Listening to Learn - Day 138

For the past 4 weeks at work I have expressed interest in attending a weekly meeting that is extremely pertinent and relevant to my job description which occurs before work, and so I would not get paid. I've finally received permission to attend the meeting this week, with the stipulation / contingency that I must just observe, not speak.

In a breath I could presume that this is because I have not been officially invited / approved by all of the supervisors to be an active participant in this meeting.

But in my mind I could go into all sorts of anxiety and back chat and judgments and beliefs about my work performance and what my coworkers think of me.

Another conversation contributed to this reaction as well. When I asked if I could attend the meeting, my on-site supervisor said yes, "But just listen," and then went on to say "We have to be really careful about how we interact with each other here" where "we" meant all the staff.

I went into anxiety and back chat that perhaps I had rubbed some people the "wrong way" so to speak, or I had stepped on toes, or stepped out of line, or for whatever reason this same person had had conversations with other persons about me, where others vented frustrations about me.

So to turn this back to myself I can see that I have in the past approached "professional" relationships in this way, where I have had personal reactions to people I know professionally. However I've not seen myself do this here at this job, at least not in a way that I have allowed to define me -- I've processed it when I've seen it.

But this anxiety then leads me to that energy of thinking I can tell what other people are thinking about me. And so again I have to process this and stop myself.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to engage in anxiety over thoughts about if my coworkers do or do not like me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to worry about who I am at work and in work relationships, if people like me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to worry about if I have stepped on toes or stepped out of line or said or done something to offend another person.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to simply ask.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to always constantly reflect in self honesty about who I am in every given moment.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to always be aware of who I am so that I can know for and by myself whether I am acting from a point of egoistic self interest or not.

I forgive myself that I cannot tell this for sure because I have not been always aware.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself in the moment of concern or worry or anxiety that others might not like me or I might have done or said something they did not like.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe and stress over the belief that if I do something another does not like / reacts to, this means they do not like ME as a whole.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see that if another takes what I do / say and extrapolates meaning / definition about me as a whole based on their reaction, that I cannot control this, and also that this is their reaction, this is not actually who I am.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be a people pleaser and want to make everyone happy, want to juggle every person's personalities and reactions so that no one ever reacts negatively to me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself by my perception of how others perceive me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get stuck in defining myself in the moment / point of worry as regret of who I have been and what people have thought of who I am, rather than breathing, being here now, and moving forward to be myself in self honesty and self responsibility, so thus to change rather than get stuck on the point of the possibility that perhaps I have "rubbed someone the wrong way."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to read into and read in between the lines of what is communicated to me in order to find hidden negative meaning in order to have ammunition against myself in order to judge myself and get myself stuck in anxiety about what others think of me, rather than seeing and hearing what is actually communicated to me -- reality, and all that I can be expected to go off of, because if someone does not communicate with me how they feel then how can I know? -- and taking this as a reference point for who I am, a point of guidance for myself to continue or to change depending on what feedback I receive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing positive feedback to basically go in one ear and right out the other so that I have no recollection or memory or retention of such positive feedback / direction, and instead search high and low for any kind of negative meaning I can extrapolate from interactions, body language, voice tonality, or words themselves, and then cling to this perception of others perceiving me negatively so that I can fuel the anxiety I feel when I enter my mind and try to figure out "what that meant" when that person said what they said.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to simply stop and breathe and reflect on myself when I feel anxious about who I am and how others perceive me, so that I can use this for myself as my own guidance and feedback for myself where, if I feel anxious about this, then perhaps there are points I need to look at where I have not behaved in self honesty, where I have done the things that I fear others perceive me as having done, because the judgments I am believing are authored by them are in fact coming from my mind.

So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to reflect on myself and give myself feedback and to see that feedback, but to not direct myself in a self honest response to that self-feedback, instead projecting the feedback as being sourced by another so that within this I can react in victimization of feeling judged and believing others do not "like" me.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see how I feel about / react when other people do things that I do not necessarily agree with, within this seeing that it is possible to not define another person solely by one or a few actions with which I disagree, realizing that people make mistakes, everyone does something at some point that I might not ever do, etc.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that another's reaction is really about me and is definitive of me rather than speaking about who they are and what their level of understanding or flexibility is in terms of existing in equality and oneness and being open to different perspectives / change, so that even if there are staff who do not "like" me, this is probably a lot more to do with their reaction to the overall changes and less to do with actually me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that IF a person does react to me personally, as in I have said or done something to offend them, that this means this is who I am, and who I am in their eyes, and I cannot change, and I cannot change in their eyes.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that once a mistake is made, failure is constituted, a permanent failure that cannot be recovered from and so within this an energy of that I might as well just give up.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hold onto the memory of another telling me I am too abrasive, within this believing this is absolutely who I am, not who I was, not who I do not have to be, and then within this also using this as support for the beliefs and self judgments that others do not like me, rather than looking at actual interactions as feedback.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use a memory from 5 years ago as feedback for who I am today.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself the time and space to grow and change and learn.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sometimes forget that I am young and that in some ways I am naive and so I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to direct myself from an unawareness of my own naivety such that I might make those who are much older than me or who have been working at this school much longer feel like I am just a know it all.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to realize that if another has decided they do not "like" me it is very likely that they feel somehow threatened either by me or by the change that I in my position and as my behavior represent. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand that no reaction is really about me but it is about the person reacting and where they are in their process.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to be absolutely sensitive however, and to always check in with myself as my breath in self honesty before I do or say anything because there are emotional investments in this job and my goal is success and there are ways I can sabotage my own effectiveness through impulsively saying or doing things as if I know already or as if I have the total picture.

