Tag Archives: imposing

November 21, 2018

623. Learning to Listen: Becoming Aware vs. Acting to Change

By Marlen

 

Sometimes I hold myself back from writing because of perceiving that my topics are usually the same, about the same points that I seem to be constantly facing or working on. However, I also realized that this is something I write for sharing yes, but ultimately also as a point of accountability when it comes to the points that I’ve been facing.

So, there’s a main point related to listening. This is mainly in relation to how I’ve created filters in relation to how I decide to listen to someone, mostly imposing my own views, judgments – positive and negative – upon listening to someone, even more so if that someone is someone that is close to me, such as my partner.. and I am quite grateful that I’ve been able to discuss and open up all of these things to realize how much of a stubborn I’ve been in fact, and how much of the disdain, criticism and judgment I held toward my grandmother and mother about being control freaks and stubborn people relates back to me to the exact degree.  Yep! It’s a frightening realization because at least my mother and I have realized the very consequential outflows of it, but now that I see the extent in which I am following ‘the same steps’ my female predecessors have played out with themselves, their bodies and towards their partners, I have a unique opportunity to change and ‘stop the sins of the fathers’ in this case, the mothers to be exact.

I am also aware that not everyone is able to have a direct cross-reference of this with their parents. Some don’t have their parents around and live far away, some have died already, some have never gotten to know their parents. This situation has led me to also appreciate the unique set up I was born into and be in a way grateful that I have this kind of cross-reference. However this doesn’t mean that if someone doesn’t have their parents or grandparents around you don’t get to know ‘how’ they are… just a look within self and you’ll get the gist of it. Lol

Anyways, getting to the bottom of this. I was quite shocked about myself – but also not really, because hello? I am in my own body and mind – in relation to how I’ve decided to not take certain feedback seriously about things and situations where I am being too over-bearing, obtuse, imposing, dictatorial and a plain control freak. I had expressed before how I was grateful to have this kind of feedback in the moment from my partner, but the reality is that I wasn’t honoring it as a point of self-change. I was only getting to KNOW and become Aware of the thing, but I wasn’t in fact deciding to fully change it.

Why? How come that if I was getting the direct feedback in the moment I wasn’t doing something about it? Well, I recently discovered quite an awful conditioning within me as well. When my partner was giving the feedback, there was no ‘raising of voices’ or showing any emotional  outburst about it, in essence, there wasn’t a ‘big deal’ made out of it in my head. This is something I can relate to when one is a child, and one gets these warnings of things that may go wrong, or when one is doing something that  one ‘shouldn’t do’ but only getting to stop doing it IF seeing the parent go completely upset and raise their voice and be noticeably annoyed, bothered, angry and really creating this emotional show where I would then realize ‘oh shit, that’s a real problem, I need to stop.’

This is where learning to listen comes in and where I also require to integrate the fact that this feedback I was receiving in the moment wont’ come with emotional outbursts for me to ‘take it seriously.’ In fact I was doing exactly what I would be bothered by for most of my life in relation to my mother, where I would say things to her or would like to ‘have a serious talk’ but she has a tendency to be quite ‘light’ about some things, not take things that seriously, not give them the ‘weight’ I was expecting and in doing so, I believed I wasn’t being taken seriously, it would piss me off, lol. So! It shouldn’t be as surprising that I was doing the exact same thing, almost going into that ignoring or ‘not taking seriously’ what my partner was sharing in those moments, and I just simply would not make any effort to change things, well a bit I guess, but that was entirely half-assed and not really living a decision to change in the moment.

How did I become aware of it? Of course when things get to a certain ‘boiling point’ where I repeat the same pattern, once again, and then I get reminded how I’ve gotten to hear the feedback about that situation several, several times before and I just haven’t listened. Yep, that was a bit of a shameful situation for me because in that moment I realized how much I was truly not deciding to listen as in taking the feedback in, and acknowledging that ‘ok yes I need to do something about this and create a plan to Change.’ I just ‘heard’ it and let it go by, really. And this is how I came to see how little importance or ‘weight’ so to speak I gave to this kind of feedback which in fact is precisely what I require to become aware and so change a very ingrained pattern I’ve lived when it comes to in essence being ‘control’ in a dictatorial and imposing way.

After that day, what I’ve been doing is then challenging the comfort I’ve created to ‘totally be me’ as the control freak with my partner, which is in a way cool because he now knows me and understands how far it can get, which is obviously not cool. And now I had to explain how this is one of the points that surely, is a difficult one for me, that I appreciate the feedback, that I am sorry that I haven’t changed yet in spite of the feedback and that I am now committing to change it.

