I created a new blog in which I will go through a 7 year process of daily writing to deconstruct the patterns I have been taught to live as and to reassemble myself. A part of it will consist of self-forgiveness, what I've been publishing in this blog as well. I decided to create a blog for that purpose only and keep this one for possible other writings. Feel free to follow both if you're interested.
http://thespianjourney.blogspot.fi/
Loin uuden blogin, jossa tulen käymään läpi seitsenvuotisen jokapäiväisen kirjoittamisen prosessin. Prosessin aikana tulen käymään läpi mielen mallit ja rakenteet, jotka olen omaksunut ja oppinut, pästämään niistä irti ja kokoamaan itseni uudelleen. Osa prosessia on itseanteeksianto, jota olen jonkin verran julkaissut myös tässä blogissa. Päätin jättää tämän blogin mahdollista muuta kirjoittelua varten ja pitää prosessikirjoittamisen omassa tilassaan. Molempia saa lukea.
"Words are tears that have been written down. Tears are words that need to be shed. Without them, joy loses all its brilliance and sadness has no end."
maanantai 24. syyskuuta 2012
perjantai 21. syyskuuta 2012
What is my responsibility?
I've grown to think that as a waitress
my responsibility is to make sure customers get the best and purest
products possible. This means that my responsibility is to control
quality: to make sure food is as fresh as possible, that cakes are
moist and fluffy, that bread is straight from the oven, that
vegatables are recently cut, that soda is sparkly, that juice is
freshly squeezed, that toilets smell like a flowery meadow; that
everything is tip-top over-the-top perfect. The expectations for
quality vary a little bit among individuals, but only very little:
both rich and poor expect the very best as they're paying extra for
“service”.
What this system of set standards and
justified demands ignores is the amount of food and resources that
goes to waste, literally. I have thus far concluded two major
contributors from the waitress-POV for the tons and tons of edible
food that get thrown away.
1) The portions are huge. I worked for
three years in a big restaurant that was known for its big, so called
“men's portions” of food. The image of the place was based on
everything “big” and masculine, and the food was also junkfood-y,
hamburgers and steaks and all sorts of tex mex stuff. As I worked
there I started to take notice of the amount of food people left on
their plates. It's not just the people - the portions were huge and
not even all the “big masculine men” could finish them - but the
restaurant industry itself that lives by the traditions and standards
of restaurant culture.
It's thought that one should not leave
a restaurant with an empty stomach. It is a sign of a bad restaurant
that cannot feed it's customers well enough – “maybe the portions
are too small because they're greedy!” “Perhaps they're just
cheating us, maybe this amount of meat would have actually cost me
five euros but now I'm paying 20.” Big portions are a sign of a
restaurant that wants to leave all its customers happy, and it's also
seen as a sign of “honesty”, as you get a lot of food with less
money. Now, this attitude leads to portions being halfway finished
almost every time: as I worked the dishes almost every burger came
back as half a burger. I threw out kilos and kilos of bread, meat,
sauce, potato, vegetables and cheese within a few hours. When people
are too stuck with their beliefs to actually know their body and how
much it consumes, to know when to share a big portion with another,
or too afraid of judgement to take the leftovers home; when
restaurant owners are too busy pleasing everyone and not taking a
stand, we are left with our share of the food crisis.
2) Hygienic hysteria. If, as a
waitress, I drop a sugar cube onto the table I work upon, I'm
expected to throw it away even though I keep the working surface
clean and the sugar is just as it was before I dropped it. The
product has been soiled; it's not as clean as it was within the
package. If I transfer a cupcake from the freezer to the display
fridge using only pincers, it's a no-no. The air it travels through
might contaminate it, and I'm supposed to put the cupcake into a
clean unused box for the 5 metres it travels. If a day is quiet and
we're left with extra salad, I'm not allowed to use the salad
tomorrow even though it's still good, fresh and healthy – because
it's not as fresh as possible. Common sense flies out of the window
with these standards, even though people rarely complain unless
they've got something to compare to. “Why's her piece of cake
better than mine?” “Is there something wrong with yours, ma'am?”
“No, but hers is better!” Where I work now people are pretty
satisfied with what they get, even though the quality is nothing
fancy, but in a finer restaurant people find all sorts of little
things to complain about even though the quality really is top-notch.