That was one of the things my on-site supervisor said. He said, "You all just see pieces. I see the whole thing. I see people coming in here and telling me, and I piece it all together." He might have just been talking about students, but I got the impression perhaps he meant staff. Perhaps for example my perception of "the way things are" as I have communicated it to him is in-congruent with the way he sees things as the "total picture." This is likely because I have only been here 4 weeks whereas he has been there 8 years.

However, he may have merely been talking about the students. The point here is that what I saw, what I perceived, how I reacted, tells me about myself -- I know that I am not fully aware of myself and how I behave in my position as a newcomer, as a young person in this field. I talk a lot, I have many ideas and suggestions, and perhaps sometimes it would be best if I just listened.

So regardless of what my on-site supervisor meant, I have been telling myself actually for weeks that I should just listen more. And now here, maybe he meant that, maybe not, but here it is again, along with anxiety because here I did not listen to myself, and now I believe I have made a mistake by not listening to myself telling myself to listen more to others -- did I offend someone? But to not get stuck here now. To breathe, and listen.

So when and as I see myself believing I know the answer to the frustration or to the ways that things are presently not working at my job, I stop and I breathe. When I have a suggestion, I stop and I breathe. I breathe and I ask myself if there is any perspective I am not considering. I commit myself to listening more, observing more, but to still doing my job with integrity and still running ideas by particular trusted individuals to get feedback on the quality of the idea. I commit myself to humility at work rather than allowing myself to feel prideful with a belief that "I am good at my job" and "I am valuable" and "I am smart," because it is in these beliefs that I take the filter as my eyes off myself, trusting myself to be infallible when the reality is that I am inexperienced in many ways. I commit myself thus to caution in my interactions at work, to respecting others by treating them as I would like to be treated, which is to be listened to. So I commit myself to listening more, and talking only after I have checked with myself in self honesty, and talking only from the starting point of making a suggestion and looking for feedback. I commit myself to "knowing my place," in a way, where here I am really quite at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of employees on campus. However I also commit myself to not shying away or going into a polarity of believing I am always wrong. Simply I commit myself to be aware of myself and aware of others all as one as equal so that we can truly cooperate and collaborate and respect one another as we work toward a common goal. I commit myself to the realization that I am here to learn as much as I am to get paid, and so I commit myself to take a more listener/observer role in that learning, then acting/living what I have learned. I commit myself to listening without thinking or judging, but simply to understand, to gain as much perspective as possible.

Adapting to Culture, Fear, and Self-Doubt - Day 117

Day 2 at my new job. Mostly what I have seen in myself is that there are a lot of uncertainties in my job description and what changes are going to be implemented in the culture of the school. But the old culture still remains, in some ways residual, in some ways full-force. And so I have created a paranoia and pressure within myself that I am supposed to meet some expectations of other older staff, believing that they are expecting me to do things the way they have been doing things. So basically rather than being an absolute point of support for the students, I have slipped into the militaristic culture I have observed, where twice today I said things to my students that were not self honest but was basically just me reacting to my paranoia and copying what I had observed in some of the old staff.

I also see that I am afraid and resistant of getting to know the students for various reasons. The cool thing is that it's only day 2 and I've actually gotten to know some of the students pretty well for it only being 2 days and considering that I've had these fears I've allowed to limit me. But today I am writing to clear some of those fears and then will see how tomorrow goes, and continue to clear fears and resistances more if I see that I have to.

This job will work if I make it work! Arriving early tomorrow before work to meet with the other new therapeutic intervention treatment team staff.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fall in line with the militaristic culture of my environment simply because it seems like all there is for me to observe.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel unsure and uncertain within and as myself as my job performance such that I look to others to set an example for who I am to be.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be paranoid within my mind that other staff are watching me and expecting me to do certain things, the way they do these things -- things they have never indicated verbally that I should do -- and so to react to that paranoia / pressure by behaving in the ways that I have observed from those staff.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to direct myself not from a place of self honesty and self responsibility as the decisions I make as what I know is what is best for all, or what I know is supportive of the students, instead sometimes moving myself by this paranoia and sense of pressure where I do or say something and then immediately feel quite "gross" because it just didn't feel right and I know it was not self honest and I know it was not supportive and I know that it is absolutely not what I want to do, even if it is what I am supposed to do for money.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to interact with the students in a negative way at all, because I have not interacted with them very much so far, and so any negative interaction sets a precedent for them to expect this from me and not trust me to actually practically support them but to only beat them down and humiliate them as has been the culture thus far that they are used to.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to interact with these students in any way that is not positive and supportive and respectful of them as individual human beings, one and equal as life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to slip into the culture of my environment.

