myself in walking through fear and vulnerability as merely self-created energetic experiences, not reality, and so to direct myself to maintain eye contact as a way to establish myself in reality in the physical experience of myself and another interacting with the realization that I am here one and equal to and as what I am doing and who I am with, and so to look away is to abdicate my responsibility, and to abdicate my responsibility is to automatically fail and also to imprison myself within my mind as my energetic experiences. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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


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


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


---


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


See more photos and explanation here. 



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


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

Reacting Before I Even Realize What I am Doing - Day 93

Alright, so I am back from Tahoe and it was a great trip -- I am very glad I was able to set aside the things I had been focusing on and instead focus on the plans in front of me with enjoyment. I am also grateful that I have friends who, although (rather very) skeptical of what I am doing with desteni, are willing to at least listen to what is happening in my life so that I did not have to keep it all bottled in, risking some kind of unintended reaction.

What I notice is often I will become reactive when I am preoccupied in my mind, worried about or mulling something over. I would do this a lot at my old job where I was doing relatively redundant mechanical tasks all day, listening to music, by myself. I would get lost in my thoughts a lot (I would also sometimes get very involved in the physical requirements of my job, which was cool!). And if someone would come back into my frame shop to ask me a question or even just to chat, sometimes I would be quite irritable because here they are basically interrupting whatever conversations I am basically having with myself in my mind, haha.

So I had written yesterday that I feared I would react outwardly because of all that was on my mind. I did not do this toward my friends, as I had feared, but nonetheless I had an instance at the concert where I behaved in a very unbecoming and unusual way in large part because at that point I had allowed myself to get distracted in my mind, and when something happened to pull/snap me out of it, I reacted.

(One thing I recall now here as a tangent is that my friend had said she would "snap" me "out of it" after I had told her that I had been emotional lately and had a lot on my mind, and I reacted negatively to this, like she was trying to control me or implying that it is not okay for me to be serious but that I should only want to have fun (a loaded assumption, also based in memories from childhood when I perceived that peers only liked me because I made them laugh) -- but now in reflection I recall that I have in fact already decided for myself that I want to "snap out of it" where "it" is my mind, and snap myself back into reality -- and really this could be all my friend might have meant, certainly all it mattered for me to interpret as her meaning -- I see that this could be a blog post unto itself! Perhaps I shall tackle it in the near future.)

So first of all I noticed that I was rather bewildered at the start of the evening because it was my first time in a casino (the concert was outdoors behind the casino which was very pleasant), and I was so surprised at how it reeked of cigarettes, and then I noticed myself becoming jealous and judgmental of what other people were wearing, where I reacted to this by feeling jealous internally at peoples' clothes or how attractive I judged them to be, and then mentioning to my friend about what silly things people decide to wear to "look cool" at shows -- where obviously they are succeeding at "looking cool" because I am allowing myself to get jealous. Another point unto itself! Read about it here. Day 93.1

Then I noticed too: I was dancing and having a great time, being cautious about the people around me so as to not invade anyone's space, but otherwise dancing however I wanted to. Then at one point another girl shows up in front of me and starts dancing in a way that I perceive as being similar perhaps to how I have looked dancing, and I see how she is looking and smiling at her friend, and so in my mind I decide that she is there making fun of me in front of me, laughing at me to her friend right in front of me -- super paranoid. So again, here is another point unto itself. Read about it here: Day 93.2

But the point that was most outstanding to me came near the end of the night. And in reflection this is really shameful and something that I almost do not want to share for that reason. But here it goes. For a few reasons I had allowed myself to become somewhat irritable. I was in my mind, feeling frustrated at the realization that we had gotten through the doors too late to see the Grouch & Eligh (one of the main reasons I bought this ticket), I had to use the restroom, I didn't know as many songs by Slightly Stoopid so used this as an excuse to diminish my enjoyment, I was caught up distracted again thinking about various other things in my mind / worrying about what I had committed to set aside for writing later, and also where we were standing was very crowded and was a high traffic area, so that I was frequently having to stand aside to let someone get by lest I be stepped on or pushed aside -- not very enjoyable or easy to dance/enjoy the music (or concentrate on the shit in my head - oh noes!).

So at one point I was looking to my left and felt someone to my right sort of almost shove me, snapping me out of my mind (the nerve!). And it all happened so fast, she was on her way out of the main standing area up to the stairs, but I reacted, basically shoving her back / touching her arm with similar pressure (this is very "unlike" me and like nothing I have ever acted out before, that I can recall anyway). I'm sure I had a very cross look on my face, and I felt quite a bit of injustice, like as if that was just SO RUDE and I can't believe that girl just fucking shoved me! And I even turned to my friend and said "that girl just fucking shoved me!" And then it was only just a few seconds later that another girl walked in front of me to get by, making eye contact and gently touching my elbow, and suddenly, with this display of consideration as bodily communication, I realized just how reactive I'd been, and also realized that part of my reaction was that I had been lost in my mind and had already given myself a handful of reasons to be in a bad mood, where mood = mind, so again: in my mind, not the physical.

