Tag Archives: inflexible

600. Understanding Arrogance

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

 

 

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120. ‘I don’t like breaking my routine’

This emerged as I went out for a walk as I do everyday and two people approached me – a woman and her son – and the woman indicated that they had seen me walking around always Alone around the neighborhood, and she quickly asked me if I’d like to go walking with them some time – and so, I was calm here breathing and I could clearly immediately experience the same physical sensation of just ‘wanting to leave’ right there immediately upon hearing an invitation to go somewhere/ do something that is ‘out of my routine,’ I clearly had backchat in between our conversation such as:

What do they want from me?

Are they white lighters? (because they asked me if I liked yoga)

How can I say that I like to walk all by myself?

I just want to be alone

She probably wants me to be ‘friends’ with her son

Do I look that lonely and/or depressed to others?

I don’t want my routine to be interrupted

Why is she so insistent?

Is it that people are wondering about me being suspicious around here?

I can tell her that I’ll be moving out soon, that way they’ll go away

I’m wasting my time here

Do I have to explain my life to her?

And so this seemingly ‘casual’ experience was a trigger point for me to see how I have lived within this almost fear an anxiety to do something out of my own routine, wherein interacting with others and doing things out of ‘my schedule’ seems like an aberration at all times.

Hence I walk self-forgiveness and self corrective application on each point of backchat experienced as a defense mechanism to my own self-religion.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to immediately react with the backchat ‘what do they want from me?’ when seeing people crossing the street in order to meet me, which is a defense mechanism wherein I immediately react to the image of people suddenly approaching me, which at a peripheral view becomes a ‘threatening sight’ simply because of holding the fear of being robbed or mugged by people on the streets while I walk alone.

When and as I see myself fearing the sight of people approaching me, I stop and I breathe – I instead ensure that I do take a look at the people and remain stable with whatever their intentions are

I realize that reacting in fear is just a way to keep me ‘alert’ of people at all times while walking on the street, which is why and how I have developed a way to walk in a very ‘focused’ manner looking only at the horizon but not looking at people specifically as to not create a point ‘unspoken communication’ just by sight/ view of each other.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold the backchat ‘she probably wants me to be ‘friends’ with her son’ the moment that she introduced me to her son, which is how I have been conditioned to believe that all ‘mothers’ introducing their sons to females has to do with wanting to arrange a ‘couple’ in the moment.

When and as I see myself reacting with the backchat’ oh they want me to go out with his son/ the male here’ – I stop and I breathe, I continue hearing what they have to say while breathing here

I realize that all reactions stem from the times when it is a cliché that a mother seeks a female to ‘go out with’ a female in order to establish relationships – I realize that I can stop this backchat and simply remain here breathing and listening to the words spoken in physical reality.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold the backchat ‘do I look that lonely and/ or depressed to others’ in terms of me walking all alone, which is me reacting to the woman’s facial expression of concern wherein I believe that she’s concerned and/or wanting to make a ‘big deal’ out of me being alone all the time – thus I realize that being ‘lonely’ is a word that is negatively seen by people that judge their own aloneness as something that would immediately require company – therefore I take the point for what it is and that’s it.

When and as I see myself wondering if others see me as ‘too lonely and/or depressed’ I stop and I breathe – I realize that this backchat only supports others’ words and projected concerns about ‘loneliness,’ wherein I see and realize that the fact that I contained such backchat indicates that I have judged myself for walking all alone and victimizing myself at times for ‘walking around all alone’ in terms of how it is seen by others, and/or looking seemingly ‘suspicious’ to others.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold the backchat: is it that people are wondering about me being suspicious around here? Wherein I allow myself to project my own beliefs of ‘how I am seen’ around the neighborhood/ area in which I walk – thus, I see and realize that I am still holding on to the ‘I am weird/ eccentric’ character while walking on the street, wherein I believe that people are having all types of ideas about me walking on the same road every single day, like a mentally deranged person which I embody as a form of protection toward what I believe is a way to secure myself to not be ‘attacked’ by people on the street, and instead, become the fear instigator toward others, just as a defense mechanism toward potential robbers/ abusers while I walk down the street.

When and as I see myself acting out on the character of being mysterious/ being seemingly suspicious in my attitude and random moves as I walk down the streets, I stop and I breathe – I continue walking simply being here aware of what I’m listening and seeing and experiencing as my very own feet on the ground walking step by step, taking the necessary precautions in terms of checking people around and make the necessary moves in order to consider what works best in terms of walking on the street in any given moment.

I realize that I have become the seemingly suspicious character in order to remain ‘safe’ and ‘undisturbed’ by people, just because of not wanting to establish relationships with people or be ‘too well known’ by others in the neighborhood, aside from the people I buy food/ stuff from.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold the backchat ‘do I have to explain my life to her?’ the moment that she asks if I had a brother or sister to go out with, wherein I then have to explain that I live alone and that I have no one to walk with.