I realize that I and other new staff have been brought in to change this culture. I realize that my specific job description is not very clear to anyone. I realize that my primary goal right now is to get to know these students and let them get to know me, and to recognize and praise their strengths, and give them practical solutions for areas of concern, and encourage them to take responsibility for themselves. I realize I am also here to observe the current staff and notice strengths and areas of concern so as to support the guidance of the changes within the staff, which will change the culture, which will change the students.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear and resist getting to know the students because I fear their anger or behaviors, within this fearing that something might happen that I won't know how to handle.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see other new staff relating to the students and then turning inward and doubting myself in self judgment and back chat about who I am and if I can even do this job, rather than looking at what they are doing and maybe talking to them about how they are starting to get to know the students and how they are breaking down the defenses that many of the students already have up.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I do or will not know how to handle a certain crisis within a student's experience, within this reflecting on my own teenage years wherein I basically did everything I was supposed to and never got in trouble, and so I believe that I cannot relate to these students.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand that I can relate to anyone and everyone on some level, on the basis of being human, on the basis of understanding through my own experience what it means to be human in this world.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand that I can relate to anyone and everyone through getting to know them and building a practical equal and one relationship with them, and that this takes time and consistency.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to doubt myself wherein I fear what the students might think or say about me behind my back, or to my face, where within this I want them to see me as "cool," and so already see myself as inferior, as is my default perception of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, when I judge and doubt myself in social contexts, usually withdraw and go further into my mind.

So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to care what these kids think of me -- which could change depending on very many variables -- rather than caring what I think about myself in self honesty and who I am within this job and these relationships.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to by default place myself as inferior where when I was younger I always thought that this was because I knew so many people who were older than me and so I thought since they were older they were of course smarter and better and more mature and therefore superior, but as I have now grown older I have seen myself do this still with people my own age or even younger than me, sometimes much younger such as with these students. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to move myself by memories of who I thought I was in school in the social hierarchies so that now when I see jr high or high school age kids who, when I was in school I would have identified as "cool," now still I feel intimidated by them or still see them as "cool" and "better" and "superior" as my initial reaction to them from which I move myself.

I realize that already on day 2 I am getting to know these students better and starting to see them for who they are -- a person -- rather than as my initial impression of them -- an image attached to value judgments. So already through this job I am breaking down this dynamic of myself as inferior by default.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel self conscious again because I want these students to see me as "cool" and so if I feel like my skin is "bad" because of blemishes or if I feel bloated or if I think I have sweat showing through my shirt in my underarms, I become self conscious and focused on these aspects of myself, fearing and believing that the students are judging me, where here really I am only judging myself, because actually when I was their age I probably would have thought someone like me was really cool no matter what just by virtue of being a little bit older than me, and either way it doesn't matter because I am here to support the students unconditionally.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get caught up in my own self judgments about my appearance within this believing that these aspects of myself somehow limit my ability to do my job well, where within this preoccupation with these self judgments I am distracting myself from doing my job, so it is the self judgments themselves which are limiting me, not the topics of the judgment, which simply are within the physical and do not hinder my job whatsoever.

So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to slip into self doubt and self judgment wherein I am not supporting myself and therefore not supporting the students because I am distracted within and as my own mind systems.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I can't or won't or don't understand these students in terms of their backgrounds and who they are and why, or their interests, their interests in fighting and violence and drug use, their seeming lack of interest in education.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see something I do not understand and to react negatively to that, rather than simply taking steps to learn and understand, because here it is, it exists, so there is probably something to understand about it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make assumptions about the students and their backgrounds, within this making assumptions about who they are, or making assumptions about what their family is like, etc., rather than simply being here in each moment with them and with myself, getting to know them and experiencing their day with them, supporting them through the school day to be the best that they can be.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge the students based on what limited information I have on them, which for most of them simply consists of the fact that they are enrolled at this particular school for students who have been expelled from regular school programs, not realizing that students get expelled for really fucking stupid shit sometimes, and it doesn't mean they are "bad" and it doesn't mean it is "who they are," it is simply something they did. So I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to first judge the students and make assumptions about them and to then move myself from a fear based reaction to these judgments and assumptions rather than letting go of the reactions and judgments and all that other shit that's standing between us and simply get to know this other person as one and equal to and as myself, as life, as what is best for all.


