Or how to practically challenge the ‘I will never….’ statements
I’m currently doing things that I would not have done before, that I had said ‘I’m never going to do’ or that I was resisting to get to do not that long ago, yet upon also analyzing to what extent these beliefs were limiting me in many ways, I realized how I was sticking to certain views and ideas about myself and what I am willing to do or not as part of a religion of self, where I believed that ‘I have to stick to my words’ or ‘I have to follow through my decision’ even if these words or decisions are proven to be ineffective, rather limiting or leading myself to a form of restriction or ‘sacrifice’ within a moral view of what I believed is right or wrong to do.
An example is getting a car and learning to drive. I had been wanting to avoid doing this for such a long time and dragging this around as something I would ‘someday, maybe, eventually do’ but ultimately had not placed a time and date for it, believing that somehow I could just prolong it and leave it hanging there for indefinite time. However, I am glad that certain situations in my reality have also led me to push to get this done and saw for myself how it was rather ‘easy’ it was to give direction to these two points in terms of finding a suitable used car and scheduling the driving lessons. I had the first one today and yes of course it’s completely doing something that I had for sure feared and so resisted to do for such a long time that whatever I face as fear is only also an accumulation of all the reasons, excuses and justifications I would tell myself in order to not move and direct this point in my life, which I am definitely now aware is something that I can get to enjoy and benefit from.
Here then for example, some of the reasons, excuses and justifications I used to not learn to drive is not wanting to pollute more the world with one more car, opting to walk around for the most part, take uber rides or public transportation which I have defined also as ‘grounding moments’ which sure I can still do whenever it’s practical do so, but it’s of course cool to have an option that is a more independent form of transportation. I also got to take pride on walking long distances, to the point where I could walk to places without even taking public transportation, which is still something enjoyable for sure and great exercise, though sometimes road to get somewhere is not always walkable, weather conditions are not always suitable and this also becomes a determining factor to go out to places that are mostly nearby, which has actually been then a limitation for me to not go to places where public transportation doesn’t get to or private rides would be too expensive. So, with having a car I can then circumvent these limitations and get around easier.
In terms of seeking a car, it was also quite a time consuming situation, something that I had to not give up on and be patient about as well, it’s not so ‘easy’ to buy a used car and be satisfied in most aspects about it, so I am glad I found the one I ended up buying right when I said ‘ok I’m done, this is the last number I’m calling to’ – and a part of me also wants to diminish all of this as petty situations, nothing too ‘transformative’ or these are things that people do on a daily basis, but here I also have to consider my context and my particular beliefs that I had to essentially breakthrough – or step out of character – in order to do all of this, so I have to not go into a projection about how this might be read, because here I share the direction that’s needed to do things that I had postponed for a long time until realizing the benefit that it creates.
Another thing I decided to do is get into a short running race for amateurs on Sunday, it’s essentially a 3 km jog that I regularly do, and I managed to get a second place in it lol, it was funny because to me it ended up being a lot more considering I jogged all the way back and forth to the start of the race, so I also discovered that I can in fact jog more than what I usually do and my body didn’t get strained at all, which means that whenever I feel like I can barely complete one loop around the track it means I am most likely listening to my mind and not really being here with and as my body. Of course this wasn’t among ‘professional’ so I’m not bragging about the position here, but rather seeing how this was easy for me to do because of having been consistently jogging.
This is again something I would not have at all considered I would do in my life based on how much I would suffer to give a jog around a smaller track when being in junior high school and saying words like ‘I’m never going to run again in my life.’ For this race, I had to make a decision to participate in it, get myself inscribed which is by all means something I would not have dreamed of doing over 2 years ago when I would probably run 100 meters and start panting… it may seem easy to say to be part of a race, but again taking my context into consideration, I would always only fume about how I ‘sucked at running’ and ‘loathed physical exercise’ many years ago. However with consistency I’m about to do some 2 years of being regularly jogging without having any problems in my body with it, being very gentle as well and not over doing it, as well as continuing walking on a regular basis which I’ve done for some 10 years or so, which has also been very assisting to me, my grounding ‘get away from computer’ moment as well, a ‘me time’ walk towards downtown and yes for sure also doing it for the exercise it is. Here I also place a disclosure that many people consider jogging is not good for the body, and so it might not but that’s where I’m at right now with it and enjoying a lot the fact that I can do something I would not have dreamed of being able to do before – of course starting with small steps, practicing, just like with everything, which I now remind myself of now that I got quite into the ‘new zone’ of learning to drive, and reminding myself to be patient about these new things to learn, expansion it is!