I realize that this is a strange situation for me that I had not experienced as it is very rare that someone approaches you to ‘strike a conversation ‘out of nowhere,’ which indicates to what level of fear and control we’ve lived, wherein we cannot even consider that another would just want to ‘strike a conversation’ but we immediately assess what is it that they want from us, what is it that they are promoting/ selling/ involved-in in order to make sales.

When and as I see myself going into the backchat of ‘Do I have to explain myself to her’? I stop and I breathe – I continue listening unconditionally to the questions and direct myself to assess what information I can give and what information I rather not give to a new person/ stranger in the moment.

I realize that I don’t require to ‘explain’ myself as in making sense of my aloneness, but I can simply share in a very succinct manner the reasons for the pattern another is pointing out and how I am practically living without it.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the backchat ‘are they whitelighters’ as a way to immediately discard what they have to say in the moment based on me thinking, believing that only ‘good doers/ positive thinkers’ would want to do something that they view as ‘positive’ at their eyes.

When and as I see myself judging people in my head for being into yoga/ spirituality, I stop and I breathe – I realize that I can instead of judging directing me to hear what they have to say about it and respond accordingly, without reacting from the fact that I was into spirituality for a brief moment.

I realize that I create labels/ tags onto people as a way to support my character of the ‘reality observer,’ wherein I believe that I understand the mechanisms of the mind to the T, which is absolutely not so, and that I instead tend to create these points/ characters according to the level of ‘threat’ they represent to myself as my own mind in that moment.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think that I am wasting my time with people when I am talking with them, as I see and realize that it is only me in my mind creating a defense mechanism toward something/ someone that is actually a potential ‘debunker’ toward my own mind.

When and as I see myself thinking that ‘I am wasting my time here’ I stop and I breathe – I realize that this is me rushing as my mind wanting to ‘move on’ with the immovable type of self-created experience, instead of me supporting myself to actually slow down, breathe and as such listen and consider what is being explained/ lived/ talked about in the moment unconditionally.

I realize that the ‘I don’t have enough time’ sentences is an excuse to stop communication, seek ways to not continue communicating wherein I assess something ‘else’ that I have to do as ‘more important’ than the moment, which is clearly a defense mechanism to not have to face myself as my own mind.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with an energetic experience of fear and slight anxiety when being asked to go out with others/ being invited to do something out of my routine, which implies that the fear and anxiety is a defense mechanism to not even consider the point as a potential opportunity for me to face myself and my own inclination to remain ‘undisturbed’ by others in my routine. Thus

When and as I see myself reacting in fear and anxiety to a question that proposes me doing something out of the ordinary, I stop and I breathe – I realize that I can in fact assess whether I am able to participate or not without immediately seeking ways to say ‘no’ and justify that decision with my own backchat as I realize that I am not being entirely self directive in such moments, but allowing me to just ‘shut down’ and created excuses to not walk the point and actually open up toward others as an opportunity of self-expansion and expression with others.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think the backchat ‘how can I say that I like to walk all by myself?’ wherein I am defending my own reluctant self-experience to participate, interact with others based on the memories of having been impulsed to socialize with others, such as the way that my mother would force me to socialize which is how I have a kept one single memory as the point that defines all my interactions with people that I get to know of in a ‘casual manner,’ wherein I would defend my ‘right’ to remain as a loner no matter what.

When and as I see myself wanting to explain to others why and how I enjoy being alone, I stop and I breathe – I realize that I am creating a defense to my own self-religion of ‘being alone’ wherein I am only seeking ways to not interact with others. Thus I allow myself to continue interacting and considering what’s being said in the moment, without any condition or any restriction according to what ‘threatens’ my own desire to ‘be alone.’

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge another in my head as ‘insistent’ the moment that they ask again about my own ‘loneliness’ and inviting me to go out with them, wherein I am still believing that there must be something in it for them to insist on socializing with me, which is how I have conditioned myself to always look t relationships and interactions based on self interest wherein I immediately judge another’s expression toward me and their starting point to communicate according there being some personal benefit out of it, which is how I would mostly judge any ‘casual communication’ and only expecting people to get to explain their reason of interacting/ communicating based on a point of self-interest, which is the only reason I could think of as the reason for people approaching others to communicate.

I realize that I have judged people approaching others as always having to do with people wanting something to their own benefit, which is how I have always judged communication as self-interest instead of actually allowing myself to be that it can be an actual unconditional openness from human beings in the moment without any personal interest in itself.

Thus, when and as I see myself wanting to rush a point of communication to ‘get to know ‘what people are in fact being pushed by/ driven by in order to communicate with me, I stop and I breathe – I realize that I am seeing the communication through the veil of ‘self interest’ projected onto others instead of actually breathing and just being here in every word that is being spoken wherein I can ensure that I am hearing the words said instead of interpreting them.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold the backchat ‘I don’t want my routine to be interrupted’ – which is the actual core of my character as ‘the loner’ wherein any potential threat to my religion of always doing things the way that ‘I want’ is judged by myself as my mind in order to diminish any potential threat to my own routine as a holder of my ego/ self-religion based on having a certain time throughout the day for everything, wherein I immediately create any point that could stand outside of such norm/schedule as an aberration that must be annihilated immediately, which is the reason why I tend to create all types of excuses as to never have to actually challenge my own time frames and ‘way of being’ in order to participate in an activity/ moment of interaction with other human beings.