What has happened a few days after that serious talk is that I’ve been now catching myself more often when I would say things out of habit that are in the same ‘tune’ of being a control freak. Sometimes I’ve been saying it and I’ve stopped myself from saying ‘but why not!?’ lol when wanting something to be done in a particular way that I had already been explained why it could not go that way. This is the stubbornness that I’ve also realized comes from an aloof sense of listening, where I get the explanation about certain things and then I decide to ‘not listen’ or comfortably ‘forget’ which I mean, it’s really a pain in the ass having to be told the same things over and over again, which I am not getting to properly integrate because I am not properly listening, but only being calculating in my mind what I want to hear, what I want to filter out in order to have some sort of very twisted comfort zone to not have to change ‘my ways.’

Needless to say that I realize how difficult it can be for any person to deal with someone like me, really, and not to make me a very tough person to deal with. But when it comes to living together and having the total openness to be ME then, all the real and nitty gritty aspects of my personality are exposed and I’m grateful that I’ve had someone in my life that is willing to be patient about it, but hey, one thing is to be patient and understanding, and another one is to be having to ‘bear’ with it and create a conditioning, an acceptance of it even If we both know it’s not the best way to live.

IT’s also needless to say how this exposes me as at times focusing too much on preaching certain principles, but letting these big points just ‘slip by’ as if they didn’t matter. It is also regrettable that I require to get to a point of having to notice an emotional reaction in order to make something seriously needing my attention and committing to change these patterns within me, because I also know and am aware when I’ve gone into this very obtuse, stubborn and controlling way of behaving that in my mind seems like ‘best for all’ but in that really forgetting about the individuality of others and realizing that even if I see it is ‘best’ for me, it can’t be applied ‘like that’ to others.  And other times – most of them – realizing that each moment that I exert out my control-freakism it’s actually coming from a long-lived habit of being the one that ‘calls the shots’ as they say in a relationship, instead of creating an equal space for each other to be ourselves, to understand where we are at in relation to the points we are walking or changing and for me, yes to be also patient to not jump into conclusions, but to give space for another.

What comes up is how I’ve written a blog like this from a past relationship, what opens up is feeling like ‘I’ve learned nothing because I’ve been there before,’ but I also have to learn to forgive myself for that, for repeating myself and the same patterns as before and understanding that the same patterns may come up again and that it only means: I have to focus on changing them, instead of going into shame, regret or plain judgment about being repeating myself, because that leaves me nowhere but back into a comfort zone of thinking ‘well, that’s how I’m always going to be.’

I’m here walking this process to demonstrate to myself that I can in fact change even the most difficult or ingrained aspects within me that certainly can lead to ruin any relationship, because no one wants to be in a relationship with someone that acts like a dictator. To me, as I’ve shared many times before, it has to do with a sense of righteousness, believing I’m right and know what is the way to go. I have to humbly realize this is not so and in doing so, realize I have to get to place myself in the shoes of others in a much more ‘empty’ way, without placing myself in their shoes but still having ‘my own principles, my own mindset’ while doing so, which ends up in me thinking or perceiving that I know what they should do, what is best for them.

Yes, this is mainly the point and the reasoning behind it, which is why it has become so tricky and at times difficult to let go, because of holding on to the idea that I am right, I know the way’ but it’s best to realize I may have an idea of what could work, but it is up for each person to decide for themselves. I can only then focus on being there walking with others without wanting to impose ‘my ways’ onto them, and rather work on creating these moments within me where I can become aware of this pattern coming up in me, and so make a pause to realize ‘red flag, control freakism point here’ and take a breath to then speak back in an awareness of me having to Let Go of wanting to ‘show the way’ or ‘give instructions of what must be done’ or ‘give a judgment of what is right or wrong.’ I can always give perspectives but I must accept the fact that I can’t change others, I can’t impose myself onto others, I can’t ‘walk their solution’ for them either, nor do I have to conveniently ‘say what to do’ in a way where I’m only considering what benefits me or what I believe is best for me.

So this is where I’m at and working with currently – yep in my head it’s like ‘ah more of the same’ really, but that’s who I am and what I’ve become with this pattern, it’s like a lifetime habit that I have to now take responsibility for.

Thanks for reading.                            

 

Recommended listening:

 

Receptivity

 

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

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August 28, 2017

600. Understanding Arrogance

By Marlen

Or how to let go of the idea I had about myself as ‘untouchable’ based on knowledge and information in order to truly live and express ME.

So this is a word that was opened up in group discussions and in a couple of situations I’ve faced in my life in the last couple of days, so, I’m now here to share about my relationship to this word.

