Tag Archives: prejudices

December 17, 2017

611. Assuming What Others Are Experiencing

By Marlen

 

I’ve written a couple of blogs about assuming and how I have to take a breath, and slow down whenever I see myself doing this, but the reality is that stopping is not the only solution because there is a righteousness veil within considering that ‘I know that what I’m seeing, perceiving, sensing is right’ as in ‘I have a right to keep assuming/thinking that this is really happening.’ Righteousness is one of those lockdown experiences and self-beliefs where we become tough-heads and don’t take a moment to question what is it that we are really defining as real, as truth, as ‘how things are,’ which is what usually leads to assuming and within that projecting onto others what we believe ‘they’ are going through, not realizing that we are in fact the source of such assumptions.

I have found it actually entertaining to see how is it that whatever I assume a person ‘is like’ becomes completely debunked once that I get to talk to them more or get to actually have a moment to see how they express and share themselves beyond just me seeing them ‘from afar’ so to speak. I had this recently with a couple of people that I had perceived that ‘they didn’t seem to like me that much’ just because they weren’t as ‘expressive’ or ‘friendly’ in my definition of how I express friendliness, also considered that when comparing them to others in their midst in terms of being talkative or interacting in a more extroverted way.

Though, once that I had an opportunity to actually talk to them, things were quite different and I got to see how they are simply a different kind of person – lol –  in that they might not be a boisterous and sociable as others, they just like to share in a more calm, cool and collected manner, or have more specific conversations rather than relating to people in the midst of a group.  In that I also realized how much I tend to from the get go still judge certain people based on just observing them, trying to ‘label’ them as a certain kind of person without having any actual moment of interaction, but more assessing ‘who they are’ for example in the context of a larger group of people, which at times can be limiting for certain people that feel more open and comfortable when being in one on one interactions, rather than on a casual/social context.

I’ve found that assumption comes as a desire to control, a desire to believe that ‘I know’ what I am dealing with when it comes to being with people or certain environments, certain activities, it’s like this ‘crutch’ that I believe I need in order to ‘know where I stand’ or ‘know what I’m dealing with.’ But, for the most part I’ve seen how this has fueled a lot of judgments towards others and it’s become a preposterous limitation because even when I am creating a seemingly ‘positive label’ towards another, then anything that they do that doesn’t match such assumption of ‘who they are’ within this ‘positive light’ I project upon them, then it creates a noise within me where I then tend to get disillusioned or disappointed about such person, without realizing that ‘Hey! I created these parameters, labels and definitions of ‘who they are’ as judgments all by myself! So, how can I be disappointed about someone’s actions or words based on me being the one that created such idea of ‘who they ‘entirely’ are’?

I’ve observed how assumption is born out of lack of actually communicating, interacting and understanding the person in any given moment or situation, which means at the same time that I am thinking more ‘up there’ in my head making conclusions about ‘who they are’ and ‘who am I’ in relation to them instead of actually getting to know a person, ask questions, establish communication wherein I can get to know and understand others better. I definitely enjoy asking questions, getting to know another, but this is not necessarily so easy to do with people you’ve just seen a couple of times or just met, which is where I see my inner experience towards them being rife with assumptions and a point that I have to remind myself next time I’m in the presence of people I’ve never been with in my life. I’ve also been realizing how much time it actually gets for some people to open up about things, and within that I have to understand that I might approach things in a more direct or immediate way, but not everyone’s like that.

I saw this with how one of these people I had assumed ‘didn’t like me as much’ opened up only after months of being around their midst, and completely turned around my prejudices only to show me and remind me how quick I am to jump into conclusions and project an idea I create – judge – others for and place them into these cookie cutter ideas that are only in my head… definitely relevant for me to remain present, to rather ask and be direct in my interactions and communication, while also considering the time it takes to develop such communication with others.

On another line of assumption, I’ve also seen how the negative assumptions I’ve created about someone’s experience or ‘state of being’ in a moment is definitely a cool mirror I can use for myself. An example is how I can assume that someone is irritated about something, that they are displeased or just not feeling as their usual ‘stable self’ and in that, I noticed I went into the experience of ‘there’s something bothering them, annoying them, they are not being their usual cool self so what’s bothering them?’ And the next step went into believing that it’s me/my presence that might be bothering them, or whether I did something wrong. That’s an example of a moment where I allowed myself to go into a reaction based on what I believed I was perceiving and let it fester for a some hours until I simply had to ‘let it out’ in the open and discuss it, but I missed taking the point back to self first to see how I am projecting my own self doubt, self-judgment or inadequacies onto another and believing ‘that’s their experience,’ when in fact it was entirely first of all related to something I had to look at within myself first.

Therefore there’s two things I am practicing to do: first, take the point back to self, seeing how I am reacting to Assuming someone else is reacting or experiencing themselves in a particular way or are a certain ‘kind of person.’. Say I react in insecurity when seeing someone feeling ‘off’ or ‘bothered’ or ‘annoyed’ – I have to first look at where am I actually feeling annoyed, off or bothered by seeing, perceiving a change in another and how I am then reacting to the assumptions I’m creating in my own mind, making me then go into an emotional experience about my assumptions, and that definitely doesn’t assist in actually getting to know what the source of this change is all about starting with myself.

Second point is to work with my assumptions, to see what is bothering me, what I feared losing, what I was desiring as an experience or outcome in something and that usually leads me to see where I become bothered or irritated myself, so that I can take responsibility for those expectations and calm myself down about it, which happens when I acknowledge my own experience as my own creation.