If I followed that logic of offering
the very best possible, the amount of food I ought to throw away
every day would be insane: about 16 pieces of cake (90 euros loss,
more than my one-day pay), a few kilos of vegetable and fish, many
many kilos of pasta, 5 litres of soup, a few breads and pastries, a
bunch of cupcakes. Every day of every week. I did not count the stuff
I have found important to throw away daily anyway, such as
sandwiches, used milk, opened juice cartons, leftover food,
vegetables gone bad, baked goods gone dry. I throw bad stuff away
constantly, and throwing away stuff that is still fine really stands
out and bothers me.
Today I faced a situation where I had
to choose between two conflicting views: that of the set standards of
quality, and that of the entire worldful of famine where resources
are waisted again and again. I cannot tell publicly exactly what
happened as it might bring trouble to me and my employer, but I can
tell you that I had to think fast and I chose not to throw away an
item that by the standards should have been. It would have been a
major loss both financially and considering the resources.
I have been balancing between the two
views, making compromises and choosing sometimes one, sometimes the
other. For me it is very important to not get anyone sick – it is
my responsibility as the one who serves the food to make sure what
people put inside their bodies is not poisonous or infected or
possibly allergetic. That I take care of by for example keeping
utensils and dishes always as clean as possible. But I also realize
that the standards are an overreaction: the human body can fight off
a whole lot of bacteria, but the word “bacteria” itself is too
much for some to handle. Everything and aything that has “bacteria”
is bad, which shows just how little people know about food and their
bodies, as every single thing is actually swarming with different
kinds of bacteria, and food itself is basically bacteria. The
standards are also an image of luxury people like to live in: I can
afford the best = I'm ok, I'm enough, I'm good.
I will no longer compromise. I know
cakes won't save the world from famine, but this is where I am now
and this is the place for me to take action at this moment, no matter
the scale. Actions will accumulate; attitudes will be affected. I
will take care nothing goes to waste in vain, wherever I happen to
work.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear living according to my principles as I
have been afraid of being judged by an authority (boss, co-workers,
customers, officials).
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear being judged according to actions I know
to be right, as I have been afraid I will then be defined as a “bad
employee” and a “bad person” and might even lose my job.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear the negative reactions an authority might
bring forth according to my actions because I would have then taken
their judgement personally, as a true commentary of myself and
defined myself accordingly, instead of seeing the reactions as what
they really are. I now see and realize the reason I have been so
afraid is the fact that I have not been able to stand within myself
and my actions as a stable being right now and here, as I have
projected myself into possible future events and worst case
scenarios.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to take the reactions of an authority personally
and fall back into my mind structures even though my actions have
come from a stable point.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to act according to the phrase “customer is
always right”, even though I never believed it, as I faced pressure
from an authority and gave in, not being able to stand my ground and
to stand up.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not stand within myself and thus live
dishonesty when and as I have given into pressure and worn characters
instead of being myself within and as breath, and thus accepted and
allowed the conseqences of such self-compromising to accumulate and
add to the mess I was and am now sorting out.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that if I never bring my ideals
into action, those ideals will never come about in the physical
reality; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to
believe that good thoughts and intentions are enough and that someone
else can act for me as I am too afraid to / I cannot take the risk,
not realizing that I am the one to act, the only one I can move as
actions within this reality.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to blame others for the problems caused by the
restaurant industry – be it customers, co-workers, employers,
restaurant managers – not realizing the ways I have been
contributing to the problem supporting its existence, and the fact
that we are all responsible for what the world has become as the
descendants of those that built this world since we are just like
them in not having stopped the cycle humanity has lived according to
throughout its existence.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear others will perceive my actions a
sloppiness, laziness, greediness and “not caring”, when in fact,
as considering the big picture, to act any differently would be the
real act of ignorance.
I commit myself to investigate the ways
waste is created within the place I work at and reduce it through my
own choices as well as discussion and negotiation with my co-workers
and employers.
I commit myself to support and assist
myself to face people as equals, as people instead of authorities, to
be able to make the issue known and understood, and to no longer
compromise myself.
I commit myself, when and as I am faced
with a choice of throwing away or preserving, to stop and slow
myself down through breathing to examine all possible choices as to
what can be done with the food/product to not let it go to waste
(selling, eating it myself, offering it to a co-worker, selling for a
customer with half-price, giving it to a friend, giving it to someone
hungry, giving it as a gift, bringing it to a party, etc).