So when and as I see myself fearing or resisting getting to know the students, I stop and I breathe. I realize that is all that is really required of me in my job, and that the primary way I can support the students is by showing them respect and being a positive example of self honesty and self responsibility, so that I am a person they in turn respect, and so that I can share with them perspectives that might assist and support them in achieving success in their education as well as their lives in general. I commit myself to taking a deep breath, checking in with myself, and then engaging with the students in whatever way I can. I realize relationships take time to develop. I also realize I am "the adult" in this situation, and so from the students' perspective I am probably the one who has to take these first steps. I realize already on my second day that when I am able to engage with the students and show them that I am trustworthy, they will come to me for support, and from there we are able to effect change. So I commit myself to realizing my position within my job, within this school, as an adult, and as an individual who is standing for oneness and equality as what is best for all, and within this I commit myself to walking through my fears and resistances and getting to know each of these students to the absolute best of my abilities.

When and as I see myself feeling paranoid and pressure to behave a certain way because of judgments I have projected onto other staff in terms of fitting in with the old culture of the school, I stop and I breathe. I realize I am here to change the culture. I realize it is early in this process. I realize that I cannot support these students if I am shouting at them about things that don't matter for no reason, and not explaining my reasoning, and not treating them with respect. I commit myself to catch myself before I slip into the persona of this old culture. I commit myself to resist this, and push forward to that which I have resisted in terms of really getting to know the students. I realize this is what I really want anyway, regardless of my job description: to practically support the students in respect as one and equal as life as what is best for all. So I commit myself to watching myself in this paranoia and sense of pressure and I commit myself to maintaining positive and supportive interactions with the students. I commit myself also to continuing to meet with the other therapeutic staff to discuss the changes that need to be made, and being that change, and making that change, because it is what we are here to do, even if the ball has kind of been dropped by the people who hired us in the first place. It can and will still be done, we do not have to fail unless we let ourselves, in which case we will be failing the students, and we could never expect them not to fail themselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Job Jitters - Day 107

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-- post-orientation meeting --

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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

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.

Showing Up for Myself Part 4: Am I Doing a Good Job? - Day 91

This post is a continuation within a series about "showing up" for myself, embodying and reuniting with myself as life.
Showing Up for Myself - Day 83
Showing Up for Myself Part 1: lONEliness - Day 85
Showing Up for Myself Part 1.5: Abandoning Myself through Participation in My Mind - Day 86
Showing Up for Myself Part 2: Walking Through Points in Writing & the Writing Process - Day 87

Showing Up for Myself Part 3: Self Support through Reading Blogs - Day 89

The following is an excerpt from Day 83, and is here as reference for the main portion of this post.

I also know that, related to the above point, I feel a bit stagnant, like I want to continue learning/consuming more before moving myself forward, like I feel that desire/need for guidance or some kind of direction to know that I am doing a good job and going the right way. I have remembered the support I received on the forums which was fantastic, but I have fallen out of practice in posting my blog there or reading anything at all on the forums. "I don't have time," but I waste so much time, and go to bed so early. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt myself and my ability to direct myself within self honesty and self responsibility as what is best for all. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to direct myself to investigating topics that interest me or seeking out assistance/support through reading other blogs or reading the forums or listening to interviews. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to basically just wait and hope either for myself to "believe in" myself again as my abilities here, or just wait/hope for this feeling to pass, or wait/hope for someone to come along and say something encouraging so that I have that positive charge again of feeling like I am "on track." I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to identify that I "want" to post my blog on the forum again because I got great support there, but to not actually do it. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist involvement in the forum because it's like "one more thing" to add to my to do list where within this every task that is not sleeping or eating or watching tv is some kind of chore, and yet I waste so much time doing those things and other things, not supporting myself, not using time to support myself. 

When and as I see myself feeling like I would benefit from some kind of outside direction, I stop and I breathe. I realize that there are a great many resources at my fingertips that I can access whenever and wherever I want. I realize that I can guide myself through this process and that there are others who are walking with me who can also serve as guides through the reading of their words. I commit myself to take this self identified need for guidance into my own hands, to guide myself toward increased awareness of direction and increased realizations of awareness. I commit myself to using my time to support myself and to realizing that I waste a lot of time fruitlessly so taking some time to do self supportive activities is really not difficult from a practical standpoint.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to wonder, "Am I doing a good job?" and then believe that I cannot answer this question for myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to ask others if I am doing a good job.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt myself such that I want to ask others if I am doing a good job and that within this within their answer that "Yes, you are doing a good job," I believe that I will finally feel relief and finally be able to "know" that I am doing a good job, that I am "on track," like as if I won't once again seek out the reassurance, "Am I still doing a good job?" rather than simply learning to gauge for myself in every moment if I am doing a "good job."

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to determine for myself through seeing myself in self honesty if I am doing a good job.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place my navigation as my direction outside myself, where even when I believe I am the one directing myself, I am always waiting on or wanting others to tell me that I am "going the right way," so that if there is no other to reaffirm or to validate my direction, I begin to doubt myself and feel somewhat aimless in my direction, where I wonder again, "Am I doing a good job?"

