When we deem certain movies as ‘our favorite’ ones there are points that we evidently resonate with. I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) once again after several years, and brought back all of these ideals and expectations that I had created by that time in relation to how I wanted my relationships to be in ‘the future’ when I watched the movie for the first time some 8 years ago.
The identification with the rather feverish girl – Clementine (Kate Winslet)- that was a rather eccentric and over-zealous woman with lots of energy and pent up emotions was prominent. It brought me back to the times when I used to wear these bright colorful clothes and all types of funky jewelry along with eternal desires to get my hair blue or red, which I tried to do some 10 years ago and from there I got used to the habit of dying it pitch blue-black, fucking up my entire hair for several years onwards, just for the sake of creating a certain image of myself. But, besides the girl’s character, the entire phrasing and attitude was something I could relate to. I was this energized girl that was pleading others to ‘leave my mind alone/ I’m just trying to find some peace of mind’ and this general dramatic self-presentation to always be able to have ‘something’ to be yearning for, thinking about and so forth as a means to believe that I was actually ‘living,’ while we are now realizing within this process that: we are not our emotions, we are not our feelings or any other general energetic-experience as the ego of the mind.
Then there’s the entire memory-drill within the movie about the relationship that Joel (Jim Carrey’s character) and Clementine had which is how I envisioned what my ‘picture perfect relationship’ would be like, having fun in odd and surprising ways that were non-conventional and having these two ‘odd’ personalities coming together as a couple. Hence all this movie represented within me was this eccentricity that I had built-up as ‘who I am,’ as well as the partner’s character which I also identify with in how I would feel like the over-enthusiastic one that had to cheer up and drag along others to ‘live’ within the same view and perspective I had of life back then, always trying to impose ‘me’ upon others because I deemed ‘my way of being’ much more ‘healthy’ than theirs, which was obviously not now that I review this point.
For the most part, it’s a cool movie in terms of realizing how a relationship/ a person in our lives is only a set of memories that if we ‘decide to erase’ or lose, we can eventually forget about – however we all know that each relationship leaves like this mark or scar that remains there as a bunch of memories and even copied mannerisms, that we then have to walk as ourselves and our own process because it is aspects that we had separated from ourselves initially and sought to ‘fulfill’ or complete ourselves with in relationships.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to believe that in a relationship I would have to gather the most eccentric memories and experiences in order to believe that we were ‘truly enjoying’ and ‘living’ and having ‘a blast’ within a relationship, often placing myself in certain conditions and situations wherein I allowed myself to be driven by the ‘feeling’ of it rather than considering the consequences and actuality of what I was putting myself through.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, till this day, remember only the good and positive things about such ‘fun times’ that I deliberately created within my relationships in order to mimic the way that I imagined my life would be in a a similar way to what this movie portrayed, along with the drama, the misunderstandings, the ups and downs and eventual reconciliations as the ‘happy ending’ that I also sought to get all the time, which in no way matched the reality of relationships.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to make of my life with others a drama that would always have to become just like a script of a novel as all the books that I would read back then, which shaped and molded the ‘who I want to be like’ toward others, eventually creating all sorts of events in my life wherein I ‘knew’ that I would be able to keep them as these ‘memories’ that I could hold on to for a lifetime and call that a ‘living’ and ‘enjoyment’ – which is how I designed myself as a memory-creator and keeper as a way to confirm that ‘I had lived’ through experiences and events in my life with another in a relationship.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to be this feverish girl that sought emotions and feelings in a deliberate manner to be ‘inspired’ and have something to whine about in art or writing, which became a way to fuel my over-dramatic personality that was mostly wrought throughout my teenage years while learning through books, movies of ‘my kind’ what relationships were all about, yearning about that ‘connection’ with ‘the one’ and eventually experiencing myself in a relationship just like the one that made me feel all these fuzzy feelings in my stomach while watching eternal sunshine… and in that, believing that all my relationships had to be something ‘like that’ wherein we could have fun and do ‘wild things’ and ‘be happy’ while overcoming the usual friction and conflict that I thought was ‘normal’ in relationships, which also became part of the usual things to ‘walk through’ in relationships such as arguing in the car and leaving the house and being all dramatic about any slight problem, only to ‘forgive’ each other and get back together again, like a happy ending after the storms.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to adopt the belief that in a relationship one would Always have conflict and one would always be having these secret thoughts against the other and that it was part of ‘the game’ of having relationships, which is obviously dishonest and just existing for the sake of also getting a ‘kick’ out of the conflict as all the emotions and feelings that come when you are in a fight with another and get to enjoy that debate/ fight which became a masochistic way of keeping a relationship ‘standing,’ because the reconciliation would then be ‘even better.’
