644. Strengthening Confidence

 

 It’s been some interesting and very active past 2 months, time seems to go flying to me and it seems that the more that I have expanded my view on how to get things done in relation to ‘having a baby’ and more specifically on ‘delivering’ a baby, a lot more has kind of opened up within me to ‘integrate’ the realization of soon having a new little person in our lives that we have to completely and absolutely take care of, and embracing that fact by preparing myself the best that I can for it. This is a practical way to create confidence within myself which is a word I’ll be writing quite a bit about today, considering I’ve made two words to live by the focus of my current living time which are: confidence and strength.

I have previously written about and understood confidence to be the result of doing something many times, practicing something a lot to the point where you feel at ease, comfortable in doing it, trusting yourself that ‘you can’ because you have done it so many times. However, when it comes to something that will be a ‘once off’ situation like in this case having a baby – and yes no matter how many one may have, each time will be surely different and unique – one cannot really ‘practice’ that process to the point of getting comfortable with it. One can play a simulation, get some exercises and movements integrated at a physical level to become more aware of the body parts involved, become more aware of breathing, understanding the ‘theory’ behind the birthing process, strengthening the body to the point where one can withstand such a demanding and strenuous process – or so I’ve been told/heard/read it is – but that’s as far as one can go.

In this case, there’s that complete aspect of ‘stepping into the unknown’ and something unlike anything I have felt or gone through before, the complete newness of it surely brings uncertainties, doubts, fears and the usual thing that emerges with anything new are – most likely – all the ‘worst things that could happen’ and I will say that, to a certain extent it is OK to be informed in all things that ‘could go wrong,’ but knowing is not the problem: worrying, preoccupying oneself about that IS the problem. And that’s something that I have also been working on by instead focusing on living this process of ‘preparation’ day by day and having a focus on living the words confidence and strength, and I’ll explain how in this blog.

I consider I am directing the diligence and discipline that I may have for more ‘mental’ tasks in a more physical-body level currently based on what I’ve informed myself will be required for me to deliver a baby naturally. The words that got me to consider this were: “it will most likely be like climbing up a mountain” and well, considering I’ve not been that proficient at doing such a thing before, I considered it was a bit ‘too late’ to get prepared for that, but people in these preparation processes have encouraged me to think otherwise and to rather be able to trust myself in being able to do it. But only ‘thinking’ I can trust myself is definitely not enough for me. 

Interestingly enough, I have kept a somewhat constant physical activity for some 15 years – yes before I was a coach potato for the most part and ‘loathed’ physical exercise – in some phases I’ve pushed myself a lot more than in others, but I never really considered myself as having some kind of ‘athletic wood’ so to speak, and I’ve realized that these were also self-imposed limitations based on ‘the genes’ I have or ‘the family I come from’ where physical activity wasn’t really inculcated, etc. All excuses, to be honest. Well, enough with the excuses. Today I’m on my 31 week, yep that means less than 10 weeks now to give birth and I’ve been feeling quite well to be honest.

I know I have ‘pooped’ my emotions here about those first three months and surely, they weren’t pleasant at all, perhaps if I could have done something different it would have been to push myself to do some light exercises and stop fearing ‘miscarriages’ altogether, because it wasn’t supportive or healthy to have that in mind the whole time, so there, that’s my point to advice and perhaps learn from, so from pre-occupying myself I decided to rather strengthen myself and my resolve to walk this whole decision of having a baby and becoming a mother the best way that I can, not only for myself, but for my baby’s wellbeing.

Ever since the fourth month kicked in and I started to get back to being active, things improved a lot within me –mentally and physically – and I haven’t stopped talking about the importance of physical exercise to really support the body through all the changes that it is going through with the pregnancy. I’ll share here how I went introducing that because as much as I don’t like to say ‘this is how things should be or go,’ who knows? Someone might give it a try and integrate activities that might assist them in their body and maybe explore others that may ‘resonate’ or be more aligned with themselves in terms of exercises or activities to keep oneself active throughout the pregnancy. 

On the fourth month I started doing some light prenatal yoga from videos on YouTube, which were a nice way to get myself ‘back on track’ after – really – doing Nothing for 3 months. Ugh, I feel a bit of frustration about that because I definitely saw how the lack of my usual walks and exercise definitely had an impact on my mental state – and I know there will be a phase like that after our baby is born, so I have to be gentle and understanding on that and know that ‘it is a phase’ only and to embrace it as part of the  recovery process.

Then, I got into swimming, I originally only wanted ‘free time’ in a pool, but I decided to actually take the classes and have some guidance on my time in the pool, so I’m taking swimming classes and aqua fitness which apparently is quite recommendable for pregnant ladies as well. This is where the ‘surprising’ factor comes in based on how much I’ve been enjoying that – as I mentioned in my last blog – but also how I thought my endurance would diminishing as baby grows, but the contrary is happening, I would say. I enjoy how there’s some strengthening happening in my body and surely, yes, I take it ‘slower’ perhaps, but the drive and commitment to be there every single time pushing myself a bit more has been quite an awesome experience for me, considering that I thought that those qualities were mostly like ‘mental’ qualities for me, but taking them to a physical level, has been quite rewarding in terms of the result of all of this is  feeling quite well physically, and consequently having my mind, my body quite well and aligned I’d say, feeling at peace with it, which is surely supportive for both of ourselves in the body J

I also got back into doing my usual walk which is like 3 kilometers a day at least, perhaps not ‘every day’ but 5 times a week if I can. I did have a flu that lasted some 3 days and I didn’t go out then, but on the fourth day I was back on track and that also supported me to recover faster. Then, I only started prenatal yoga at the end of last month and that I definitely regret not having gotten into before, but as they said: it’s not too late and so I’m there. That has definitely been quite ‘on spot’ for me to strengthen the muscles that will be involved in the whole delivery process and also encouraging myself to get better at it withstanding those yes, very demanding poses at times – lol – but knowing hey! I am getting better at it as weeks go by, regardless of baby bump growing or me putting on weight, which interestingly enough hasn’t also sky rocketed because of the exercise I guess and surely, watching out my food intake as well because! I did see the consequences of going into all the ‘dia de muertos’ treats like the sweet bread lol, where I gained an extra kilo by indulging too much into it, and I immediately noticed there was some swelling going on so that was a ‘red alert’ for me to cut out carbs and not over indulge. So that was also me listening and paying attention to my body, something I thought I just ‘wasn’t able to do’ or couldn’t ‘connect’ with, this whole pregnancy process has definitely assisted me to get more intimate and integrate more with my body, that’s for sure.

And then last but not least, continuing with my qi gong classes which have been overall supportive in integrating myself more within my body, learning to breathe and so become more aware of breath throughout the day and integrate some more of my strengths and core capacities by acknowledging what we are all made of, who we really are as living matter and what we are meant to live and do here on Earth. All of these activities also involve getting to know and meet people that have a similar vein of self-support, self-improvement, self-development and that’s awesome without a doubt, because many times one can feel a bit ‘alone’ in some processes so getting ‘out there’ and meeting people in doing physical activities together has assisted me a lot as well.

I guess one of the satisfactions I have is how from the let’s call it ‘dread and fear’ I had at the beginning of the pregnancy, I set myself to turn it around into a process of self-empowerment – both physically and mentally – through practicing ways to live the words confidence and strength, which to me have come from the physical doings which in turn remind myself of such confidence and strength at an ‘inner’ level, which is what we are all capable of being and doing, but we don’t remind ourselves of it enough or we ‘placate’ those attributes by focusing too much on fears and mental distractions that lead nowhere but to disempowerment. And that usually comes from fears and oh, we know where fears lead us…… to the grave.

It has also been a cool confirmation of all of this when going to the doctor for checkups and have him read a whole list of possible problems or symptoms and say ‘nope’ to all of them. My main discomforts have been related to having to pee constantly and some heartburn or acidity in the esophagus, for which I was told it is ok to take antacids, and so that’s what the prescription was about. That’s been about it for my pregnancy discomfort so far. What’s the reason for this? Again, I attribute this to physical activity and a change of attitude within me towards the whole process.

Meaning, when I decided ‘I’m going to FULLY do and embrace this pregnancy, that means doing the most that I can to be well in my body not only for myself but for the baby too, which is also being reflected in how things are developing with her, which is awesome and satisfying as well. Again, I got told so many stories of all things that could go wrong, and it’s OK to learn from others’ mistakes and experiences, but I have also taken all of that feedback as a way to challenge it and myself within it, and trusting my body in its capacity to do this, which it already does without me being able to be at all aware of how my body, my life, is developing another life within me, I’m just doing the ‘balancing and maintenance’ so to speak, and preparing the ‘mothership’ as best as I can, but also not going by the idea that ‘I shouldn’t be doing all that physical work’ and so forth, because, the results are the results so far, so that’s a physical proof that the more I keep at it with strengthening my body and keeping confident that I will know when to slow down or change routines, I will then make changes accordingly, but not out of fear, but out of consideration for my body and for the baby, which is a physical assessment by the day.

There were a couple of days after I hit the 30 weeks where I thought ‘uh the discomfort is kicking in now’ which was a thought linked to hitting the 30 weeks mark in gestation, but I said to myself, it’s only more weight on the belly, you can get used to it, might take some days but then it will be the ‘new sensation’ only – and yes, gladly it was temporary as well. So, a change in attitude has also been a key point as well when it comes to it, because it’s easy to get influenced by others’ stories and experiences, but also the more you hear about people that have pushed themselves beyond ‘perceived limits,’ it inspires you to do the same and test it out with due caution of course.

A part of me didn’t want to share about all of this because there is that tendency in all of us to compare and believe that ‘if she can, then I can’ and that’s most likely not the case either.  Each one’s physical and emotional process will be entirely different based on the fact that no ‘two’ individuals are ever exactly the same. What I am seeing at this moment is also the result of all the work done first at a mind level within this process with Desteni, learning how to handle my emotions, my fears and now integrating more of a physical aspect to it, integrating more with my body through the exercises and practices, which yes many times lead me to wonder ‘Why on Earth hadn’t I done this before?’ but hey, I can’t live in remorse about that, it’s here, I’m here, I’m doing it, I’m enjoying it and that’s what counts to me.

It’s also very supportive to meet people going through the same process – in this case pregnancy – and seeing how they handle it, that has been mostly inspiring and opening ideas and doors to try things out that were completely ‘out of my radar’ before, investigating, learning more about our bodies as we go through pregnancy and during labor and all that stuff that I simply wasn’t interested ‘at all’ before. And that has also led me to appreciate and be in more connection and comfort within my own body, yes, even though that belly is getting bigger by the day, there’s an appreciation of how the body can ‘handle’ that ‘weight of life’ as I like to call it hehe and still be functioning well, without me giving it ‘orders’ of what needs to be done, and that’s also how that confidence exists at a very primal and pure physical level of ‘my body knows what it’s doing’ and I am like a care-taker that ensures I give it proper rest, nutrition, exercise and mental support as in self-checking what is ‘moving’ as things open up and happen as we prepare to become parents.

One of the main topics have also been standing our ground in terms of how we want to do things, despite the fears or warnings we may get from others around us that I’m sure have the best intentions to provide certain information or experience as a form of care, but! There’s also an importance in doing things the way that resonate the best with where one is in relation to one’s body, one’s life, one’s partner in this case and assessing what would be of course best for the baby to come, even if that involves more challenges, perhaps more pain if you will, some ‘risks’ like with anything, but ultimately the more we ground ourselves with this strengthening of confidence, the more the ‘what ifs’ and ‘fears’ go dwindling.

In my case as I’ve discussed in my very first blog about pregnancy, I noticed that ‘it all’ was ‘the greatest fear’ I had: to get pregnant, to deliver a baby – naturally or through surgery – and to become a mother/parent. And it’s been quite cool to look back and see how I’ve set myself for it without half-assing the process or leaving it in the hands of fate to see ‘how things will be’ so to speak, meaning, doing nothing to get prepared, informed and as much as I can ready for what’s to come. But as with anything, that’s as much as I can do and as far as my certainty can go. There’s also the understanding and awareness that we may have certain plans and ideas of ‘how things will go,’ but I’m also totally aware this is the unknown and uncharted territory for us, so, I’m also integrating the flexibility, the ability to understand that if things can’t go as expected, if something happens ‘out of the foreseen,’ I can trust myself that no matter what, I can go through it, there can be solutions, there are always ways to walk through something and that in the end, things will be alright – and this may not mean a ‘desired outcome’ – but rather understanding how things happen and one can only buckle one’s shoes to walk that path and learn as one goes in the moment as it happens.

Perhaps something I will say is to not ‘conform’ or ‘settle’ for something that one is not 100% comfortable with or certain about. We live in a great time where any and all kinds of info is at the tips of our fingers and in our pockets, so it really takes that will to say ‘nope, I am not satisfied with this plan/idea of how to do things, let’s see what other options there are’ and that unravels perhaps a whole new path and way of doing and approaching things that in turn, can be a lot more satisfying, grounding, supportive and beneficial than if settling for the ‘not so great but at least known’ or ‘settling for the comfortable’ so to speak, which at least in my book is not something I want to do in my life.

This is also where I can remind myself that even if things do not go as expected, I can be satisfied with myself that I made a decision and have lived it all the way every single day with the best attitude and effort, discipline and commitment that I can, because yes I knew I could not ‘live with myself’ if I had remained in say, the physical and mental state that I was in when I walked those first three months… sure the nausea was just endless every day and all those abrupt physical changes but, I know that also my unsettled fears and what ifs may have aggravated that. So, for me what worked is physical activity and through that balancing out whatever else may come at a mind level to deal with. For some others it might be the other way around or not need the physical activity at all – but this is my experience thus far.

And yes, who knows, it’s interesting how it goes when others share their experience, it’s almost as if hardship is expected, like ‘oh you will see how it goes when you hit the third trimester’ or ‘oh you won’t be so light about it when you can’t sleep or tie your shoes’ and so forth… but, even those comments and experiences I’m taking as a reference to perhaps challenge them – or confirm them in any case – and really getting to see how truthful they are or if they are just an outcome of perhaps not having remained active enough during pregnancy to keep a relative level of functionality. And again, this may not be a possible thing to do for each one based on previous health conditions, so, not to be taken personally, but if one is sound and healthy, then surely there is no reason to not try out some of these suggestions out.

Also watching YouTube videos of people that have kept a good level of functionality throughout their pregnancy has been quite supportive and inspiring, but not only on YouTube because it has been very encouraging to for example meet a lady on my first day of prenatal yoga and ask her ‘hey how far are you in your pregnancy?’ and her replying ‘Oh I’m on the 9^th month, I could give birth today actually, who knows! I’m feeling kind of weird today’ and still go through the entire – yes –physically rocking session of prenatal yoga. I actually sent her a voice message to thank her for her example, which cheered her up after some complications that she had upon delivery and nursing. This was also a cool reminder for me to not keep quiet when I see strengths in others that may need to hear about it in moments of weakness or disempowerment, she thanked me for it even though I only met her once and talked to her for about 10 minutes in total, but that contact was also crucial for a number of reasons, and perhaps someone that I will continue to relate to as time goes.

Why hadn’t I written before? Things had to be walked real time for me to share with confidence about it, it’s easy to write words and ideas of what to do, but walking them, living them and sharing back the results is what counts the most for me, since I then have a tangible reference of how things are going  and how it all seems to be working well for me, which is satisfying – and perhaps it assists in ‘what’s to come’ as in strengthening my character and getting ready for the life changing event, which will surely rock my world around for good.

Another factor is that baby doesn’t like me to remain sitting for long periods of time – and yes even if I switched my office chair for a bouncing birth ball, she likes activity for sure, so she starts kicking when I’ve been sitting for longer periods of time, so I’ve had to move things around in my day to still keep at it with my responsibilities, but also attend and listen to my body and my baby to get food, movement, exercise, sleep and so forth. Right now I skipped my daily walk because we had a pregnancy circle reunion during the morning to meet other ‘to be’ parents and discuss about the general doubts and learn some stuff for the delivery process, which was cool, but then, that involved being out and traveling a bit further away so, I decided to stay home for the afternoon and write this out.

At some point I thought I was going to write more about ‘standing up to others’ fears’ but, I realized that would have been more like a ‘defense’ mode or ‘attacking’ mode to people’s fears that I did allow myself to feel conflicted by at some point when it comes to deciding to give birth naturally, but then I realized that fears are just fears. I have to understand why they emerge, why some people hold them as ‘truth’ to their heart and simply understand that it might also be a cool process for them to see how things can go without fears or ameliorating their fears even with say natural remedies – or plain meds in some cases – to assist the body to walk through some of those fears. In this case it’s more in relation to my mother for example in how she presents this pattern and I’m learning to not take it personally or be influenced by it, but more so understand it and also see myself reflected in them in order to see what I have to also change within me to not follow through that ‘fear path’ that she has – which has definitely also ‘poured through’ into the rest of the family. I realized that I do not need to ‘stand up to fears’ but more like focusing on strengthening our resolve, our will, our determination and our confidence to walk through something that, well, should be as natural as eating for the most part, otherwise humanity would have gone extinct a long time ago, isn’t it?

So I’m learning to not get influenced or ‘determined’ by others’ decisions, comments, ideas, beliefs, perceptions, but rather strengthen my decision, my will, my body, my determination along with my partner who has been a major pillar of support from day 1 in my life, and who has definitely been a key and very relevant person in supporting this current process I’m walking with myself, my body, our baby within and the decisions that this life changing event is bringing to our lives J And we are quite satisfied so far with it, and that’s definitely awesome.  There is nothing like being completely aligned with your partner, your husband, your life partner, your agreement person when it comes to how to walk a pregnancy, a delivery process, a post-birthing process and then the rest of the life of raising a child together with that commitment of bringing someone that will continue to be what each one of us have set ourselves to bring to this world: a point of change, of authenticity in expression, of creating new ways of doing things that are more beneficial to life on Earth and in general, to give a continuation to that decision to live the best that one can, regardless of how ‘the world’ may look like. I’m learning lots from this and I’m sure this is just the tiny peak of the iceberg, the beginning and yes,  who knew I would say this, but I’m definitely enjoying it all – I’ll leave it at that and yes, embracing whatever comes in these last two months that I’ve left until the birthing process with this same approach and attitude I’ve described thus far.

If someone wants to discuss something in relation to what I shared or has questions, comments, please share, I definitely consider we are all in this together and there is nothing more humbling than knowing that this that I am sharing may be of support perhaps even for something completely different to a ‘birthing process’ – but in any other ‘birthing of life’ process that one may be involved in.

Thanks for reading J

643. Being Ready to Have a Child

 

 Someone asked me in my previous blog about when would one consider to be ready to be a mother? And at first I had no clue of what to respond considering that my decision to be pregnant was definitely not a conscious one, even though I may have been preparing the soil so to speak – which is my body/mind – to it, which I considered I did in a tandem where I focused on a process of healing from some of the most ‘challenging’ aspects of my past that I had been ‘dragging around’, learning to let go and in that, re-directing my focus and attention to myself, my physical and mental wellbeing. 