First things first, how do I relate to this word? I have ‘been it, done it’ in my life where arrogance comes as this ‘know it all’ stance where I’ve seen how it was in fact fear that stood behind this ‘untouchable’ type of experience I created mostly through ‘what I believe, what I stand for’ and in creating an energetic stance to it as ‘unbreakable, untouchable, this is the one and only truth of existence!’ type of personality, I became very antagonistic – without even noticing it! – to anything that did not ‘conform’ to my views, or anything that wasn’t aligned to them, which means yeah I could have possibly picked up intellectual back and forths with just about anyone really, considering how such arrogance came through perceiving that ‘I got a superior understanding of reality, of who we are in our minds and in existence’ and the rest of points that come from getting to know a lot of knowledge and information about, yes, the reality that we live in and how we exist as human beings.

I’ve shared about this ‘arrogance’ construct with other terms in these blogs before like being in a ‘haughty position’ or being ‘in a high horse’ type of experience, which is the same thing: being arrogant and kind of looking everyone as ‘inferior to me’ because of not being aware of what I was aware of. In doing so, I really limited myself because I made it virtually impossible for me to discuss anything with anyone, because I was not willing to hear/read any other perspectives, I wasn’t being flexible at all – I just wanted to preach my creed so to speak and ‘convert’ anyone that I could – or rather that would allow themselves to be converted – which of course it never happened.

It was only through realizing that this way of approaching my process was not going to work in the long run that I had to try new things and that meant having to let go of my desire to ‘preach and convert’ others through knowledge and information and disseminating ‘my truth’ through blogs and vlogs with the sole intent to ‘wake others up!’ and ‘have them join me and everyone in this process.’ Of course that doesn’t work, but hey, I was there doing it fully and completely in such a militant stance that I was too blind to see my own absolutism and fascism in it – very common words for me to describe such personality as well in these blogs.

So, where I am and how I am in this context is definitely a long distance from what I just described. Currently I no longer feel the need to ‘wake others up’ or ‘change others’ because! I’ve learned through ‘the tough way’ how that obviously doesn’t work and going through consequences that I’m still having to literally pay for till today, lol. So instead, I focus on sharing my own experience, my own ‘walking’ with these tools, the learning curves, the falls, the standing ups, the mistakes and how to correct them and all that is related to taking all points ‘back to self’ essentially, because that’s basically where I realized I have my authority on at this stage, and so share my example as ‘what I’ve lived, applied’ in detail, and yep sharing it because maybe others will find this useful for their lives and that’s cool.

In terms of facing consequence, I’d say it’s at times unfortunately needed and it’s cool, because I can become so obsessed and be such a stubborn with things that sometimes it is only through reality knocking my door that I can open up my eyes and realize ‘oh fuck! I’ve done it again!’ and realize what I had been obsessed by – that’s the process of what I define now as having to eat humble pie and yep! Been eating it nicely.

Then comes the dimension where I’ve spotted arrogance in others. I saw this during a meeting with someone and I defined the person’s stance as being arrogant – being the kind of person that believes that everything they do is right, they are never wrong, that they are always transparent about things, that there’s nothing that is incongruent with who they are, and in that being able to rather blame others for being the problem in their relationship to him. And in that what he’s created and caused is that there’s a lot of people that simply cannot get along with him because there’s rarely an opening to question himself, his ways, his stance, but in essence being kind of absolutist because of not allowing anyone to question his ways, what he does, his preferences, at all. The outcome in such kind of personality is that if one would want to be his friend, one has to entirely accept him ‘as he is’ and that’s probably a doable thing for many that are ok with such ways, but I personally cannot relate to someone that is not willing to ‘open up’ and ‘question further’ about ourselves as human beings and have no opening to even considering any form of ‘change’ or self-betterment, so in that I simply realize ‘I don’t have to go there’ with this person and keep things as simple as possible in our interactions whenever they are necessary – if ever. This is just a self-honesty point for me to also make a decision to not try an ‘get along’ with someone ‘just because’ but I definitely like to get along with people with whom I can actually have discussions that lead us to learn more about ourselves and question/challenge ourselves, which becomes a bit too impossible with such hardened personalities.  I decided to rather focus on sharing myself and spending time with those that do have more of an opening and similar stance to life.

However, after I noticed that I was describing him in my head as ‘arrogant’ I had to of course look back at myself and see how I have existed as such arrogance as well and how I in fact created the same outcome for me where there was a time where I became very obnoxious, to be honest, I could only relate to people ‘walking process’ and I’d judge everyone else as a neophyte in life – a fancy way to say ‘ignorant’ – and in that I definitely walked through the consequence of isolating myself, because of not being willing to let go of my ‘immovable stance’ as arrogance which stood as constantly judging, constantly comparing everything and everyone to ‘how I believe things should be and how they must be done’ which I’d do constantly, consistently towards anything and anyone, all the time.