Third point is to actually communicate about it once I am settled and have worked through it within myself, even if it’s not in a thorough manner but once I can notice I’m more grounded and not ‘taken over’ by a reaction, I can ask the person if there’s something going on, if there’s a change in how they experience themselves, or simply share how I’m perceiving this/that experience in their voice tonality or in their presence.

Now doing this comes with being unconditional about it, not expecting to ratify what I was perceiving, not expecting the person to even open up entirely about the situation, but simply sharing and expressing what I was seeing and experiencing, maybe even share what I saw and how I worked with it myself and now simply opening up to see if there’s anything that the other person could reflect back on.

 Being unconditional within communicating about things after I’ve cleared my own assumptions means also being OK and embracing if the person is actually going through reactions or experiences that they would rather not speak about or have to first deal with themselves. That’s part of me applying understanding in how I cannot expect someone to ‘share it all’ and ‘have it all sorted’ in one go – each one of us deals with experiences in different ways, and I have to embrace that, remind myself of that each time that I am even slightly expecting ‘another’ to say or do things a particular way that resembles ‘how I do things.’ That’s where within living the word understanding it means embracing and accepting different people in how they deal with their points, walk their lives and experiences.

Another aspect of understanding and being unconditional when communicating about points that were noticed, perceived or assumed about a person or situation is not taking it personal if another in fact is going through an experience based on a situation we are directly involved in – or something we did or say – it’s about placing myself in the shoes of another and be able to understand how these experiences can emerge in them, and use that to get to know them better, which is actually quite cool and supportive for me because I enjoy getting to know people at deeper levels, it’s just like that kind of nutritional value or richness that opens up when one is able to learn more about another at deeper levels, I thoroughly enjoy it even if that means that the person is actually having to go through some difficult points at times, I then get to know or understand more about them, and that’s very cool and something that can only unfold through communication.

A funny one is where I perceived one guy to be sort of timid or shy with playing an instrument, and kind of feeling uncertain to move too much – compared to how others do it – and yesterday I told him ‘hey! I noticed you are getting more loose and at ease with yourself, being more playful in your expression’ and he explained how he had always been that way, it’s just that the other instrument he was playing was too heavy for him to do that kind of stuff, so his movements were limited – but this time he was playing a lighter one so could move around with ease. Lol, again I had to laugh at my own assumption of ‘how the person is’ and not considering physical reality contexts that sometimes yes, limit one’s expression in very real ways.

Another example of assuming things and not considering physical reality limitations is when believing or perceiving that someone is in an emotional reaction and not really getting to know that they are in fact going through the initial stages of an illness or are in physical pain. So in my mind I went too far into making all kinds of ideas and theories as to why someone is seeming ‘off’ in a certain moment, yet not really asking about it directly to know more about what’s going on or what’s really ‘off’ in them? So in this case again, clarity and awareness of what’s really going on only happened through communication and go to know that yes, the person was having a low in their physical body, which is something I had not considered at all.

Of course this process of asking and getting to know more about what one is perceiving about something or someone in a situation is more plausible with closer relationships, but it can also be a way to get to know another more whenever we clearly notice there’s something going on with them, while also making sure that I’m clear in my starting point and being willing to assist now that I’m deciding to take that step further into opening up a point with another.

These are some of the recent examples I’ve faced when it comes to assuming and projecting onto others my own judgments or experiences, and overall it has become a humbling process that reminds me how I have to stop myself on my track whenever I am jumping into assuming what another is going through, and if I am close with the person then communicate about it, share, because that then leads to getting to know and so understand someone much better. But, there are also those times when I might not get as much ‘info’ on it, and that’s ok to, I have to also be considerate and so understanding if someone would not want to share all of their details and experience about something.

The word that comes up is how demanding or exigent I can become with ‘wanting to know’ all the details there are to something or someone’s experience, and that is also then like mind-thirst that I have to moderate, because as much as I can be naturally curious, I also sometimes go a bit overboard in asking people questions about themselves and their lives, and not everyone is open and willing to do that… I can try, but definitely have to also get to hear more who they are within what they are willing to share, rather than going straight into ‘deep stuff’ from the get go. This is a side point to assuming because I’ve also at times created ideas of ‘the life that someone has gone through’ which leads me to ask questions about themselves, their personal lives in order to verify ‘my assumptions’ and well, that’s not entirely cool if the other person is really not willing to ‘go there’ when it comes to sharing. To sum up: I have to step out of being an ‘analyst’ all the time and instead be more unconditional within the time and interactions I get to have with others!

So, the words that have assisted me to walk through this is understanding, both to understand my own reactions and experiences upon assuming something – and understanding another based on actually communicating what I am seeing, perceiving and within that debunking the myths and beliefs about it to then get to a solid ground of what’s really going on, which to me is an awesome thing to do, it creates clarity within reality, which to me leads me to stop theorizing too much about things, and stick to the facts,.

I also recommend checking out this recording released through Eqafe.com which may seem like not related to this at all, but it was actually supportive to hear how someone else is dealing with perceptions he can have about others in his life and how to ground them practically in reality, because of all of the reasons described above with approaching someone and opening up about something one might perceive they are going through or experiencing. So I can take that practical explanation to my process here with assumptions and perceptions as well, check it out!  Developing Sensory Abilities – The Quantum Mechanics of Paranormal Events – Part 51

And Cerise also made a cool vlog about it which became a cross-reference to the points I’ve been looking at for quite some time now, so check it out as well Projecting Makes an Ass of Me

I’ll continue with the points that have been revealed about myself when going into these moments of assuming things, because that’s where there are some ‘ingrained fibers’ of my personalities and experiencing coming through that I definitely need to work with.