In conversations with my partner and some of our friends, they were pondering how come things seemed to come ‘so easy’ to us as a couple, where we don’t exist in what may be common for most couples like fighting, being in perpetual contempt towards one another and having a hate-love relationship essentially. Perhaps this is not the case for most people reading this, but, I’ve come to find how unfortunately common it is to have the kind of – as they call them -‘toxic relationships’ and how people do embark on – let me say it – daring to have children in that kind of relationship context. Well, back to the question they asked us, the answer I gave is that I had a lot of self-work to do before being able to be in a relationship in the current terms that I am in, that it didn’t come ‘easily’ as it may seem, and that I actually had to go through quite a few trial and error situations where I kept bumping my head against ‘the same wall’ so to speak, where compromising myself and ‘who I am’ would emerge in one way or another over and over again. Of course the problem weren’t ‘others’ but who I was as the starting point of being in a relationship.

The difference this time around is how I approached the person that is now my partner. It didn’t come from a point of desire or need, but more of a genuine getting to know someone that seemed like an interesting person that I wanted to get to know and understand, a curiosity in how ‘he functioned.’ My approach was of providing some support in what he did, which led me to get to know more about him, his life, the kind of ‘wood’ he has through our communication.  Another difference is that – because I wasn’t having any particular ‘interest’ or ‘hidden agenda’ towards him –  I was totally and completely myself – I didn’t have to pretend or portray or ‘handle’ things in a way to keep things ‘flowing’ – which I noticed he also did, like he does with anyone else.

As things progressed I also got to understand how this was a person with a strong character that would not allow much of my usual ‘ways’ in relationships which may end up looking like ‘I want to support you’- which in reality it meant  ‘I want to support you because I want to change you so that you can be the person that I want you to be for me in a relationship’ type of manipulation, which in the end of course is always self-manipulation, nonetheless.

This meant that I stopped trying to ‘change the other person’ or ‘hope they could change this or that in time’ or having things going on that I would just react to and suppress, because! These eventually end up smelling like rotten food that you can’t really ‘overlook’ as time progresses in a relationship – and sometimes, as it’s happened to me, because of not speaking up and letting things continue, one may create an engagement of sorts that then needs to be broken apart for the best of both involved.  That’s the kind of situations I’ve had to walk through and learn from in the past. So now being with a person that is mostly upfront and ‘whole’ in himself allowed me to tell my story as is, have no qualms about it and still find an embracing being that didn’t judge me for what I had judged myself for being like ‘multiple’ faulty decisions or mistakes, but instead embraced me completely.

When it comes to considering someone to walk your life with – and perhaps in consideration of that couple or partnership becoming a parenting team – this was certainly something new and a healthy approach to a relationship, having someone let you know that they only want the best for you no matter what I chose or did. And I did the same towards him. Perhaps this is a bit too personal but there is something quite worthy in someone that can tell you ‘I’m completely fine if you decide this is not for you, but if you are up for it, then I’m completely here for you and we can make it work.’ All the ideas and experiences of relationships I have had were created upon a need and dependency, me deciding to be ‘someone’s joy’ for example, creating a deliberate dependency by ‘giving’ or ‘being’ for another something that they weren’t living or expressing themselves yet. That’s where compromise exists and it is basically impossible to create such kind of dependency when you got a person that’s ‘whole’ within themselves, that have never had a desire for a relationship or wished to be ‘liked’ by someone or anything like that. That to me was something entirely new as a starting point in a relationship and seemed like a very supportive stance and person that I could learn from and also grow with.

I consider that even if this point of compromise is something that I still have to continue keeping an eye on, I’ve gotten better at it. I realized that in the context of relationships it’s easy to go into a fear of loss if one decides to do this or that, and when there’s someone that even though they love you with all their being, they let you know that whenever ‘this’ is not working out for ourselves to be the best that we can individually, that it is completely OK to let go and pursue that for ourselves, that, is something that definitely became a new thing for me to appreciate coming from the mouth of a partner, to no longer live in the idea of ‘bondage’ to someone, but to rather first honor myself. And this is precisely – perhaps – why I am getting to the bottom of this whole point in terms of ‘being ready’ for something, being in a supportive relationship, it’s mostly because and related to learning to genuinely CARE for myself and yes learning to LOVE and appreciate myself individually, first of all.  

One of the things I appreciate about my partner is that self-love and self-regard he has for himself. Some may see him as conceited because of this – I see it though how it is just ‘awkward’ for most people to learn to love themselves and how that translates not in fluffy positive self-talk, but actual actions, changes of ‘life-plans’, changes in one’s daily routine and in the way one decides to be better at whatever one does, doesn’t matter how seemingly ‘menial’ it is. I hadn’t had such example before to be honest, so to me this attitude ‘rang a bell’ wherein I realized how many times we place ourselves in certain relationships to ‘cover up’ or ‘fill in the holes’ that we believe ‘others have,’ so that there can be some kind of codependence formed. And that’s how each one fears end up leaving or losing each other in the end, because one is not actually ‘whole’ first individually.

Back to the chat we were having with our friends, my partner explained this point that I just got to here, that we were two people that were ‘whole’ and saw the potential of kind of working together, sharing a path together, we saw how we could make each other better with our specific skills and innate abilities, a complementing that becomes more of an example, a guideline, rather than ‘doing’ or ‘being’ something for someone else. The ladies in that conversation asked ‘But how do you get to that??’

My partner has his own specific ways which may seem way too ‘simplistic’ for most – to me it seems like it takes a lot of will, courage, drive and self-motivation to make things work, to adapt, to change one’s plans to also consider another- which are not simple traits to develop from the get go, but also not impossible. I shared how to me it has been a process of many years, many mistakes, many falls, many rather unsupportive relationship contexts that I had to go through in order to get to be where I am now. To learn to be ‘whole’ with myself, to be content with and by myself first and to then see how to enhance that with someone that could be in their own way ‘whole’ as well, someone that I can trust would be ‘okay’ by themselves and that there are no ‘knots needed to be tied’ so to speak.

Well, the last point is now different considering that we are going to have a baby which joins us in this journey together – and frankly really  happy about it being with him – and I also consider how somehow we were looking to do this together – or was in the back of our heads – but didn’t really accept it or admit it or thought of it possible. I’m sure it will bring many new challenges to ourselves individually, as a partnership and as a new family, but there’s also a trust in how ‘we’ve gotten ourselves this far’ in a relative short amount of time I’d say and so, we both trust each other that we can do this.

He was mentioning yesterday how it is actually quite the miracle that we can be alive here and today, and not in a fluffy positive way, but more like considering the state of affairs in the world and with life in general, how ruthless it can be, and how we basically can be grateful for what we are, and the opportunity we currently have to be alive and even more so to be preparing to bring another being into the world. I also considered this when I recently had my birthday and I made my Spanish podcast on that day and what emerged to share was gratefulness, gratitude for the life that I currently am, the life that I am bearing, the opportunity we have with our lives even if the world seems to be ‘upside down’, and to keep focusing on how I can ‘give back’ to life that has been given to me unconditionally in every single breath that we take – usually – for granted. This is what has emerged within me, a sense of wonder if you will of what I can get to be, of what we can get to be together as parents and how we can BE the Best of ourselves – as we are continuing to work on doing with ourselves individually and with each other – and for our little one.

Another aspect to share about is the ‘preparation’ that has emerged within this at a physical level in my case as well – well in my partner as well in terms of having better living habits, but that’s his story. As I mentioned in previous blogs, I started this year with the full decision to support myself at a physical level, which I honestly had kind of ‘taken care of’ but hadn’t really linked it to an actual process of healing from the things that were causing continuous deficiencies and sickness in the past year. So, I placed myself in ‘self-creation’ mode. I looked at developing a project based on what I wanted to focus on doing to support other people, then I started getting alternative support for my body like homeopathy and acupuncture, which at the same time led me to start going to Qi Gong classes that have become quite a source of physical support and integration of breath awareness along with physical movements, finally getting to actually be more aware of my body and slowing down, which is something I tried doing only at a mind level, but I was missing the body integration. The progress is definitely something one can notice after several months, but today it was quite enjoyable to do, along with the group of people that go there where we had a nice breakfast reunion after the session. I basically decided to create the time for this and I frankly don’t know why on Earth I was suppressing such desire to explore this kind of ‘exercise’ or more shall I say discipline, so that has been a change as well, to focus on physical support and wellbeing.

I also changed some stuff in my daily nutrition, I stopped taking some ‘mixes’ that I had been using supposedly to get a lot of nutrients from vegetables and fruits, but found out that they were causing a problem in my gut, so I started eating other stuff that I now see as more supportive when it comes to feeding myself. Interestingly enough I also diminished my drinking of coffee – the last ‘stander’ when it comes to my self-defined addictions, up to the point where I just couldn’t stand it at the beginning of the pregnancy and have stopped drinking it ever since. I started taking some vitamins as well which were also something I neglected a lot before to do, so as ‘small’ as this action can be, it became a significant difference for me – and thanks for the support to Ingrid S that also assisted with this. I guess the only constant physical support has always been walking, I wanted to start jogging again, so I also started jogging every now and then but not making it a ‘must’ like it was before, but more like listening more to my body when and as I saw it would be doable and up to the point where I wasn’t hurting my joints and it was genuinely enjoyable while it lasted lol.

The first three months were the hardest I must say. I don’t want to paint a horror show for any lady out there, but in my case I had to really slow down and barely went out of my house and yep that was quite a shock and difficult considering I’ve always been able to just go ‘wherever I want’ and have no limitations in terms of mobility. But it also prompted me to appreciate having more stability and feeling generally ‘well’ after that time to get back to walking, which I started doing bit by bit to see how I would ‘handle’ the situation – up to now that I can walk the usual length without a problem. And then I decided I wanted to swim. My partner gave me a membership to go to swim twice a week as a birthday present, and that was something that brought tears to my eyes, because I really enjoy swimming and this was basically a very supportive kind of gift that I am currently enjoying. I had been ‘desiring’ to get some swimming time for years, but I kept placing ‘money’ as an excuse or time as a constrain, which interestingly enough with the pregnancy, I have kind of ‘given myself permission’ to be more attentive of myself, giving myself the necessary care in many ways and yes, I have been pondering why I hadn’t done this before, for myself?

So, this is also something that I share because basically I see that I could have created this kind of foundation of self-care not only because of being pregnant and preparing my body to be a household for our baby, but because of being that household for myself first of all. I definitely want to pass on an example of self-care and continue with it in whichever measure I can once our child is born, because that’s basically what matters the most, that’s basically the foundation of who we are as individuals as well in this relationship and that’s the kind of message we want to give to our child too.

When sharing with my partner about this question I had gotten in terms of ‘when is one ready?’ he mentioned that it’s essential to be aware of being able to ‘handle’ oneself properly, like taking care of oneself, being able to be whole with oneself, being able to ‘deal’ with oneself effectively. I add to this having that foundation of self-support is essential, because even if what may come is generally uncharted territory, one can certainly stand in self-trust to be able to handle things as they come if one has already been practicing and applying ways to support oneself. 

I basically wouldn’t have even understood the gift that becoming a parent can be, I wouldn’t even be probably pregnant because who knows the kind of decisions – probably not very good ones – I would have made in my life, if I had continued that pattern of self-compromise and following certain ‘ideals’ of ‘who I had to be’, which contained ‘zero’ references to settling down or forming a family. The latter only started becoming interesting to me in the past years when I began investigating more of my ‘programming’ in relation to how I would see myself in the future, and how that contained a lot of ‘garbage’ created through the kind of ‘culture’ I thought I wanted to be a part of. Now I’m kind of on the opposite track of that and actually enjoying it, which is something I never thought of doing or becoming, but hey courage is something one has to gather and decide to live, it’s there, just have to pull it through.

In the end, it’s also relevant to say that I wouldn’t have felt ‘ready’ for this – ever – because of the plethora of fears I had created around it and beliefs of ‘not being up for it’ or not being ‘the kind’ of person that’s ‘suited’ to ‘become a mother.’ All of it a bunch of beliefs that I decided to let go of because now it’s the real deal of it and yes, not saying it’s like an instant ‘switch’ where I changed my mind, I explained in my previous blogs about these fears and uncertainties, so here I am sharing mostly how I’ve changed my approach since then. I still get a bit astounded when feeling the first movements inside my belly and realizing wow, this is really REAL! Lol. I’ve also been essentially walking what I proposed myself to do in my last blog, embracing this all as a blank-slate, a blank page, a new point of creation and being aware of not ‘clogging’ it with ideas, expectations, fears and whatnot.

I’m taking it ‘day by day’ essentially and more like enjoying the self-support I can give myself, which I wish every single woman in this world could, because it definitely sucks that the majority are not able to have the time or resources to take proper self-care – physically and mentally – and because of that, well, we have the society that we have where many humans from the womb to the grave live lives of distress, lack, improper education and the list goes on with various deficiencies, which in turn become the society we live in. We definitely have to change that, and I realized that such change started with me, right here and right now, so I’m doing that and getting to enjoy it to be honest.

Now, as a general update, how am I feeling or doing? I’d say quite alright really, sure I am noticing a diminishing in my stamina and that means also being considerate and understanding of why that’s happening, and so to not judge myself for having to take naps or take things ‘easier’ – seeing it as ‘ugh I feel lazy’ – but rather reminding myself: I am creating/baking/growing a new being inside me! How else would I expect to feel? Also embracing the actual ‘shocking’ aspect that it can be to see your body get heavier and grow a belly that augments by the day, lol! That’s definitely something I still can gasp at when looking at myself in the mirror, but then, remind myself why it’s happening and how it is also temporary.

Perhaps one of the things I would change from the first months is pushing myself to move a little bit more around, being less grasped by fear of loss and try some gentle exercises and stretches, because I definitely became idle and that had an impact on me physically and mentally, so it’s been great to move a lot more again – but then again, as I reach the last trimester and baby bump grows, lol, new challenges will emerge in my mobility perhaps and other kind of preparations will take place, but, I’m up for it.

Another thing I would say to anyone that may have been similar to me in terms of being the kind of person that always said ‘no’ to having children or never really openly ‘wished’ to have children, to embrace the opportunity if one decides to go for it, to self forgive and let go of fears or beliefs of ‘not having what it takes’ – and instead replace them with creating or continuing to create and build a strong foundation of self support, so that no matter ‘what’ with the newness of this phase in one’s life, one can have that pillar of support in oneself, in that foundation of self-support – like to me it is Desteni and everyone involved in with whom I have walked with for over a decade – a supportive partner and a supportive family – if they decide to and are willing to be involved. In my case I’m quite grateful to have their support and yes, this is when one gets to realize how important it is to have others’ experience and willingness to help because they have gone through a similar situation. So, this is a learning point for me in terms of being able to ‘be that’ for others whenever I get to be able to do that for others too.

I understand that there may be women that are up for having babies without the father, or without the support of a family – and, well, that’s quite courageous, but I’d say even then, it’s probably preferable to find a network of support. Nowadays you can find lots of groups of people with children or willing to support each other in the absence of a partner or family, or because of work. So, yes there’s a way, perhaps I would be more wary of the point of deliberately choosing to not have a ‘father’ for a child, but that’s another story and I have no direct experience of any of it, so I will simply not go there here.  There’s always a way, so this is something that I’ve been keeping in mind ever since deciding to have a baby and yep, embarking myself in total uncharted territory here, but that’s part of life and in my life, I basically have had more of an ‘easy’ life so, I’m looking forward to it, because I am aware how it will become a catalyst for more changes, more challenges and I’m kind of looking forward for that, lol.

So to wrap this up, I guess that there can be a myriad of ‘ideal’ scenarios of ‘when to be ready’ but, ideals rarely come to exist in reality. So, I would rather boil it down to being able to be at a point of stability and having that foundation of self-support – physically and mentally speaking – and as I say ‘stability,’ it may seem elusive for some, but it is not, it does require self-work, and sure one cannot wait to be at a ‘perfect stability’ because that’s more like ideal again, but not necessarily a reality. It’s more about being at a point where you are mostly OK with yourself and not having major ups and downs in life… or who knows perhaps taking such a decision like having a child creates such ‘time-to-pull-up-your-pants’ type of effect where one then gets serious with being the best person that we can, I guess it can work in different ways with as many people as there exist, but these are some of my humble opinions, and who knows? I might be missing out some other essentials or underestimating the whole situation, but, that’s  also ok, I will find my way as I go, so that’s the current approach that I have.

This is all also in consideration not only of oneself – one’s life and one’s body – but about the partner that we joined our life with in a very physical manner that means a new being, a new life that’s to come, that’s why I emphasize on the importance of having a solid and supportive relationship as well as preparing one’s body to give the best support one can as a mother to a child – and the supportive relationship. But, I understand how that may not be possible for some, but whatever you can do and handle, make sure you are entirely ‘up for it’ with whichever may come from it all – this is relevant. Otherwise, there might be backtrackings, regrets and so forth – this is totally about learning to be unconditional for another being and that requires full awareness of what that practically entails. I can be preparing myself for that, but it’s only a concept for now, so I’ll see how it goes once baby is finally here J

Ok so, this is it for now. Nothing of what I share do I imply ‘has to be that way’ of course, I can only speak from my current situation and experience and ‘who I had been’ in relation to this topic, and who I am now as my new approach to it.

If there are any other comments, ideas, questions, suggestions, I’m all eyes to them.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

639. Reconciling with the Artistic Expression In Me

 

It’s been a while since I shared a blog. I’ve been on a ‘writing diet’ where I write at least 3 pages on a daily basis in my personal diary or notebook which is something I begun as part of a process I’m embarking myself on to reconcile myself – yes, once again and yes embracing the process – with my artistic side or artistic interests which I’ve been basically focusing on investigating and aligning throughout these past months. I’ve been realizing some of the most ‘shady’ aspects that I’ve allowed to get in the way of me continuing to express myself and I decided to write self forgiveness on these points along with some realizations and share them, since I’m aware many can be at a similar situation with any given aspect in their lives too.  