I realize that I have believed that breaking my routine is something that I simply ‘cannot afford’ within the consideration of how I use my time throughout the day thus

When and as I see myself thinking about saying no to a proposal of interaction/ communication with other beings and creating the excuse of time as a justification with the thinking pattern ‘I don’t want my routine to be interrupted’ – I stop and I breathe – I instead allow myself to consider whether it is viable for me to actually participate or not according to my actual self-honest assessment of the point, ensuring that I am in fact not restricting my participation with others deliberately, but that I give myself the opportunity to consider opening up with people and seeing how it could work to do something ‘out of the ordinary’ without compromising myself either.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to always seek ways to rush a point of communication with people that I deem as too ‘talkative’ to an end through the backchat ‘I just want to leave already’/ ‘I just want to be alone and keep going’ which is how I have kept myself ‘intact’ within my own patterns of how I communicate and interact with people, always seeking to just ‘be alone’ again as I see and realize that interacting, communicating and actually opening up to others is the way to go debunking my own restrictive personality toward others, as a defense mechanism for my own mind as its main characters to continue existing as a point of ‘exclusivity’ in relation to who I talk to/ who I can simply disregard, which is an elitist way of looking at people, making it an excuse to not actually interact and expand in a moment, but remain within the safe bounds of my own mind.

When and as I see myself thinking ‘I just want to be alone and keep going’/ I just want to leave already – I stop and I breathe – I realize that I am facing a moment and a point wherein I can actually breakthrough my imposed self-limitations of communication toward others, and in fact allow myself to expand and express with others without having to have a ‘reason’ behind it, but simply see it as an opportunity to step outside of my own schemes for a moment and see how I can support myself within participating with others, unconditionally.

I realize that I have a resistance to do things ‘out of my routine’ because I have made of my routine this ‘untouchable’ aspect of ‘who I am’ wherein I have disliked anything and anyone that dares to challenge it, reacting with fear of losing myself as my mind, as my self-religion and ‘my time’ which I have used as an excuse to not interact and actually expand with others, as I see that it takes an actual ‘push’ and effort for me to do something ‘out of the ordinary,’ which is just a matter of allowing myself to do it more frequently in order to not hold a resistance toward it in any way whatsoever.

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to always want things to remain ‘the same’ and ‘immovable’ as this creates an experience of certainty within myself as my mind, wherein I am only looking to create a ‘safe environment’ as a routine and repetition within my mind wherein such repetition becomes a form of security to remain ‘stable’ within myself. Thus

When and as I see myself wanting to shut down/ move away and or avoiding something or someone that represents having to step out of that routine, that repetition as a certainty to my own ‘world’ within my mind, I stop and I breathe – I realize that change is actually cool in order to go letting loose from my own trap of mind-routine as a self-religion of certainty and security. This way I allow myself to do things out of my schedule at times within the self-honest consideration of myself and practicality in that moment, to also not now compromise to ‘always’ do things to step out of my mind-routine, but simply be open and self-honest about participating in points that I am invited to, or even directing myself to ‘by my own will’ as a way to really walk the self-correction of never ‘touching’ anything that could mean a potential change/ threat to my routine as my mind.

I assist and support myself to become aware of my own thinking when being invited to do something out of the ordinary wherein I can self-honesty assess the proposal instead of just shoving it away or wanting to run away from it. I support myself to walk the correction of what it means to consider practicality before listening to my own backchat as the decision maker toward any event in my reality.

 

I commit myself to continue breaking my own routine and self-religion patterns with small activities and actions wherein this desire to remain ‘immovable’ is actually walked into a practical realization of being available and open for interaction with others wherein I decide whether I participate or not based on a self-honest assessment toward it, instead of immediately shutting it down out of fear of debunking my own religion.

 

I realize that I am the one that has the power to decide whether I support myself to live and break-through my own patterns or not, thus I decide whether I remain within the confinement of my own characters and personalities or actually allow myself to step out of my own mind control and live.

 

For further support in walking our own mind and understanding our own creation as a limited version of life through and as a limited mind, visit the Desteni I Process website to learn more about how you can walk a process of knowing yourself in order to be able to create who we are based on a principle of life in equality, with support and assistance to always have a point of reference in relation to HOW we can practically begin to live and how we can practically stop all forms of limitations as fears to not do so.

Desteni

Desteni Forum

 

28-days-later

Blogs:

Day 120: True Activist Politics

Multidimensional Inner-Voices – Part 2 (Self-Commitments): DAY 120

 

Interview of the day:

Life Review – A Child’s Mind in an Adult Body

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