Thanks for reading 🙂

 

 Assumption

   

Join us in our process of Self-Expression as LIFE

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November 16, 2017

609. Courage in Self-Expression

By Marlen

 

I want to share about the ways in which I’ve been opening up to a new understanding of what ‘living’ is about and letting go of a stifling rigidity that I’ve kept within an idea of what I like, enjoy, the kind of person I, what I dislike, what I’m supposed to be and do and I’ve been seeing how limiting all of that has been when confronted with new people, new ways of living, behaving, talking, expressing in day to day living – and of course also related to arts and music.

Well, it’s no mystery that a lot of my life is influenced by fellow creative people, especially when they are the kind that represent a joyful expression which to me contains a pinch of innocence, they seem to be ‘boundless’ and without a care so to speak in terms of how other people might see them, perceive them – in essence being carefree in their expression, not holding themselves back with ‘second thoughts’ or ‘what others will think of them,’ and to me that’s quite a precious quality in ourselves as human beings.

I recently learned from an interesting explanation about The Jonah Complex and the Fear of Greatness how we fear being different, we fear truly expressing ourselves, we want to conform and ‘blend in’ because we fear ‘standing alone’ in our own ways of being, essentially daring to be unique and so start fearing ‘to exist’ which means to emerge, appear, stand out and this eventually creating a ‘fear of life’ or fear of living, where we don’t want to be our own creators, we don’t want to achieve our greatness – which I read more as in creating our living potential – because that would mean changing, that would mean standing outside of our comfort zone, that means doing the actual work it means to create our individuality and own our creation. Yep, that’s the paradoxical nature of ourselves as human beings in our own minds and can definitely prove that. 

I really enjoyed listening that explanation because throughout my life I’ve struggled in that polarity of realizing how much I could ‘stand out’ – which I’ve shared in a previous blog – yet because of caring too much about everyone’s feedback, I decided to step back, ‘cease to exist’ and seek for more ways to hide out, blend in, stand in the back/to not stand out, to remain limited and inevitably becoming and embodying that fear of truly standing out and being ‘me’ in whichever way I genuinely wanted and could be.  

I went through a phase of first rebelling against anything that I didn’t want to achieve based on what everyone else was doing, which still led me to a form of limitation and still defining myself based on ‘not doing what everyone else is doing’ – which is the whole antagonistic personality I’ve shared a lot about in this blog before. But, I hadn’t really stepped outside of the paradigm to genuinely ask myself: what do I want to live? What do I genuinely enjoy? What do I want to create regardless of the ‘kind of person’ I think I am supposed to be? Or the kind of topics of interest that I thought ‘I was supposed to ONLY be interested on’? And I noticed how I was slowly but surely caging myself into an idea of who I had to be, look like, dress like, care about, act like etc. even though I could see all those moments that would come up within me wanting to do something different, wanting to test out certain expressions that I would see in others and would only ‘judge them’ for daring to express something that I wanted to express deep inside myself.

One of these aspects in the sheer ability to enjoy life. I know, sounds as if I’m veering into a ‘self conceited’ topic, but I will step outside of my own projections and say nope, this is actually the one point that I had refrained myself to do in an almost religious manner – and hell, I am still getting out of my cocoon on this one! – which has nothing to do with going into extremes of ‘libertinage’ when it comes to associating enjoyment with ‘parting’ or all kinds of excesses that we usually associate ‘enjoyment’ to be about.

Nope, actually this enjoyment is more of a decision in the most simple of moments, it’s not something that will suddenly ‘take over myself’ either or come up as an energy that I have to build up into ‘enjoyment!’ – no, this that I’m talking about it is more like an opening, a decision to express, to ‘step outside of myself,’ in essence to decide to exist in moments where I knew I wanted to express myself in such ‘carefree’ ways – yet would allow my ‘idea of self’ to dictate the way I was supposed to behave and look like at the eyes of others and the rest of it. But in fact, I am discovering that I am the most content, happy and joyful with and within myself when I have zero thoughts about how someone/others might be ‘perceiving me’ and in that I’ve found the most enjoyable quietness where I can simply ‘be’. And no, this doesn’t mean sitting in a quiet place and meditating, nope and it doesn’t also come as quick and simple as just ‘letting go’ – it is also the result of all of these years of working with myself, understanding my judgments, patterns and limitations, so that I can now be more comfortable in living the words that I want to ‘be’ and make exist as myself.

A clear example of this is how I started to listen to a type of music that I never thought I would get to be quite fond of. I would randomly hear a live band in my home town and they play very upbeat and generally joyful/happy music called Klezmer. I started listening to them every now and then around town 2 years ago, and I remember standing there with my then partner and having the impulse to move my feet, my knees, to kind of dance to the beats of that music – yet, the ‘rigidity’ of my own personality would come out in ways of ‘oh no, that would not be ‘me’ liking this kind of happy, joyful music’ – yet slowly but surely, I kept creating an interest in listening to them playing it and would stand still while listening to it, yet inside myself started kind of dancing to the tunes and enjoying those moments.