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to realize I created a sense of being unworthy when it comes to expressing myself through creative means simply because of being told that no one would buy that, no one would like that and that I had to do stuff that most people liked in order to be paid for it, which then became a way to constantly create a hellish experience within me while creating, having to satisfy these invisible people that I believed I had to please and within that, causing that split within me where expressing myself in a more intimate and unconditional way – as it was in the beginning when I started – became a thing of the past and I then had to ‘use my skills’ to ‘be bought’ by others, and in doing so eventually wanting to once again distance myself from doing anything creatively.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to hold a negative experience to the idea of my work being valued in a certain amount of money where I’ve judged such amount of money as ridiculous and just not worth the ‘thing’ that I created, which I then believed was something good or positive but slowly with time I allowed that notion to sabotage me from continuing to create because I then would be having to ‘think in money terms’ when creating, which became a departure from myself – because art for me was not intended to be a ‘product’ but it was a very personal, unconditional and dare I say innocent form of expression with and for myself that I then allowed to be influenced on ‘why I do it’ and ‘what kind of stuff’ I should do, missing out the point of it which has always and should always be Me and the process I’ve been walking, which is what any form of expression for me is really about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a silent inner war in relation to art and monetary value where I slowly but surely sabotaged myself from creating anything as a way to not have to see it as a product – instead of seeing that I could have simply realized that I was  attaching some monetary values to something that should be first of all a point of self-expression and communication, where an economic value would come only if and when I would decide to offer it for selling it and only when and if there could be any potential person interested in buying it, therefore leaving all of that as a secondary purpose to it, not ever forgetting that my main purpose and value is for myself, for my own satisfaction, expression and enjoyment – otherwise I now see I corrupt myself by thinking in ‘money terms’ other than me expressing me and sharing unconditionally.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to realize that the moment that there was a struggle in my head because of having others’ opinions, views or expectations of ‘what I need to create’ I should have stopped and not allow myself to go there, since that is not the reason why I signed up to do anything creative in the first place, I did it as a point of curiosity and exploration for myself, to communicate myself with myself and then it became something I would have to do as a profession to be paid for and satisfy others with it, which is not a ‘wrong’ thing to do either, but that’s not where my true passion is for in it.  I totally buried myself under those ‘expectations’ I projected upon myself even when I believed I was doing something ‘for me,’ I would still be having ideas of ‘having others liking it’ in the background and in that, I corrupted my own expression which I see has of course nothing to do with the ghostly voices in my head of ‘others eyes’ on it,  because they were entirely brought up by myself and it then became in a bundle of  fears around it that I now see I used as a justification to not continue doing anything creative for a while.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to many times create a dissonance, a split between ‘what’ I had to do instead of asking myself who do I decide to be and according to that direct myself, because of having fallen on the usual ideas where I would have to choose one thing to become ‘something’ in life– like having a certain title, career or diploma – in order to perform certain tasks which show me the extent to which I have been mostly perpetuating the same kind of labels and boxes wherein we have defined ourselves to be just ‘one thing’ and only be that ‘one thing’ throughout a lifetime, instead of opening up the endless possibilities that are in fact possible if we tap into that source of what and who we really are and so expressing that into any aspect of our lives, regardless of ‘what we do.’

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to split myself between the idea of supporting others and making that my living purpose and my own natural tendency an d interest on artists and artistic creations as a source of both enjoyment and understanding to me, and in doing so, I ended up creating a division from this natural expression and judging it as selfish, as a waste of time, as shallow or without any consequence in others’ lives, without realizing  that in doing so, I was cutting up, chopping off a part of myself in such judgment process wherein I then created a constant push and pull friction game towards that inclination that emerged from a very young age in me and that I judged later on as frivolous and part of my ego-creation.

I realize currently how yes from a very innocent and instinctive move to paint and draw, I then turned it into a an expectation of making it my profession and then buying into the idea of that having to be my way to ‘climb up the ladder of success’ and feed my ego with dreams and ideals of fame and recognition, where – even though I had the idea of ‘doing so to help to save the world’ – the motivation was still the aggrandizement of my own persona, which is why I then took myself to the opposite side of not wanting to show what I do, not wanting to share it around and judging others that would dare to do so as egotistical or seeking others’ approval, which only stands as my own projection of my own judgments and what I’ve done towards myself, which I realize is a product of tainting my expression with the norms and ways we have created the current system wherein art has also become an industry which is not wrong in itself since it can be considered work itself, but to me art does go beyond the ‘final product’ but I’m definitely more interested in the person that is behind the work of art which is where I see that lies my interest on the artistic field.

I forgive myself  that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to taint my expression with the ideas of ‘what I would have to do’ in order to sell or in order to have other people like what I do, which I realized has been a rather painful process considering that it doesn’t mean I have to make money out of what I decide to express in a very personal way of communicating with myself, which I can share unconditionally without having to make it ‘fit’ certain market standards or having certain ‘qualities’ which is what I’ve then come to experience an inner conflict with, because my aim is to use art as a way to communicate and to see myself, to understand and learn from myself and enjoy while making it and making that very personal and sacred moment where it’s just me expressing and communicating with myself.

I realize that the moment that I place ‘others’ or ‘the public’ as the ultimate outcome, I distance myself from myself, I move away from that very core point that got me into wanting to create art in the first place and it becomes a job, something I have ‘to do’ for money or to be able to be ‘sellable’ and in that, losing my own essence and shaping myself into whatever I am believing ‘others’ want to see and get from me, which is entirely created in my own mind and as such, there has never been ‘others’ or any form of exigencies, it’s all been me allowing my own judgments and ideas to influence and maim my own creativity over the years .

I realize that the various comments and opinions I got over the years were all standing as expressions of their own views and standards, and to me they represented moments where I would have had to fully stand as my expression – but I didn’t. And that’s why every time I would succumb to certain demands, I would feel a little more lost in it all and ended up feeling meaningless and purposeless – shallow – in the whole process of making anything related to art, even doing any form of indoor decoration because of then tainting it as shallow, superficial or non-substantial or supportive to life itself – defining ‘life’ outside of myself as ‘others’– instead of seeing that I am the source of it and the ultimate end point of it, if it exists in me – and me being part of the whole – there should not exist any limitation to this point of expression that is intended to see ‘what comes out of me’ as an individual, simply to see ‘how I am doing’ and express it in ways that I may not be able to do so through words at times, and so seeing that it has been essential for me to draw and paint things that are just inside of me and come out as an extension of myself, that are devoid of a certain ‘receptor’, which I consider is the actual essence of what any form of art is, an externalization of the creator because of the sheer will of the creator itself to have it happen or just ‘be’ for its own sake.

In my case I have decided to make of that art not something that I ‘have to do’ but something that I can decide to express as part of my self-communication, self-enjoyment, the creation of that me-time that I now know I have to give myself and create for myself since I have shaped my life and time around all of the other doings that I require to do as a way to survive and as a way to relate to others, which simply require a balancing point so that I can in fact give me and create more time to do it and stick to it the same way that I stand in a disciplined and responsible manner to any other responsibility and duty I have.

I realize that If I cut out this limb of mine, this part of me that has continued to be a relevant aspect of my life, I’ll end up feeling forever frustrated for not having had the guts to give myself the time and courage to do it, to make it actually OK and acceptable that I create time for me to continue developing any form of creative expression that satisfies that self-communication and self-understanding beyond the usual self-writings, because that stands as something that can break the mold of what I regularly do on a daily basis and what I dare to say to myself through words only.

I also understand the importance of creativity, it is that ‘creative germ’ that is needed in all of us if we truly want to ‘break the mold’ and create a better world because otherwise, as I’ve seen for myself, we can just fall into the comfort of how things usually are and have been and not having any new things or challenges coming our way and getting too complacent and obedient to whatever we have all collectively come to believe is how ‘we should live our lives.’ And I know that it takes courage and a real sense of authority and will to decide to not fall into such expectations and categories and live differently, which then doesn’t become a constant ‘against the flow’ rebellious type of process as I used to do it before, but it becomes simply living the realization that this is the actuality of myself that is no longer seeking to be liked, appreciated or conform or fit in, but embraces that individuality devoid of judgment and expectations, and simply decides to get back in tune with myself, to be ‘here’ rather than seeking to be somewhere else or be accepted by others here or there.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to maim my own authenticity whenever I allowed others’ comments, opinions – or the lack thereof – about what I do creatively to affect and define the way that I relate to my works of art, where I then stepped into the realm of valuing opinions and judgments and forgot to look at myself, asking myself why is this important or relevant for me to do, what it means to me and why it satisfies me or not to do it.  

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to become too concerned with monetary values and I realize that it is not about saying that selling my art is wrong or an act of self-interest, but that should come as a byproduct of me first standing fully in absolute congruence with my creation, where I can be sure there isn’t any noise implied in its creation while having thoughts about possibly selling it or thinking what colors would be liked more by ‘the majority’ of people, or what kind of stuff would be ‘easy to appreciate and like’ and hang on a wall or have around – and instead focus on simply being me, expressing me because I can see how I have been living that within myself and I have stood up when realizing I’m about to enter into a ‘shaping’ process that doesn’t respect me – but I haven’t done that with my own artistic expression.

I realize how easy it is for me to get into that shady space of not sharing or showing myself, all having to do with holding ideas about ‘who I am and have been’ in relation to a particular ‘personality system’ of having been placed in the spotlight at a certain time in my life, creating and building expectations upon myself that I then couldn’t fulfill because they, of course, came from a place of separation, of arrogance, of superiority and idealism that can’t be in fact satisfied because it’s not coming from the truth of who I am and who I want to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define me according to people’s opinions and values given towards me, where they all in fact felt phony to me ever since being a child and receiving accolades, it became a great nuisance to be told all of these good things and being praised where I eventually wanted to ‘not be singled out’ and hide in the background, to not stand out and in doing so,  I ended up diminishing myself because of having created a negative experience to being the source of opinions and critics, even if they were favorable, it seemed unfair and unreal for me to be able to define someone based on numeric characters or only a few characteristics that were ‘worthy’ within a particular system, like in schools.

That’s also why I wanted to do something that could enable me to see myself outside of values and titles that we are supposed to get in society, that define ‘who we are’ and that’s why I started doing what I did within an artistic expression – that I later on ‘vandalized’ with adding all kinds of judgments, opinions  and expectations to it and I perverted it and turned it into just another ‘thing’ that one ‘does’ in the ‘system’ and that’s it, it’s like taking the life out of myself by turning that which was once very personal and unconditional and a point of enjoyment to me and turning it into a show ‘for others’ and to find ‘my value and worth’ in society, which I then failed to do as I should, because it would have led me down to another rabbit hole if I had been successful at that.

I also realize that it’s not that ‘others’ are the problem in fact, since they are me. In any case each person stands as a good mirror where I can look back at myself and see what I can learn from it to either expand  myself or try out new things, without any longer seeking to be liked, accepted, valued or appreciated that way, because I realize that such values are in fact standing only in the eye of the mind and can only serve a way to ‘see’ things, but it’s only me that will ultimately know WHO I am behind WHAT I decide to do, whatever it is.

I realize that we lose ourselves many times in the eyes of others and allow ourselves to get quietly and deeply hurt and don’t dare to speak it out in the moment, because of fearing to come through as sensitive or immature – but opening up about those aspects that were impactful for us is the first point, to realize that many times there have been assumptions, misunderstandings and a general projection of who each person is in relation to their opinions and comments. I realize that I also have been able to consider certain constructive aspects from what others say about my work, but even with that, I realize I have to define what I will accept and allow as feedback and what I won’t because to me, artistic expression is that one sacred place where no others’ ‘laws’ or ‘ways’ apply and where I can in fact transcend myself and my limited views, beliefs and morals. I desecrate that space, that part of myself every time that I use someone else’s words as a reason or justification of why I should do something a certain way or why I should just give up trying to do anything creative.

I also realize that in my mind I have been the only one that has decided to give such amount of focus and attention to what others may or may not say – critically and constructively – and that I am the only one that can allow that to affect me in a negative or emotional way.  I realize that as one goes strengthening that sense of self-worth, self appreciation and being congruent with the expression of ‘who I am’ and ‘who I decide to be’ and what I focus on continuing to create and express no matter what may come my way, it should not change who I decide to be in that expression.

I can use the feedback  to make myself grow and expand and consider other perspectives, but reacting negatively towards it is entirely a self-created decision that I now realize I have the total capacity to work through and release myself from, which can leave me with a better understanding of who the other person is in their words and their way of seeing things and their relationship to what I do, but ultimately to not take it personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare my own expression, the unique actions and movements and expressions that I have to any other human beings’, which has led me within a never ending unfulfilled experience where I became the outflow of my own judgments and allowing that to maim my creative expression by giving up on it.

I realize we all – each one of us – is part of the whole that expresses in a unique way, which doesn’t make it more or less than or ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than – it is about embracing the multiplicity and learning to see it as that unique expression that it is, where I realize that I have made and turned myself into my own worst enemy when constantly deciding what is ‘good’ or not in my own eyes and then ending up projecting those judgments towards my own creations, which results in self-sabotage.

Currently I realize looking back how what I’ve done just IS and they are all testimonies and registry of the various phases in my life that I don’t have to feel ashamed of, since they were a relevant and important aspect of who I was at the time, a part of me, a reflection of me in that space and time and if I don’t embrace and accept myself and decide that such expression had its right to be at the time and represent me, who else will? No one.

I realize that my curiosity and general inclination towards some artistic expressions like music and visual arts have been a form of food for my beingness, which at some point I tried to simply distance myself from within the belief that they were just distractions or my own way to ‘escape’ from my reality. And I realize that at times, it might have been so in the past, but I surely realize that is not my starting point at the moment but the other way around.

I now see the potential in art and artists as part of what’s worth living for in this world, because I’ve gone from loathing humanity to appreciating every person that I get to know more about and seeing a lot of valuable things that I can learn from which I’ve come to do through watching documentaries, reading about artists lives and any creative genius, which I ultimately see as one of the reasons why I want to continue being me and developing my expression,  not only to support others but to get to contribute back in the ‘creative pool’ from where I’ve been nurturing myself from as well, because that’s how I’ve gotten to appreciate the life that is in each one of us and that manifests in all of these multiple ways that are worth getting to see and appreciate for who and what they are.

My starting point is not to feel ‘original’ since we are ALL original since we all come from the same and one origin point that we all express in a variety of ways that actually makes this life worth living and so, it’s absolutely worth getting to know one another and getting to connect with those that may be walking a similar path and living purpose to the one I have, which I’ve seen is quite feasible as well.

My current starting point to develop myself in relation to any form of artistic creation and developing communication and comradeship with fellow artists is because it’s proven to me how this particular sector of people in the world that, according to how I see it, dares to live ‘outside of the norm’ within their minds and so in their lives and dare to share that in any way that reflects their inside world, that reflects their particular inner experience are the front runners of changing the way life is lived and how new structures and ways can be created that benefit more of humanity and life in general.

 I’ve seen how easy it is to connect to that same common sensical level with people that are working or have experience in any cultural or artistic field, we just can click in one moment because there’s that same or similar understanding of who we really are and what’s worth working and living for in this life.

I was discussing with my friend about art in itself and it got me to think how I don’t have a particular fondness for certain works of art based on taste, but I surely get to appreciate the ‘who’ is behind that work that got to master themselves to put in the practice, effort, dedication and willingness to do something that perhaps was completely ‘out of their norm’ and did what they had to do in order to get it out of themselves and manifest it as a creation in reality; some others might have done it from a more natural talent that they just could effortlessly express, but in either case, there is a willingness to express and to me that is implying that there is an awareness of the creative potential we all have and can use to benefit our lives. How?

To me it is a primordial and basic point of nurturing your being, of expressing and so sharing it if one’s up for it. They are all bits and ways in which we go stepping out of the ‘usual patterns’ and dare to cross our own limitations and in sharing them, we assist others to do so as well. I also had to let go of the ideas of wanting to share or inspire others or wanting it to be ‘seen’ or ‘liked’ by others. It’s very similar to this process and writing where, whenever I place myself in a position of wanting to ‘share with others’ I miss out myself as being my own point, my own source, my own end of such creation. So now, If I find it supportive, then sharing becomes simply an extension of that self-support being in fact something that I see could benefit others because it is benefitting me.

This is where I can decide to own me and my every step of the way in my own creation, which I also relate to the way I’ve been able to own my decisions and choices in life and all the mistakes I’ve made, because they now make me who I am and I can look back and see that they are all part of the building blocks that I can now constructively use as part of the experience that makes me who I am today that may become stories of support to share to others as a way to learn from my own doings and wrongdoings and get to express the better version of ourselves.

 

Thanks for reading

I absolutely recommend listening to this series to anyone that’s interested in this kind of topics and specifically feeling meaningless, purposeless or feeling like there’s something yet to satisfy within oneself as a living purpose

1. 
   

   Meaningless: The Undefined Self – Atlanteans – Part 346

2. Meaningless: Searching for Meaning – Atlanteans – Part 347

3. Meaningless: Redefinition – Atlanteans – Part 348

4. Meaningless: Self Forgiveness Challenge – Atlanteans – Part 349

5. Meaningless: Standing as a Self Directive Principle – Atlanteans – Part 350

6. Meaningless: Giving Yourself Meaning – Atlanteans – Part 351

7. Meaningless: Fulfillment – Atlanteans – Part 352

8. 
   

   Meaning: Finding Meaning in a Cruel World – Atlanteans – Part 353

 

 

Join in if you want to start walking your own process of defining your Self-Honesty

• Free Online DIP Lite Course

• School Of Ultimate Living | Facebook

• EQAFE.Com : SELF Education and SELF Awareness Store

• 7 Year Journey To Life Process : People Sharing their Processes of Self-Forgiveness and Self-Correction

• Susan Spies – The Physical And I Exploring the Innerverse

• Get Real with Cerise

• Destonians

• Desteni I Process

• Agreement/Redefining Relationship Course

• Desteni Forum : Discuss and share with us

• Desteni Español

• Creation’s Journey to Life

638. A Redefined Spirituality

 

 The following is inspired by the writings of a life  colleague –  as I am now deciding to define him – who shared a lengthy letter to me as a response to something that I wrote him in an intent to assist in seeing the blueprint of the points that I consider were veiling him from seeing through the steps to get back into an ownership of his self creation and self awareness,  which he has walked in his very own set of paths of ways – but interestingly enough, we have found each other having the same intent and purpose in our lives which we will be joining in an common project where we can share more of our personal experiences and processes with many more that might find themselves in the same kind of ‘holes’ in our creative processes that we have both acknowledged having been limited by in our creative paths of inner and outer creations.  

To give some context to this self forgiveness, this is a reflection of what I see of myself in his words and speaks to anyone that can identify themselves with being ‘a seeker’ or someone that seeks meaning to one’s own existence, to one’s own creation in many ways and paths and if not getting to live their potential, it becomes a source of emotional and detrimental experiences such as falling generally ‘ill’ in the form of lacking direction and purpose, being stagnant in expression, losing sight of the ‘bigger picture’ in life, being veiled by emotions such as dread, depression, sadness, despair and in a way blaming everyone else that doesn’t seem to care for life and the world as oneself as the source for our own apathy and frustration, not realizing we are ‘it’ ourselves too in living out that character of disempowerment and helplessness and victimization.