I mean, in a way it assisted me to constantly be referencing or questioning ‘what would be common sense in this case or with this person or in that person’s life/situation?’ however the problem is that I would externalize this as in telling people what to do or how they were wrong about this/that in their lives and sometimes being so direct that of course I would not take their feelings/minds into account and yep, I’d end up blowing things out of proportion and causing conflicts, which led me to quite a few ‘breakups’ with people – all because of this arrogant stance within me.

Currently I’m deliberately opening up ways of communication with people where I now practice leaving my ‘preaching’ in the past and instead learn to relate to people, learn to get to know them in who they are, in their context, in their particular life – which is absolutely cool and a very enjoyable process, which has led me to kind of ponder ‘Hmm why wasn’t I doing this before?’ but the reality is that I wasn’t able to do it, because I was too fixed on this absolutist and arrogant stance ‘towards the world/people in it’ where I definitely would have remained in this bitter stance of ‘non-conformity’ which I eventually realized I had entirely caused by my own set of impositions by not allowing myself to actually live and learn from others, but rather wanting to have this ‘teaching and preaching’ stance towards them, which didn’t work at all and only backfired nicely.

In that I instead have used these key words to live whenever I see myself having this arrogant stance coming up again: humbleness, understanding and flexibility. These words in a way stand as the antithesis of my previous ways which were of control, of imposition, of antagonism, of fascism and totalitarianism as the dictator I had become for anyone that would know me.

And yes, I can also explain how this is not a ‘magical solution’ either – the words are there as a continuous reference for me, as the available solutions – but this point may come up at any given moment where I feel this ‘need to correct someone’ or ‘let them know about the ultimate truth in life’ or ‘explain how that’s such an irrelevant subject to discuss about’ or whatever else in whichever way it might come up where I wasn’t really willing to interact and ‘mingle’ with people in whichever context or ‘level’ they’re at in their awareness, but I wanted to come in as this very stiff and self-controlled robot that wanted to only point out what’s right, wrong and immediately disregard participating in anything that I deemed was ‘of the mind’ lolol… yep I was on my way to then become a bitter hermit to be honest, but I’m so glad I have realized what I was doing and have come to stir my direction towards the person that I in fact have seen I have the ability to live and express, which is an open, expressive, communicative and social person in fact! Who would have known!? When I was deeming myself as a hard-core anti-social and misanthrope – as I’ve explained many times before*

So, a practical ‘hack’ that anyone can apply here is to see whenever one is needing to ‘defend’ something or make oneself feel ‘superior’ about anything, or when one is constantly judging others as less than/inferior – we gotta ask ourselves: what are we in fact ‘In-Fear-of?’ because arrogance is an expression of fear, of an actual inferiority that needs to exist as a perceived superiority in order to be ‘ok’ within a ‘better idea of self’. So asking oneself ‘what do I fear behind my need to feel so ‘secure’ of myself in this stance of arrogance?’ van be a practical way to get to the core of it.

Like in my case, the fear behind my ‘stance’ as what I described above related to knowledge and information, was to actually have people question me, debate my views or deny them completely, which would then stir conflict that I actually didn’t want to face, or because I feared losing this idea of myself as the ‘know it all’ in my own eyes. But, I’m quite glad that I was able to debunk it little by little and yes, with people’s feedback in the internet and of my own mother who has been the one that over the years really emphasized that I should ‘lower the volume’ of my speeches in videos because I would come through as ‘preachy’ and ‘attacking,’ as being too superb and pedantic, which would mostly scare people away – and yep, it did, and for some others it might have worked… but it definitely is not an expression I want to continue cultivating related to who I currently am in my life.

I’ve found new ways to share myself where I have no intent implied ‘towards others’ other than plainly sharing myself, and that’s what I’ve been doing lately and it’s like allowing a breeze of fresh air flow through me, rather than being the very stiffened, armored, robo-like person that had to always ‘present’ herself in a certain way and be ‘untouchable’ in an arrogant stance, man, was that limiting.

So for now, I continually have to bake myself some humble pie which I like doing, because every time I am made aware of this kind of situations or where I catch myself doing it, I can ground myself even more. In a way this means I can ‘let go’ of an idea of myself in relation to ‘who I have to be’ or ‘who I am’ in relation to others, and that’s truly liberating, it enables me to truly expand, share, learn and enjoy others in a way I had not done ever before in my life and for that I’m grateful for Desteni and the tools that have enabled me to be living who I currently am – so! The least I can do is share myself back here J

Thanks for reading.