Well, long story short, after many times of listening to them in my frequent trips walking downtown, it is only now that I’ve been able to move my feet and legs and head around when listening to them, and yep knowing that people are watching and sometimes ask me if I’m ‘with the band’ lol, but nope and no, I don’t put on a show either, haha! But it’s been mostly children thus far that I’ve seen moving their bodies to the sound of the music, because that’s mostly what that music is for! Yet most adults – including myself in the past – would focus on enjoying the music and maybe craving to move around or bob our heads yet we kept bound to ideas of ‘how we are supposed to be’ or ‘not knowing how to dance that kind of music’ or ‘what will others say if we start moving around? I actually enjoy standing there while the band is playing and looking at people’s facial reactions, some do move around a bit while they pass by and so I’ve made it a point to learn from those few and in between that have dared to dance along or move around, including the guys in the band which is something I also appreciate from creative people in general, being quite ‘gutsy’ – for a lack of a better word – to own their individuality, show their courage in their expression and share it in a carefree manner – and by ‘carefree’ I mean without judgment towards themselves and therefore without projected judgments coming from others.

No matter how much one walks through ‘judging oneself,’ I find that one has to find an actual way to work through it in a practical and physical manner. To me, making paintings is one, learning to own my creation no matter how it looks, no matter if I ‘like it’ or not, but see them all as part of a process to express myself, to actually live my potential and I’ve met some people in the past weeks that represent that genuine expression of enjoyment in who they are through their creative process. And in this I don’t mean that everyone has to look at artists as a source of inspiration, to me that’s just how it has usually been throughout my life. It can be any other person that in their field of expertise or interest are really good at doing something and seeing how much they enjoy doing so is a source of inspiration, because they represent that potential that we can develop for ourselves in our own ways and lives.

Many times I’ve wallowed within myself when comparing ‘me’ and ‘my creations’ to those of others, and it seems that generally this obnoxious sense of comparison is a constant judgment that I bring up to sabotage myself – therefore what do I know? I can only remind myself about the uniqueness and individuality that each individual represents, to stop seeing others as a point of measurement for my own life or creations, and always remember that there is no point in comparing or judging how I express, what I express and the ways in which I go developing such expressions, because that’s a unique process to me and myself only. And in that, I can nurture myself from the many examples that I’ve found in people’s expressions, doesn’t matter how ‘simple’ it might be, it can start with having the ‘guts’ to sing out in public or play music in the streets – anything that I would consider as something that I would probably enjoy doing yet would not ‘dare’ to do it, I can then learn to see what words these people represent that I am not living myself. And what comes up is having that courage to express myself.

Yesterday as I was listening to this band playing live, they had no fears to change places in instruments and play in front of everyone their own practice of learning a new instrument, and even if the songs didn’t come out ‘perfectly’, I definitely appreciated the fact that they had no qualms about it or keeping their ‘practice/learning process secret’ but simply did it out there in public. And also being genuine when it comes to not lying about ‘enjoying every single moment of playing,’ but being quite honest on how tiring it can be, yet at the same time being inspired by the expressions that this music brings out in people  – and kids specially – which is quite awesome to witness.

So, this kind of music and the way these guys have come to create their band is quite unique in the sense that many of them might have been professional musicians, but some others didn’t know how to play any instrument, yet they had the will and courage to learn and be part of the band, so they learned an instrument in order to be part of it. It has made me consider how many times we admire people like musicians or any other form of performers because they have gotten to do something that we have yearned to do, which is to express, create and stand out with it in the world, to dare to exist beyond one’s own 4 closed walls.

Where am I in this process of having the courage to express myself? Definitely in the beginning stages, even more so considering how much I had to shed this idea that I could not enjoy life or had to suffer or could not just ‘be happy’ because ‘the world is not a happy place,’ yet I see for myself how people daring to do this in their lives becomes a source of inspiration for everyone else to dare to do what each one of us actually wants to do, and actually do it! Have the courage to do it, dare to ‘stand out’, daring to be unique, daring to not follow the crowd – not from an antagonistic or rebellious way but based on understanding our capacity to live in a very unique way that in turn, may inspire others to do the same in their lives, and that’s who I want to be and what I want to be, to give that back to the world based on all that I’ve learned from many, many people that have inspired me in my life and that have assisted me – without them even knowing – in becoming who I am today.

So, part of what I’ve been looking at in terms of embracing myself, my looks, my physical feature as the totality of ‘me’ – which I have judged as ‘odd’ – I can embrace within that uniqueness that I decide to live as myself, and reminding myself every time that I start going into judgments about myself and projecting it towards others, I have to remind myself how present I can be when I am judgment-less, when moving my limbs a bit when listening to this music out in the public in downtown and each time that I dare to do it more often, it feels more liberating and I become the most quiet and joyful and not in an ‘overt’ manner, but in that genuine ‘hereness’ of expression, because I’m simply there with the music, moving with it and there’s no thoughts, no fears, no expectations… and it’s hard at times to have those moments in one’s day, but I found that this is one of my moments of enjoyment, to have that ‘me’ time if you will yet sharing it with others at the same time.

And! No pressure if there’s no ‘live band’ I can dance to, I’ve been also playing some music that invariably leads me to want to dance as well, which is another interesting thing based on how I had thought that ‘I don’t like dancing anymore’ but I just hadn’t found the kind of music that I genuinely and almost naturally want to move my body to, which has been a cool discovery for myself as well and letting go of ideas that I had to like a particular ‘kind of music’ to ‘dance to.’ Hell no, we are the only ones that create our limitations. So I am definitely in that phase of challenging my own expression-limitations, breaking them apart and in that discovering the little bits of self-enjoyment I had held myself back from for such a looong time.