 To sum up, it reminded me a lot of the path that I’ve also walked and that it’s still part of me and I have not forgotten it, I just have in a way stepped out of the cocoon and see things quite differently now, but it is as if I am embarking myself in this new project and walking with him in this project in this phase of my life because our will was mightier than the limitations that we many times fell into, and I’m genuinely glad and happy to see him slowly but surely realizing these things and taking on his creative path again, which I recognize that I have to do myself in my own self imposed limitations as well, and it’s great to have someone to walk such path with, someone that understands the seemingly ‘similar’ kind of patterns that some of us ‘creative’ people go through, but many often give up half way and get lost in the midst of ‘the fog’ and don’t persevere enough to see through the illusions to remain ‘with the finger in line’ as he says, living one’s expression and will, despite the nature of everything and everyone around us as it currently exists, but being courageous enough to understand things at a deeper level and hold that little flame alive within us no matter what, and let each other know ‘hey I am here, I understand, I walk with, let’s work together’ which is quite priceless and unique to find seemingly ‘out of nowhere’ and here is to say as well that coincidences don’t exist, only what we determine ourselves to be and do which eventually takes us to where we need to be to fulfill that which we set ourselves to live.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to keep quiet and wait for someone else to make the decisions of what I should be and do and within that, diminishing bit by bit my determination to express and take responsibility for the decisions that I make and what I live in my life, which I realize diminished my ability to live me and bit by bit dried the flow of the abundant river that I have always been aware exists as me, as the life that I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to neglect myself into experiences of despair and arguing for my limitations in neglect cultivating my own confidence and stance that has always been here as myself, it just got clouded by the emotions that became the comfortable way to justify not living the potential of who I really am as life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make of my mind my own obstacle that created shame, anger, despair, uncertainty and sadness which I realize is the way in which I now realize are the ingredients to create resistance,  which my mind creates in greed of energy and in allowing that, I stepped further and further away from actually getting to do what I know and have always been aware of is the truth of my being, what I can and need to direct myself to be, live and express.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a comfort zone in remaining skeptical and not want to intervene in my own life in order to not have to take responsibility for myself, not realizing that this seemingly ‘comfortable zone’ led me to sink deeper in a hole where I alienated myself from my own wholeness, from my own power as the capacity to direct myself, to intervene in my own life, to decide to change if something wasn’t working anymore, to innovate in the way that I can decide to live me and within that acknowledging the work, dedication, consistency and will that it will require to create and live myself as the best that I can be. That’s what self-creation is all about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be-lie-ve the statement ‘nothing really matters’ as a way to avoid myself in taking action in all the things that I knew I had to take action on in my life to be and become the better version of myself.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to have been in great thirst of knowledge and information in an attempt to find a way to change the way that I am and how I see and understand life, not realizing how I only inflated my mind with it, but I wasn’t really learning and applying how to really nurture my soul and being in the daily actions, words and habits that I realize I have to take action on in order to live the best of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to deliberately over complicate myself with theories, ideas, beliefs and philosophies which I realize may assist in our paths, but can also create new excuses where we miss out the common sense that always exists within ourselves, we just have to decide to let go of wanting to ‘seek out there’ and instead start getting to ‘what’s inside of me’ and write myself to see who I really am, what I really want to do, defining my purpose, defining my drive and take the first steps to do so in my reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I know many things but not really getting to understand the steps, the process it takes to interiorize, to integrate, to live the awareness of the things I realized in my life. I realize it takes actual change, work and effort to live the words that I get through realizations.

I forgive myself that I had not accepted and allowed myself to realize how ‘realizing’ and understanding something invariably leads to the next step which is to take action on it, to not only be infatuated in an enlightening idea or momentary experience, but to embrace and direct that impetus to create the actual change in space and time and take the necessary steps to do so in order to honor the path that took me to get to realize, see and understand what I now see, realize and understand.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allow myself to define me and allow myself to be dictated by the construct and concept of time, by the illusion of having to remain ‘current’ according to that abstraction which time is – which we have created in means to control ourselves. I realize we create time, we decide how we live time in this reality, but I no longer allow myself to be dictated by it and what I should feel or experience according to the idea I have around it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to isolate myself in a bottle of complexities where I believed no one else cared, no one would understand or listen and in that, miss out the many opportunities to connect , share and get to know others, because of becoming my own living judgment of seeing everything as ‘lost and pointless’ and not seeing that in doing so, I wasn’t getting anywhere else but became more detached from myself, from my own reality and from getting to understand ‘the other’ as myself too.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become lazy and apathetic to continue discovering the wonders of who we are and can be and become, and instead to become sad at the apathy I saw in others, not realizing that in doing so, I became equal to what I was only seeing in them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become the epitome of hope in despair, where I gave myself up in the wait for something or someone else to show me the way, to tell me what to do and not take responsibility to be my own director, my own guide, my own master that is self-created – not following, not taught, but simply learning from others’ experiences and making them my own by testing them out to see if they work or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the idea of lack as an excuse and as a determining factor of my being where I placed myself into a survival mode  that turned me into a selfish and ruthless being, becoming fearful, anxious and angry at myself for knowing that this ‘lack’ is entirely self created and that no one else is doing this to myself, but me.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to not give me the gift of Understanding another, because I realize that I can’t hate another if I understand how we all have created this in separation of who we really are as life. I now realize that Understanding is one of the most profound and liberating gifts we can give to ourselves.

I forgive myself as everyone else in our weaknesses and fractured beingness because as big as the weaknesses and fractures are, these cannot override the virtues that we actually are and can develop as the new nature of our being. This is self-creation, it is not born from perfection, but from the decision to overcome the complexities, the falls, the mistakes, the wrongdoings, the self-neglect.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to neglect the dedication it requires to get to understand how we function in our minds and our being, because that in itself reveals our truth and as such, it becomes the most useful thing to do and dedicate our lives to cultivate.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to not continue cultivating my own understanding to direct and create my own healing process and within that, cultivate my own self-awareness,  to no longer be defined and limited by survival in this world as a justification to not live the wholeness of myself in  my day to day and in every moment of breath.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to redefine spirituality as a sincere and grounded way to define and create my own being, to create the habits and methods to continue developing my self-awareness in every moment of my existence, to be in contact with my being, my body and to create an awareness of the effect that my thoughts, words and deeds create in my reality. I realize I can do this without the need of crystalized dogmas and instead can be lived by a simple and consistent dedication in developing these supportive habits of being in contact with myself and taking full ownership of my capacity to define, reinvent, innovate and reconstruct myself, because no one else can do this for me, but myself.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live determination and do the hard work that it takes to live this process of creating my own life and self awareness, because I realize it requires courage and determination and I believed myself to be devoid of these. Now I realize we all have what is needed, that we all can live these words and that’s the living faith in which I decide to live in, to be the driving force of my capacity, will and determination to do that which I know and realize are the building blocks to the creation of who I really want to be as the expression of the wholeness that I go creating and expressing in my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for having been ashamed in being the one that is not following the same path as everyone else, but instead decided  to swim against the flow, going into the opposite direction while everyone seemed to not care or see where they are being led to.  Now I realize, see and understand that this very will, determination and decision to keep going ‘against all odds’ got me to where I am today, where I now open my eyes to see that there is no shame at all in living my own truth even if no one seemed to care or understand, because it’s not about others but about my own decision to live me, to express that care, that love which is sufficient to live the truth of who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up many times in the many creative ways that I pursued at some point in my life, not realizing that I can work things, that I can implement changes and innovate in my life to keep that living flame alive even if it only seems to lighten up my own face. I realize that this is what living me and expressing me means, to do it because of myself and for nothing and no one else other than the expression of the potential that is unleashed when one decides to live unconditionally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to regret the perceived’ wasted time’ when I neglected the essentially creative capacity that I am and that I have. I now realize that such ‘wasted time’ was part of the process and the many roads that have led me to be and become who I am here, that I can start where I am – in every moment, in every new breath – and to realize that in any moment, I can only be the one that drives me or becomes my own worst-enemy and limitation to do this as an expression of myself.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to realize that frustration is a symptom of the incomprehension of my own self movement, and that stagnation is no more than the nature of all sickness that manifests when I don’t allow myself to flow and be the water that flows, that reclaims its natural will to express, to flow, to be, to adapt, to move and embody the realization that its movement never ceases, because I’m not defined by a measure of time – I embrace the creation of the potential that I decide to live and cultivate as the everlasting self that always remains here, just like the water in the world.

I forgive myself for living out my weaknesses and for allowing them to affect others in their own lives. I now decide to work on the changes, the habits, the actions that will turn them into actual strengths.

I realize that I can only get through in my life if I place my own faith back on myself as the recognition of my capacity to change my reality and the outcome of my life through the work that I can dedicate myself to do every day in order to honor the wholeness of my being, to no longer be trapped in the experience of lack and all its unfulfilled concepts that I had allowed myself to believe and be enslaved by.

I now take ownership of my own discipline and self-creation moved by the love that I realize I can express in my work and the enjoyment that I imprint on it and on myself in doing so.  I commit myself to become the author and creator of all of this that celebrates the manifestation of what and who I realize I really am at a fundamental and existential level as life itself.

I understand and realize that time is only a measure of earthly oxidation, however even if I deteriorate, it does not define my stance and who I am as I keep my finger at it, becoming and living the drive that has got me to where I am here today, because no matter what: I remain current.

I decide to trust myself in my decisions, my actions, the paths that I decide to walk, embrace the ups and downs it may entail because I decide to trust myself in being able to learn from it and expand my expression through that, because I realize that that’s what living life is all about.

 

 

 

Join in if you want to start walking your own process of defining your Self-Honesty

• Free Online DIP Lite Course

• School Of Ultimate Living | Facebook

• EQAFE.Com : SELF Education and SELF Awareness Store

• 7 Year Journey To Life Process : People Sharing their Processes of Self-Forgiveness and Self-Correction

• Susan Spies – The Physical And I Exploring the Innerverse

• Get Real with Cerise

• Destonians

• Desteni I Process

• Agreement/Redefining Relationship Course

• Desteni Forum : Discuss and share with us

• Desteni Español

• Creation’s Journey to Life

624. Getting Off My High-Horse

get off (one’s) high horse. To stop acting as if one is better than other people; to stop being arrogant or haughty.

 

A lot of what I shared in my previous blog was also inspired by listening to the recent Eqafe recordings called When the Honeymoon Phase is Over  and After the Honeymoon Phase because it describes really well one of the main patterns that I have lived for a long time in my own mind where I have become very picky, deterministic and absolutist when it comes to creating a perception of ‘perfection’ existing in another that stands in the ‘position’ of being ‘my partner’ and creating this high standards about how the person ‘must be.’ In a way, I’ll be describing the creation of this ‘high horse’ character where I have been experiencing a sense of superiority and comparison towards my partners where I have been quite quick to determine what ‘is acceptable’ and what ‘isn’t’ based on forgetting  and not considering a few things that I’ll be sharing here.  

Even if I knew that I am changing this at a knowledge level when it comes to not judging people based on the emotional reactions they may have, but rather step up to create space for understanding them, placing myself in their shoes, not judging but instead, look back at how I can relate to the creation of reactions and how I have supported me to walk through them, I have at the same time held a very blind spot when it comes to the person that ‘occupies’ the role of being ‘MY partner’ and in that almost creating a separate ‘grading’ system for them, because of thinking a bit too high of myself and so considering that ‘they’ should be ‘up to my standards’ in a way, and so I’ll be sharing how this is quite consequential and the lessons I’ve learned by identifying this within me through the support of that couple of Eqafe recordings.

I can totally relate to the description in the audio recording of being almost like this king with his whole flair and absolutist power to simply say ‘No’ to something and make it unacceptable and create zero space for a second consideration about someone or something they are deciding on. This is in relation to how in my relationship there was a moment where I decided to question certain reaction in my partner which wasn’t really ‘new’ because, I had been aware of it since the beginning. The important point that I’ve shared before is how it has been me all the way that decided to polarize the idea or image of the other person into a positive way where all the actual characteristics that I could have ‘questioned’ from the beginning, were shoved aside. This is where I had to realize that there was no deliberate ‘hiding’ from my partner about those aspects before, I was the only one that decided to blur them, place them aside and keep sugar coating those reactions whenever they would come up, in essence, not taking it seriously.

Yes, this is part of what is commonly known as the ‘honey moon phase,’ but it is definitely something I created in my mind where it was only now after several months that I decided to question certain reactive pattern and take it ‘too damn serious’ to question him about it, which was of course a bit ‘out of nowhere’ considering this wasn’t something new in our interactions, it was just me that in a moment decided to get on this high-horse of questioning in a very serious tone how ‘bad’ such reaction is and if I may be able or capable of continuing a relationship with someone that is having this kind of reaction towards other people in a certain moment of frustration.

Well, here is where I need to explain what this ‘high horse’ character entails and what I’ve realized from the moment I’ve been able to hear it in the recording and, to be honest, as I was translating such recordings, I had to laugh a lot when it was described, because that’s exactly how ‘I feel’ inside myself when having this ‘serious questioning’ about someone’s reaction and getting into this absolutist throne where I can put my thumb up or down to say yay or nay to continuing an entire relationship just because of getting to – or deciding to – question a pattern that I had simply left aside, not opened up and not even reacted to before. But based on my own shared experience in that moment – which yes was also that of being fed up by a certain situation that was ‘out of our hands’ I decided that what he said was ‘too sensitive’ and required attention and needed to be opened up.

This turned out to be very cool because all in all, regardless of my high horse stance or not, it was a reaction that assisted us a lot to get to talk about many other things to settle where we’re generally ‘at’ with each other in the relationship. This assisted me to refresh my memory of how I was in that moment projecting ‘how I want him to be’ – which is yes, a very common pattern in me that I haven’t totally changed, I can see that – and forgetting in one moment about the totality of who the person is and the noticeable mutually supportive aspects that we’ve developed in our relationship together.

Yep, it can be a bit baffling how I can get myself in that ‘zone’ where I just zoom-in one single aspect that I find simply ‘unacceptable’ in a single moment and suddenly decide that this is ‘so questionable’ that the entirety of who the person is becomes questionable. This is a common pitfall that I can see becomes like a tunnel vision where one can spiral almost out of control and losing sight of the reality of the person that we are judging and creating a problem about in our minds.

The high-horse character also implied that I was not seeing at all ‘my problem’ or ‘my personality play-out’ at all, because in my mind, I was in fact like this royal person that decides that this/that is not acceptable in MY life. I felt that superiority stance where almost ‘nothing’ or no one would ‘ever’ be ‘up to my standards,’ which means that somehow I have been regarding myself in a very ‘superior’ stance that I tend to mostly compare and project to the partners that I’ve had in my life. I tend to be more considerate to everyone else BUT! Holy, if it’s the one person that becomes ‘my partner’ it’s almost as if they had to be the premium gladiators to be ‘up to the standard’ of what would be somewhat similar to how I am or how I see myself.

Here, there needs to be some point of equilibrium because I’ve been in both polarities where I’ve disregarded myself in the past where I had no self-worth, self appreciation or self love and I went looking for all of that in relationships that, for the most part, were no-good for me – and were quite compromising in fact – which has been a lifelong pattern to be honest. That’s been kind of my weakness, because I believed I could ‘change them’ and within doing so, create ‘the perfect partner’ IF only they could ‘step up to my standards’ – yep, wanting to change someone or asking someone to change in order to be in a relationship is just a No-go, ever. It’s unacceptable.

Even in the most subtle things where one is compromising oneself to do certain things to please another and knowing within that ‘it is not you,’ I now realize that is just a no-go and a recipe for disaster if one starts compromising with certain things to ‘fit’ into a relationship. 

But that’s something I have only been able to see and realize now where I am with a person that accepts me as I am, even with the worst of the aspects that he also points out about myself. We recognize them and I’ve asked him to assist me when I am showing that worst of myself like the control freakism pattern I’ve shared about before and also whenever my ‘subtle ways’ come out to have him ‘be perfect for me’ type of thing, which is unreasonable and absolutely unacceptable, because it would only be about creating ‘my perfect partner’ and have this ‘perfect robot’ that doesn’t get to challenge me or question me at all. Man, that would be awful, because there is something that I am extremely grateful for which is the feedback and support that my partner provides in being very frank about the stuff that I do, how I do it and how it comes through in a moment, because let’s face it, not many people stand in such position in our lives to do that. In my life it’s been mostly my mother, some of the closest people I talk to from the Desteni community and my partner.

So getting off of my high horse happened while opening up the whole questioning of such reaction to him, where I got to actually realize that yes, I was again being too exigent, projecting ‘my ideals’ and only focusing on ‘how I think things SHOULD be’ and in that, yes, getting reminder that no person will be ‘equal to me’, nor should that ever happen because we are all individuals and part of the actual enjoyment in life is to get to know who we are and how we can decide to interact, live and coexist with a ‘world in itself’ in the shape and life of another human being.

One thing that baffles me as I said above is how much I simply became possessed for a moment about this questioning of a reaction, where I stopped considering the totality of the person and all that he has shown and lived with actions – not just judgments or backchat that he may speak out loud from time to time and yes, it was a frightening reminder of how ‘easy’ it is to fall into this pathological way of thinking where one simply focuses on ‘the worst’ of someone in one single moment and starts piling up stuff that one hadn’t worked with/looked at before and suddenly build up this whole sinister story about someone. It actually reminds me of those Thriller books I used to read as a child, where the story goes fine and dandy and then it gets to the climax where all those details and seemingly subtle points through the story build up to expose this huge problem and sinister case about a murderer or a psychopath etc. lol

I mean, really, I saw how in my mind it can easily go into that if I don’t ground myself in the basics. So that’s how what was supportive for me in that moment is to have a moment for myself to let the emotion out in crying and then realizing ok, yes, this is an emotional reaction though I know emotion and victimizing myself right now is not the way out, not talking about it is not the way out. This needs to be talked through and gotten to a point of understanding because! I already know how we are both quite level headed and there’s really no further problems between us where ‘big’ emotions emerge that could make our dialogues impossible, so that was also a grounding point to know we could simply talk about it and realize the many points that I had missed from my sight, where I went into my ‘high horse’ and create deliberate ‘sugar coatings’ as I explained in a blog about memories before. That way he could see where and how I am having a different idea of ‘how things should be’ that he simply takes as very normal stuff based on ‘who he is’ and ‘how he is’, which he has been and expressed from day 1.

So, in a way I realized I created my own storm, but it was beneficial to talk it out because it assisted me to realize how much I was not focusing on the reality of things, how I was holding on to a polarized version of him and of who he is – as I had mentioned some time ago, seeing him in this positive light only – and also how he had no clue of my relationship to certain words and attitudes and what it meant to me, while for him it was frankly normal stuff that ‘everyone does.’