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to identify with the frustration that Clementine would experience toward Joel for having to deal with a rather quiet and introverted being that I would have mostly judged as ‘requiring some spice in their lives’ wherein I believed that ‘I could change the other for the better,’ without having even looked at myself and my surge of blasting energy to ‘live’ through experiences and trying to make the other see life the same way I did, which became a rather pointless effort to say the least, with both partners and male friends that were rather calm and ‘of few words’ wherein I would always think that I must ‘cheer them up’ and be the ‘sunshine’ of their lives, compromising myself because of this continual desire to ‘change them’ without even getting a look at how I had to first look at myself and what I was accepting and allowing to exist within me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take this position of being the ‘optimistic’ and ‘feverish’ and ‘vibrant’ person in a relationship with males that were mostly ‘dull’ and ‘quiet’ and only after years eventually one of them becoming more ‘equal’ in such excitement – lol – which is when I started ‘disliking’ the other because I would no longer be the ‘special one’ that would ‘cheer him up’ but he was now becoming a rather positive thinker, blowing out of proportion to the point where it got too cloying and pleasing ‘for my taste,’ which made me run away from it, without realizing how I had played out the exact same role in the beginning. In this
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to actually having been addicted to conflict in relationships wherein if everything started being all ‘good’ and ‘pleasing,’ I would get bored because of how I had deemed conflict as a necessary aspect to create this sense of the relationship being ‘normal’ and ‘working’ which was merely an addiction to the energy that conflict would generate within me – hence when the person would no longer cause conflict within me, I’d lose interest and move on.
I forgive myself that I hadn’t accepted and allowed myself to realize how I would seek people that had been ‘troubled’ people mostly in a way because then I would see myself as having a ‘duty’ to ‘change them’ and ‘spice up their lives,’ which is how I now realize that I was actually addicted to the energy that I would get from having to deal with conflictive people that were nothing else but mirroring myself back to the conflict I wanted to create and stir within myself in order to have something to be worrying, thinking and yearning about throughout my days, just like a movie, just like a book where a lot of conflict and eventual resolutions would take place as that happy ending that I would also run away from, because I simply wanted some ‘conflict’ in my life.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to also take the position of being the quiet, reserved and few-worded personality when being with a rather optimistic and cheerful partner, which means that I would act the ‘opposite pole’ in any given situation in order to maintain the balancing-act within the constant friction required to continue the conflict going on in my head, wherein I was never truly ‘satisfied’ with another, but would pretend that I was in order to keep the relationship going.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to ever wish to have a ‘tormented relationship’ because that’s the type of stuff I would read and get the most entertainment from, which implies that these erratic characters that seemed to be in the brink of madness were the ones that I could ‘identify’ myself-with, due to the amount of energy I was just ready to exert in one way or another, not really even ever being able to understand why I had so much energy to give-away and how this energy became the directive principle within my life, wherein I used popular culture as books and movies like this one in order to create/ mimic such events to live-out and believe that I was ‘living’ just like a character in a book or a movie, and feel ‘good’ about it.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to actually become used to this ‘tough love’ type of relationships wherein conflict and debating would be the way to ‘feel good’ about each other when we would eventually sort out the problems and reconciliation would ensue as a way to confirm that ‘we were willing to walk through hell and back and remain together,’ which is absolutely bullshit.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to begin relationships from the starting point of being willing to accept all types of dramas and antagonisms as what I gave myself permission to be acceptable within a relationship, because this is what I learned from movies, books and stories of people always having conflicts within their relationships, only to get to an inevitable happy or sad ending, just like in the movies/ books.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to become so used to the idea of having to fight another in a relationship, wherein I would maintain myself in constant fear of conflict yet at the same time, giving permission to it as a way to mimic the stories that I had read in books and movies, which implies that I made of my life a series of events that I could later on recall just like a movie that I could re-enact in my mind to get a positive feeling out of it.