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to trust myself as my ability give myself permission to believe that I am "on track" and "doing a good job."

Within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt myself whenever I believe positive things about myself because so often these positive underpinnings build me up in positive feeling states which inevitably crash into the misery of a depressed negative state in which I completely do not believe in myself and completely believe I am worthless, so that any time I feel or think a positive thing about myself, I then go into self-doubt into believing that this must be what is false and that the negative depressed state is what is real, where here I have not allowed myself to realize that both are false as energetic states which I create and participate in and that what is real is stability within and as my breath as the physical as equal to and one with all life as what is best for all, not these value judgments about who I am and if I am "good" or "bad," doing a "good job" or a "bad job," but instead simply: Am I being self honest? Only I can answer this.


When and as I see myself wanting to ask another for validation that I am doing a "good job," I stop and I breathe. I realize that if they tell me yes, this will feed me momentarily as validation but it will not support me in creating stability within myself and responsibility within myself within self honesty to see myself as what kind of job I am doing, if I am putting in my "best effort." I also realize that if they tell me no, I will likely react negatively to this and so therefore I see that I am not actually interested in knowing if I am doing a good job but am instead interested in hearing that I am doing a good job -- receiving validation and affirmation to create a positive feeling experience for myself. I also realize that no other can really know if I am doing a good job or if I am being self honest or if I am putting in my "best effort" -- only I can know any of these things within self honest self reflection. Only I can know if I am really giving it "my all," giving myself my everything to see myself and deconstruct myself and create myself within oneness and equality as what is best for all. I also realize that in seeking for an answer of validation from another, I am abdicating responsibility for myself as my own keeper, my own monitor, as a leader of myself. I also realize that in seeking for an answer of validation from another, I am denying myself the ability to trust myself, where here I do not believe that I am capable of validating myself or of supporting myself to see myself in self honesty and to reflect on the consequences of who I am as to whether that is what is best for all. I realize that if I am not able to see for, as, and by myself in self-honesty if I am doing a "good job," then this actually completely debases the whole concept of self-responsibility and self-honesty because within this I am still forcing myself to relate to another in order to see myself and in order to direct myself, all from the starting point of the self doubt which I have created in my mind. So I commit myself to being my own leader of myself, to trusting myself to see myself in self honesty and trusting myself to take responsibility for myself, and thus within this taking responsibility for myself in trusting myself, seeing myself when I am not being responsible, and therefore seeing the actual ways that I have not been trustworthy to myself, facing this, investigating this, and walking these points to rebuild trust within and as myself and show myself that I am trustworthy of myself and I am capable of leading myself.

Equality in "Disability" - Day 82

Art made by an individual diagnosed with a developmental disability

Today I had an interesting experience at work where my "client" ("C") threw up after lunch, but claims it was involuntary, although he reported to not feeling sick. C is the same person with whom I brainstormed "Conscious Eating" and this person regularly practically "inhales" food, taking bites before swallowing previous bites, eating a few bites of each item in his lunch one after the other, not chewing very much, etc. C also regularly dry heaves food back into his mouth and then chews on it, and also regularly reaches his fingers to pick food out of his teeth to then chew on. C reports that this is all involuntary behavior, that he is aware that it is happening, does not like it, and does not know if he is able to stop it. However, C also regularly avoids difficult conversation topics such as this, or conversations about stealing, which he also does, and within avoiding these conversations C will kind of just brush off the questions as if he "knows" already and does not want to face himself in self responsibility/honesty. I have reminded C that he already knows what to do, he is responsible, and he can implement what he knows.

In my conversations with my coworkers so far it seems as if they believe that "brushing off" a topic is all that C is capable of doing. Like they just accept that he does not want to talk about himself in these points and allow that to then be the course that is taken without any kind of support to assist him in talking about these topics or in addressing whatever resistances he is having to these conversations. But C is really very remarkable and I am greatly enjoying working with him. He is very smart and inquisitive, enjoys sharing interests with others, is considerate of others, and expresses as well as shows great interest in self improvement, self understanding, and self responsibility. C is extremely interested in reading and carries around multiple books every day, one about 1,001 ways to do good, one about planning and organization, and now a new one about mindless eating, as well as some others that come into the mix some days. C becomes engrossed in these books, loves to learn, and loves for others to also learn/benefit from the information in the books. He does have a significant speech impediment and tourette syndrome, but he is perfectly capable of meaningful communication if his communication partner can simply have the patience to engage in such conversation with him. He can also write efficiently and has even shared with myself and my supervisor some of his self reflective writing in his journal -- writing which demonstrated that he really wants to change himself and take responsibility for himself. So there's really no reason to just accept and be complacent with C's reaction as resistance to these difficult topics of conversation when one is in a position of providing support.