This is where another aspect of the high-horse character comes through where yes, I realized that I forget that I’ve been learning how my mind operates, questioning, observing and working on myself, my reactions, my habits, changing ways in which I would ‘naturally react’ and re-wire myself on a day to day basis for over 10 years now based on the principles I’ve been learning and applying from the Desteni material.  I do realize that because of how easy it was for me to understand myself with my partner and see that he was quite principled in a natural manner, I kind of created the belief that such principles would expand on to ‘changing’ certain reactions within him, certain ‘traits’ of character… and in that forgetting that nope, having such values/principles as a person does not mean that he is working with the totality of his nature to change it.

In fact it is only now through the relationship that we have, that he is becoming aware of many things that he didn’t even question before about himself and his way of being, because of being quite a ‘man to himself,’ meaning where he only would have to ‘respond’ to himself and not having developed any real deep relationships with any other person that could get him to open up about things that he hadn’t questioned or even seen about himself, and I find that fascinating as well! Because I tend to forget who he is, his personal history, the way he has lived for most of my life and in that compare me and ‘my process’, ‘my ways’ to his and create this sudden ‘nah-uh unacceptable!’ finger-pointing type of haughty attitude to something he had not even seen as ‘a problem’ within him at all. In this I also realized the ‘disconnect’ we can create when not sharing and communicating about the way that each one of us sees certain actions the other does, which is something he has done about me pretty much from the beginning, which has been great because that’s what I wanted, a point of honesty that leads to realizing the ‘worst’ of myself that few had dared to question or point out and now I get to be with someone that won’t take any shit either lol, so we are two very ‘peculiar’ beings so to speak where each one of us has very cemented principles and ways of being that at the same time are learning to create considerations for the other and create a middle ground, which is definitely doable, even if we are both very stubborn at times lol. We totally make it fun to do this kind of things, mostly because we love each other and we realize what it entails to live with another. May sound cheesy but! Omg, it is true! haha

So! to make it simple: the opening of this situation where I was able to get off my high horse, realize I was imposing/projecting my own process to my partner – who is not walking this process or the tools I use for self support – and in that, I was in fact not living the words that I’ve committed to live with any other person, like getting to hear them, to consider them, to place myself in their shoes, to understand they are not yet knowing ‘how’ to deal with their reactions and reminding myself that I can only be an example and share how I’ve walked through similar things myself. I was almost like creating a big deal about it as if it was a person that would already know ‘how’ to use tools like self-forgiveness or being in the path to change those aspects within him. He is not, and this is something that I am also fine with, because in general the person that he is, the words he lives, the way he lives and the challenges he represents for me in my life as well are what I need at the moment.

Something that I’ve realized is that it makes it difficult at times to really get to know How to talk to ‘regular people’ out in the world so to speak, because they don’t speak your same ‘lingo’ as when being with someone that walks this process. Not saying this should be ‘the way’ when it comes to relationships between people that walk the same process or people that walk with someone that doesn’t have the same background, but I find that this is specific for me, because I definitely have realized how much I lost ground and ‘contact’ with reality when being too focused on my personal process and only relating to people that are also walking this process. So, this year has also been a testing ground for me to realize in many ways where I am living only as a ‘preacher’ but not really living what I THINK is common sense, and bam, that’s just what I needed to realize as well. While at the same time also seeing how I’ve been able to change many aspects which surely make my current relationship possible.

Part of the ways to get off of my high horse was to focus and remind myself of all the words that I wrote out about him and the reasons why I decided to be with him, which have proven to be a great pillar of support that I’m quite grateful for. I may sound too laudably, but, that’s the reality based on what has opened up for both in the relationship. It’s quite something and I definitely have to create a flag-point whenever I see myself going into these tunnel-vision points where I lose my ground about something I define as ‘negative’ and ‘unacceptable’ in a very absolutist way. I have to take a moment by myself – which I did then – to slow down, let the emotion out so that I could then sit with him, eye to eye and talk about the whole situation which was one of the moments that definitely strengthened our resolve to be with one another, and this is priceless and definitely recommendable to do, because I got to understand much more about him and consider things that I had completely forgotten about in one single moment of reacting to his reaction.

This is one of the many more reasons why I recommend getting to listen to Eqafe recordings in your day to day, like the ones I mentioned which were definitely spot on and very timely for me to look at how I was stepping into this superiority pattern that was preventing me from SEEING reality and was blinding me with this kind of ‘perfection’ light that is definitely not realistic when we are talking about a relationship with two very real and direct people that don’t hold back about things. If anything, I actually appreciate he is ‘speaking his mind’ even if the things that come out are not ‘angelical’ lol, it’s at least commendable that there’s still people that dare to say: yes this is what I thought and yes this is who I am as well, and yes I know it’s not nice or pretty but never said I was. Because it is true, so many people only fake and paint a nice image of themselves in the first phases of a relationship that lead to the inevitable ‘monstering’ phase as some say here hehe where people show their true colors and so the relationship ends around that time when they start seeing the reality of themselves.

On my side, I have to remember my process, especially when it comes to the ‘standards’ I have created towards ‘my partner’  as if that was this very ‘difficult shoe to fit’ and as I mentioned in my previous blog, it sure is, I’m not an ‘easy person’ for most of the people really, lol, I am quite exigent to myself and so to that person that is closest to me. But fortunately I found someone that also has his personal exigencies very established as well, which is why I guess we get along so well. And even if we differ in many perspectives, ways of seeing or understanding the world or in how we deal with our own problems, I’ve also come to realize that such mental-aspects don’t really matter for me. What really matters is the conviviality, the habits, the livelihood and coexistence with a person that lives with personal integrity. I appreciate more that there is no presentation or attempt to ‘fake’ a certain idea of himself to ‘be liked’ or accepted, because he wasn’t seeking that at all, which have created a very comfortable space for us in the relationship, because no one else gets to see us as ‘we truly are’ and say what we truly think to anyone else.  And her by comfortable I don’t mean, ‘easy’ because it’s not challenging, I’d say it’s the other way around, and it is paving a nice space for me to learn how to best relate to people ‘in the world’ in fact.

To me, this is supportive because he is quite an example that I definitely lacked when being in relationships in the past where my starting point was that of lack of personal appreciation, acceptance, self-worth which would reflect back on the people I would decide to be with. He is definitely the opposite of that, which is an awesome example to also take on, where is not in ‘need’ of a relationship, but sees the mutual benefit of it, he is not in ‘need’ of love because he lives that for himself, and yep to be honest I’m learning more about what it means to love oneself with actions, not just fluffy self-positive thinking. And! sure thing I’ve also been able to create an impact on the relationship he has with himself and his self-care too, so all in all, a very supportive and complementary process.

It is as simple as this: I would not have been able to be in this relationship if I had not worked with my own patterns and usual behaviors in relationships. This is STILL work to do of course, which is also cool when being with someone that has no past relationship history, so for him it’s a whole discovery process in itself that I’m quite happy and fortunate to be a part of.

And that’s how the story ends, where one moment of reacting to ‘character flaws’ and deciding to talk and open it up led to having a very supportive and vulnerable conversation that got me to realize ‘Oh fuck, I did it again!’ with being really inconsiderate of ‘where another is’ and ‘how they see things’ and imposing my own ‘change’ and even ‘my process’, instead of really considering the totality of who he is, the life he’s lived and get to also focus on the words, the actions, he has lived throughout the time we’ve been together.

I hope I didn’t spill too much honey here, hehe, but that’s what opens up within a relationship when transforming a moment of reaction, confronting it, opening it up, discussing, getting to understand each other and create a ‘new’ approach to things, which became another level of depth in the relationship.

 

Ok thanks for reading! And if you want to read a very supportive chat I had with fellow Destonians about this situation I share about here, read this chat transcript: Being in a High Horse: Becoming Aware of It and Looking at Corrections however you’ll have to sign-up to destonians.com to be able to do so, which I recommend because there’s no other group in the world where we dare to be that vulnerable in sharing the ways that we are being challenged and how to support each other to face ourselves and create the best version of ourselves. We always learn from each other.

 

 

 

Join in if you want to start walking your own process of defining your Self-Honesty 

• Free Online DIP Lite Course

• School Of Ultimate Living | Facebook

• EQAFE.Com : SELF Education and SELF Awareness Store

• 7 Year Journey To Life Process : People Sharing their Processes of Self-Forgiveness and Self-Correction

• Susan Spies – The Physical And I Exploring the Innerverse

• Get Real with Cerise

• Destonians

• Desteni I Process

• Agreement/Redefining Relationship Course

• Desteni Forum : Discuss and share with us

• Desteni Español

• Creation’s Journey to Life

616. Savoring the Moment

Or enjoying living and substantiating one’s day to day living

I listened to the audio It is Not About Oneness but About Living  and what caught my attention of it is how I’ve been reflecting on what it means to live and how we’ve extrapolated this word ‘living’ and have elevated it to something separate from ourselves, almost turning it into something that we are supposed to ‘get to do’ someday, or get to ‘attain’ somehow ‘out there’, instead of realizing that we are already IT, we are already that life and we are that potential that we have been dreaming/thinking about, we just haven’t been LIVING as it. So what does that mean?

I see how daunting it can be to look at ‘life’ and ‘living’ and try and substance these words in an ‘utmost potential’ type of idea right away with ideas, projects, dreams ‘out there’ in the future… and so we spend most of our time thinking, wishing, hoping, dreaming, planning of a moment where we can ‘finally live’ instead of realizing that we are already living, and we are wasting those moments chasing a moment that doesn’t even belong to us.

I’ve also been recently listening a lot to Jordan Peterson and something he explained in one of his discussions with Joe Rogan is how living is about all of those moments and things we repeat on a daily basis, all of those hours that we spend sharing our meals with our partners/family, all of the time spent with our children, all of the time spent on cooking, cleaning, grooming ourselves, going to work, having the normal day to day activities that we many times become frustrated with, tired of or even resist doing as a basic part of living a life in this world.

This caught my attention and particularly correlates to how I’ve been deciding to take on my day to day and really get to live my routine in a different way, because in the past I was resisting to do the basics, there was a time where I came to loathe having to eat, having to take a shower, having to do the basics for living, seeing them as a drag, a waste of time. So I had been working with seeing routine as something that assists me in structuring my day, yet it still only became a doing in a structured manner, a ‘getting things done’ only – but not yet really living, which is where I’m focusing on now.

I am learning and practicing to imprint me/ enjoy myself more in the moments of doing the day to day thing from the moment I wake up, to getting dressed, to making coffee and breakfast meals and genuinely enjoying sharing those moments and the expression that I decide to create of me while preparing meals, enjoying to decide what I’ll wear in the day, enjoying the simplicity of communicating and sharing the basic living activities; enjoying attending to my responsibilities and integrate myself fully into it to get it well done, to not half ass it or do it with the ‘least effort possible,’ but really live the decision and realization of: this is my moment, this is what’s here in front of me, for me to do so I do it the best way possible.

Interestingly enough this has also currently been including the dimension of the ability to enjoy these day to day routines, and even if the activities are basically ‘the same’ day after day, I am realizing how I can truly decide to be present and enjoy the living of these activities and discovering how it is a decision based on – in my case – doing things the best way that I can. To me that’s what satisfies me and it’s even better if I get to share these moments with others or do something that I know will benefit/support others at the same time.

In essence this also correlates to another very cool interview on Eqafe.com A Well Made Moment is a Well Made Self which I definitely could relate to and enjoyed for the same reason, where this emphasis on what we do moment by moment and doing it well, doing it to the best of our capacity is what substantiates and gives meaning to our lives.

This might seem very obvious or simplistic, but I’ve also been reflecting a lot on how many times I projected ‘my life’ as something I’d be doing in a future, way out there at some point in my life where I could finally say ‘I’m living, I’m satisfied with myself’ and kind of building this bubble of ‘greatness’ as ‘living’. I’ve been instead learning to actually appreciate the day to day moments that we take for granted, just like someone reminded me today, we take for granted the ease with which we can do ‘the day to day’ things and forget about the fact that it is a marvel that we are alive, that we can have food in our fridge and have the ability to prepare these meals, to have running water, to have a roof over our heads, to live in an environment where we can walk around and enjoy ourselves in spite of the regular things that may go astray in our societies.

I stopped for a moment to realize how true that is and how many times I had taken for granted the simplicity of enjoying being able to eat, to take a shower, to walk around, to chat with people, to enjoy hanging out with people that you enjoy being with… there are so many things that in the past I would experience as things I just have to ‘deal with’ or ‘swallow’, kind of experiencing them as these little ‘obstacles’ that I had to get through while ‘looking forward’ to something ‘more’ or ‘greater’ in my life out there/somewhere else and far away in the future. That means, I wasn’t really living, but pursuing something outside of myself while dismissing the actual life and living that happens every single moment we are here.

So this is more like a reminder for myself of how many times I’ve almost defined these basic aspects of living mentioned above that are part of my ‘living routine’ as a waste of time or ‘loss of time’ or ‘tedious things’ to do and how I am currently deciding to enjoy them, to be creative in them, to make them interesting based on how I decide to express myself while doing them all.

What I’ve noticed is that my satisfaction does emerge from doing things the best possible way, to add that spark of enjoyment and liveliness to what I do, even if it’s ‘the same’ day after day apparently, I’m learning to enjoy the simplicity of these moments in fact, which again I didn’t use to do before.

I am more and more realizing that life is happening in every moment, it is only us that may be stuck in our heads in plans, ideas, hopes, dreams of ‘what our lives can be’ instead of actually living and enjoying the totality of what we are doing in the moment, no matter how repetitive, how simplistic, how ‘monotonous’ it might seem – all of these adjectives in fact exist as experiences in our minds that become the way that we live out our day to day, always in our heads longing for ‘something more’ instead of realizing this is it! This is where we are, this is what we got, we got ourselves, we have the absolute capacity to decide how to live the moment.

So that’s how living the best that we can in everything we do actually changes the world, because we are the matter that matters and shapes the world – and yes I take this quote from that initial audio I quoted at the beginning of this blog, but it also correlates to what I’ve been hearing from Jordan Peterson – which confirms what we’ve been walking and sharing within the Desteni process – on the importance of focusing on the individual change to create social change, instead of the other way around, which is where people get lost in social justice movements, identity politics and finding culprits for why their lives can’t be as fulfilling as they compare others’ to be. 

Living out day to day to the best of our ability is a real gift that we have and that I’m deciding to stop taking for granted or ‘zombing-by’ anymore. I’m grateful also for the people that have assisted me to realize how much of my life, my context and situation I had taken for granted and was getting too lost in life happening ‘out there’ and instead get back to what it means to be in physicality, its potential and enjoyment, in its simplicity.

What has emerged for me to work with/look at and fine tune from practicing this? I noticed that there is this underlying anxiety that is constantly there as a form of ‘rushing’ from all the times I have imprinted an almost ‘anxious’ way of existing where I used to take these day to day living activities as ‘obstacles,’ as things I just had to ‘rush through’ in my day to day to get to ‘do’ things, to ‘be productive’ and all other kinds of things that I regarded as my life’s mission, missing out enjoying the actual living that happens in every moment that I’m doing the day to day activities and routine.

Sometimes we do need reminders to slow down, to enjoy the ordinary in life, to enjoy the moment, to decide to live it and create it as if it was truly ‘the last day of our lives’ which I came to discover in a rather interesting way at the same time with having the idea of leaving a certain place and I made the decision to ‘enjoy the last moments’ there and then I asked myself ‘well, why am I not living this way every day? Why did I have to have this idea of ‘leaving’ as a crutch for me to decide to see things differently, to enjoy my day to day in a genuine way?’ And that was in fact a key point for me to start appreciating my day to day routine because of seeing my day to day with a different set of eyes so to speak, and I’m quite grateful then that I decided to take this new way of living the ‘day to day’ now, because it makes living much more enjoyable and not only that, but I am more aware of the expression that I can imprint in everything that I am doing, more aware of the kind of words I’m living in the matter that I am, and so making sure I matter in the basics, in the ‘little things’ that I do as part of my day to day living.

So that’s something to try out, to live everyday as if it was your ‘last day’ and then see how to integrate that into one’s day to day living as a new way of living – of course not with the fear of loss or fear of dying or whatever else – but as if it was truly one’s last chance to fully enjoy that meal that one likes eating, fully enjoying that cup of coffee, that walk out in the streets, that going to the movies, that doing our tasks and job the best that we can, that simple conversation with someone that we can enjoy communicating with, that best version of ourselves that can interact with others, enjoying the basic elements of living and living responsibly with it all.

I don’t intend to sound all ‘blissful’ and magical here, lol – because this entails actual doing, actual dedication, actual focus and detail into what one does because giving or creating that best of ourselves in every moment requires that, and that’s what I am deciding to integrate as part of what makes me fulfilled, satisfied on a daily basis, savoring the moment if you will instead of living more in my head and waiting for ‘better times’ in the future – nope, instead I realize I’m here, I decide what I make of it = I decide how I live myself, that’s my essential creative power.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

Join us in our process of Self-Expression as LIFE

• Free Online DIP Lite Course

• School Of Ultimate Living | Facebook

• EQAFE.Com : SELF Education and SELF Awareness Store

• 7 Year Journey To Life Process : People Sharing their Processes of Self-Forgiveness and Self-Correction

• Susan Spies – The Physical And I Exploring the Innerverse

• Get Real with Cerise

• Desteni Radio

• Desteni Articles

• Destonians

• Desteni I Process

• Agreement/Redefining Relationship Course

• Desteni Forum : Discuss and share with us

• Desteni Wiki

• Desteni Español

• Creation’s Journey to Life

• Heaven’s Journey To Life

603. Keeping Indulgences Secret

Or how it is easy to not question anything that feels good or positive in our experience instead of seeing to what extent it is affecting ourselves and our relationship to others, in order to understand it and take responsibility for our expression.  

Yesterday I had a revealing dream that most likely got triggered through listening to the audio from Eqafe called Tension in Working Environments – Relationship Success Support and Tension in Normal Environments – Relationship Success Support where there’s a very cool example that I guess women like me can relate to when we express ourselves in a particular manner around people that might be misinterpreted as being flirting or creating some kind of sexual innuendo in our interactions with the opposite sex.

I appreciate the explanations given in such contexts, because I have been ‘there’ myself in wanting to suppress my expression around males and even dressing in a particular way so as to not apparently ‘provoke’ certain experiences in others – instead of realizing that I cannot ever change how another is going to perceive me or how they might interpret my expression and relationship towards them, however there IS a point that I can absolutely take responsibility for, and that is explained in the second one linked above, where I have to keep an eye on how I might be expressing myself through energy, becoming in essence too ‘extroverted’ or ‘too expressive’ around males in order to cover up some kind of inferiority/fear/insecurity that is then ‘compensated’ for through energy. But in my case I discovered how there was something else behind such ‘expressiveness’ many times in my experience towards males before.