So for anyone out there, I can only suggest to have a look at where or in what/who do you find inspiration to self-express, what it means to embrace your creative self and I am not implying this is only an ‘art creation’ thing, nope – every human being is a creator, so in that we all are creating every single moment – most of the times without awareness! – therefore, if we become self-aware creators and in that determine the ways that we want to live every moment, the ways that we want to challenge our boundaries, our personalities, our fears, we will slowly but surely go realizing the potential that has always ‘been here’ as ourselves, just covered up with our fears, memories, excuses, reasons, justifications and preferences that have limited ourselves from getting to know ourselves and enjoy ourselves in the process.

Ok that’s it! Have fun

Here I share some of the music including this live band that I am speaking of here, which I actually got to record because I’ve become friends with the band J

Colectivo Klezmorino – Festival Rodarte

 

And! a taste of the other band I’ve been enjoying to move around to

DakhaBrakha: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

 

 

And this painting I made within the starting point of expressing me, having fun, while being inspired by the music represented in the image of the band itself Sonrisa 

 

Klezmorinos

 

Join us in our process of Self-Creation as LIFE

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November 9, 2017

608. Being Genuine

By Marlen

Or how to create the space to be real in our interactions while also working through our initial reactions or experiences in order to expand ourselves in our relationships

This word ‘genuine’ emerged as a solution to live when seeing myself in situations or moments where I was being slightly worried about the way that others would see me/perceive me and in doing so, having certain fears about what could ‘go wrong’ if I would not make or cause the ‘right impression’ upon others. That becomes a point of self compromise where one manipulates one’s expression in order to –apparently – create a better image of ourselves or a better outcome at the eyes of others. Though that usually comes with compromise because I had to realize the fears or perceived ‘missing out’ points that I was trying to avoid by trying to be seen/perceived in a particular ‘favorable light’ so to speak.

These are points that have to do with not fully trusting myself in my expression, which is cool that came up so that I could then in real time let go of any attempt to ‘hold’ a particular idea or experience within me within having ‘others’ as a starting point in my mind and instead, realize that any point of compromise I create in my expression – no matter how ‘subtle’ it might be – it would then become an unsustainable point to manage, which is what happens when we create different ‘personas’ towards different people in our lives, and one has to go ‘managing’ them and remembering ‘who we are supposed to be’ towards this or that person, and of course that’s not living.

This is how being genuine in my expression becomes the solution, where I stop the chain reactions in social relationships where we don’t ask ourselves who we are in approaching someone? What are we trying to achieve? What is our aim? Or what are our intentions or fears behind it? So that I can first clear up my hidden agendas and genuinely be able to live the word ‘genuine’ in my expression towards/with others.

In my case, I had to move in real time from believing I had to cause/create certain impression upon others, to deciding to be genuine and in a way ‘stay true to myself’ – yet this doesn’t mean being ‘righteous’ about my expression and not considering others or ‘remain exactly the same as I’ve always been’ – nope, it’s the other way around I’d say, where being genuine means walking through and working with reactions that may occur at first when meeting certain people or individuals that I may have reacted to before in my past, where I have to genuinely take a moment to see what reactions came up, what memories or experiences were triggered within me, so that I can then decide who I want to be and express myself towards such people/person.  

I recently heard in this audio  Return to Innocence – The Future of Awareness – Part 92

the following bit:

“It can even be one of those simple things of looking at feelings that we so briefly feel toward one-another where we think we’re good people because we’re nice to other people. But instead we’re lashing out a fakeness toward another person, and we might not even realize that the other is doing it to us as well and we’re picking up that fakeness and it’s resonantly leaving a mark of untrustworthiness that is spreading out in this world into the fact that we cannot trust anything of each other. So we’re lashing out and we are creating a world of distrust, and that’s if you even feel what distrust feels like, it’s a horrible experience. We’re resonantly doing that to each other. So practice the world you want to create even in those two simple moments where if you smile, genuinely smile at someone”

And it is a cool cross-reference to the solution I saw towards this reaction or point of self-manipulation as in creating a certain façade in moments to create a particular outcome. It also becomes very uncomfortable for me to ‘put on a mask’ so to speak, therefore I already know how that feels and that’s how I get to know, oh oh I’m compromising myself and get back to the writing-board to establish who I decide to be in relation to people that I might have an initial judgment towards, so that I can first clear my own bias as in judgments, opinions, memories, prejudices that I may immediately attach to a person which are usually there as a result of unresolved judgments and issues towards a particular ‘type of person’ that I haven’t worked through within myself.

I had a situation where I faced this point and what I had to do is first sort myself out so that I could understand my own reaction and experience through writing, seeing directly what was I reacting to, what were the points of fears, comparisons, judgments, prejudices so that I could take responsibility for all of that and so for my experience. So in the next moment of interaction with that person, I knew what I exactly had to work through and stop recreating all of the things that were previously preventing me to actually interact with the other person from a clear starting point.

So to me, the word genuine came up as the solution here, so that I can embrace and trust myself in being me, without pretense and without hidden agendas, which include working through any backchat/negative reactions I may create upon simply looking at and hearing another person for the first time, which is quite a common experience we all have as human beings and that I’ve faced many times where, upon looking at the judgments, ideas, initial perceptions I had about a person, I decide to deliberately get to know them more, talk to them and slowly but surely build more of a relationship with the person and yep, it turns out all of my ‘first impressions’ were ‘all in my head’ of course! as in being merely associations from my past that I was imposing onto this new person. Though if I hadn’t done that self-work to really look at why I was reacting to the person, I would have missed out the opportunity to get to know them and genuinely ‘see’ the person for who they are, rather than how I was interpreting, assuming or perceiving them to be.