After today's incident is when C acquired the book on Mindless Eating. During the initial portion of my conversation with him, C stated "I just can't get it out of my mind" after having first found the book about two weeks ago at the drug store. C's mother agreed to meet us and buy the book. On the car ride there, I was asking C some questions about the regurgitation behavior, when it started, what feelings/emotions come before/during/after, etc. C was "not sure" about most of the answers. C stated that this book seemed like it would have the answer. I pointed out to C that this book may or may not have answers, and that even if it does have pertinent answers, it is still just a tool, and it is up to C to use that tool to support himself. C seemed receptive to this, but I can't know for sure.

I found that I was frustrated with the whole situation, because first of all, when I contacted my supervisor for "support" in this situation, as I was not entirely sure what to do, as I was never properly trained, he basically said to give C an easy day and not address it. I had reported that C was avoiding conversation, and apparently this was enough to mean that the best way to support C was to just ignore the incident and pretend right along with C like it hadn't happened. So it's like any excuse that someone might give for not wanting to participate in meaningful self reflection would be accepted and life would just go on without acknowledging that there is probably a lot more going on than the individual is letting on, because of shame or embarrassment or other reasons possibly. So here we have a person in a supervisory support role who is not effectively supervising or providing support.

I was also somewhat frustrated because the particular book that C found is obviously not the most pertinent book, as can be concluded quite easily from the table of contents and the reviews on the back. It's about mindless eating but I sense that there are probably a great many other books on the market that would be more useful and relevant for C that could be found for a similar price online. But nonetheless C's mom was just kind of like, "oh okay, if you think it will help." And I could really see myself in C in this instance, because my mom always "supported" me by buying me things I wanted. So if I was having a "bad day," it meant I got to go shopping. And I could see how C was getting excited over the prospect of getting this new item that had been in his mind as some kind of ideal answer that he had identified himself as wanting, just like I have always placed things that I want up on some pedestal where I believe once I get that thing everything will be okay. Don't we all? So suddenly C didn't have to face himself and have a conversation and actually figure some things out -- instead he got a new book. But at least I can trust that he will voraciously consume this book and reflect on it and it may in fact assist him in understanding himself. I just hope he can translate the words into his lived application -- so far this is not something I have observed, but as we know this is a process. :) Also I have not known C for very long and his interest in mindless/conscious eating is only a month or two old as far as I am aware.

So it's really frustrating that here we are all in this field/industry/business of SUPPORT and yet so few people are actually supporting the people we are supposed to support -- asking pertinent questions (many of the answers I got today are probably things that my supervisor is not even aware of -- I imagine the report I just wrote will be the first that he learns some of these things, and yet all it took was asking some simple questions from the starting point of accepting this person as equal and as capable of self reflection and self support), providing relevant tools, and also engaging these individuals in learning how they can be their first and primary source of support for themselves (and a book like this book could be a great source of self support for C, so that is really cool, but I am just guessing that the most pertinent book is not going to be found at Rite Aid -- but! what do I know?).

The woman I used to work with, for example, would CLEARLY benefit from seeing a therapist to talk out her anxieties and paranoia, and yet whenever she complains of physical symptoms which do not improve with medical intervention (and always get worse when she expresses anxiety or when change is happening), she is simply sent to a psychiatrist to get more or different pills to take. So here it's like the assumption is that she is not capable of self reflection or of changing her thought/belief systems or taking responsibility for her reactions, and instead she is just, like... something that needs to be fed pills in order to adjust observable behaviors.

This other person, C, is obviously also extremely intelligent and interested in learning self responsibility, if only provided with the actual tools and support to learn it, and the actual real effort put in by the individuals who are in the paid position to care for and support this person -- effort which is often not there, as I have even written about within myself in my own work ethic.

Even at my old job in Denver, I had students who you might think (assume! judge!) would not be "able" to participate in talk therapy due to their cognitive abilities and/or speech abilities, but nonetheless they had therapists in their lives who were there as points of support either for conversation / sorting out all of their confusing thoughts/feelings/emotions/reactions or as simply a consistent stable person to, for example, play basketball with and have as a kind of mentor, who also has the psychological background to provide cognitive/behavioral support or other kinds of therapies.

There's all this talk of "equality" in this field and in this organization in particular, and yet there is a real lack of support as equals as LIFE when it comes to supporting these individuals with developmental disabilities in terms of allowing them the agency and finding the tools to advocate for and support themselves. I continue to see more and more why this is not an organization that I want to continue to work for, so I am happy to be leaving. But I am also beginning to see that I will probably run into these same themes in most agencies, and that if I wish to continue in this field I will have to learn to stand in stability within myself as what is best for all, regardless of the systemic integrity of the organizations which employ me.


Of course I cannot really judge anyone other than myself here, and I realize that although I have a BA in psychology and about a year and a half experience working with individuals diagnosed with developmental disabilities, I am not an expert, nowhere near one. But it really does not take more than common sense within self honesty to see some of these things.