I’ve also been painting something that I sincerely would not have done 10 years ago when I started my career, and it is funny how I am remembering more about the classes I decided to skip many times because of how I deemed my teacher was ‘too conservative’ and that I was ‘never going to paint the stuff he wanted us to paint’ and even had verbal arguments with him where I got into one of those arrogant positions of me being all about abstract art and ‘could not care less for painting a self-portrait.’ And I just realized I kind of just painted that lol! And I am actually blushing right now in embarrassment while remembering that moment with that teacher where I almost let everybody know how much I disliked his ways and creating a belief that I also was not precisely appreciated by him, which I actually later on had to debunk for the assumption it was on my side, and also up till this day, I do regret not having gotten some basics from him, because they are in fact the kind of apprenticeship that you don’t get anywhere else, so I share this as a cautionary tale to ‘never say never’ and realize that any skills are always welcomed to be learned, because we never know when we might need them.
But in my case that’s done and now all I can do is learn those skills myself. Here simply sharing as part of those things that I said I would ‘never do’ and have kind of just ended up doing it anyways because I am also exploring different things to do and challenging what comes ‘natural’ to me and doing things I would usually definitely not do when it comes to painting.
I’ve discovered how painting or doing art is where most of my self doubt can emerge because there is not set ‘right or wrong’ ‘finished or unfinished’ type of task that I am good at – when it comes to self-creation it is a process in itself and that’s also how I’m realizing that it goes beyond the ‘final product’ as well, it also has to do with how one goes shaping one’s expression every brush of the way so to speak. And yes I also have to eat my words as well when I said I wasn’t going to paint again and do art again… well, here I am, one more to the list of things that I’ve gotten to ‘get back to’ or start learning to do or continue integrating in my life, which I am definitely enjoying because it is one of those things I do for myself and discovering new starting points for it becomes a nurturing hand in hand process with the Desteni Process as well.
Same with travelling to a particular country that I said ‘I won’t ever step foot into it again!’ and ranting about it… well, yep I can never know what opportunities may open up in relation to that country as well so, I can only eat humble pie and take my words back, self-forgive my absolutism/self-fascism that I now realize I have kept as a form of limitation which I am now very much willing to and ready to expand from.
With these few examples and others in my day to day, I am seeing more clearly how ‘tight-viewed’ I have kept myself in relation to many things in my life just because of believing that I am comfortable the way I am, but in reality it might not be so and the only way to get to know where one is actually limiting oneself or in fact doing something out sheer preference, is by testing things out and realizing that nothing is lost by testing something out, giving it a go, doing something ‘out of the normal’ which I am definitely eager to continue doing in various ways as well. It definitely seems like I am shedding an old skin so to speak and opening my horizons to something beyond what has become very normal and regular to me.
The overall point as a reminder for myself is: never say never, because we won’t ever in fact know what is ‘around the corner’ in our lives and creating these statements like ‘I’ll never drive a car’ ‘I dislike jogging’ or ‘I hate painting self-portraits’ or ‘I am never going to buy a car’ or ‘I won’t ever grow my hair back again’ are statements I made at a certain point in my life, but I’m learning to not keep myself captive within my own sentences and instead challenging myself, because to me many times it felt as if I was ‘betraying myself’ by doing all of these things, but all I’ve seen is the betrayal of opinions, beliefs, morals – ultimately a religion of self where I was not really considering all the potential situations or outcomes in life that I have to in fact be flexible about, so this is also another practical way to live the word flexibility.
All of this is of course part of walking this Desteni process where these decisions to do something and actually ‘move’ in our reality – even more so when they are ‘out of the comfort zone’ situations – are quite supportive to transcend our fears, our limitations, our beliefs, our morals, our ‘religion of self’ and continue challenging myself this way, which is then again going hand in hand with my previous blog on ‘provocation’ and provoking myself to ‘loosen up’ some of the tight and rigid fixed ‘norms’ I had set for myself throughout my life in the past – or up to fairly recently – because hey, every day can be an opportunity to challenge these limitations.
Ok, let’s continue walking.
Thanks for reading.
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