I commit myself to not stand by and
watch others create waste in vain. When and as I notice another being
throwing away something that still has value, I will support and
assist myself to stop, breathe and speak up, not through blame but as
facts and not accepting any bullshit, because even if whatever they
threw away that time is already damaged, me speaking up might bring
forth change within the person and change their actions in the
future.
I commit myself to carry my
responsibility of what we have accepted and allowed the world to
become by taking the action that is required right here and now, at
the place and situation I'm living in at the moment, realizing that
change is not required only in the worst of war zones but everywhere,
no matter the scale.
Tunnisteet:
anteeksianto,
food,
jäte,
ravintola-ala,
restaurant business,
ruoka,
self-forgiveness,
työ,
waste,
work
maanantai 17. syyskuuta 2012
Thank you for visiting us!
A couple of weeks ago I faced my
frustration towards my job. At the moment I don't do anything
particularly constructive for a living and participate in a harmful
societal construct, no matter how pleasant it is to work at a cafe
where people come to quietly enjoy themselves. The relative easiness
of the job itself may also be harmful, as when the work tasks become
automated actions it supports me as an automated being acting through
autopilot instead of making conscious choices in each and every
moment. I decided to focus on deconstructing the mind-patterns and
survival systems related to my job, as it is something I spend a
considerable amount of time on, and I will also try and get to the
root cause of the problems that often manifest within restaurant
business.
Today I faced a point of gratefulness.
I often go through an experience where, as I notice a customer
approaching the door of the cafe, I think “no, please don't come
in”. Today I stopped within the experience to notice that it's
where I then usually pretend to be welcoming when I'd just like to be
left alone.
Now, I of course realize that more
customers is a good thing for me. When we have plenty of customers
the company prospers and my income is more secure and might even
increase. As I know this to be true, why isn't my reaction to each
customer a genuinely happy one? The reason does not lie in laziness
as I work constantly throughout my shift, customers or not. There is
something within the interaction that makes me want to avoid
customers.
Last week I deconstructed a set of
phrases I use as I interact with customers. There's one thing I've
been taught to do as something that should always be done when
working in customer service: to ask if they want anything else after
they've already given their primary order. The logic behind this is
that people are prone to buy more if they're offered more, that they
don't always realize they want something else (this is bullshit:
within the offer the seller just creates needs and desires out of
nowhere) and that a customer is often so passive that they may not
even dare to ask for more if an active salesperson accepts their
primary order as it is. I've tested around during my years in the
business and noticed this to be true. I have never before questioned
the validity of the action, though. If I keep on asking people if
they actually want something more but are suppressing themselves and
not “daring” to say it out loud, I support the construct of
passiveness where no one is required to take full responsibility of
themselves. If there's always someone to dig you out of your shell,
you'll never learn to crawl out by yourself. This is an action I've
decided to stop doing and find a more constructive way to interact
with customers.
As I was deconstructing the
aforementioned phrase I also had a better look at the act of trading
itself. The trading business is based on a setting where one guy has
something that has some kind of a value, be it enjoyment, nutrition,
tools, you name it. Then there's another guy who wants that item.
Now, the first guy can either give the other what he has or, to
ensure he doesn't lose more by giving away than what he gets back
from others (a lack of trust in fellow people [note to self: when has
trading business begun? Check history.]), define a price for the
item. Now the first guy holds power over the other as he has what the
other wants/needs/desires/would benefit from, and can set whichever
price he wants. But the other one can also decide to not buy the
item. This would leave the first guy with an item he doesn't need and
without whatever the price he was asking for. That gives power to the
second guy, as he now has the power to say the price is too high and
leave the first guy in trouble. This game of give-and-take, this
power play is what keeps the trading business together: the first guy
fears he will be left without what he desires (money) and left with
useless stuff (the item) - and the second one desires what's offered
(the item) and fears it will cost him too much (money). This
interplay looks to me like two people at opposite ends of a rope
pulling and giving in to find a balance where both would be equally
stressed and uncomfortable.
To get back to my issues, the base
foundation of the trading business is twisted and affects the overall
pleasantness of the seller-buyer interaction I take part in every
day. Within the restaurant business alone the foundation has
manifested various roles and statuses that one is “supposed” to
accept, whether a servant or a customer, as dictated by a
self-perceived and believed authority (the boss, senior colleagues,
the customers). I'm still not sure where the core of this issue
within myself is, but what's essential is that the nature of the
business affects me constantly and has affected me for the past 4
years I've been doing this kind of work. Such major exposure to a
setting that is fundamentally a game has shaped me as I have
passively allowed myself to be shaped. I commit myself to change
myself within the business to change the business itself – it is so
corrupted there's no other way to affect it.