(Now, really, no one shoved anyone. I interpreted what happened as a shove. It was an unexpected amount of pressure in touch. I responded "in kind," but my intent was to basically give this girl back what she had given me, and since I interpreted her action as a "shove" I will go ahead and call mine a "shove" as well. Honestly I don't even trust my memory of it, it all happened so fast I and I reacted even faster, so maybe it was a shove. I'm not sure.)

I realized then too that:

1. The girl who "shoved" me to get by may well have just tripped and used my arm to catch herself. These places get crowded and crazy and there is always lots of trash on the ground to trip over, especially in the dark. 
• Had I been aware or considered that she might have been tripping, I'd have had a much different reaction, probably one of being glad to help her stabilize herself and interest in her being okay. 
• But I was not paying attention not only in that I was looking the other direction, but I was distracted in my mind, not present in the physical. So I actually don't even know what really happened; I just reacted.
2. I realized how dangerous, irresponsible (reaction, not response), and potentially physically consequential my behavior was. Shove her back, basically? What, am I looking for a fight? What the fuck? 
• I've never been personally involved in a physical altercation so this is very "unlike" me (evidently not). 
• So I am fortunate that it did not escalate from there, that this girl was either in too much of a hurry to care, didn't notice, or is more responsible than I, and that it did not proceed into a chain of reactive behaviors, ie some kind of conflict. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to get caught up and stuck in my mind such that when an environmental factor came that demanded my attention, I reacted with anger at this "interruption" -- anger that was charged with the anger I was already creating in my mind. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to react automatically in retaliation basically, without realizing what I was doing until it was over, without allowing myself to see what was actually happening or to consider why. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to just automatically assume/interpret that this girl had shoved me, intentionally, and to become offended by this like this girl therefore deserved my retaliation. 

I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to stop and breathe and see myself and see my environment and consider what is the best course of action. I forgiven myself that I did not accept or allow myself to even consider the possibility / probability that this was not an intentional physical affront, that perhaps this girl had tripped, or it was an accident, or maybe she was drunk, or whatever, it doesn't matter -- there is no possible excuse for my reaction: it is my reaction. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to react in such a nasty way, wanting to actually cause physical harm to another person, wanting another person to feel the way I perceived that they had "made" me feel, where they quite literally might have done absolutely NOTHING to actually trigger this reaction but the reaction was rooted purely in what I was already participating within and as in my mind, so that here not only was I making myself miserable but I was choosing to physically harm another person as well, another person who may have had absolutely no intention or even awareness whatsoever of touching me in that way. 

I see here that through my participation in my mind creating dissatisfaction with the physical reality of my environment, I had placed myself in opposition to reality, and so I see how within this I set myself up therefore to continue to interpret external environmental factors as being "against me" because here I had placed myself against reality rather than within reality within and as my breath. So I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to once again place myself in opposition to reality, while believing that reality is against me, that all of these "bad" things are happening "to" me, rather than seeing, realizing, and understanding how I am creating these experiences as "bad" through my interpretations, judgments, and backchats. Within this I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to set myself up therefore to perceive and interpret that another person -- another human being -- is "against me" and I against her, automatically interpreting conflict and retaliating with physical violence. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to intentionally touch another person with the intent of causing some kind of harm, no matter the magnitude. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to create the circumstances within myself that I allowed this to happen automatically without even a moment to breathe. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to take this physical touch as like an attack against my ego where it was in my own sense of self importance and selfishness that I reacted in defense to protect these personalities within myself and to protect my existence within my mind, my persistence in negativity and dissatisfaction. 

When and as I see myself with multiple points floating around in my head that are taking me out of the physical and into my mind, especially into a position of opposition with reality within dissatisfaction, I stop and I breathe. I realize that these are points I must address, so I commit myself to addressing them then and there, one by one, to the best of my abilities within the circumstances of my environment. I commit myself to taking a moment if I need a moment. I realize that if I do not address these points, they will accumulate, and there will be consequences, such as the ones I have seen here. I commit myself to at the very least directing myself within and as the realization that there are points I need to address and to suspend reaction within myself until I can address them, realizing that I am in a sensitive place and so to support myself within an awareness of this and an awareness of who I am within this state of multiple points pulling me into my mind. I commit myself most of all to really stop and breathe and let go of the points until they can be dealt with. 

When and as I see myself, if I am able to see myself, reacting to action or word that I perceive/interpret as offensive, I stop and I breathe. I realize there are multiple factors that go into my perception/interpretation and only one of them is what actually happened -- something I may not be factoring in. I commit myself seeing my reaction as soon as I can, ideally before I enact it, and to stop myself, and then to ask myself why I have reacted or begun to react this way, and to take the space to stop my reaction and face myself in this point of reaction. Above all, again, to stop and breathe, as sometimes it is not possible to fully face a point due to environmental circumstances.