Trusting My Abilities - Day 71

Relevant Self Forgiveness for the day:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I am not capable of making a logo as a signature for my art and that I have sought out another to accomplish this task for me.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to believe in and trust my own artistic abilities and that I have believed that I am not capable of coming up with a design that is functional and aesthetically pleasing, even though I had already established an idea of basically how I wanted it to look in my head.

So I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to basically come up with the solution to this problem but to still not recognize it as a viable solution and still to place the "real" solution outside myself into the hands of someone that I have deemed as more capable.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I am not capable of putting air in my car tires and that I have believed that I need another to help me: my brother, a friend, or even a stranger.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to believe in and trust my own practical abilities of maintenance of the technology I use in my daily life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to basically think "I don't know how" and then to not try to learn how but instead look for someone else to help me.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to think/worry that I would do it wrong or that it was too difficult or confusing to figure out.

I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to look at the task practically as what actual steps are necessary to take in order to see that it is in fact a very simple straightforward task of which I am very capable.



When and as I see myself participating within and as the belief that I am not capable and that I need someone else to do something for me, I stop and I breathe. I realize that this is my reaction within fear of trying something new and fear of failure. I realize that within this I am not allowing myself to "believe in myself" and am not allowing myself to trust myself as my ability to learn something new, try something new, or accomplish something in practical support of myself. I realize that in both of these incidents today I was able to accomplish the task with relative independence with only the assistance of explanation or second opinion. I commit myself to assessing the task to see what the actual steps are that must be taken in order to accomplish the task and then to set forth in taking those steps one by one with whatever preliminary preparation seems appropriate. I commit myself to at least trying, and to not giving up on trying again. I commit myself to releasing myself from these negative beliefs about my abilities in order to free myself to try in self-honesty within and as the physical as what I am actually capable of doing and setting myself to do.

Proving Myself Wrong: Going Beyond the Ways I Have Limited Myself - Day 60

Today was like a little victory as I rode about 18 miles on my bike by myself. I limit myself in my abilities and my beliefs about my abilities in a great many ways, and bike riding has been no exception. Although I learned how to ride a bike when I was young, it was always just around the cul-de-sac with the neighborhood kids. There were a few times in college when I rode my bike from my apartment to the university's gym, but this was almost all on a bike path and was only about 3 miles there and back. A couple months ago my mom gave me her old bike and since then Dan and I have gone on a few rides around, but I have the whole time felt very dependent on him especially when riding near cars, because this has been a big anxiety for me.

Specifically I guess I've feared that I will get hit by a car and die/be injured, but I think I have also feared a kind of embarrassment as I have sensed myself as being less than competent in riding my bike efficiently and effectively around cars and so I have assumed/projected that car drivers will judge me or be annoyed with me or have some other negative reaction to me as a bike rider. So here not only have I not believed in myself as my ability to keep myself safe and make competent decisions while riding a bike, but I have also not believed in myself in the sense that I have shamed myself in my perceived ineptitude and projected that shame onto others where I have assumed others are going to judge me negatively.

So in all of this I have told myself "I can't" without even trying, and within this I have limited myself extensively in my actual abilities as well as within my perceptions/thoughts/beliefs/feelings about myself and who I am and of what I am capable. Well, I am an able-bodied human being with a bike. So it would seem that I am perfectly capable of riding that bike. And as it turns out, I am.

I had "toyed" with the idea of riding my bike to and from my yoga studio on a few occasions. Sometimes I just flat out rejected the idea as a reaction in fear and self-doubt. Other times I realized that I wasn't completely comfortable and confident on a bike and I recognized some of my learning needs (which tends to be observational / being shown / guided and then independent), and that it would be better to get more practice in before attempting a long trek by myself. I also realized that I still had a lot of fear... And if I couldn't actually release myself of this fear, then I would manifest it in making impulsive decisions around cars that likely would not be safe. But in my recent commitments to taking responsibility for myself financially and my brother's suggestion that I consider riding my bike to work, I had a new added reason to get over this fear to see if riding my bike the 9 miles to my new job and back was even something I could consider. So finally yesterday I quite simply decided I wanted to do this. Like really actually, I wanted it, for me, not to show anyone else that I could do it, not because anyone else wanted me to. So I prepared myself mentally for the fact that I would wake up this morning, do some chores, and then ride my bike to my yoga studio.