I forgive myself that I have at times accepted and allowed myself to "give up" on doing my job effectively and thoroughly, actually showing up and being present for my job and for assisting and supporting the person I have agreed to and am expected to assist and support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself at times to think something along the lines of "here we go again," and "letting it slide this one time won't matter" where here I give up on actually intervening appropriately and providing appropriate and relevant assistance and support because I am "too tired to deal with it right now" or I am otherwise wrapped up in my own self interests within and as my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take advantage of the position that society has placed individuals with disabilities in and that within this I have allowed myself to take advantage of these individuals as my unwillingness to unconditionally and unwaveringly support them where they are, to meet their needs as they come up, and to seek to understand them as individuals and to equalize myself with them as life and to advocate for and support their rights to life in oneness and equality, simply because the consequences are seemingly minimal to myself although the consequences are extensive for the individual who is forced to go through life being "supported" by a system of abuse and neglect.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take the easy way out when a "crisis" arises or an "intervention" is necessary because this is in fact a difficult and demanding job and I have not supported myself appropriately to meet these demands, to be present in self honesty and self responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to appropriately support myself in my work to be able to meet the demands of my work within each moment in self honesty and self responsibility as what is best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make excuses for not performing my job to the best of my abilities not only within self responsibility or my responsibility to my employer, but within and as a responsibility to life in service and support of individuals who have lived lives of abuse and neglect and misunderstanding already.



So I commit myself to continue my process of equalization and investigating how to actually, practically, realistically, and sustainably meet the needs of and support individuals with "disabilities."

Work Ethic and My Nasty Nature - Day 66

Self Forgiveness and Self Commitments for I Work Hard, But Not at My Job - Day 65

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I work hard at my job, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use this as an excuse to not work hard in other areas of my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exert energy and effort and time into how to "get through" my day where I am not enjoying my job or being present with my job responsibilities but am instead engaging in near constant backchat, dissatisfaction, justification, and even distraction. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use my working hours as time to distract myself, perform mindless tasks on my phone, and to engage in other self-interested pursuits such as reading desteni blogs, which is in no way a part of my job description. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to ignore my work and what I was supposed to do at work in favor of silly phone games or reading blogs or checking facebook. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be so caught up within and as my mind, my thoughts, my self-interest, my distractions, and my beliefs that I react with anger or resentment or impatience when another person requests or demands my attention.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to label this job as "too easy" and that within this I have found reason to be dissatisfied, to disrespect the job, to feed my ego as me being more important than this job, better than this job, too good for this job. I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to take this opportunity to enjoy the ease of the job, or to create challenges for myself and do an above average excellent job. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become bitter, angry, and resentful within this job.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be so fucking ugly at this job. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to lie to, deceive, and manipulate myself and others within this job and my performance at this job, where I have deliberately ignored and denied that I am not doing a good job, have justified/excused my poor job performance/work ethic, and have blamed anyone but myself for all of this. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed any of this to get this far.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to give up on this job when I found out it would be temporary. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to react within blame, judgment, anger, resentment, and as my ego and pride when I found out this position would be temporary, when I was effectively let go. 

I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to be present in each moment of this job, to see the challenge of each moment, to meet the challenge of each moment, and to direct myself in self-honesty as what is best for all. 

I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to respect and appreciate the opportunity I have had in having decent paying employment in my field until I was able to secure a new job. 

I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to see how disgusting and disgraceful this is. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to do all of this under so many various justifications and excuses, including that it is a temporary position and that because it is temporary, I am not invested, and I do not "have to" do a good job. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to place my motivation for doing a good job outside myself, where it has been external influences which I have allowed myself to blame for not doing a good job, and it has also been external lacks which I have blamed for not allowing myself to do a good job. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to do a good job for and as myself as what is self-honest and best for all. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to create and then sustain through my participation all of these layers of thoughts, beliefs, emotions, reactions, and other self-interested pursuits such that I have been extremely dissatisfied in my job and have only fed and fostered that dissatisfaction, until I have created for myself a depressed state. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think some of the nastiest things I have probably ever thought in relation to this job and my assignment. I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to really see myself within these thoughts but instead separated myself from my work self such that I excused and justified the person I allowed myself to be at work through blaming my supervisors, blaming my assignment, blaming the temporary status, blaming memories of my old job, blaming all of the many things I thought I could not control, where here I abdicated responsibility for myself within the belief that I could not control myself, that it was all of these various factors that were what were making me this way, this nasty way, and thus within this I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take ownership of myself, to see that I am always myself, who I am in every moment is who I am as who I have accepted and allowed myself to be: no one but myself creates me. 

I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to see just how problematic all of this really was sooner, that it took me entering a depressed state for me to realize the consequences of what I was accepting and allowing within myself. I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to see myself earlier, to deal with all of this earlier, to face each of those thoughts and beliefs and backchats as they came up so that I could expand myself as my understanding of myself and direct myself within self honesty and self responsibility as what is best for all.