*some other blogs that explain in detail the points walked in relation to arrogance are:

514. Debunking My Intellectual Arrogance

581. Living Reconciliation

561. From Provocation to Self-Challenge

547. How to Live Humbleness

27. It’s always only been me

 

 

Join us in our process of Self-Expression as LIFE

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November 16, 2016

450. Is it about Others or is it about ME?

By Marlen

Today there was a great point opened up in a group discussion about how easily we give up on ‘others’ which in fact means we give up on ourselves. This reminded me essentially of every single relationship I’ve had with people that are of more intimate and personal nature. It reminded me of how easy it is to keep that backdoor as ‘opt-out’-mode whenever any relationship becomes challenging, it is then when I can look at myself becoming very uncomfortable in those relationships/situations with people, starting to find flaws every time and in a way becoming paranoid wherein every single thing they said or did, I started to ‘frame’ it within this same belief and idea of ‘there being something wrong with them, very very wrong!’ and interestingly enough, I never, ever questioned myself as in seeing:

‘Who am I within this experience I have towards OTHERS in my life? Is it only my experience and so my creation that I am projecting as these emotions of discomfort, of disgust, of ‘unpleasant’ times that I actually am having within myself and imposing onto ‘them’ Where am I not focusing more on dealing with my inner experiences instead of focusing on others and calling them the ‘reason of my experience’?

Nope, I never asked myself these questions because I’ve realized how our default ‘status’ in our minds is that of believing that we are ‘always right’ and ‘always the ones that are ‘objective’ in the situation’ – lol, I can laugh at myself now because that’s exactly what I have been/become throughout my entire life, always considering that I had some kind of ‘special view’ that was more objective than others, and so if I saw anything ‘out of place’ in another, then it would be so… which is of course the ego speaking for us in which we trap ourselves looking ‘outwardly’ instead of inwards.

But as it was shared in this awesome group discussion, the only way to know if what we see is really an observation about another, is to Drop all Charges – to drop the energetic experience toward another and take responsibility for it – to then be able to first work with one’s own reaction as an experience of say ‘discomfort’ towards another and realize: it’s our creation and I have to take responsibility for it; and once that one is absolutely and totally clear, nothing moving energetically towards ‘another’ then I can focus in re-assessing if I still see this point in a situation or in another as I did when I was possessed/controlled/dominated by an emotional reaction within me.

Man, these are the moments where yes in a way ‘I wish I knew this before’ back in the day in my life, but as with anything, to convert Regret into a gift that we can give to ourselves in our lives from today.

Please watch this video for support from Sunette discussing on this one: Regret – Remembering the Great https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6VbGWxbMoo  

Also this great other one about Conflict

A Conflictual Relationship with Conflict – YouTube

 

I remember exactly how some 10 years ago I would write ‘my thoughts’ on a diary, but mostly all of the words there were used to justify my experience, to build up on my paranoia about ‘why everything is so wrong with another person’ and never did I ever open up or even consider how ‘Hmm! Maybe I am the creator of that experience within myself!’ Never happened, and that very much shows the ‘real nature’ or ingrained status-quo of who we are in our minds, where we are always quick to judge, point fingers, blame – blame, blame, blame – others for whatever we are experiencing within ourselves.

Here, if there’s one point that I see is of utmost necessity that all of us human beings look at is the word Blame, really. There is nothing else that I’ve seen ingrained as fuck – sorry for the word but that is so – as ‘stuck’ in our minds as this desire to always look ‘outside’ of ourselves for the source of our experiences, instead of first asking ourselves ok why am I ‘B-Laming /(being Lame’ towards others? Why not first looking within myself, focusing on myself and my experience TOWARDS that person?  Actually today I was talking with someone about the word ‘inward’ and this can be a key word to remind ourselves of looking first and foremost at the inner-ward we are keeping ourselves in our inner-wars of experiences that we believe another is capable of causing within ourselves…. When in fact, time and time again, it seems we have to remind ourselves that this is not able to happen in fact, we can only do it to ourselves. And that’s the necessary bucket of cold water that we all need to wake up whenever we see we are having this ‘person in our heads’ and making of them our human-piñatas, the punching bag that we can kick and blame for how we experience ourselves, which is in fact a deplorable aspect of our humanity and it’s got to change, and I cannot change anyone else but myself.

So, back to the point of giving up on others in my life. I can honestly also see where it is that I did ‘all that was possible’ with some and how I gave up too easily and too quickly on others, very prematurely I’d say. And now it is not for me to judge myself for that either, but to rather see from now on and recognize these moments of going into a form of desperation really, where apparently I cannot ‘keep going with’ or think that ‘something is not working’ or believing that ‘I’ve done all I can.’ I now know I have to make sure I am not reacting about it, because if I am, what do I know? I am in fact justifying and magnifying my vilifying towards OTHERS when in fact, I have some real shit to deal with within myself first of all.