What I’ve been testing out in ‘real time’ is precisely deliberately spending time with certain people that I had all kinds of ‘hidden agendas’ towards in relation to creating experiences of desire or attraction towards – and that’s what I’ll explain here which matches as well what emerged in my dream in such a clear and almost ‘scientific experiment’ way that I just cannot ignore the relevance it has to what I have been observing and processing in relation to identifying those aspects of myself, my personalities and experiences where I am holding on to these ‘mind candies’ as I’ve been calling them, anything that gives me a momentary sense of pleasure or I turn into an ‘exciting’ experience.

While I was communicating yesterday about this dream and how I link the situation to identifying ‘my indulgence’ point in life, I realized how normal it had become for me to simply go into these energies before and how it wasn’t even about ‘the people’ themselves that I’d create these energies towards, but how it was all in fact the sheer desire to experience that energy based on the context that I’ll describe now.

So in the dream I would face two males in my life, one that I’ve known in ‘real time’ that I had built or accumulated many ideals around, creating an aura of desire towards that person based on the idea and even image that I wanted to believe they in fact were in order to feed this energetic experience of attraction towards them. What’s interesting is that several times before I proved to myself how I was more ‘infatuated’ with the IDEA and Experience that I would get from the thought of them – such as excitement, desire, fascination, the idea of being liked by the person, the idea of being desired by that person –  that I actually got ‘hooked on’ these thoughts as triggers for these experiences in the same way that an addict would towards drugs.

How did I come to conclude I was in fact hooked on energy rather than the actual person? Because I never really knew the person –or people – as in spending sufficient amount of time with them to truly get to appreciate them at that reality-physical level, which is also clarified based on the explanation on the Eqafe audio as well in terms of being realistic about the time that it takes to truly develop this kind of potentials with people.  It makes sense how I spent probably a couple of years feeding this infatuation in my mind, while merely spending a few hours every now and then with such person in my life – the result? I turned the person into a symbol, an idea of desire, while actually not really wanting to have something to do with the ‘real person.’ Yep, I realized how I was more ‘in love’ if you will with the idea of them that I would trigger within me as a ‘candy-thought’ to create this ‘excitement’ experience of attraction or desire in me about such person – but again, it was never about the person in fact and this was confirmed by my experience in the dream.

In the dream I was talking to this person and I basically went back to the experience I had towards him when I first met him many years ago, and all that mattered to me was that ‘energetic interaction’ that I was experiencing in the dream/while dreaming about the idea that I had of this person, essentially experiencing once again that energy that I got quite hooked on for years on in relation to males as a seemingly ‘acceptable’ and ‘common’ fixation I developed over the years, changing only the person but keeping myself ‘hooked’ on the same attraction or desire that I’d create towards them, which most of the times never consolidated or had any actual physical reality outcome as in having a relationship with any of them – instead I turned people into symbols of desire, attraction, lust within myself for the sake of bringing up these experiences within me, for my own pleasure essentially.

So, in the dream I noticed that I didn’t want to ‘stop dreaming’ or wanted to ‘elongate’ that process of existing in this flirty mode or that perception of being able to ‘seduce’ another – which is really only an experience I have only ever created within myself within the comfortable and seductive idea of ‘having power over’ creating an experience of desire within another towards me – yep, essentially a power game there going on that I’d get hooked on experiencing.

And what went on in a ‘separate’ moment in my dream is having exactly the same process going on where I’d get to meet a person that I never got to in fact meet in person and play out the exactly same ‘energy game’ of attraction, seduction, desire towards them without actually wanting to do something ‘in reality’ towards them other than just get to exist in that prolonged moment of building up the attraction, building up the desire and such kind of exhilaration that can be created with things that can be defined as ‘sexual tension’ and the rest of things that we can create and ‘comfortably’ participate with in our minds.

I was also translating this audio on Eqafe on Embracing Your Mind which assisted me to see how we tend to want to shove aside, hide, suppress anything perceived and felt as bad, negative, awful or emotional experience within ourselves, and in that becoming selective in our relationship to our mind, where we then don’t question the positive experiences, that which feels good, that which we usually want to ‘prolong’ as a ‘nice’ experience within ourselves, and I got to see that quite clearly in my dream how I basically became ‘hooked on’ within those interactions with these two examples of males in my dream and play out the exact same thing with both, so as to see that it had never been in fact about ‘them’ as people that I have created such infatuation, but it in fact was representing my relationship to the ‘positive experience’ I came to associate with all of these energies that I can describe as feelings, as attraction, seduction, pleasure, even in terms of power play which I had come to associate to one of my ‘abilities’ or ‘skills’ towards males.

Lol, here I understand how this can be interpreted and it’s certainly not my intent to enhance these patterns or personality-traits within me at all, it is simply to understand, recognize it, embrace it as the audio explained so that I don’t hold now a relationship of embarrassment or shame to what I’ve ‘comfortably’ played out many times throughout my life – and possibly beyond this life as well.

I also find it interesting that in these past couple of weeks I’ve been talking precisely about this ‘misinterpretation’ with a female friend of mine, of how certain males will react to our expression as females and how it is entirely up to us to ensure we are not giving the ‘wrong idea’ towards them in relation to who we are and how we stand towards them.  And It was cool to find out how she’s experienced very similar experiences to the ones I’ve had in my life as well, and where we both had to admit that yeah there was also this attachment to ‘feeling good’ about in a sense being able to flirt and create this momentary ‘excitement’ about the ‘possibilities’ that open up when developing such communication with another person, and how that eventually leads to take on the ‘next steps’ for example into creating a relationship, and eventually how that energy only lasts so long to the point that all that remains is the ‘shadow of the energy’ as a desire that one then realizes had nothing to do with the actual person themselves, but it really only was all about our individual energetic reaction to those moments where we get to first meet someone and deliberately create these energetic reactions as attraction, desire, lust, flirting and with that wrapping ourselves up into an overall experience of excitement that we then go seeking out everywhere we can, as in moving to a ‘new prey’ so to speak, just like vampires seeking energy. It becomes a ‘way of living’ in terms of turning others as objects of desire and ourselves as ‘desirable’ to others that we want to establish this kind of ‘connection’ with, which is of course the point to change here and take responsibility for within myself.

It was interesting because as I was sharing about these points with her, I realized that I was verbalizing my own solution to this ‘secret’ indulgence of mine that I had for the most part not really exposed or explained to anyone else, because a part of me wanted to hold on to it, which is a tendency we all have in relation to anything ‘positive’ in our minds. So as it is explained in the Eqafe audio, we were conditioned to not question and welcome all sorts of positive experiences, and do the opposite with all things negative. Therefore now that I see to what extent this energetic ‘pull’ exists within me, I realize the importance of developing an actual sense of honor, respect and stability when seeing that I am wanting to ‘recreate’ this positive-experience in relation to males in particular and keep myself grounded so as to not be deliberately going into energy as in building up any form of excitement or ‘attraction’ or ‘desire’ experience that can be seen by others and then interpreted as ‘something else’ which usually is interpreted in sexual or relationship terms.

And it’s interesting how I had become very vocal in criticizing females that would kind of deliberately place themselves as ‘sex symbols’ or deliberately wanting to evoke certain reactions in the opposite sex, and in that I realized how I had been also participating in the same kind of patterns in a different way, in a more concealed manner, but still the same energetic experience exists in that kind of ‘flirtatious’ escapades that I’ve had towards males in particular.

It’s also very cool to be able to discuss this with someone and have several references of how people experience this kind of ‘positive feelings’ in relation to for example pornography, something that I had created a righteousness about because of ‘not indulging into porn’ however, when looking at the actual experience one gets ‘hooked on’ in relation to anything that we use to stimulate these positive experiences in ourselves, it really is only a secondary thing to look at what or who we are turning into an object or image or idea that elicits this ‘positive experience’ within ourselves – it really becomes all about giving up and deciding to no longer try and ‘go into’ these positive experiences, trying to create our ‘mind candy’ as I call it which airs  essentially the cocktail of ‘feel good’ experiences I’ve merely come to define as excitement, desire, lust, attraction, power plays in relation to males – but in essence, it’s not even about people themselves, but my idea and experience created towards them which are all self-created.

My decision is then to build a foundation of self respect, honor and consideration not only towards myself, my body, my mind but also in how I relate to other people, specially males for all the reasons described above, where I have been proving to myself that I am able to talk to, relate and communicate with them and deliberately ‘not going there’ in terms of turning on the flirtatious design or experience, which means not communicate or interact through energy, but remain stable yet expressive, which is really all a decision in every moment to ‘not indulge,’ to ‘not go there’ and instead practice that stability in my experience while communicating and interacting with males, which I’ve also proven to myself is entirely possible and enjoyable in a different way, where there’s more of a sense of satisfaction in my case for the depth that I can create with another based on actual communication, than just creating an ‘energy-game’ towards them.

It did in a way bother me that I had such dream that I described above, in a way I felt like failing at being able to in my dream apply myself and stop seeking to recreate such ‘feel good’ flirtatious experiences. However I realize that this would be me being short-sighted about the extent to which I have in fact existed in this mindset, which is probably as far as I can remember existing, meaning, it has become ‘me’ to such an extent that it is only now that I am in fact deciding to open it up and take it on, because of its ‘positive nature.’ It definitely had become an aspect of self-definition that I was holding on to as a ‘little piece of heaven’ I could keep for myself – lol – but it’s in fact not cool at all to exist like that.

In this it does imply cutting myself off from supplying myself with these ‘feel good’ experiences which is entirely possible by me not ‘going into it’, not ‘going there’ whenever I see that I would usually just ‘automatically’ do it in the past. It is possible and I’ve tested it a few times already. Therefore what I see came up in my dream is to become aware of how I am still keeping it at a deep level within me as something I want to hold on to, to keep secret, to not ‘admit’ as a pattern that has dominated my life for so long, which is why I am also writing, sharing and talking about it to understand it, to see who I am in it and in doing so, placing it in my awareness to such an extent that I cannot any longer just ‘sweep it under the rug’ and continue deceiving myself about it – now I actively decide to change myself in relation to it.

As I was talking to someone about it, they explained how it is so that we cannot change this ‘high’ energy into something else, because it’s just like deciding to giving up drugs where you essentially have to learn to live without such ‘high’ or ‘buzz’ that the drugs give you at an energetic level – and it’s definitely so, it’s no different to how I have to now go about this in my mind, saying ‘no’ to wanting to create these ‘good feelings’ and take responsibility for my expression, and not seeing this as a ‘loss’ at all, but instead I see that it’s actually cool to be able to build this actual communication or understanding with others without the need to bring up any ‘feelings’ for it or turn it into a mind-game.

Here also taking into consideration how many times I have in fact caused consequences that I only later got to know based on this pattern of interaction with males, where in creating these energetic experiences ‘towards them,’ I’d then in fact give ‘mixed signals’ that would then leave them confused or angry at myself for not being ‘clear’ on what my intent was… and the reality is that I was in it all just for the momentary experience and only a few times did I ever really consider an actual relationship with people, so that’s something I have to take responsibility for in terms of measuring my expression so as to not create consequences in others as well – of course, I cannot control them all, but I can sure do my part to ensure I am clear at all times.

That means that  I do my part when it comes to these interactions in not ‘opening any doors’ to misinterpretation through going into energy when communicating with others, but remain stable, clear in my expression and still be expressive and outgoing as I usually am, but there is a distinctive difference when I know I am going into these ‘same old patterns’ and when I am actually ‘empty’ or devoid of any ‘good feelings’ while communicating with others, where I can genuinely stand in equality with the person, not reducing them any longer as a potential source to trigger or elicit ‘positive feelings’ within me, which is really not cool in terms of considering another being in the totality of who they are, and in that I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to reduce ourselves as males and females as beings that would ‘normally’ desire each other or turn any point of expression and communication into sex and relationships, which is the same as reducing myself and others as mere objects of desire, which is not how I want to continue living and seeing fellow beings as.

Here I commit myself to honor, respect and consider myself and others in being able to establish clarity and consistency in my communication with other males, being able to remind myself that I hold a point of responsibility in how I behave, and if necessary be able to explain ‘where I stand’ towards them so as to not give room to interpretations, which I’ve found actually quite supportive to do in order to ‘clear up any confusion’ in such situations and that actually assists to delineate or define my relationships to males in terms of support and/or friendship.

Ok, so that’s the point for me to continue working on, I am grateful for the dreams, for the support that is opened up through Eqafe in order to look at what I can change about myself in relation to these patterns and in essence for once and for all stop my indulgence into these ‘feel good’ patterns that I had so comfortably become.

Thanks for reading.

 

If you have a dream you’d like to have some perspectives on in order to understand how to work with it, I recommend requesting a Dream Reading on Eqafe.com, I have been able to walk through some very bizarre dreams to understand what they meant at levels of my mind that I’m not yet aware of.

 

 

Join us in our process of Self-Expression as LIFE

• Free Online DIP Lite Course

• School Of Ultimate Living | Facebook

• EQAFE.Com : SELF Education and SELF Awareness Store

• 7 Year Journey To Life Process : People Sharing their Processes of Self-Forgiveness and Self-Correction

• Get Real with Cerise

• Destonians

• Desteni I Process

• Agreement/Redefining Relationship Course

• Desteni Forum : Discuss and share with us

596. The Gifts of Criticism

Or how to walk from a reaction to criticism towards an acknowledgement, discernment, learning and embracing of it as a way to assist ourselves to grow and develop ourselves to better ourselves in many ways.

I was listening to this documentary IDO PORTAL – JUST MOVE (filmed by London Real) while preparing some canvasses yesterday and it was quite amazing to hear the parallels that can be drawn from walking through this mind-self change process that some of us have been working on for the past 9 years and someone developing physical movement in all sorts of ways in their body in order to ‘master’ themselves, which becomes not so much about the end result, but the process of ‘mastering the craft’ as Ido says.

To begin with, this documentary or ‘topic’ is something that I would not have been ‘interested’ on years ago, yet the more I saw the name of this guy being shared around within the London Real channel, the more I got curious about it and this recently released documentary is quite a recommended and enjoyable thing to watch because it’s an awesome confirmation of many of the principles and ‘tests’ I’ve gone through in my own life within developing things I thought I would ‘never do’ and in general within this process of self-change – or dare I say the ‘reinvention’ process of myself.

There are many, many points that are valuable in it and it serves as a great source to cross-reference ‘who one is’ in relation to what Ido shares, however one that got my attention is where he speaks about criticism, which you can watch/hear here https://youtu.be/qJDz7qHBGQg?t=53m14s and there are a few points that I want to take on and write out because I consider that many times, for anyone starting to do something new, or doing something ‘for the first time’ or completely ‘out of the box’ of ‘normalcy’ in this world  – which easily can be associated with embarking oneself in this process of developing self-awareness and self-forgiveness and getting to change in our day to day living – can seem like a daunting task, something that one is ‘never ready for’ and sometimes we allow criticism to ‘overpower’ ourselves if we start reacting to our own ‘beliefs’ about not being able to do it, or about others’ sudden rather ‘harsh’ input in how we are doing things or how we are ‘changing,’ not questioning what of ourselves can be ‘hurt’ by criticism.

Many times throughout sharing my vlogs related to this process on YouTube I learned to read the worst of the worst kind of criticism, trolling and bullying that you can imagine: judging everything about my voice and the way that I speak, how I look, how wrong I am in my statements, how they wish I would die or how I should go kill myself.. all kinds of stuff, not worth mentioning or typing here really, but you get the idea.

Of course the initial experience for most people is to react and go into defense mode, try and ‘win against’ those that bully/troll in that sense, but in my case I also learned to start seeing where such words reflected back to the person that expressed them – and other times being able to humbly recognize they were truly supportive feedback even if myself/my ego didn’t like it, because they enabled me to look at myself, my stance, the way I spoke and start questioning the righteousness in my ‘intellectualism’ that I many times shared in my YouTube videos as ‘this is how things are and that’s it’ – lol, the ‘fascist me’ as I call it – which led me to in fact question in a very honest manner towards me: what is it about myself and my expression that is being shared from a starting point of fear: fear of being told I’m wrong, fear of receiving criticism, fear of being seen as weak, fear of not being credible enough… all those fears were there, so what did I do next? I then worked on really seeing what of ‘my ego’ can be hurt through criticism, writing it out, self-forgiving it and applying a humbleness and understanding to it, while of course practically not allowing the ‘overwhelming’ experience criticism can create to take me for a ride, which sure can be difficult but, any process of change involves that kind of challenge and resistance and difficulty, hence my suggestion to watch Ido’s documentary as well who explains this beautifully.

I grew up being a child that was mostly praised by adults and at times hated/envied/bullied by my peers, because it seems we like to destroy that which is in any way perceived as being ‘ahead of us’ and through the support of my mother in those days, I learned to grow a ‘thick skin’ to it and realize that whatever others said or did towards me spoke more about ‘who they are’ not about ‘me’ in essence, and started to learn to ‘take the heat’ so to speak, though not really yet learning to ‘reflect’ on such criticism or learning to ‘discern’ things, which eventually took me to create a certain ‘defensive stance’ that was still ‘here’ within me not until long ago.  

However I have also been on the other side of the coin, where I have craved feedback, I have craved criticism from those that know me best and so far only one person keeps having the guts to let me know where I am still being ‘taken over’ by myself in my ego/mind patterns, which is my mother and I’m grateful for that because it is so that only those that have known you for such a long time can really have a stand point to let you know where you are ‘losing your ground’ in any given moment.

Many times I have asked partners and friends to let me know when I am losing my ground, where I am becoming a ‘problem’ about something, where I am being righteous, where I am being one-dimensional or ‘tunnel visioned’ about something and I’m also grateful that I’ve had such wake up calls from them and other people here and there, but ultimately I realize that no one has the ‘imperative’ duty to let me know all of these things, that I can also get to see these points for myself when observing me in self-honesty as ‘who I am’ in the words I write, in how I express, in what I create, in how I decide to work and do things… it becomes a self-evident measure which then I use as a way to develop self-trust so that even if those that I’ve come to ‘trust’ the most can come at me with certain criticism, I can know and be honest with myself about it being a fact or being a perception or interpretation coming from them – and that’s where self-honesty is the key to see ‘who am I’ in the eye of criticism.

To me facing, dealing with, reading, listening, getting to know of criticism about myself has been one of the most challenging yet most supportive points in my life, and not long ago I was still fearing how certain people would ‘see me’ based on certain decisions I’ve made in my life and through walking through the fears of that ‘potential criticism’ I’ve realized one thing: the worst only critic exists within myself, I am the only one that can allow myself to be ‘affected’ by words, I am the only one that can accept and allow a certain word to cause an effect within me, and you know what? If it does, then, that’s actually quite great! How else would I know that I am still holding on to an ‘idea’ of myself as ‘untouchable’ or ‘superior’ or where I am still standing in inferiority to a word, a concept, an idea if no one would dare to come at me with certain words of criticism? And here’s an awesome audio that opens this up nicely as well and that I recommend having a listen to: Who Are You When Challenged – The Future of Awareness – Part 91

 

If anything, I actually would like to get more feedback in whatever I do and am, because in that it doesn’t mean that I have to change myself to be what others want me to be, it doesn’t mean that what others say will be ‘right,’ but because I can always learn something from anything that anyone has to say about me – either about separating the wheat from the chaff as they say as in taking what I can test out/apply/try out as a way to expand myself and test ‘new ways’ discerning what’s supportive and what’s plain backchat/reactions coming from others and ‘who they are’ towards someone that maybe is projected as a reaction to the challenges experienced through my doings/expression, or where one becomes a ‘boxing bag’ for them to blame for everything they can be dissatisfied for in their own lives… both and possibly many more reasons and starting points may exist in criticism.