I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to face myself in this sooner so that I could do a better job for the person who was most affected by my job: my assignment. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to abuse the independence afforded me in this job, to abuse the lack of supervision, to abuse my power in relation to this person, to abuse this person, and to abuse myself by not taking responsibility for myself or being honest with myself. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to create this abusive unequal relationship where I have only been equal to and one with that which I have created myself to be, which is ugly and nasty and abusive. I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to exert so much of myself into creating myself as this nastiness. 

I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself to see sooner the ease and freedom in releasing myself from my self interest within and as my mind and allowing myself to exist in the moment in self honesty and self responsibility as what is best for all. 

I forgive myself that I did not accept or allow myself the room to breathe here in this moment. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to choke and suffocate and strangle myself with my self interest, where here I have seen that once I finally allowed myself to breathe and to see myself and to take responsibility for myself in each moment in each breath, to release myself from my mind, to not carry my thoughts and back-chats around with me like heavy weights or reasons to continue in those negative energies... here I have seen ease, freedom, stability, growth, expansion, and a sense of finally having room to breathe, fresh air, not the recycled stuffy polluted air of my mind. 

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to wait so long to discover that. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to vaguely with ill-formed rationale blame Desteni for who I have allowed myself to be in this job. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create conflictual mind energy around what I have perceived about Desteni and what I have perceived about this job without actually seeing either or seeing myself as what is common sensically and self honestly best for all. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to mistake my relationship with and perceptions about and reactions to Desteni as actually Desteni or as what is self-honest or what is best for all. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create anxieties and self doubt about myself and my work abilities by observing myself within this job, by seeing how I have been within this job, but by not seeing how I have accepted and allowed and thus created myself this way, and not seeing that I can create myself any way, I can direct myself any way, and that if I take responsibility for myself within self honesty, and if I have a little confidence in myself, then I can do an excellent job, because I am well-equipped and well-prepared to work in this field. 

by Rozelle De Lange

When and as I see myself participating in backchat, thoughts, beliefs, reactions, or self-interest, I stop and I breathe. I realize that justifying and allowing myself to continue on these courses is how they become me, and I become them. I realize that I am whoever I accept and allow myself to be, as whatever I accept and allow myself to do, think, say, believe, want, need. I realize that when I am actually SEEING myself doing this, I am in the position to stop it. I commit myself to really actually fucking stopping it when I see it so clearly as I have in this job. I commit myself to not ignoring it or denying it or justifying it or rationalizing it. 

When and as I see myself experiencing dissatisfaction, I stop and I breathe. I realize that there are probably backchats, thoughts, beliefs, reactions, or self-interests that I am not seeing or recognizing clearly. So here I commit myself to watch myself to see myself to investigate myself and see who I really am here. 

When and as I see myself experiencing dissatisfaction, I stop and I breathe. I realize that allowing myself to continue in dissatisfaction, to continue to feed my dissatisfaction through and as my backchats, thoughts, beliefs, reactions, or self-interests, is to set myself on the course for an experience of depression, because within all of this I am abdicating responsibility for and as myself, I am lying to myself and not being self-honest, and therefore it only makes sense that I will experience mental/mind dis-ease, that I will begin to feel hopeless and helpless within the constructs I have made for myself in my mind, where when I allow these backchats, thoughts, beliefs, reactions, or self-interests, there is no way out: when I am dissatisfied, there is no way to be satisfied. I realize these are all structures I have constructed in my mind as what I have accepted and allowed within myself. I commit myself to free myself of the structures of my mind, of the rigidity of my mind, of the constraints of my mind. I commit myself to release myself from and as being the wants and needs and desires and fears of my mind. I commit myself to stop being controlled by my mind as the system I have installed in my mind. 

When and as I see myself limiting myself within my beliefs about myself in my work abilities and capacities, I stop and I breathe. I realize that I am well prepared and equipped and qualified for the jobs that I have been offered and have held. I realize that if I apply myself in self honesty and self responsibility, I can achieve much more than I can even imagine. I realize that I am not expected to be perfect by anyone but myself. I realize that I am likely not seen as a failure by anyone but myself. I realize that all of the reactionary emotions and beliefs that I have created about my new job and myself in my new job are exactly my own creation and nothing else, and thus this is how I am creating myself, so I realize that moving forward toward my new job in fear and apprehension and self doubt will manifest failure. I commit myself to take practical steps to prepare myself for this job, such as reading the PBIS website, reading books pertinent to the population with which I will be working, and maintaining openness within my mind where I do not allow myself to imagine or expect any particular thing but realize that I cannot know and must "wait and see." I commit myself to creating myself in self-honesty and self-responsibility as equal and one to all life as what is best for all, as the creator and destroyer of myself as who I accept and allow myself to be.