"I inhabit the constant and await my end,
Content to dwell in peace, accepting the flux of things.I only regret that there is no kindred spirit here
to climb this ladder of sky and clouds with me."
- Hsieh Ling-yün
Kolmisen vuotta sitten kävin ystäväni
kanssa taidenäyttelyssä. Taiteilija oli tutkinut eri uskontoja ja
erinäisiä mystiikan koulukuntia, ja mukana oli muun muassa
tarot-kortteja käsittelevä valokuvateos. Itse näyttely ei tehnyt
minuun kovin suurta vaikutusta, sillä tutkimusmatka tuntui jättäneen
lähinnä pintapuolisen vaikutuksen taiteilijaan jättäen täten
hänen teoksensakin vaille syvyyttä, mutta näyttelyssä oli myös
osio, jossa sai laskea syntymäaikansa mukaan oman nimikkokorttinsa
tarot-pakasta. Minun tulokseni oli Suurten Salaisuuksien yhdeksäs
kortti: Erakko. Reaktioni oli ensin tyrmistys, että tämäkö on
minun “kohtaloni”, universumi? Kaikista koko pakan korteista
minun syntymäaikani määrittää minut Erakoksi? Seuraavaksi
käännyin kapinaan: Minä elän itseni irti kohtalostani, todistan
numerot vääräksi, kumoan ennustukset. Minä kieltäydyn. Voin
valita olla erakko, mutta kukaan älköön minua siihen tuomitko.
Tässä jätin kokonaan huomioimatta
sen, mikä ajoi minut kieltämään “kohtalona” pitämäni
määritellyn roolin: pelko siitä, että se toteutuu. Jos pelkoa ei
olisi ollut, olisin voinut päästää irti koko käsitteestä, mutta
sen sijaan takerruin pelkooni ja istutin sen kiinni elämääni.
Erakkous on ollut läsnä elämässäni
jo pitkään. Lapsena eristäydyin muista ihmisistä tultuani
kiusatuksi, ja olen vetäytynyt entistä syvemmälle itseeni pitkin
nuoruuttani. Yksinolo muodostui normaaliksi olotilaksi, josta opin
nauttimaan; yksinäisyys pakolliseksi haitaksi, johon minulla
itselläni ei ollut vaikutusvaltaa. Olen ollut varhaisesta
lapsuudesta alkaen hyvin sulkeutunut ja tullut toimeen itsenäisesti,
ja ympäristöni on oppinut määrittelemään sen ominaisuuden
siksi, mitä minä “olen” - “Emmi nyt vain on tuollainen”.
Olen oppinut hyväksymään erakon maineeni, koska ympäristönikin
on määritellyt minut sellaiseksi. Olen kuitenkin pitkään
tiedostanut sen haitat ja yrittänyt löytää keinoja työstää
itseäni siitä irti. Siksi reagoin turhautuneisuudella laskiessani
Erakon omaksi kortikseni: eikö tämä leima, rooli ja taakka lakkaa
ikinä vainoamasta minua? Toisin sanoen: Onko minun kohtaloni olla
ikuisesti yksin?
Olen sen jälkeen alkanut sisäistää
ajatuksen siitä, että me olemme kaikki lopulta yksin – syntymässä
ja kuolemassa kukin on yksin, vailla ihmisiä ja omaisuutta, vain
sinä mitä todella on. Jokaisen “kohtalo” on siis todellakin
olla yksin, vaan ei siinä mielessä kuin sen alunperin mielsin.