To get back to the point of
gratefulness, I'm afraid people will see my genuine kindness as mere
faking. I face all customers as equals, meaning I treat them with
respect and friendliness without excusing their possible bullshit. I
fear it will be seen as what many customer servants do: instead of
actually living kindness one presents an image of kindness out of
fear (of losing one's job) and desire (for the customer's money). From
within that fear I make the situation uncomfortable and tiresome for
myself. I refuse to make it a situation where I would be balanced and
content no matter the customer. Thus from within that imbalance I
make myself unable to interact as myself here and resort to the
automated phrases, tones and behavior I'm trying to free myself
from. I now stop compromising myself based on the justification that
an “authority” “demands” me to behave a certain way as I
trade items for others. I now see and realize that the judgement that
dictates my behavior is merely my perception of reality, and even if
it were completely true it's still only my perception and essentially
guesswork and thus should not be believed as the whole truth.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear conflict while working as I am afraid I
will not perform my role as the “servant” well enough and thus
cause a reaction of anger, frustration, dissatisfaction, spite and/or
annoyance in a customer which would lead me to think less of myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that the set of roles, characters
and statuses in restaurant business is a game where everyone
participates in creating a false and temporary reality of power,
dominance and escapism, and that all of this is not in fact real and
is just a massive delusional daydream believed by even those that
submit because they will have their turn to be the ones who dominate
and thus continue the cycle of revenge.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to participate in the aforementioned game, no
matter how unwillingly or unknowingly, thus supporting its existence.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe I ought to show gratefulness towards
the customers as they bring me what I “need” - the money that
supports my employer – when in fact the trade of items either
happens or doesn't happen and the act of trading itself does not
contain any statuses or emotions: it's just a trade, item for an
item, and the friendliness I associate with it comes from the
presence of human interaction, not from the imagined “debt” of
gratefulness.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to feel uncomfortable when facing a customer as I
fear I will draw a negative reaction from the other if I “fail”
to live up to the expected statuses and roles, and I forgive myself
that I have accepted and allowed myself to thus make myself incapable
of facing the customer as equals as myself here within breath as I
have trapped myself into fear.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to label the people that I trade items for money
with as “customers”, not realizing the word itself holds within
it a status, a value and a meaning that supports the construct of
inequality.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear the reactions of others because I have
believed them to be “more” than me as I have perceived them to be
in a station of power, not realizing the “power” they hold is but
an illusion that will vanish as I stop believing in it.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe and adapt into the way my senior
colleagues and employers have perceived the restaurant business to
be, thus continuing the cycle of self-abuse and revenge.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to lose myself and not stand within myself as I
have questioned the norms of the restaurant/trading business and
faced reactions of rejection, denial and judgement.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear and not trust people will be able to
tell the difference between faked kindness and genuine kindness, even
after I have received positive feedback from customers themselves as
well as employers and colleagues.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not trust myself to be “enough” as myself
within a situation where I interact with another with the purpose of
trading.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe the customers deserve and demand for
“service”, and that “service” is something more when in fact
it's something less. (The concept of “service” is something I'll
have to process separately as it is a vast point within this
profession.)
I commit myself to identify, stop and
face all the situations where and all the ways how I still make myself “less” than a
customer instead of living as equal to all life. When and as I see
myself resisting an interaction with a customer, I stop and slow
myself down through breathing and support and assist myself to face
the person as/within myself and as equal.
I commit myself to deconstruct the
constructs of my automated work behavior step by step through
writing to see what I actually manifest and support with my actions,
so that I may eventually reconstruct myself to function as a
manifestation of life instead of an automated slave to the mind.
I commit myself to support and assist
myself to stand within myself and to maintain my stability in each
and every moment, no matter who I interact with and how.
keskiviikko 12. syyskuuta 2012
fear of falling
Fear of falling. To fear failing in
ones attempts. To fall is to let yourself crash; to allow yourself to
be what you are not. It is to know better and do it anyway. It is not
necessarily manifested as a conscious act of “giving permission”,
as the acceptance is given mainly through different forms of energy:
emotions, feelings, fears, desires, thoughts. “Falling in love”
is to fall. Giving in to vices is to fall. Lying is to fall. To not
brush your teeth in the evening is to fall. To get angry is to fall.