I’ve done such kind of criticism as well, in fact I was sharing with an old friend yesterday how I was ‘wired’ to be constantly criticizing everything and everyone, which is the same as judging or creating ‘beliefs’ about anything that’s ‘out there’ of course within that ‘vantage’ point of seeing my judgments as right and just… lol the typical self-delusion. And so how it took me a process to really get down from my ‘high horse’ and start to truly hear/read/see criticism from others towards myself as a supportive process for me to ‘see me through the eyes of others’ and get to know what is it that can in fact be ‘standing out the most’ in creating more reactions in people than support.

In that, I got to test out new ways of expressing myself: stopping wanting to seem ‘absolutist’ and ‘right’ at all times – or fearing being wrong – being less intimidating or stopping wanting to ‘impose’ myself onto others – being less attackative or stopping fearing being undermined or ‘proven wrong’ by others, being less self-infatuated or learning to question my principles through trial and error – and stop being arrogant or stop seeing ‘my way’ as ‘the only way’ to live life – which is how I can agree I ‘felt’ within myself while sharing experiences, knowledge and information in my YouTube videos for example – and how that is definitely something I continue to work on in being more ‘chilled’ about things, which has proven to be a physical process of literally relaxing, not being as ‘tense’ and ‘anxious’ and ‘rigid’ in my expression, but to allow myself to actually ‘breathe’ and be more in my body as I am communicating and expressing with others.

That way I took criticism to really look at myself and test out a few changes that I can now reference have in fact been very supportive within my current life and the way I relate to others and how genuinely enjoyable it is for me to ‘be me’ currently, whereas before I would still feel like being in a constant battlefield where anyone was an ‘enemy’ that I had to watch out my back for and be constantly assessing ‘who was out to get me’ type of thing, lol, yes like living ‘war’ mentality within me, all because of mostly fearing criticism… man, have I limited myself so much because of this and it’s not like I am ‘completely over it,’ nope, it’s still a point to continue walking but here I’m sharing some distinctive differences around it.

Even recently someone came at me with quite a nasty kind of defamation and twisting of information about something I once shared with them, and for a moment I could notice there was this reaction coming up until I forced myself to re-read and see how what was being said was a plain attack, with no validity or veracity to it and how the intent was mostly to – sorry for the words – but spread shit about myself. I was able to then cross reference ‘who I am’ in the face of being criticized, judged in this particular way, understand the person, their possible context and starting point for it, self forgive the initial ‘knee-jerk’ reaction and then let it go, because there was truly nothing to ‘learn’ from such trolling.

Back to Ido Portal here, I can relate to what he says in what he once believed he wanted to be which was ‘to be liked by everyone’ which I also really tried hard to do before – and now I realize that it’s not about being ‘accepted’ or liked by others, but simply be myself, developing that stance of ‘this is me, this is the new me that can stand by my words, that is aware of what I say, do, decide to act on and then whatever ‘heat comes at me’ I can take the criticism, work with my reactions if there are any, take the considerations as constructive feedback and keep moving on’ which also exists within a humbleness of being open to learn from others, to learn to question my own ‘tenets’ and be willing to hear different perspectives and ways of living life, which lol, was quite a difficult thing for me to embrace some years ago, but it’s cool to deliberately be challenging myself within that.

As Ido says, critics, trolls, haters usually don’t provide feedback from a practical ‘walking in your own shoes’ point which means they usually lack understanding of the process that it takes to be/become/express/do what one does, and within that it makes sense to obviously discard criticism that is not at all considering the time, the practice, the trial and error, the evolution, the changes, the adaptations that any point of creation or change involves. As he says, it’s not to avoid criticism either but to embrace it for growth and self-development – which ultimately it is so, it’s about having a ‘mirror’ of sorts wherein we can reflect back to ourselves to see how is it that what we are sharing is being received by others, and to me that’s something really precious in life, sincerely, because that’s what I personally enjoy about being a human being, where I can learn about myself through others, I can learn new things, new ways, new approaches from others and in turn also get to hear or read how other people have benefited from who I am, what I am, what I share, how I share, how I live – I consider that that’s already one steps into ‘making an impact’ on someone in a supportive manner.

Of course I am aware how I have probably also impacted people in and for all the ‘wrong reasons’ or ‘the wrong way’ as they say, but then it would also become an opportunity for them to question certain things, to maybe ‘snap’ themselves out of a certain expectation and be confronted with a more harsh, direct and ‘challenging’ point of view which I can now relate to as ‘who I was’ in those old YouTube videos that I certainly have to stop being ashamed of myself and understand within the context of who I was at that time, at that moment in my process and ultimately see that it might have assisted others to ‘check themselves’ if they felt affected, insulted or plainly attacked by whatever I said – that will be my part to take responsibility for, where I wasn’t being clear within me when sharing, where I deliberately wanted to attack ‘the perceived wrong side’ of things and where I wasn’t truly embracing ‘both sides’ as myself, because antagonism has certainly been one of the main ‘wires’ in my overall ‘wiring’ in my mind – and for that I’ve forgiven myself for not taking ‘all sides’ into considerations – and I continue to catch myself doing this and continue to learn how to practically embrace all sides, which is also quite an expansive, nurturing and fascinating process to me.

So, something I got from the documentary as well is how we have to have the courage to do things differently, to break our patterns, to decide to ‘stand up from the crowd’ not in an egotistical/superiority way, but to challenge the status quo and this begins with all the ways that we ‘share’ ourselves, which as it was recently mentioned in an Eqafe interview, we share ourselves all the time that we are around people, with words or actions, they all represent forms of communication and to me this entails both a gift and a responsibility that I have towards myself and so towards others to honor that ability, that capacity of understanding, of verbalizing, of moving, of doing that I can use as a constant point of expression, like constantly making sure who I am and what I do can become an ‘act of creation’ in itself – just like the one project I said I would do in terms of ‘becoming my own work of art’ and that’s truly then embracing our capacity as creators and authors in our own life.

In this chat I had with this friend yesterday, it was interesting to see how he considers this same point of responsibility towards himself as part of what he defines as ‘godly’ as ever present in everything, that ‘divinity’ if you will that exists within it all – which I call life – and as such it’s about taking responsibility for it/as it, honor it ourselves in the best way that we can. Of course the ‘ways’ to do it are as varied as there are human beings in this world, but that’s also what I’ve learned to see as unique and enjoyable, no two ‘human beings’ will have the absolute same ‘truth’ to themselves even if united by the same principles, it will always be different, unique yet always relatable to one another as ‘who we are’ towards one another.

So that’s how I’ve been walking a process to discharge my relationship to ‘criticism’ experienced in a negative way only and actually learn to embrace it, in my case many times being thankful whenever one comes at me challenging my perceived ‘truth’ or ‘righteousness’ because it’s not many people that dare to be so upfront with me either, and that’s something I’d like to challenge as well, because if anything I can learn a lot more from it in seeing who am I in relation to that criticism, discerning what I can use to learn, expand, grow and develop myself further and what is the kind of criticism that only contains reactions, projections with no supportive substance at all.

Another point I’ve learned is to take responsibility for my criticism towards others. If I am perceiving something is not ‘good enough’ and I have ideas of how to make it better, I am not just placing them out for ‘others to do and implement’ and leave the work-load for others to ‘do that for me,’ but I am learning to take responsibility/be in charge of my own criticism and turn it into a proposal for change and expansion that I can actively create and commit myself to contribute with, which is a way where one can take that stand of not only ‘noticing flaws’ and blaming or pointing fingers at others because ‘they are not doing it,’ but rather turn it into a self-empowering point of contributing to the cause, of being the one that does, acts, creates that which we can see is ‘missing’ within something or that could better things for everyone – now that’s quite a constructive criticism as well that leads to actions, doings, to creating changes for the betterment of something or someone, which is lined to sharing responsibility, to empowering oneself in such capacities as well and of course considering the benefit for ourselves and others in it.

Here also making sure that I am aware of ‘who I am’ within that criticism or providing such feedback, if I am doing so from a starting point of blame and disempowerment or if I am truly genuinely wanting to assist with something to better it, and that’s also something where I can only check within myself and how even if it may be perceived as finding faults or blame, I can only ever focus on making sure my starting point is clear, which also makes room for becoming more specific in how to communicate things in a way where one’s intent, starting point and contribution is clear for all people involved in such situation.

So, if there’s any reaction of disempowerment, feeling ‘not good enough’ etc. when getting criticism by others – or even within one’s own mind –  it’s definitely time to place it out on paper, write it out, using self-forgiveness to see ‘who am I’ or ‘what of me’ is being ‘hurt’ by it, where am I going into disempowerment, where am I actually believing myself to not be capable to stand this ‘heat’ of the moment and use that to strengthen ourselves, to identify our weaknesses and actively work on re-aligning ourselves within them to a version of ourselves that can learn to read/watch/hear criticism objectively and develop an understanding of ‘where it is coming from’ and discerning what’s supportive and what’s not – that’s something that surely takes some practice but as anything, we all start somewhere and the point is getting to actually Do it, that’s the difference, rather than just remaining wallowing in worry, concern, pity and disempowerment about it, and that’s why I also recommend watching that first part of Ido Portal’s documentary, quite a fascinating parallel to understand what it entails to change at a Physical level – and not only talking about exercise/movements here – but about who we are in our minds as well.

Criticism is a great way to challenge myself and as such, I definitely have open doors to it, I kind of crave it at times which is an imbalance as well lol, so I have to simply take it as it comes and use it constructively as I’ve explained in this blog today.

Thanks for reading.

Please take your time and invest in supporting yourself while also supporting Desteni/Eqafe providing this information/courses that I have benefitted tremendously from and without which I would not have been able to write my story as I did just now, and you can do so by getting self-support audios, all of which will enrich your life in many more ways than what I’ve just shared above, including Ido Portal’s input on several things coincidentally being echoed in the content of this material, which is quite a cool confirmation of how this physical process of self-change takes place:

• Exploring the Physical with Bruce Lee – The Future of Awareness – Par…

• Bruce Lee on Becoming Idle for our Idols – The Future of Awareness – …

• Who Are You When Challenged – The Future of Awareness – Part 91

• Debunking Self Beliefs – Back to Basics

• Introduction to Self Bullying and Self-Hatred – Atlanteans – Part 473

• Self Bullying and Self Hatred Part 2 – Atlanteans – Part 474

 

 

 

Join us in our process of Self-Expression as LIFE

• Free Online DIP Lite Course

• School Of Ultimate Living | Facebook

• EQAFE.Com : SELF Education and SELF Awareness Store

• 7 Year Journey To Life Process : People Sharing their Processes of Self-Forgiveness and Self-Correction

• Get Real with Cerise & Joe

• Desteni Radio

• Desteni Articles

• Destonians

• Desteni I Process

• Agreement/Redefining Relationship Course

• Desteni Forum : Discuss and share with us

• Desteni Wiki

• Desteni Español

• Creation’s Journey to Life

• Heaven’s Journey To Life

594. Who Decides?

Or how I’ve been able to establish a pillar of support for myself from the time I decided to ‘kick a habit’ and get to know who I am as the authority of myself.

Last week there was an interesting discussion in our group chat about self-authority and how many times we believe we ‘don’t have a say’ in opening up something within ourselves or others that we know could be fixed, corrected, changed for the betterment of a situation and everyone involved. However, we concluded how relevant it is to instead of wanting to ‘fix things out there’ first, we have to take things ‘back to self’ where one can instead see ‘who am I’ in relation to this point that I’m wanting to change in others and as such, seeing where one’s authority is in the whole case.

What do I mean by this ‘self-authority’ and how I have neglected my own in my life? I’ve found how I’ve conditioned myself several times in various contexts/situations based on an idea, belief or perception of myself as ‘not having the authority’ to change something in me, and it obviously doesn’t come up with such words as in ‘Oh crap, I don’t have authority over that!’ but it comes in the form of ‘I can’t change this, it’s not coming natural to me, based on my past it’s just not something that I can do, it’s who I’ve always been, that would not be me doing that, it’s just not ‘my thing,’ I would not feel entirely ‘me’ doing/saying/being that, I would feel so fake because I’ve never done that/expressed that before’ and one cool question that I’ve come up whenever these things come up which are a form of disempowerment is saying to myself “Well, Who Decides?”

And this ‘who’ is really then a way to bring myself back to who I decide to be, to realize that I am that authority that is able to decide how I can take the first steps to ‘step into the new,’ to start taking those ‘first steps’ in creating something, to decide to practice and express new things, in new ways, to be the one that makes a decision on what I express, what I choose, what I decide to move towards – it’s entirely up to me and the possibilities of doings so – all things considered of course within the context, possibilities, affordability, time, skills and the rest of practical common sensical things to look at when deciding to do something as a practical assessment of ‘I can’ do it and take reality into consideration – but I no longer give that power to my mind’s limitations as in ‘I can’t’ or ‘It’s gonna take so long that I rather just not do it at all’ or ‘It’s not my thing’ or ‘It’s going to be so difficult’ because I am aware how many times I’ve set such seemingly ‘excusable traps’ to myself as limitations which ultimately have led me to ‘long timeloops’ that I’m sorting out currently in my life and have realized are coming from fears of essentially stepping out of my comfort zone and actually ‘do change’ as it was mentioned in a recent recording on Eqafe.

Interestingly enough, this past week I’ve had conversations with a few individuals and it was cool to see that they all have been looking more intently into quitting a certain day to day habit such as weed, alcohol, smoking or even addiction to self-deprecation and ‘past sorrows’ lol. So I found it quite cool that all of them have been looking beyond the ‘habit’ or ‘addiction’ in itself – meaning going beyond the obvious habit created to experiencing some chemical/stimulation change in their bodies – or certain emotional experience – but more looking at and into what of themselves is being suppressed in those habits, where are they keeping themselves in these Timeloops or recycling of experiences day in and day out without really stepping out of the pattern and questioning ‘who am I’ without this habit/addiction/repetitive experience in my day to day? What’s behind my ‘need’ to do it on a daily basis, at the same times or in the same ‘social contexts’ etc.?

It’s quite interesting because quitting an addiction, stopping it or even taking the first step to question it and test out not ‘giving into it’ for one day is already a huge step for many, even more so for those that are not that aware of the various consequences created at a mind, physical and being level within the relationship created to certain substances/chemicals – but more so in discovering ‘what kind of expressions, words to live have I been suppressing or not developing for myself wherein I then believe I ‘need’ this substance in me to focus, to do things, to let go, to relax, to open up conversations with people, to ‘be me’, to enjoy life, to develop my skills in music/art/creativity’ and the rest of expressions that I can totally understand may not be ‘natural’ to most of us, but sure as hell I can say now that it IS entirely possible to be a ‘socially lubricated’, open, focused, relaxed, joyful, creative individual as one can experience oneself with drugs and being entirely sober and still manage to be all of those expressions that we have given our authority to create and develop for ourselves through needing a certain substance in our bodies/minds.

Here I’m mostly describing some of what I’ve discovered myself as well through having been a person that also had fallen into such habits before for various reasons and contexts, creating a dependency to ‘express myself’ for example creatively relying on a particular substance to ‘do that for me’ or ‘be the catalyst.’ And interestingly enough I was also listening to a person’s vlog this morning on menopause and creating an analogy of the symptoms of it being similar to withdrawal symptoms after being a drug addict, where her expression as a reason to take some ‘herbal stuff’ to calm her down was ‘I can’t deal with this’ and her entire expression was that of fighting back tears, being clearly emotional and believing that yes it’s too bad she can’t walk through it without the use of this ‘herb’ or drug.

Now I have no authority there to judge her or consider her as weak for needing that, I have no idea what menopause feels like nor how it is felt if one has been a drug addict, but the point that caught my attention is precisely going into that belief or experience of ‘I can’t deal with this’ where we believe we ‘can’t do it’ or ‘can’t stand’ something, where we in fact believe ourselves to be ‘less than’ such experiences in our minds and bodies – because yep, we have definitely intertwined them to such an extent that any ‘withdrawal’ symptom is not only a psychological but a physical dependency to cut off as well.

And I realized that those are mostly consequential outflows from having created such dependency in the first place – meaning, if one has to quit something, sure there will be withdrawal symptoms at various physical and psychological levels, re-wiring oneself or ‘re-adapting’ to not doing it anymore entails an entire ‘re-alignment’ of one’s day to day experience which has to be in a way ‘re built’ depending on the extent that one has ‘wired’/intertwined one’s life depending on these drugs to do/be/activate certain experiences within us, and that’s where a lot of patience, dedication, perseverance and consistency comes in, as well as being gentle to ourselves because it sure is quite a ‘shock’ to the body that has been conditioned at times for decades to do something as a regular habit. And also, very important, to seek out for support as well!

Having said that, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be an impossible thing where we are kind of already seeing the ‘long road’ and see it as ‘too much to go through’ and immediately create ‘backdoors’ and talk ourselves into this ‘oh no, it’s going to be hard, it’s going to be hell, it will be so difficult! I rather just leave things as they are, I’m ok, it would only compound the problems…’ – right there is ourselves speaking as the worst or lesser version of ourselves that is not realizing the authority we truly have to change things. As the saying goes here ‘Where there’s a will, there’s a way’.

However, I am also aware that it’s entirely up to each one to make this kind of decisions but I personally haven’t talked myself out of my decisions in for example stopping habits I kicked out some 9 and a half years ago when I started this process with Desteni where my starting point was: I want to know who I am without all of these experiences, this ‘neediness’ for something causing me to ‘be’ or ‘express’ in a particular way,’ because I saw it as self-deception, as fooling myself, just like cheating in winning a game type of thing where you know that it’s not you doing the effort or developing the skills as such, but paying off your triumph or bribing someone to change the numbers for you to ‘feel like a winner.’ It’s just a point of self-dishonesty that I decided to stop within me which became a very relevant, sturdy pillar of support for the development of my self-trust – as in realizing ‘I can do this, I can walk through it’ and prove to myself eventually that ‘it wasn’t as hard/bad/tough/difficult as I thought it would be’ and in doing so, kind of debunking this ‘greater than myself’ fear that I had towards leaving these habits, patterns, emotional experiences in my mind, which enabled me to start seeing and realizing what? My self-authority – bingo.