With this, the tricky aspect to watch out for comes when we define our ‘being genuine’ as being ‘who we are and how we are and that’s it’ without really pushing to expand and open up to – for example – get to know different kinds of people that one would probably not directly go out and seek to start a conversation with. These are actually the most supportive moments and situations to face, because we are by design ‘programmed’ to only relate to certain kinds of people that are somewhat ‘similar’ to us, and those people that we define through personalities/ways of being as ‘too different’ or ‘the opposite’ of ourselves are usually people we would not directly approach to ‘strike  a conversation with’ or establish any form of contact with them, however that’s a cool question to ask as well, why would I regularly say ‘no’ to getting to know certain kinds of people?

It can only do with my judgments, prejudices, perceptions and bias that I cultivated throughout many years in my life, mostly out of comparison within a sense of superiority or inferiority, leading myself to simply avoid certain ‘kinds of people’ so that I would not have to deal with these experiences of comparison, judgment and inferiority.

That’s how ‘being genuine’ also becomes a decision, it’s not simply showing ‘my true colors’ so to speak, because if that ‘me’ is still existing as a particular ‘type of person’ or personality that is disliking other ‘kinds of people’ or having certain ideas, beliefs, perceptions or opinions that stand in judgment or in conflict with others, then, that’s more like being righteous in one’s stance, which would not allow any openness towards actually getting to know another, and I have definitely been there, done that for most of my life, which is why I find this word so relevant for me.

So being genuine becomes a decision that I make in getting to know another with a clear mind so to speak, with a clear starting point, not loading my prejudices, ideas, perceptions and associations in the moment of interaction with another person and genuinely Create an interest in getting to know them, create the space to get to know them.

I emphasize the word ‘create’ there because that space or openness usually doesn’t exist when we are still walking in real time through reactions and the barriers of ‘getting along’ with people we initially ‘right off the bat’ judge – whereas deciding to create this space, deciding to interact with another and deciding to be genuine in that moment becomes a moment of expansion and acknowledgment, as well as making that decision of how we decide to express and interact, regardless of the other person’s expression or experience within themselves, which assists in not making our interactions all about ‘how we perceive others,’ but rather how I decide to genuinely express myself.

This doesn’t mean that one has to become entirely open and embracing to the other person, lol, not about extremes, but simply ensuring that one is ‘giving ourselves a chance’ to get to know the person, which is a phrase I got from Sunette in the latest public chat, where she mentioned how we can give certain actor ‘a chance’ to interpret Bruce Lee in a movie, instead of jumping into conclusions of how he is not like the real Bruce and disregarding his acting and expression altogether.

 That’s exactly how it is when deciding to be genuine – and not only to not compromise oneself as in wanting to portray ourselves in a particular ‘light’ towards others – but also being genuine in our approach to others, deciding to walk through any resistances to do so with ‘certain kinds of people’ to then realize, they are just ‘people,’ and the ‘kind’ or ‘type’ of person I thought them to be is all in my mind, my prejudice, so I take responsibility for that and proceed to be ‘empty’ within me while deciding to interact with another, and that means stopping comparing, judging, perceiving or assuming – and simply take in the words as they come, in the moment and also deciding to be genuine in my interaction in terms of how I decide to express, to be ok to maybe not show an ‘equal expression’ of say, excitement that I perceive the other person is portraying as their expression, because that can just be their way of expressing themselves, and that means me being genuine about whatever expression comes up – or doesn’t come up – during such moments.

This application of being genuine, authentic in a redefined manner as in expanding myself or making space for the new and the previously ‘unrelated’ situations in my life is what I want to continue building and creating, which comes with the trust that whatever else I may face or whatever else I may initially react to, I know that I can work through those reactions first within myself, understand my own bias, work on it to clear it up and then make that decision to be genuine and learn to interact and get to know people with this clear-head and starting point.

I recommend the above mentioned audio on Eqafe.com because this is just one point that stood out for me based on what I had been looking at when it comes to what it means to ‘expand’ myself as one of the goals that I see as part of living and this process of ‘birthing life from the physical’ which is to be genuine and creating such genuineness whenever it doesn’t exist yet within us towards others in order to learn to see, embrace, understand and acknowledge others as extensions of ourselves.

Thanks for reading.

 

Mermaid

 

Join us in our process of Self-Creation as LIFE

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February 23, 2017

516. What Will Others Say?

By Marlen

Or debunking our own ‘after thoughts’ that we believe others hold against us and discovering, it’s all created by me.

I’ll start by sharing that I regularly write notes about things that come up within me during the day (written on the back of sales-tickets, to use that whole whiteness of paper!) and place some keywords on how I experienced myself in situation, in my interactions with people, any memories or patterns to open up, dreams, fears… and that’s how I get to have something to say and write about, which is part of the joy of getting to know oneself, when looking deeply, there’s a ton to open up and create a solution for and this point of ‘what will others say’ has been there for more than a week and I have kind of deliberately ‘skipped it’ over, lol procrastinating my own benefit, so here it goes for once and for all.