As people we fall all the time, even
though it is not recommended. We keep on doing it anyway.
I fear falling. I remember having fallen
majorly two times in my life: first when I was just around turning
16, second when I was 19. On the surface I fear that which falling
has caused in my life before, which is “losing everything”. I
have lost people, relationships, money and “my entire world”, but
the only “lost” thing that has been valid has been myself. As I
have lost myself when falling I have witnessed my whole self
crumbling: my abilities to make decisions, control my life, know what
is true and stand as an individual have fallen to pieces. As I have
lost myself and then fallen, I haven't had anything to stand on –
no trust in myself and nothing to believe in – and I have felt “my
entire world falling apart”, and believed that feeling to be true.
In reality, had I not allowed myself to fall, the happenings that
caused me to crash would have been completely manageable. Falling was
and is never necessary.
The real reason I fear falling is that
I fear I will then appear as something “less”. Losing oneself is,
too, a very frightening experience I do not wish to repeat, but if I
stay honest with myself, stand within myself as myself and forgive
myself what I have accepted and allowed myself to be and become, I
have nothing to be afraid of. I am the foundation I build upon, and I
am the one who keeps it together. Within my fear I also find distrust
in myself, as I do not trust I could keep myself stable.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear falling as I have been afraid I will then
appear as something “less” to others.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear appearing as something “less”,
believing that people would then judge me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe that I am judged by others and that
their judgement is valid.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to perceive the world as a place where people
constantly judge others, especially those who are less, and that it
is a game one must participate in to avoid “losing”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe myself to have actually been “less”
as I have fallen, not realizing my value is always equal to everyone,
and that in fact no one is ever “more” or “less”.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fall.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to lose myself as I have fallen.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to abandon my responsibility to carry myself and
direct myself, and that I have thus not lived as myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to be and become someone I am not.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to live as the reflection of another – that I
have accepted and allowed myself to become what I perceive another
person(s) to be.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to live an image I would like to be, instead of
realizing what's actually required for change and live accordingly.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to want to become another out of fear of not being
good enough as I am. (Thus I have not been who I really am and the
situation has ended up with me falling.)
I have had a desire to please. I have
had such distrust in myself that I have feared I am not “enough”
as I really am, and I have adapted to people and situations in a way
where I replace myself with an image of someone else (real or
imaginary). As what I have seen has only been a perception and not
the actual experience and life of another being, what I have made
myself into has never been more than an image pasted on myself. The
dishonesty I have been living has then accumulated up to a point
where I have fallen.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear that I am not enough, hereby stating that
my “value” is measured by some authority outside of me, not
realizing the value of human beings is always equal as we are all as
much living beings, representatives of life.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe my perception of another to be real,
not considering the fact that the subjective experience of each human
being is inaccessible by others and thus the reality of ones
experience can never be fully understood from the outside.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not trust myself to be able to carry myself
through every experience by standing within each and every breath.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not trust myself to be able to direct my life
by and as myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe there are experiences that are “too
much” and that within those experiences it's ok to fall, when in
fact there is no situation I can't handle as I carry myself within
and as breath and in self-honesty.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to believe that experiences can be measured on a
scale of “more difficult” and “less difficult”, when in fact
experiences as themselves are all equal and the feeling of “hardship”
is created by how we perceive ourselves to be within that situation,
when our perception is also just a perception and not the reality
itself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to justify my falling by assessing the situation
at hand to be “more difficult”.
I commit myself to support and assist
myself to find a state of stability from which I can actually live my
life by being here in each and every breath.
I commit myself to identify, face,
stop, breathe through and redirect the situations where I justify
falling, no matter the scale.
I commit myself to face myself in
absolute honesty to see and realize what I have accepted and allowed
myself to become.
I commit myself to support and assist
myself to build trust in myself as I now see and realize the only one
I can or should rely on is myself.
sunnuntai 2. syyskuuta 2012
(w)here am I
I have gone through a very interesting
process within the past week through certain actions, their
consequences and the way they were handled. I have realized what
actually happened, how and why it happened the way it did and learned
new things about myself and the laws according to which the human
mind functions. I will now open it through writing to clarify and
internalize.