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to feel ‘empty’ whenever there was no ‘conflict’ going on in a relationship, because now I see and realize that all that I was seeking for was this rollercoaster ride of ultimate happiness and the direct opposite as conflict, anger, depression and any other emotion that I could use in order to deem myself as being ‘alive’ and ‘living’
I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to shape my relationships and my life according to having ‘something to remember’ as memories of good times and bad times within relationships, as a way to declare that ‘I had lived’ and in that, get a sense of completion for the amount of memories I would have been able to store/ gather from my past as a way to define that I had been ‘happy’ once in my life.
I commit myself to expose the nature of relationships as conflict and constant friction for the sole energetic purpose that they entail as in stirring these emotions and feelings within ourselves only, wherein it is really never about ‘the other’ that we are feeling or becoming emotional about, but only ourselves as the idea of the relationship we have formed toward people in our minds, which is then entire self-created and must be taken self-responsibility for.
I commit myself to realize that all that I had aimed for as relationships was the type of masochistic and conflictive type of ‘tough love’ that I had decided to use as a way to ‘fuel my inspiration’ linked to art and writing, which had become the way to believe that ‘that was what my life was going to be about’ in terms of living like a constant drama, just like the stories of the romantic dramas that some of my personal heroes would go through in their lives, within this
I commit myself to expose how we as human beings get extensively influenced by the media as books, movies, TV shows and other type of ‘entertainment’ wherein the stereotypes of society are portrayed as characters that we then try to ‘mimic’ which ensures that the population remains in a constant continuation of the past, without ever really pondering ‘what are we actually accepting and allowing as relationships in the world?’ because that would lead to self-realizations about the unnecessary drama in our lives, and eventually get to stop the entire commerce and business that buying books, movies, series that portray these exotic and eccentric type of stories as a way to continue binding ourselves to memories and experiences and the entire ‘who we are’ as personalities as the ego of the mind.
I commit myself to reveal and expose how it is that the only thing that we are neglecting all the time that we are caught up in our personal romantic affairs and conflicts, is the physical, life that is being actually used only as a fuel to convert into emotions and feelings that we had deemed as being ‘life’ itself, which is absolutely unacceptable when it comes to realizing that: all that we had ever been is these self-seeking individuals through relationships that do not care at all about the rest of the world and the actual conflicts and problems that entail Money not being available for all beings in the world, where real problems are in the nature of starvation, poverty, illnesses, diseases, abuse, sexual exploitation and a massive industry based on this ‘love as charity’ that certainly does nothing to actually support beings in equality as life.
I commit myself to walk through my own memories of relationships in order to clear my starting point for and if there is an opportunity to create an actual agreement of self-support wherein no emotion and no feeling become the directive principle within such relationship, as I see, realize and understand to what extent I had given my power away to live through my mind, instead of living here as breath walking equal and one with another as a physical being, and not as a crutch to continue all types of drama and conflict to have ‘stories to tell.’
I commit myself to expose how we have become addicted to ‘having stories to tell’ as a way to define that we have ‘experiences’ and ‘have lived life’ fully, when in fact, it’s just prostituting life in the name of personal satisfaction as any form of good experience that recalling memories as something of ‘value’ within our lives can create within ourselves.
I commit myself to stop all wars within me when being with others as I realize that this is actually self-interest that then becomes one plus point to the overall conflict and continual friction in the world that keeps this entire system ‘running’ on self-abuse.
To support and assist ourselves in Relationships beginning with our Self-Relationship, there’s the Desteni I Process course on Relationships/Agreements that is the most specific way to go dissecting ourselves as memories in order to finally establish life-worthy agreements that can stand beyond any energetic fix that we had become so addicted to.
The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind would be actually quite cool as ourselves, living here as the physical breathing beings that we are wherein our minds are finally quiet equal and one as the physical, without memories to hold on to, without futures to look up to and in that, finally realizing the truth of ourselves in such completion. A long way to go, but we begin here.
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