This rather common after-thought of ‘what will others say’ I’ve found to be very common in most of us human beings in terms of how we are individuals that constantly see ourselves through ‘the eyes of others’ which means: we constantly think that everything that we do is always going to be scrutinized and judged by others and usually not in the most beneficial or ‘flattering’ ways. This is something that I got to look at through listening to some parts of a ‘hangout’ between 4 young guys or teens in the Conscious Consumer Network discussing stuff about their lives, their points of view at their age and the problems that mostly press on them and a recurrent one seemed to be how other peers might judge them and how adults can also look down upon them, which also goes in the way of feeling ‘out of place’ or feeling scrutinized by others.

It got me looking into how I felt at that age in my teens or even pre-teens when I wanted to already be an adult all the time and get to do the things that ‘grownups do’ and feeling outside of the box with my own peers and just uncomfortable within my own skin, not fitting in and wanting to be alone but at the same time craving for social interaction. And a lot of the limitations as to why we many times limit ourselves in the things that we do or don’t do are based on the sneaky thinking related to ‘what will others say or think?’

This is something that until this day I can struggle with, especially when it comes to acknowledging a situation in my life where I am fearing to be called out for ‘failing’ at something or not fulfilling what I believe others’ ‘expectations’ are towards me, believing that people will diminish ‘who I am’ if I explain why I decided not to follow through with a particular life-project that I had planned for myself initially – or when I see myself not having the ‘regular profession’ that you can actually get a ‘title’ from a ‘renowned’ institution validating the very activity I am dedicating my life to – or when I can see at my past of relationships with people that didn’t end up ‘so well’ or when I’ve dared to not follow some ‘traditions’ or when I dared to follow some but not ‘culminate’ them as I believe others expected me to…. And the list could go on and in fact I will review all of this for myself because all of this that I am naming means that I am defining as ‘who I am’ and as something that I believe others are in fact ‘holding against me’ to invalidate me, to inferiorize me, to ‘not be taken seriously,’ to be diminished as a ‘dreamer that wants to change the world’ or to be defined as a ‘quitter’ or someone that has not yet ‘accomplished’ something ‘of value’ in system standards or someone that hasn’t made the brightest choices in life… and the list might go on as well.

In the past two weeks I’ve had to confront myself with my creation, my reality, the results of my starting point and choices in a point of self-creation that led me to look at myself in the mirror, in self-honesty and realize that upon having written about most of the things I was deciding and going through, I was mostly willing to walk through the process of making a somewhat tough decision in my life, yet at the same time discovering that I thought of how easy it would actually be if I didn’t have to confront it with anyone else in my life – not the society and community I live in including my family, my colleagues and friends and the rest of the people who I think are ‘out to find a flaw in me’ to then diminish myself to a point of ‘failure.’ In essence, a lot of what was bothering me was in fact the notion of ‘what will others say or think about me’ my decisions, my reality.

However as much as people can actually talk and have a say on everything – as we all do at any given time about anything we decide to create a judgment or opinion about – I realized that all of this that I was holding inside me was in fact myself, my own judgments, ideas, beliefs, perceptions, being my own worst judge, myself caring about ‘an image’ or a certain ‘ego-status’ that I have kept as an ideal of ‘being flawless.’

As I write this what comes up is an explanation of how early on this boils down to in my life, where the actual origin of this is yes, having been the ‘perfect student’ with ‘clean A’s’ all the way from the moment I stepped into a school and having people, my peers that were also 7 or 8 year olds coming at me and telling me how much they were going to ‘beat me’ next time at something, and how they would get on top of my position and I would fail and they would laugh at my misery – etc. Yes, of course not a nice thing to go through considering I had or have been very gullible about the human condition and could not understand how someone could be that ‘mean’ to me – and that caused quite a lot of commotion and uncertainty in myself but didn’t stop me from continuing doing my best and thanks to my mother from whom I learned  – and still do – to focus on myself, to do it for myself, to never mind what others think or say and that their words represented them, defined them, not me.

That was supportive at the time and it did help a lot to go through every day at school where I would at times be subject of ‘whole-class’ discrimination where it was as if everyone just decided to ‘turn against me’ in a way to ostracize me. It felt horrible, I would arrive home very sad and crying out because of it and I didn’t want to go to school any longer due to that, but I did anyways – unfortunately just like many, many kids nowadays that get bullied at school and go through worse situations than I did – and having this coming from even those girls that I deemed as ‘my friends’ was my first taste of betrayal, but also of seeing how much ‘what others say or do towards me’ could affect me.

Over the year growing up I learned to create a hard veneer towards all of that kind of criticism, which also led me to become a ‘tough head’ at times, antagonistic, be defensive, be outspoken and a bit ‘over the top’ in certain aspects which at the same time I don’t regret at all because at the time, it did help me walk through the rest of school years not trying to ‘find a spot’ any longer but rather building my own space and getting along with  anyone that I could, which is something I am glad I did. I wasn’t deliberately becoming ‘apart’ from others as a form of rejection to others or spiting them, but didn’t attempt to ‘fit in’ any longer, while also learning to talk to and relate to most people in my class, which is cool to do and this I’d recommend anyone around that age to do: be yourself, create your own spot, get along with everyone, treat everyone as equals and that’s what you’ll get back as well.

Back to the point of ‘What will others say’ and how it plays out into my current life situation is where I am the one that has kept that same belief within me that ‘others are out to get me’ or ‘watch me fall’ and that I have to keep a certain façade of ‘all is well’ and ‘doing great’ all the time so as to not give any ‘entry’ to a ‘flaw’ in me that could unleash criticism, judgment, opinions coming from others that might be just waiting to ‘find fault’ on me.