Tämän elämän läpi ei täydy kulkea kantaen yksinäisyyttä,
mutta yksinäisyyttä ei karkoiteta keräämällä ympärilleen
ihmisiä, sillä yksinäisyyden alkupiste on ihmisessä itsessään:
jos etsii jatkuvasti seuraa, koska itsensä kanssa oleminen on
“tylsää” eli virikkeetöntä ja epämiellyttävää, etsii vain
jotakin, joka harhauttaisi oman huomionsa pois siitä, ettei osaa
kohdata omaa itseänsä ja olla itsensä seurassa. Kun ottaa huomioon
sen, että ihmisen todellinen luonne syntymän ja kuoleman
vinkkelistä on olla yksin, ja että kukaan meistä ei pääse toisen
ihmisen pään sisälle, vaan ainoastaan omansa, tuntuu loogiselta
se, että ihmisen luonne olentona on olla yksin – yksi suurimpia
haasteita ja oppiläksyjä tässä elämässä, jossa on kovin
helppoa unohtua nauttimaan kaikista hurmaavista persoonista paitsi
itsestään (joka taas ei ole pohjimmiltaan lainkaan persoona eli
naamio).
Todellisuudessa pelkoni “yksin
jäämisestä” on edelleen itseni pelkäämistä ja itseltäni
pakenemista. Tiedän, että en voi todellisuudessa jäädä
milloinkaan yksin, sillä kun olen läsnä itsessäni itseni
hyväksyen olen aina “itseni kanssa”, ja kun olen auki maailmalle
se aukeaa minulle. Kun takerrun pelkooni yksin jäämisestä
kieltäydyn hyväksymästä omaa “seuraani” sellaisena kuin se
on, suljen itseni maailmalta ja elämältä, ja täten en myöskään
hyödynnä täyttä potentiaaliani ihmisolentona kieltämällä oman
olemassaoloni luonteen.
Tämä pelko näkyy edelleen
esimerkiksi hetkissä, joissa keskustelen toisen ihmisen kanssa,
mutta jätän jotakin kertomatta – tällöin pelkään sen, minkä
jätän kertomatta, olevan jotakin “tuomittavaa” tai “likaista”,
jota en halua toisten kohtaavan, etteivät he tuomitse ja hylkää
minua – ja hylätyksi tulemisen pelko on yksin jäämisen pelkoa.
Usein nämä pienet kertomatta ja jakamatta jätetyt asiat ovat
sellaisia, joita en myöskään itse halua kohdata itsessäni.
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Itseanteeksianto / self-forgiveness:
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to think and believe it is my “destiny” to be
alone.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to think and believe it is in my nature / an
essential part of “who I am” to be introverted, withdrawn, quiet
and solitary.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe I am the personality ( = mask) which I
and my surroundings have defined to be introverted, withdrawn, quiet
and solitary.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to “rebel” against this “destiny” by
denying it and refusing to accept what it means, not realizing that
by doing so I bind myself to it and to its consequences (loneliness,
sadness, anxiety, addiction, depression).
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe there is a “high judge” called “the
universe” that has the power to rule me and decide my “destiny”
for me instead of realizing I am the creator of my own experience and
the director of my life, creating my own “destiny” as I walk
through life within each moment.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe there is a thing called “destiny” -
a goal at the end of my life that has been decided for me beyond my
comprehension and without the consent of my current consciousness –
and that I have accepted and allowed myself to act accordingly,
without directing and taking responsibility of my own life, right
here and now within and as breath.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to use “destiny” as an excuse to follow
certain paths that felt good but led to nothing concrete without
exploring all the other paths available and questioning the one I was
walking.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that I have been driven into
solitude by fear, that I have held onto it because of fear and that
staying within the solitude will allow the fear to keep on existing;
within this I realize I must step out and let go of solitude in order
to face and free myself of the fear that drove me into solitude in
the first place – the fear of being judged – the fear of not
being enough – the fear of ending up alone.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe the fear that drove me into solitude to
be valid – that the social world is based on ugly competition, and
that it is ok for me to “protect” myself from the punches by
closing myself up within my shell; in this, I forgive myself that I
have accepted and allowed myself to feel “safe” within my
unpenetrable shell of not-sharing, not-talking, not-communicating and
not-participating, not realizing I am alienating and separating
myself from myself and life, thus growing all the more “vulnerable”
and unable to face the world outside my shell.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear stepping out of my shell because I have
been afraid I'm not able to face the world without it; in this, I
forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust
myself to face the world and to define myself as “weak” and
“unable”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe what my surroundings defined me to be
throughout my childhood and to accept that definition as mine and to
reinforce it within my thoughts, speech and actions.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not carry my responsibility of the consequences
of defining myself as introverted, withdrawn, quiet and solitary and
consequently weak and unable, and thus blaming others (destiny, God,