So far I cannot say I have done this successfully with most people, but have managed with a very few and it is precisely the points where I learned to understand another in their very context, situation, mind, getting to really know them to understand ‘why they are what they are’ and that has been very, very supportive for me to learn what it means to consider another in themselves, in the totality of themselves. I have shared before how this has been the case with my current partner and in the very beginning of getting to know him, there were several times I just saw ‘no point’ or a ‘lost cause’ in certain situations, but the interesting thing is that he would be very stable and just being ‘himself’ in those moments, lol, whereas I would at times break down in tears and expectations of ‘being treated differently’ or expecting some ‘evident changes’ in what? A matter of weeks or few months of talking/getting to know ourselves? Which also proves how I was coming more from the perspective of wanting to ‘change’ another, instead of actually first getting to know and understand another and being unconditional in the sense of not expecting ‘anything in return’ other than the mutual communication and support this can mean for both or more people involved.

So I can definitely relate on how if there is an experience of ‘giving up’ on another and seeing it almost as a struggle, then, hello! The problem is not ‘them’ but ourselves, who we are towards them, what are our fears, expectations, desires, wants, needs that are not being ‘fulfilled’ by another? Or what is it that we ‘wanted them to be’ that we just can’t get ‘from them’ and so in fact become unsatisfied and so bring up the ‘ending the relationship’ card any moment that one faces these challenges that don’t really define the other, but it defines everything about oneself/myself.

What I’ve learned thus throughout this relationship is to see what it means to let go of ‘my desire to change another’ and instead only be an example, be a point of support but at the same time getting to know myself in a relationship where yes I speak up whenever it is required and when I notice patterns that we have talked about time and time again, yet I don’t create a reaction around it – here, it’s not been as easy to get to this point as I am able to share it now – it is a moment to moment process, where I have to remind myself to not get possessed when not seeing my ‘expectations met’ and to not be demanding and controlling of another, but to rather stand as an example, if anything, for another yet at the same time not creating that condition of ‘wanting to be paid with the same amount/ways of how I’ve done onto another’ – because it’s not really about ‘another’ but about me living and expressing who I want to be as myself, as my expression, me doing as I’d like to be done onto – without expecting anything in return – and surprisingly so, this has actually created that flexibility or say ‘letting go of my constant expectations ‘towards others’, it definitely is one of those points I’d say can create an actual stability to ‘walk with another.’

Now I’ve developed ways to bring up the points and in the moment I also have had to still stop myself from several times wanting to ‘make a case against someone’ and not clearing myself first, and after I’ve cleared myself if I still see the relevance of opening up a point/subject, I do so, but what I’ve noticed is that it is no longer this ‘running around in circles’ point in my head, but I speak it very directly and ‘as is’ and then I can be assertive in my stance because I’m not reacting, I’m speaking based on a clear assessment and this is then where it even becomes easier to assist another if the other person goes into a reaction, to speak about it, open it up, but best thing is to be able to ‘see it for what it is’ and so focus on practical considerations once that the ‘storm dissipates’, what each one has to do/work with or let go of and so we keep walking.

An example of what I’ve noticed is how whenever I am in a reaction and I am trying to ‘make a point’ is that I start speaking louder and almost in a ‘preachy’ mode, which indicates that I am holding a personal investment in the point, that I am bringing it up hoping to get some kind of benefit back or ‘proving myself right’ etc… which has been also cool to be pointed out about it, because it is something I know I am experiencing and that’s where I have to spot a pride situation going on where I don’t want to admit ‘Yes, I am reacting’ as that would prove we first have to deal with the things within ourselves first.

It’s weird we have assigned almost like a ‘negative charge’ to being honest about oneself still having to deal with things, instead of making these moments those self-honest treasures that we can then open up to reveal ourselves to ourselves and work with those points to correct ourselves, to align ourselves for once and for all.

If we work on that first point of being OK with admitting ‘Ok yes, I am reacting here indeed’ or ‘Ok, yes you are right, I am exalted in this point, I need to take a moment to reflect on it’ or even ‘Yes, I agree, it is true, I am reacting here, what do you see in this point?’ and so get feedback on what the other person says and then it becomes about referencing self-honesty and common sense, rather than an: I said, you said, she/he said… and it is so much better to develop a communication and interaction with others where we actually learn to ‘dig’ within ourselves and so share our perspectives and experiences, rather than continuing building up our personal paranoia ‘about others’ and not even daring to open up the point ‘as is’ with another.

