Reactive Energy as Me - Day 145

The following was written last night, after Walking Through the Wall - Day 144 and after moving through a very intense anger energy where I again saw how I abandon myself in and separate myself from the energy I create, and in this I have never been able to see myself, understand myself, or really forgive myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get stuck in the past as the problem and reaction.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to focus on the past as what happened and who did or said what and pointing fingers and blaming and abdicating responsibility for myself here and now.

I realize I didn't know any better. I realize I only had one guide. But I also realize that was my choice. I could have taken myself into my own hands. All my life I have given myself to others.

I forgive myself that I have always accepted and allowed myself to give myself over to others, to exist through others.

I also realize I know better now. I realize I have a choice now, and in every moment.

I realize I am in my own hands now. I realize I am my own guide, and I realize I have guides all around me.

I realize the solution is here within and as me, now -- not in the past, not in the reaction.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get stuck in anger.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hit a wall of reaction.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear reaction and so avoiding the stimuli for reaction, so avoiding communication, avoiding another person to whom I am reacting.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want the "quick fix" of ignorance, of creating limits, of building walls, of setting rules, of telling myself and the other that I just can't handle the reactions, so just stop, rather than moving boldly and staying with myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abandon myself when I react.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to stay with myself, within myself, with the realization that I am not going to get hurt here. I am safe in myself. But I hurt myself immensely by abandoning myself, by separating myself from my energy as who I have accepted and allowed myself to be, so who I am. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to reject myself by rejecting and judging the energy I create.

I realize my reaction / energy is a consequence, and it is already here. The energy is here as me, so to resist, suppress, reject, or judge the energy is to do all the same to myself.

I realize I am my reaction. My reaction is me. The energy is me as long as I allow it, and if it is here, then it is in me, it is who I am.

So I realize to ignore the reaction or resist the reaction is to reject and neglect myself. It is self abuse, it is fear-based, it is abdication.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to hold onto myself in intense emotional energy, breathing, being here with myself as I face this energy I have created by what I have accepted and allowed. Facing consequences, being here as myself in my entirety.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to cry, and cradle myself, and embrace myself, and accept myself unconditionally. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from myself as what I create in myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to avoid stimuli to reaction.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not see myself by not allowing myself to express myself as who I am in the energy I have allowed as myself, by avoiding the stimuli of reaction, thus avoiding the tool by which I can see myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame and point my finger at the stimuli, like as if it is bad, rather than seeing that it is a gift to see myself, it is the way I can see myself, without the stimuli I would not see that I am this energy, and I would not be able to direct the energy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist directing the energy, to  believe that the energy is bigger than me, within this believe that the energy is not-me, believing I am consumed and controlled by the energy, within this then fearing the energy, and fearing myself as the energy, and fearing myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become consumed by the energy rather than stopping and breathing and supporting myself here as the energy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself for my experience of energy, rather than embracing myself as who I am unconditionally and in my totality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I should not experience a certain energy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist extreme emotions because I have created negative associations with that experience, because I give myself over to the emotions, because I have separated myself from the emotions, and so the moment I enter emotion I automatically abandon myself, and so of course the experience of emotion is scary, of course it is something I would avoid. So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create negative associations with the experience of emotional energy rather than seeing this energy merely as a consequence to who I am as indicative of what I have accepted and allowed within and as myself.

When and as I enter a strong emotion, I stop, and I breathe. I allow the emotion. I see it as myself, I see myself as the emotion, as who I am, as indicative of what I have accepted and allowed myself to be. I direct myself within and as the energy, but the energy does not direct me. I am the energy. I realize I cannot stop the energy if I do not understand it, I cannot forgive myself if I do not understand myself. I commit myself to understand myself, so that I might actually forgive myself and support myself to change.

I forgive myself that I have not understood myself. I forgive myself that I have not embraced myself. I forgive myself that I have abandoned myself time and again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear intense emotions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become caught up and lost in emotions, not able to see that it is momentary, temporary, that is not all that I am, only part of who I am, and it is a part of myself I can change, but only if I see it and understand it, so that I can forgive it and change it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame others for my emotions, within this wanting to shut others out so that I do not have to experience the emotions.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to look for the quick fix, the energetic relief, waiting only for the relief from the energy, not realizing this is not stability, this is not real, it is still in me, it is merely dormant.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist supporting myself through intense energies or negative energies. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to doubt that breathing really works, even though I have seen it work. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to doubt that writing really works, even though I have seen it work. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that communicating with myself is useless, that I can only find solutions by communicating with another. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take out my emotions on another through blame and anger, only to then realize that through this expression, I have been able to then see myself, and so if I had simply allowed myself to support myself by expressing myself to myself, communicating with myself, then I would not have to regret what I have said to another, I would not be continuing to live in and as reaction, I would not be perpetuating the cycle of reaction.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to direct myself as reaction, as energy. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to perpetuate the cycle. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to be with myself and support myself absolutely by myself through intense or negative energies.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be afraid of crying, or afraid of being angry, to be afraid of screaming or shouting, to be afraid of expressing my emotion as who I am, to be afraid of letting it out, to be afraid of it being real, to be afraid of seeing it, to be afraid of acknowledging it, to be afraid of accepting and allowing it, by which I accept and allow myself, I accept myself as who I am in my totality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress myself as my energies because of fear of expressing or manifesting the energy as expression of who I am.