So to me it’s been an interesting week of looking at this word of ‘self-authority’ and questioning where in my life I started first realizing this ‘authority’ that I have within myself, as in living that statement ‘I decide’ and within that decision moving as it, giving it a continuation as in doing something, changing something, stopping participating in something within the understanding of how I want to do this for myself, to get to really know me, to get to really express me instead of having a substance ‘doing the thing for me’ shrinking and wallowing in the back of myself in a position of disempowerment, while allowing a chemical, a substance to ‘kick in’ and be the ‘powerful hero’ one instead of me.

Self authority to me is that strength, that determination that is built not in one single day and within one single decision of ‘changing’ something, but it is something that is daily built and reassured within that continued commitment to myself not only in ‘kicking detrimental habits’ but in the various decisions I make to support myself, to be aware of myself, to ground myself, to work things that come up and ‘knock me off’ from my stability for a moment – I decide who I am in all those bits of moments, and even when there’s ‘nothing happening’ I then focus more into the detail of my physical, what do I have to correct in terms of tightness, tension, tensing up lips, feet, facial muscles, where am I frowning without awareness, where am I again having this undercurrent of ‘rushing’ and there’s in essence always, always  something that I can be focusing on in this same context of establishing the authority of myself, my direction, my decision and action in terms of ‘who I decide to be’ in every moment and in the detail of myself as my physical body.

So, I very much enjoy extending the support that I’ve given to myself to these people in my life that I’ve come to know are walking through this ‘stopping the habit’ phase and enjoy making questions and sharing about my own experience as a way to understand ourselves better as ‘creatures of habit’ and how we can open up things for ourselves that can assist us is sticking to these decisions and testing out ‘who we are’ without these addictions/detrimental habits – or more so discovering ‘what of ourselves’ is hiding behind such habits. It’s a very interesting process and an enjoyable one dare I say because to me every single person that decides to ‘stand up’ in their lives is ‘one plus’ to this equation of self-support that will ripple out not only in our own body, but to the lives of many more that we can continue to inspire to consider doing the same in their lives, as what is ‘best for all.’ That’s why I also decided to write this blog and extend these realizations and support for others that may also be deciding to quit stuff recently.

So If you that’s reading this is considering or coming to the realization that it’s time to ‘kick that old habit’ out of your life, all I can say is Go For It! To me that’s been one of the pieces of ‘freedom’ in my life that I’ve been able to create, to be clean and say ‘I don’t depend on this/that to be me in any given context or activity’ in terms of substances/drugs/alcohol etc. It’s truly liberating in many aspects, and to me that’s one piece added to forming the completion of one’s self-authority as in living the statements of I decide, I do change, I live my decision, I walk through the process it takes with its ups and downs, starting overs and mistakes – I stand right back up if I fall, I stick to it, I trust myself, I persevere, I get it done and I see it through.

Thanks for reading!

 

 

Join us in our process of Self-Expression as LIFE

• Free Online DIP Lite Course

• School Of Ultimate Living | Facebook

• EQAFE.Com : SELF Education and SELF Awareness Store

• 7 Year Journey To Life Process : People Sharing their Processes of Self-Forgiveness and Self-Correction

• Get Real with Cerise & Joe

• Desteni Radio

• Desteni Articles

• Destonians

• Desteni I Process

• Agreement/Redefining Relationship Course

• Desteni Forum : Discuss and share with us

• Desteni Wiki

• Desteni Español

• Creation’s Journey to Life

• Heaven’s Journey To Life

591. Looking Forward and Missing Out the Life

Or how I’ve realized the expectations I’ve built upon ‘my life’ creating a ‘waiting mode’ for these ‘grandiose things’ yet to happen, instead of appreciating life as it takes place in every moment to truly learn to live.

I’ve been looking at my relationship with ‘meaning’ and I am aware that this might be more of a ‘philosophical’ approach here that I haven’t written out in a while, but it’s equally important to me due to what I’ve been doing recently which is painting again and doing so from a different starting point than how it all ‘once began’ for me in this curiosity and ‘desire to express’ all of these ‘things’ that I wanted to say somehow after having been writing and reading a lot on my own, taking on painting as a way to now ‘do my part’ in not only ‘taking in’ others’ creations, but also expressing it out/giving back something, somehow. That all started during a summer 14 years ago, so here I am 14 years later reflecting on what has been this ‘ride’ with my intent behind painting and ‘arts’ in general and how much of a ‘big deal’ I made of it in my mind.

I notice how I started paintings more as a ‘way of communicating’ something, wanting to ‘express’ something which yes at the time in the plethora of little watercolors I made were all related to feeling sorry for myself, feeling depressed, feeling lonely or painting an ‘ideal lifestyle’ that I would somehow someday get to experience myself in, so in a way yes painting emotional states or ‘ideal situations’ I’d see myself in, painted my fears of the future, my fears of growing up and getting into the ‘adult world’ and in a way wanting to stay within the realm of the ‘eccentric’ out of the ‘usual things’ to do in life, like the regular job and the regular ‘adult lifestyle’ that is completely immersed in the system and living a routine that ‘slowly kills you’ quoting Radiohead’s song which I would have on repeat mode while starting this ‘new thing’ for me to explore at the time which was painting, having no background on it, no painting lessons, no artsy relatives, no nothing, just some drawings here and there that I’d be focusing on during classes, because somehow it assisted me in remaining focused on what was being said.

Focusing here on that ‘desire to express’ to me was my way of ‘creating a meaning’ and ‘creating a purpose’ to something that I had many times judged as trivial, like paintings, stuff that I would fixate on and hang around me just for the pure sake of – as I’ve defined it – ‘visual viciousness’, which  yes I ‘gave up’ for some time apparently while walking this process but, I decided to not make it a fixation anymore or this energized relationship of ‘seeing beautiful things’ around me to give them a name, because some were not necessarily ‘beautiful’ yet they more had a meaning to me. Each thing that I had around me had a ‘meaning’ and I consider that until this day, that can be said so about the bunch of stuff I have around me, so that is an interesting thing to consider as well.

How I got to ‘connect the dots’ to get to open up this topic on ‘meaning’ and wanting to create stuff that would ‘mean’ something or that would ‘express’ something closely related to something ‘transcendental’ or ‘beyond me’ or whatever else I defined as ‘larger than life’ was through having watched Jim Jarmusch’s latest movie Paterson and I must say that his previous movie Only Lovers Left Alive had left quite a ‘deep’ imprint on me at the time when I watched it and yes, was very emotional and dealt with a ‘touchy’ subject for me at the time, and when I watched this one, at first I was like ‘meh’ because! I didn’t get that ‘transcendental experience’ from it – read energetically charged and overwhelming experience – I didn’t get this ‘life changing’ insta-realization from it or didn’t get a floor-moving type of outcome from it –  or at least I thought so initially. But of course I didn’t accept that to be ‘my final verdict’ on it as it was more of an ‘out of the movie theatre’ experience, though I had been aware that I had been in fact ‘disturbed’ while watching it in a certain way by the whole thing unfolding and not only because of ‘the movie’ in itself, but due to observing my approach towards It and what it had brought up in me while watching it.

So I challenged myself to see further, to see how I had been in fact disturbed by it, because of the role that routine takes in the movie and how we are creatures of routine, everything that happens day to day is ‘the same routine’ – sun comes up, sun goes down and we have to do what we have to do to keep alive – and then there’s the rest of ‘in between’ moments where our lives happen, and that’s where I noticed myself being almost ‘yearning’ for something different to happen, where I saw myself in this ‘waiting-mode’ for this ‘grand thing’ to happen in the whole movie… and it doesn’t – or shall I say it just ‘didn’t happen’ the way I was kind of expecting. In the movie, life unfolds, things just ‘take place’ and within realizing my expectations, I saw how I was in fact challenged on that, I saw how this ‘looking forward’ impulse in me was there the whole time until something kind of ‘unexpected’ happens and it becomes like a ‘start over’ in the film, but there was a slight sense within me throughout the whole thing of ‘is this it?’ and so expecting some ‘major’ event happening, some major ‘plot twist’ that would suddenly take me to the edge of my seat, lol even though I am aware of how Jarmusch’s movies are, there was still that kind of expectation within me… well it never happened and I am glad it didn’t, or more like it didn’t happen ‘during the movie’ but more on how it assisted me to reflect things about myself, my own life and day to day approach.

What this movie showed me is how much of a ‘waiting mode’ I create within life, where I’ve been ‘waiting for my life to happen’ so many years, waiting to ‘get somewhere’ or ‘go and live somewhere else’ for years only to realize that’s not really where I actually wanted to go to, yet I kept my whole day to day in ‘waiting mode’ for that and sort of ‘doing my thing’ in between, not really fully ‘living’ but again quoting Radiohead, it felt like just ‘killing time’ until I would ‘get there’ and I just didn’t.

What this film made me appreciate again is the simplicity of life happening on a day to day basis, where we cannot ever ‘get rid of’ routine, in fact it was a great test to be OK  with witnessing this whole routine unfolding throughout a week and not getting ‘desperate’ in it or go into some sort of backchat around how ‘this was so predictable’ because in essence it could be defined as such – but I decided to choose to rather appreciate the ‘moment by moment’ situations in the film and let go of expecting these ‘grand situations’ coming up, and instead appreciate the normalcy of it for ‘what it is’ which of course it has a lot of charms in it that had been carefully built in throughout the whole film that I also in that moment got to enjoy.

It was also interesting because I had written out before about my relationship to routine itself, but something changes when you are witnessing someone else’s routine, specially within the context of a movie which opened up new points for me to explore, and that’s great, because it also made me realize how I cannot really ever say ‘I’m clear towards that word/concept’ it’s a constant opening, evolving, changing thing based on how we interact with everything and everyone else.

Once that the film was over, the fact that my ‘great expectations’ were sort of by default deflated, I was pushed to ‘rewind’ it in my head to then see what it was really all about for me and how there wasn’t this ‘great meaning’ to it, this ‘transcendental outcome’ that I was expecting, but how it all depends on ‘who I am’ within watching it and so rather seeing what I decide to appreciate or take from the movie as a sheer enjoyable experience of immersing myself in this guy’s life and his day to day living for a week and ‘all that happens in between.’

This led me to see how even if I ‘thought’ of myself as not being conditioned by the ‘great plots’ and ‘great twists’ in stories, I had become somewhat ‘hooked’ on that kind of narratives because they end up engaging more of an emotional experience than a simple witnessing of life happening – everyday living happening – which also reminds me of a similar Japanese movie I also watched not long ago called After the Storm in a similar vein where the character is already a mature man that seems to be waiting for some things yet to ‘happen’ in his life  and there’s no big ending on the story, but more like the resolution of how he had to simply ‘keep walking his life’ and letting go of these hopes he held about his career and personal life. I also got to enjoy the movie for the depiction that it is of ‘regular lives’ without any transcendental events, just  ‘normal day to day’ relationships unfolding and the ‘charms’ in life as it unfolds.

My redefined approach to these movies assisted me to see how there has been this ‘waiting for the great moment’ type of approach to my life,  just like that ‘climax’ that we many times believe will somehow end up happening in our ‘life story’ and will ‘forever change us’ and will ‘forever be this grand moment’ but, that’s more like how I realize I have been conditioned to THINK of life, instead of actually Living it, as is, in its day to day, without expectations, without ‘waiting modes,’ without ‘creating these perfect moments’ that I probably got to read a lot about in books and that I many times tried to recreate in my own life through relationships and through the kind of paintings I would make, where I wanted to evoke this ‘superb’ experience, this ‘epicness’ that could somehow scare you and frighten you and give you this sense of this ‘bigger than life’ meaning that …. Well, I have to now realize has been my own ‘mindjob’ to be honest and how I am rather being grateful to once again through art and in this case through films and documentaries be able to ‘get myself off of my high horse’ and appreciate what I had previously seen as the ‘insignificant things in life’, the day to day, the Living moment, rather than being in my head holding this ‘grand expectations’ for ‘greater meanings, greater purposes’ over my shoulders about this ‘epic event’ or ‘climatic moment’ in my life that is apparently ‘yet to come.’

I once made a lithograph that reads ‘never wait’ and the face has got this anguished experience because that’s for the most part how I spent many years in my life, waiting for ‘my life to happen’ in some sort of ‘waiting for someone to knock at your door, discover your real talents and make you have a great life’ type of thing… not really realizing that life is not about building these ‘great outcomes’ or ‘grand schemes’ or ‘big climatic epic moments’ but it IS all about everything in between from the moment we are aware of ourselves as individuals to our last breath, it is ALL of our life, from the ‘greater changes’ and decisions to the ‘smallest’ moments.

I decide to stop living as a walking-expectation in ‘waiting mode’ for this ‘something great’ to happen to me… if anything, I am living it as I speak, we are all kinds of ‘miracles’ of life considering how far we’ve pushed ourselves in this world to coexist and have relatively ‘normal lives’ with all the inner and outer chaos that we recreate within and without on a daily basis… It showed me how much I have taken ‘normalcy’ for granted as well when it comes to polarizing my experience to that of the most unfortunate majority in this world that surely cannot even afford to spend a couple of hours watching a movie about ‘life unfolding’ because their own is not even being ‘lived fully’ but only ‘survived through.’

All of these points make me place my life into perspective, not to make me feel ‘bad’ or ‘insignificant’ with my topics opened up here when polarized and compared to ‘those that are suffering in this world,’ because of course anything will seem petty and meaningless when going into comparison with anything that stands as manifested consequences that yes, we will have to sort out altogether; but I’ve also learned to not attempt and try to ‘save the world’ without first living one’s life in an actual self-aware manner, and so beginning within changing the way I approach ‘life itself’ for example, stepping down from this ‘grand idea’ of all of these ‘meaningful things’ that I wanted to create and say and express in my head and rather equalize the meaning to every moment that I am alive – no more, no less – it’s there for me to decide who I am in it.

I’ve been aware of how far out I’ve gone to when it comes to ‘judging things’ but this is part of how I’ve created my own limitations/ fears and ideals in relation to anything in life, any part of ‘what’s here’ and that’s all based on how I’ve judged things, people, places, situations, events, outcomes as either good, bad, exciting, dull, depressive, joyful, and creating preferences around ‘what I want to experience’ instead of embracing life as a whole, as the compendium of all of these things as ‘what life is about,’ which is not about seeking an ‘experience’ all the time or finding any grand meanings, not about making these ‘transcendental pictures’ or wanting to ‘save the world’ or ‘save others from themselves’, but about getting to live fully in my own life and with those around me and in the relationships that I create.

For now I do see that if we all did this, a lot of the existential anguish as I like to call it would fade away and we would start reconsidering what ‘living’ and ‘life is really about – maybe we would start embracing and appreciating our life in every moment, ‘as it happens,’ where in my particular case I choose to take it also as an opportunity to create myself in every moment as the person I am aware I can live with for the rest of my life, where I can enjoy those seemingly ‘repetitive moments’ by stopping judging ‘repetition’ as a ‘boring’ thing or ‘uneventful’ thing, and in that sense stopping looking for these ‘grand experiences in my life,’ but simply take life as is

Some events will surely ‘shake us’ more than others, but it’s all part of living, it cannot happen ‘every day’ nor would it even be sane to live that way in a ‘high rollercoaster of emotions’ because we of course take a toll on our bodies if that was even a possibility… it just can’t and I shouldn’t even expect that as ‘LIFE happening…’ that’s not living, that’s a constant yearning to be forever stimulated into a perception or energized experience of living, but it’s not living as such.

I’d like to rather consider the simplicity of things, which yes I have before in my photography practice tried to also ‘turn into something more’ than what it is when taking pictures of ‘garbage’ or what I would judge as ‘deprecating things or ‘meaningless stuff’ and give it a spot through my eyes in a desire to make it beautiful or ‘sublime’ or whatever else, but that’s still me wanting to make things ‘more’ than what they are… and that’s not the point either.

Here I can instead look back at my physical body as a reference of what ‘life is’ and extend the same approach that my body lives on a day to day basis to ‘how I live life.’ It goes through its ups and downs at times, there are entire seasons where everything is just ‘fine’ and working well, it just ‘is’, it moves, it digests, it grows, it decays, it goes through its processing and challenges due to whatever I do or not do with it on my day to day, but it doesn’t NEED any meaning to exist, my body doesn’t require these ‘transcendental experiences’ to keep itself alive, it just lives, it just exists, it just keeps breathing whether I am aware of it or not, and I am entirely grateful for it because, man, we all know that we would not be existing right here and right now if we had to entirely manage every single process that is consciously done by our physical body in itself and at the same time handle ourselves as our mind and being…  it’s a marvelous thing yet, I’ve already shared before as well how much I had taken it for granted.

This same approach is what I decide to integrate in my life from now on and even in this week after watching that movie on Sunday, it has assisted me to ‘slow’ down’ in that sense in my ‘waiting-modes’ and ‘building expectations’ towards something eventually ‘happening’ in my life which are still there as potential outcomes, yet I have been deliberately focusing more on this ‘moment by moment’ approach, and more so, to not judge ‘the moment’ as ‘more or less’ than anything, to not seek to make every moment ‘larger than life’ lol, because that would be me in my mind wanting to still exist as some form of stimulation, an ‘experience’, a ‘meaning separate from myself’ in my head rather than taking life as it happens and living it to the best of my ability in that moment, pushing myself to in my case and current point of focus, stop looking ‘forward’ to anything, but be fully present and in that creating an awareness more towards my physical body, my own experience, how I ‘see things’, how I relate to people, how I perceive my environment, etc.

All of this is also a result of a great series of interviews related to many of these points I’ve opened up and that I am quite grateful for because it has assisted me to identify where I am still very much in my mind looking at life, instead of actually Living it, so I suggest checking them out to genuinely ‘enlighten’ ourselves for once and for all about what’s really REAL in this world and that I had definitely taken for granted.

Redefining Physical – The Crucifixion of Jesus – Part 109

Redefining Physical (Part 2) – The Crucifixion of Jesus – Part 110

Redefining Physical (Part 3) – The Crucifixion of Jesus – Part 111

 

I’ll continue with more on the ‘meaning’ and paintings in another blog…

 

Thanks for reading

 

 

Join us in our process of Self-Expression as LIFE

• Free Online DIP Lite Course

• School Of Ultimate Living | Facebook

• EQAFE.Com : SELF Education and SELF Awareness Store

• 7 Year Journey To Life Process : People Sharing their Processes of Self-Forgiveness and Self-Correction

• Get Real with Cerise & Joe

• Desteni Radio

• Desteni Articles

• Destonians

• Desteni I Process

• Agreement/Redefining Relationship Course

• Desteni Forum : Discuss and share with us

• Desteni Wiki

• Desteni Español

• Creation’s Journey to Life

• Heaven’s Journey To Life