So yes, this is what I’ve worked with, walked with and continue to do so in my relationship, with a person that goes at his own pace in his decision to support himself to become a better person, which means that the first dimension is there for me to also stand with in this situation, we are both individuals supporting ourselves in our individual ways to learn to see ourselves as our mind, to understand our reactions and commit to work through it. And this has actually made of the relationship a lot less challenging in those aspects than it was before. Now this doesn’t mean it’s ‘perfect’ but it is quite great for me to learn to first take a step back whenever I see myself wanting to ‘flare up’ in certain situations and dig further, ask more questions, get the full perspective and so learn to even communicate effectively!

Lol this morning I was precisely remembering how it is that there have been existential wars between races because of essentially not having effective communication, having misunderstandings and this was like a huge ‘Duh!’ I had at the time when I got to understand that, because I see how a lot of the problems we create (note, we don’t have them, we create them) are based on not understanding something, so just like I read from Sunette’s blog one day whenever we have a problem we can instead ask ourselves: what am I not understanding effectively yet? And so learn to become like these investigators ourselves of our experience, of how to ‘solve’ our problem and so be able to more effectively support/assist others to try out the same ways/techniques of self-introspection within themselves, like asking questions, asking lots of questions in the ways of getting the ‘the self interest’ point, like: what do I fear losing here? What do I desire to get? What is limiting myself? Or ‘What is it in me for doing/saying/acting on this/that point?

Here then some examples of what I’ve been actively applying, where it does take that one moment to ‘put a guard in front of my reaction-engine’ in my mind and body so that I can instead take a moment to understand better, get more information, cross-reference the points in common sense, devoid of my preferred outcome or self-interest, so in a way yes being unconditional – and so in that, learn to better understand another, their context, their mind, their experience and so make sure that whatever I experience based on what is said or done, I take responsibility for and only when I am clear, I can lay out the points not as ‘this is the problem, deal with it’ but also with the opening to create solutions, to be willing to ‘do my part’ as well in being part of the solution, and in this, very important: also letting go of the expectation that ‘the other will do their part too as I do’ – because this is about myself, who I am and what I decide to be and become, not about another.

To me, having been a very controlling and imposing person – almost a fascist at times with people, sorry about that lol  – I am now learning more about what it means to be more considerate, flexible and humble toward others and so to let go as well. And so also have to remind myself to first focus on me, to not be demanding of others something I haven’t lived/done for myself entirely. And yes, whenever I am very direct, straightforward and to the point in how I ‘walk’ with another, how I assist another, it is because I have done this for myself and it works best – though in this I also learn how to be more gentle or approach the same support in various ways depending on where the person is/at in their life, process, mind, life experience. So this has been every enjoyable for me really, also related to assisting/supporting people in this same process, it’s such a nutritional experience for a lack of a better word, and I am grateful for being in the position I am and with the responsibility it entails because it also pushes me to become a better person myself in what I do and what I’ve decided to live for the rest of my life: making of myself an example of what it means to let go of conflict and problem-based mentality, but being entirely willing to first and foremost be my own source of solutions and corrections that I can then nurture, cross-reference with others and in doing so, create also relationships of support geared to changing the nature of relationships/interrelationships which is what currently life is based on.

In terms of ‘giving up’ on someone, doesn’t define them but it entirely defines who we are, and this can only be assessed case by case, situation by situation where we can make sure we’ve done all we can possibly can do to stand up with/par on par with another, where one is not compromising oneself for the sake of ‘supporting’ another in means of ‘saving them’ because that’s quite consequential. And I am entirely looking forward for more support on these topics through the great website that has changed/expanded the reaches of ‘what is possible’ for ourselves as human beings in this world Eqafe.com, so check it out too and learn what it really means to be focused on being the change we want to see in this world.

 

Thanks for reading

 

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March 15, 2016

435. From Control to Flexibility

By Marlen

 

Being a control-freak or wanting to impose a form of control is definitely an underlying pattern that I played out in the previous situation I shared on ‘hissy-fit’ and transcending it. In essence a cool question that comes up is ‘what am I fearing?’ when seeing that we try and control something. Example, when thinking or being scheming what someone should say, how a situation should develop, how others must behave, what the weather should be like, what someone can/can’t eat or drink, what ‘must’ be done and what ‘must not’ be done… all of these points seem quite exhausting to deal with on a constant basis, and the thing is that it exists as a point of control ‘outside of ourselves’ without realizing it’s in fact first a point of control within ourselves as the mind that is dictating what we are supposed to want/look out for or be careful with. Every time I see this pattern unfolding, it reminds me of certain family members again, wanting to keep a certain image in an almost political way where there is constant PR processes going on, where one would want to control situations and events to what one considers is appropriate and generates no disturbance to our status quo – all entirely fear based.