I realize the energy is here. It is the consequence. It is already here. I realize the energy needs an outlet. I realize I cannot do anything about this energy, this time. I realize I can only stop this energy next time if I allow myself to see it and understand it, to really see and understand myself as who I am in this energy, and forgive myself.

I commit myself to breathe. I don't stop. I stay in the energy and I breathe. I see the energy. I allow the energy within the bounds of my own self support, so not projecting the energy onto another, not being directed by the energy, but directing myself within and as the energy, allowing myself to stay here in the energy, the energy with me, myself as the energy, to see myself in my totality, to understand myself. I breathe, and I exist, and I see. I write when I have calmed enough to write. I just start writing. If I have to start by pretending that I am writing to someone else, fine. But I commit myself to write so that I can continue to reinforce for myself that this is how I support myself and it really does work, because here in only a matter of minutes I have gone from crying, screaming, punching, stomping, blaming, to a calmness and new realizations about myself through allowing the emotion as me, staying with myself, breathing and writing.

I breathe. I always breathe. I breathe first and foremost. Breathe.




I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe / operate as the belief that another has deliberately abused me. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame another and believe they knew all along what they were doing / the consequences/effects on me. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see another as an equal: in process, learning, walking, making mistakes. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to forgive. How can I forgive? I have to understand. How can I understand? I have to communicate. I have to communicate with myself, and another. It is not one or the other. It is one and equal.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to wonder, "how could you not know, if I knew?" I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to adapt to what I knew as what I saw. Within this I see that I deliberately abused myself by accepting and allowing myself to be abused, to be misled, because I saw it as it happened. I also see and have seen that I have deliberately abused myself and another by not directing myself in self-honesty, because I doubted myself and I trusted another more than myself. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to doubt myself and ignore my own self honesty because I believed that my self honesty was underdeveloped and I believed this other could only be honest. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to disregard myself in my transitional period into my participation with desteni, where I trusted another more than I trusted myself. I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to listen to myself as what I saw in another that was contradictory or inconsistent, or what I saw that did not "sit right" with me and thus was not self-honest for me, even before I knew what self-honesty was. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to trust myself. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to abuse myself by rejecting myself in favor of another. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to favor another over myself. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to hear another's "doctrine" and believe they must live by it, rather than realizing that few people live by what they believe / speak, so why would this be any different? I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to investigate for myself. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to believe this person was different. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to trust this person, be led by this person, and admire this person -- all of this being separation through seeing the other as superior to myself. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to secretly see myself as better than the other as I saw inconsistencies and contradictions, and yet still allowed myself to follow this other rather than following myself / being my own leader. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to trust this person as flawless and infallible, thinking and saying "I can count on them to be honest" because they talked so much about self-honesty. I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to be honest with myself and trust myself. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to exist in confusion "because of" interactions with this other person wherein I have felt misled, because this person's words did not match their actions, and yet I perceived them as always right.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to steal away this person's humanity as capable of error.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to immortalize this other person, which was unfair to both of us.


I realize I am errant.
I realize another is errant.
I realize we are not perfect.
I realize what I see is who I am as well.
I realize that to which I react, is who I am.
I realize any finger I could point at another, I could also point at myself.


I commit myself to breathing and being in the here and now. I commit myself to communicate with myself and another. I commit myself to understanding in order to forgive.




I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear freedom and nothingness and emptiness. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear oneness and equality. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear connection, honesty, openness, and vulnerability. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel vulnerable in unconditional love. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear getting hurt. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being betrayed. I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to fear myself, because it is myself as these energies that I fear. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear change. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear not having this energy to hold onto anymore. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being boundless and limitless, open, nothing, one. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear what is next. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear letting go. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear moving on. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to leave myself behind by existing in the past. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to learn. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to change. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to let go and move forward.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I need energy in order to be safe, secure, and stable.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to deceive myself in this belief.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to stifle and suffocate myself through and as holding onto and becoming stuck in energetic experiences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress energies so that they become ingrained in me. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to move through and as energies to release them and let them go.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I don't know how to move forward, that I don't know where to go, within this creating road blocks or contingencies for moving forward, creating walls and excuses and externalized sources onto which I can project blame for my stagnation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear what is on the other side of the wall.

But time moves forward. So will I.

Work & Negative Energy and Social Anxiety - Day 132

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lack of Understanding as a Stopping Point - Day 119

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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