I knew I would meet resistance and anxiety along this stretch of time leading up to the departure, but I really didn't face a whole lot. What I did encounter, I basically just didn't feed, within the realization that it was false mind energy conjuring up excuses and justifications for not moving myself forward within this new activity. I noticed that I felt a little stressed and impatient this morning leading up to the time I would have to leave, where I was actually trying to be ready to go in time but was also thinking somewhere in the back of my mind that "oh well I guess I'll just have to drive instead!" But when I looked again at the clock and saw that I had time, I went for it. And it was freeing. It really wasn't very hard either.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself within and as my fears of what might happen if I try something new.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself within and as my thoughts/beliefs about myself as what I am capable of doing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate within and as the thought "I can't do that" when I have identified something I might like to try to do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that there is anything about me which serves as reasoning or justification for me not being able to do anything that the average able-bodied person can do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit what I believe I can do with my body through and as my mind, where I have limited what my body is capable of within my participation within my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to identify something I want to do and even to think about the practical benefits of that activity (exercise, save money on gas), and then still to limit myself in my ability to do that activity and then identify myself as helpless/hopeless/victim in relation to the benefits of the activity where it's like, "sigh, I guess I don't get to partake in that, because I can't do this."

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I can't do something unless I have another person there to help me or to show me how or to basically do it for me. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to only feel safe and secure when there is another person with me. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to feel safe and secure within and as myself.

I thank myself for giving myself the time to become familiar and comfortable with my bike and also the time and space to become familiar and comfortable with riding my bike around cars. I thank Dan for repeatedly agreeing to serve as a kind of guide for me here.

When and as I see myself limiting myself within fear, especially fear of my ability, I stop and I breathe. I realize that new activities do require learning and that there is a lot of room for falling when trying something new, but that this is how I will learn and become more comfortable and confident. I realize that I cannot succeed if I do not try, and that I am failing when I let fear direct me. I commit myself to release myself of fear and to consider instead the actual consequences of my actions and my participation in new activities and to see what steps need to be taken practically to assist and support myself in succeeding when facing things that I fear.

When and as I see myself arguing for my limitations, I stop and I breathe. I realize that "if I argue for my limitations, sure enough, they're mine" [Richard Bach]. I commit myself to directing myself from and as myself in self-honesty and self-responsibility and not within fear and self-limitation.

Building Self-Support: self-trust, thoughts, and expectations: conversation with my mom part 1 - Day 24

I went to see my mom today after work and had a good conversation with her about what comes up for me as I am facing the potentiality of quitting this new job, and actually possibly going back to my old job, which it has been determined might be an option. The conversation then went into a more general discussion of how I view and judge myself. I'm going to break this up some because the conversation was rather extensive as far as topics covered, but to start I want to bring up some of the initial points and apply SF, then will follow with more tomorrow.

One thing that came up was my preoccupation with what other people will think if I quit this job, specifically my new supervisors and coworkers and my friends and acquaintances who have been excited and supportive about my making this change.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to care about what others think of me and my decisions such that I try to gauge what their reactions might be in order to inform my decisions and make decisions based on what I think will make other people like me most. I realize that herein I am not trusting myself nor am I moving myself, but am accepting and allowing myself to be moved by my interpretations and assumptions about what other people want me to do. Here I see that it is okay to receive input and it is okay to engage in supportive conversation and it is okay to seek perspective, but that I am taking it even further than that and placing my decisions outside myself and attempting to create myself from the starting point of having others "like" me. When and as I see myself relying on others to help me make decisions such that I feel like they won't "like" me if I don't move the way I interpret them as wanting me to move, I stop and I breathe. I commit myself to continue to investigate how I can trust myself to move myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to value friendships and relationships where the person does not support me and my decisions to such a high degree that I would prefer to change myself to where they will support me, than to learn to support myself and to stay true to myself in self-honesty. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist learning to support myself and stand by myself for myself.