On Sunday I was faced with fears, some
of which I was conscious of and some of which I wasn't. The ones I
had been conscious of were of the kind I had been dealing with for
some time but without consistency, and I had been hoping the progress
I had made thus far would be enough for me to face the situation
without addressing the issue with others involved. The ones I had not
been conscious of have been opening up little by little during the
week as I have been conscious of the issue, and more will probably be
revealed as I venture deeper into this issue.
As I decided to leave the issue
unaddressed, the situation ended up in confusion. It was not properly
discussed immediately after, as we, the participants, didn't stop to
clarify what had happened and why. We let it slide out of fear and
everything was left unresolved.
The situation was discussed a few days
afterwards. I had gone through the discussion in my head beforehand,
“rehearsed it” so I would not be misunderstood, and while going
through how I would say what I wanted to say I did find an actual
point of stability when I realized that I would be able to let go of
the ones involved and go on with my life without them; not a
resolution I hope for, but one I would be able to face.
As we discussed I gave into fear before
the issue was even addressed. I was going to address it directly, yet
I didn't, and I waited around for other participants to bring it up
and ask me directly – as is visible, the “rehearsing” didn't
help at all. I knew what I was going to say even without the
mind-preview, as I knew what I was talking about, yet I did not trust
myself.
As we discussed, I faced an
unexpectedly aggressive reaction from another. I have discussed this
issue with others before and depending on the person it has always
been handled differently, yet I have never faced a reaction of such
rejection before. I reacted to the reaction with a fear I closely
relate to the issue at hand – the fear of abandonment. I reacted by
becoming “less”. I went with the reaction of the other and
validated it by making myself “less”, and experienced guilt,
shame and a need to apologize.
After the discussion I was alone in my
apartment and felt a crushing need to “fall”: to let myself
crumble and turn into a hystericly crying mess. I knew I do not want
to allow myself that, as it is an explosion of energy that could be
directed otherwise, and as all the emotions driving me towards
“falling” are of the kind that can be let go of and handled
without crumbling. I forbid myself to collapse and focused on my
breathing, and within the act of forbidding I made a mistake – I
suppressed the emotion trying to get out and stopped myself from
seeing what was actually driving me, and instead I created a new kind
of a demon. I got trapped into a state I now call being “possessed
by energy”.
As I was focusing on my breathing I
really thought I had returned here, but as I could have noticed from
my physical symptoms (crying and shaking) I really was not. I tricked
myself into believing I was doing ok. I have been introduced to the
tool of self-forgiveness and I know it can be used to free myself of
anything I face, and as I thought I was ok and as I really wanted to
let go of what I was experiencing, I ended up using the tools, but as
I noticed afterwards, if utilized from within energy it is nothing
but abusing the tools for ones own end, making no real progress nor
actual change. I had trapped myself within the energy demon that
consisted of a myriad of fears, and from within the fear I tried to
face the things I was at the moment blind to. It was useless and led to writing I published on my blog (http://toepoe.blogspot.fi/2012/08/what-your-soul-sings.html).
As the energy psychosis faded I little
by little started to see everything that went wrong. I now see that I
“failed” even though I know failing is unneccessary on the path
of progress. I asked myself what could have been done differently –
how could this have been avoided – and realized this is not the
question to ask, as the situation could have been settled during the
discussion, or on Sunday, or ten years ago in my childhood, or a
hundred years ago when our culture was developing – you probably
see my point here, as I could go on and on. Things have been leading
up to this point for god knows how long.
As I had been going through these
realizations I also experienced impatience. I wanted to discuss this
stuff through immediately, but then I asked myself why, and realized
that there too lies fear: I fear a delay will cause the other to make
a decision within which any and every “explanation” I present
would not be heard – thus I fear I will be unfairly judged and
abandoned – and then I acquired a point of stability from within
myself that has been within me from since. If I am not heard even
though I speak that which is true in self-honesty without aggression,
and if it is not even discussed, then the one who does not hear is
not what I am looking for and can be let go of with no remorse.
For a few days I have been assisting
myself in maintaining that point of stability and it has been. I
didn't sleep for three nights in a row and the fourth was nothing but
restless dreams, and the night time when I cease my daily activities
is when my mind attacks me, but I have been pulling through
surprisingly good even without sleep. (I have been active during the
day simply because I have had a lot to do, not because I would be
escaping my thoughts – a welcome pause, yes, but I am also
conscious of how one could be escaping into work.)
I will turn to self-forgiveness, now
knowing my tool better.
Tilaa:
Blogitekstit (Atom)