Now this is all that I have in fact created in my own mind, it is what I have accepted and allowed to give power away to as ‘what others will think of me’ and in fact it has been a constant point these days when having to confront people in my family, my community about the changes in my life and I could see that as much as I have done a pretty good job at presenting myself in a cool, calm and collected manner and as much as this is in fact an expression that seems comfortable in the moment – there are still discomforts in the background based on this notion of ‘how others might be thinking, judging, conversing’ about my life situation and how others will be opinionated about my choices and decisions.

One thing that has worked for me and that I have reminded myself about is to realize ‘I am the one living my life, my creation, my outcome and my choices, not anyone else’ which means if anyone has an opinion, belief, idea, perception, judgment about me, it is still their perception, their point of view or judgment that defines them and how they use their mind to assess other people’s life situation, but it certainly doesn’t define me.

Now this of course doesn’t mean that I don’t hear anyone else’s perspective on my situation, I do, do I am aware of how I also assess such feedback.  I am fortunate enough to have people in my life that I know I can count on to be simply there as a reminder of my own self-honesty – which is frankly the most valuable thing to do in times where we might be losing our footing in certain situations. And these are the people I can trust on getting feedback on so that I can at the same time check with myself in my own self-trust what I can look at, what can I work on within myself, what can I focus on opening up and creating a solution for the situation I am in, what kind of ways or paths can I create to step on my way through this challenging situation I am in. Therefore this becomes a constructive form of feedback that I can not only blindly take in, but assess within my own self trust, within my own self-honesty and then take it or leave it, but it’s always ‘on me’ and about me supporting myself, me being able to ‘live’ with myself, my choices, my decisions, in my life.

I definitely would like all of our relationships to be that way and this I certainly commit myself to do as well with people that I at the same time, have the fortune to be in a position of assisting and supporting in their own lives, their own process. Supporting, meaning: being there as a reminder of one’s self-honesty, without judgment, without expectations, without prejudices, but in humbleness and understanding, being ‘there’ for another while they find their own way through as well.

This is how I realize that all of the rest of judgments, ideas, prejudices I believe others would have to say about me as all the people that come up in my mind when considering having to ‘explain’ myself and my life, my choices, my decisions are nothing else but my own expectations built through memories, past situations where I would become ‘paralyzed’ with fearing others ‘coming at me’ to point out all the potential ways in which they could watch me fall and enjoy the show… yep, it is quite a problem that this can be happening between kids at such an early age and yes, if one doesn’t have proper support it can reverberate throughout one’s entire lifetime.

Here then I opened up and discovered how this notion of having to confront myself ‘at the eyes of others’ resonates with that early memory at school I described earlier and how the same conditioning of fearing that ‘others rejoice at seeing me fail’ is still keeping me bound to not stand fully clear in my current reality, because of perceiving that ‘others’ words, expectations, judgments, ideas’ about myself can actually have an impact on me, my life and who I am – but! Guess what? They don’t!

I have to remind myself that this that I am experiencing currently as this uncertainty of confronting others in my life and having to ‘explain’ myself as who I currently am in my life and my decisions is something I can actually self-forgive and let go of, because I am the one that is making and living that decision, not anyone else – and that’s how no one really has the actual position of ‘being me’ to have an actual say on who I am, what I do, the choices I make and why I make them.  Therefore any thought that comes up in me, about ‘others’ judging me, rejoicing at the notion of me ‘failing’ at something – I have to remind myself that it’s based on past memories and in no way defines ‘me’ currently.

In this I also remind myself that I can only ever be my own worst judge and that I can only be the one that accepts and allows any form of judgment to ‘affect me’ – it’s all on me, and that’s how I see that whenever I am ‘fearing’ what ‘others have to say’ about myself, my life, my choices, my decision, my ways, my principles = it doesn’t define me, but it will if I give my power away to it.

And as an extra point that I’ve proven as well is that, in our minds we tend to completely blow things out of proportion – so even in situations that we might be fearing to confront or perceive as potentially uncomfortable while participating in this backchat about ‘what others have to say’ about me, I’ve proven that most of it I completely blew out of proportion and made it a lot worse than what it actually was, and that I ended up becoming more of a nervous wreck based on my own imaginations and projections than when facing the ‘real deal’ and finding out ‘wow, it wasn’t as bad as I thought’ – this I consider is also one of those very common patterns that we can all remind ourselves about and stop torturing ourselves with it.

So! I’ll stop my own mind in relation to this and I have to say, I’ve definitely been much better at this all that I’ve described today through walking this process from consciousness to self-awareness as life, but not to a complete extent yet which is why it’s awesome to face things in my life and find out ‘hey! I still give too much value to what others might be thinking about me, gotta change that!’ and come here and lay it out for myself so that I cannot run away from my own self-honesty any longer, lol, which is actually another last minute reminder of how contradictory is that we put off or procrastinate to work on the very points that could ease our lives and make ourselves ‘know where we stand’ within ourselves again – it’s all about the power of writing and self-honest personal ‘debunkings’ that can clear the space and make us enjoy discovering ourselves as well.

So, enjoy doing yours and thanks for reading

And! Please gift yourself with this awesome recording to ‘find your way through’ even in the apparently worst-case scenario you might be at in your life, fresh from today:

Everywhere but Within – Demons in the Afterlife – Part 75

 

 

Join us in our process of Self-Creation as LIFE

 

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