My mom asked me what I would say to a friend or person who was telling me about how their new job just wasn't a good fit and they were going to make a change. I saw within me that I thought I would be supportive of their self-directed decision, but that, upon seeing a person who is behaving as I am behaving, which is that I am being really indecisive, over and over again, and am regretting things, over and over again, I would become quite judgmental of that and think "here we go again, why can't this person just stick with something?"

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to treat myself and my patterns with an attitude of exhaustion and expectation, to where I see my patterns repeating and I have an attitude that there is nothing I can do about it other than hide it and try to deny it because it is embarrassing how much they continue. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to assume that other people feel this way about me and my patterns. When and as I see myself approaching my patterns from a starting-point of feeling defeated within and as my patterns, I stop and I breathe. I realize that my thought-reactions to myself are part of how I relate to myself, and this is an unsupportive relationship with myself. I commit myself to relating to myself from a starting point of believing in myself and my abilities to direct myself. I commit myself to empowering myself to change myself. I commit myself to being patient with myself, because learning to support myself is a process and will take time and multiple trials to build.

We also discussed how I judge myself within my recognition of problem patterns in my life, such that I think, "Well then I shouldn't participate in that problem!" and then believe the best course of action is to stop the pattern in its tracks, even if that means, as in this case, staying at a job that is not going to satisfy me simply because I am trying to end a pattern of indecision and regret about commitments made. We also discussed my belief that by ending my participation within the pattern it will somehow automatically end the consequence of the present stage of that pattern, to where I believe that I should be able to decide to stay at this job and therefore release myself of the ways that this job is not actually a good fit. Here I believe that by releasing myself from the pattern, I am expecting myself myself to also no longer be affected by the consequences of the pattern, or I am participating within and as the belief that I deserve to suffer those consequences because I participated in the pattern and to evade the consequences would be somehow betraying my commitment to not participate in the pattern. This is a little confusing and I don't feel like I'm finding quite the right words here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to expect myself to, upon recognizing a problematic pattern in my life, learn the lesson once and for all with that specific incident of recognition, such that I should be able to immediately release myself from the pattern and never face it again. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that by recognizing a pattern and its consequences, I should no longer be wrapped up in the energetic consequences, and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself for still being wrapped up in the energetic consequences. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I deserve to suffer the consequences of my patterns, even when there is a supportive way out of those consequences. When and as I see myself having unrealistic, impractical, unsupportive expectations about myself and my participation in patterns and consequences, I stop and I breathe. I realize that what I am doing requires time, patience, diligence, and forgiveness. I commit myself to really forgive myself and to be gracious with and accepting of myself in my process. 

So here so far I have seen that:

1. I have a tendency to let my interpretations of what it seems others would prefer I do be a primary motivational factor in my decision-making from the starting-point of having others "like" me. Here I see a lack of self-trust to where I do not feel confident in my ability to trust myself and make my own decisions, and I see a "people-pleaser" personality to where I will deny and disown myself in favor of what I perceive as being what other people want from me. I commit myself here to support myself by investigating how I can learn to build trust in myself and how I can re-align myself with my Self such that I can make decisions for myself by myself. 
2. I see that I abuse myself through my thoughts toward and about myself such that I do not have patience or grace with myself and my process. I commit myself to build a supportive relationship with myself through and as my thoughts toward and about myself such that I do not degrade, deny, or disown myself but instead embrace myself as all as one as equal as stability & support for life as me. 
3. I have unrealistic, impractical, unsupportive expectations of myself in my process to where I expect myself to immediately and automatically change upon recognizing the areas where I need to change, not allowing myself the time and space to actually process myself. I see that I judge myself and have a desire to punish myself for my mistakes. Here I commit myself to continue to investigate and understand what it means to be a work in progress and how to set realistic, practical, supportive expectations and goals for changing myself. 

More to come tomorrow. Thank you.