family, friends, other kids) for them.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear the concept of ultimate solitude – the
fact that essentially we're all alone – and to escape it by
clinging to people and hoping they would be a “remedy” to my
loneliness.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to escape the concept of ultimate solitude into
images of the afterlife where I reunite with deceased loved ones; I
now see and realize the solace I found in these images was only
treating the symptoms of the root cause, and that it even if we did
reunite in the afterlife, which we cannot be sure of, it would not be
of relevance in this life and the speculation itself is not enough
basis for any kind of action or inaction.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to escape my fear of being alone by looking for
the company of others.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to escape my fear of facing myself as I am alone
into entertainment.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to escape my fear of facing myself as I am with
someone into entertainment, characters and social games, all from
within my shell.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear “boredom” when with others, as I have
been afraid that if I do not succeed in entertaining the other, I
will be judged as a “boring person” and I will be abandoned – I
will end up alone – not realizing that the purpose of kinship is
not to entertain one another but to support each other, and that if
we were both to allow ourselves to become “bored”, we would see
each other and ourselves as we really are – an important thing to
realize if we want to manifest actual support.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear death as it represents ultimate
loneliness.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe other people to be their personas
(masks) and to like, love, adore, admire and respect the personas
instead of facing who they really are by revealing myself; in this, I
forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear
revealing myself to others and thus keep up my own personas and
believe them to be true, separating myself from myself even further.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to refuse to stop and look at my reactions and
deal with them openly with whoever they concern, and I forgive myself
that I have accepted and allowed myself to hide my reactions from
others and myself in the fear of losing others and thus “ending up
alone”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear my reactions in the fear of not being
“good enough”; I now realize that within the act of hiding I am
making myself “less than” what I actually am, that by limiting
and restricting myself I cannot reach my full potential as a human
being.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to limit and restrict myself because I have
believed it will keep me “safe” from criticism, humiliation, pain
and embarrasment, not realizing the act of limitation itself creates
more points to be embarrassed, humiliated and afraid of.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to get anxious in the company of others wanting to
be alone “for a change”, not realizing that the resistance to
stay in others' company tells that I find the situation lacking
something.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize the reason I haven't been able to
relax and express myself freely in the company of others has been
myself and not something I can blame on those others.
I commit myself to let go of the word
“destiny” and instead live here and now self-directed carrying
full responsibility of my future.
I commit myself to dismantle all of my
characteristics and to reveal what's really underneath them. Thus I
also commit myself to find out whether any of them is actually true
and to let go of each one that is not.
I commit myself to step out of my
solitude to face the fears that I escaped, and to face, see and
realize the solitude itself to find out whether it's worth living
within and as solitude.
I commit myself to assist and support
myself to trust myself and to stand within myself without a shell,
and thus realize I don't need a shell to “take the punches”, that
I can handle every situation and challenge as myself, here, within
and as breath.
I commit myself to live in-dependency –
to carry myself fully as I have responsibility of myself, not
dependent on anyone else. My stability is my starting point, the core
of my being, and it cannot be built on others, as all others come and
go and I am the only one that stays. Thus I commit myself to return
to myself, as I will always be right here within myself.
I commit myself to live true to my
form, fearless and free in expression, and to not validate the
dishonesty of others no more.
I commit myself to notice, stop,
breathe, face, look at, breathe through and let go of each reaction
that occurs in me, and to share them openly whenever possible.
I commit myself to live openness and
honesty.
I commit myself to assist and support
myself to learn to communicate.
It is peculiar how small surface slice of each others minds we normally see. How everyone thinks that others are self-confident and strong just because they look self-confident and strong.
VastaaPoistaA big and fundamental realization for me was about six months ago when I realized that everybody is just as afraid of me as I am of them. Demystified a great many things and encounters!
Poista