This point of control is definitely rooted in fear, where we want to keep a certain idea, state or condition of something to please – again – certain idea or belief of oneself, or what others should become to please oneself, how an environment should be to please oneself. I faced a lot of these patterns when living with roommates in a house and having quite a lot of ongoing irritation, anger and frustration for things simply being out of my control at all times, which means: me not being able to impose my will and how I thought things should look like and function around in all ways. I am aware I tend to be dominant, and there is no point in now going into feeling bad about it. There can be constructive ways to use this ability to be in a constant ‘overseeing’ mode of reality in order to be more present, more aware of what’s going on, yet without wanting to control the environment or a situation. Though in this also realizing that me trying to have things work entirely ‘my way’ or have little to no inconveniences is definitely not a possibility in this world where multiple variables are constantly interacting with each other. Hell, not even a ‘god’ could have ultimate control on reality.

So, what word have I been using and practicing to letting go of or managing this pattern of wanting to control? Flexibility and consideration. Flexibility is being able to adapt to whichever outcome emerges that is unforeseen, unpredictable or ‘out of the plans’ and so being able to adapt, move, change in order to integrate such situations while being directive. Otherwise, when fixating to how something ‘must’ go, we are prone to constantly be fighting against reality, constantly creating the most unnecessary frictions and conflicts. So it is better to rather make it a point to make peace with it anyways, with whatever ‘out of the plan’ conditions emerge instead of fighting it or trying to have something or someone work in a particular way. So for example yesterday I said I would not complain for how hot the day was. In the end I was able to do this for the most part, except for the very end when I said that it was a very damn hot day, and started scheming the ways to avoid going out at the same time of the day under the same heat.

Is that the way to go through life? It’s like a constant fighting. Also I see that when others do this ‘PR’ process or ‘damage control’ in a way of ‘everything is fine’ it has bothered me, because I see the flaws behind that but it happens to be that I have done exactly the same, it is another form of control instead of facing the music for what it is and work with it bit by bit.  The question is then what is there to ‘save’ or ‘rescue’ from a mind that thrives of judgments, superiority and inferiority traits, delusional beliefs….? Nothing really.

Whenever I then see myself wanting to control something within an environment or toward another, I rather ask myself what do I fear losing or experimenting or exposing and why? Is it really relevant?

 It is true that not everyone in this world is ready to be fully honest and have this marvelous openness right away, but if one does the little bit of enabling things to unfold as they usually do, without trying to control, we will realize that this is where the actual ‘self-test’ emerges, where we can act and live according to what we face in the moment, challenging or not = it is our reality, we can only arm ourselves with the tools of self-support to develop self-trust over time, realizing that no matter ‘what’ or ‘who’ comes my way, I know I can support me to walk through it and get to a resolution or create solutions that can be supportive in both or more ways.

Sometimes instead of wanting to immediately ‘control’ someone as in preventing them from doing something, it’s a matter of rather communicating the potential outflows or consequential development of something, sometimes even finding third party accounts or stories that can assist a person to consider the same point and so, open up the conversation in common sense to that everyone is aware of the points of responsibility to it all. This is then turning the point of control based on fear – just like parents do with their children when preventing them to do something out of fear, instead of explaining to them how things work, the consequences and so having the child decide and go through it all to learn from it – that’s how you build a sense of responsibility. There the point of control as in preventing others sometimes from ‘fuck ups’ is then turned into a learning process for everyone involved, where even if ‘mistakes’ are made, at least each person would know ‘I did it to myself’ or ‘I created this and I knew what the outcomes would be.’ This way one is instead of controlling, providing certain perspectives or input into something, so that each one can still make their own decisions while one can remain ‘at peace’ because of having explained the reasoning behind one’s attempt to control – or if already prevented – to explain or give a perspective as to why one would or would not do a certain thing with arguments that can be understandable in practical reality terms.

 

I consider that it is best to make some choices being aware of the uncertainty they entail – we cannot predict or control what is going to happen in something – rather than preventing oneself from moving at all because of wanting to control reality, to wait for a better moment to act, to have the perfect conditions for something –that possibly won’t ever arrive by the way – one can instead embrace the unpredictability, while remaining aware of the developments, potential consequences and make decisions based on common sense – considering what is best for all involved – that can lead to the most supportive and potentially effective outcome.

Being flexible there implies not trying to impose oneself onto others, not trying to control their lives, but rather making sure that I can instead share my perspective

 

Control

 

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