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Sunday, July 31, 2011

Facing Resistances Towards Asserting Mysef and Being Accountable

I have to make a difficult phone call, I was going to send an email instead, but doing so would be caving into resistances, and where there are resistances, there Is separation.
I’m moving back to Canada to go to school, and I had arranged a job and had it all lined up and ready to go. I would be a sort of personal assistant to a very busy woman. But as time passed and my schedule limitations began to present themselves and an unexpected family illness drew my attention elsewhere, I had to make the decision to back out of the arrangement I had with this woman.
So now I have to call her and tell her about my decision. This should be no big deal, but for some reason, I am having huge resistances towards it. I experience these same resistances whenever I quit a job or have to back out of something I had agreed to. Before Desteni, I used to tell white lies or leave it to the last minute, allowing the pressure to build up until it moved me into action. But not this time, this time I move myself and this time I speak from a starting point of honesty, communicating from a starting point of self-honesty, and not deceit.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist making a phone call.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist making a phone call because of the thought/perception/belief that I am letting someone down.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe/perceive that “letting someone down“ will disappoint them.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe/perceive that ‘letting someone down’ makes me a disappointment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project disappointment in myself on to another.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself by projecting disappointment in myself on to another.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be disappointed in myself through separation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself within and as disappointment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing disappointment to exist within and as me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect the thought of letting someone down’ with disappointment in myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the thought that I can let someone down to exist within and as me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to place my expectations in myself on to someone else’s expectations of me in separation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project my expectations of myself onto another being.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to take self-responsibility for myself by allowing myself to separate myself by placing my disappointment in myself onto another being.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hide from myself by placing my disappointment in myself outside of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to avoid facing myself, and my disappointment in myself, by avoiding making this phone call.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe I can hide from myself by avoiding facing myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to hide from myself by placing my expectations of myself onto another being through projection.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not have to take responsibility for myself by projecting my expectations outside myself in separation, and placing them on another, thus giving my power away to another by accepting and allowing myself to think/believe/perceive that I need to live up to her standards, and not my own.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give my power away by projecting my expectations of myself onto beings in my world, thus depending on my reflection of myself through them in order to judge myself and evaluate my progress in separation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe I can let someone else down.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am responsible for the emotional state of another.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe I must live up to my perceived expectations of myself through another.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel disappointed in myself instead of taking self-responsibility and facing myself by doing what needs to be done with certainty and directness.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being certain and direct.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to be certain and direct within myself, and with my actions and words.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the reactions of others when I am certain and direct.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to take self-responsibility for my certainty and directness by allowing a backdoor wherein I hold on to the fear and self-doubt within myself, of fearing and doubting that I will or can stand by myself, by my decisions and my actions eternally.

I bring myself Here, I allow myself to take self-responsibility by facing my own self-disappointment instead of projecting it on to another,
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel disappointed in myself, and I no longer allow self-disappointment to exist within and as me. I replace self-disappointment with my commitment to myself to act with certainty and directness within what I must do in my life.
I allow myself to exist as certainty and directness within my actions, words and deeds.
I no longer allow myself to place my self-expectations outside of myself, and I take self-responsibility to live up to my expectations of myself by facing myself in each moment.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create un-realistic expectations of myself, and instead I allow myself to expect self-honesty within the understanding of what I am capable of in my life and in each moment.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Family Relations

 I’ve decided to start my self-forgiveness on some feelings, thoughts and emotions that are coming up in reaction to the fact that I have a group of family members coming to town to stay with me for 5 days, simply because that is what’s going on in my life at the moment. I have no particular problem or issues with any of these individuals, in fact we all get along very well (and if I did have ‘problems’ with any individual, I would look inside myself for the cause, because that’s where it its origin is, within me, meaning, it’s MY problem and I will take responsibility for it, correct it and move on).
The reactions that are coming up are due to my own acceptances and allowances and are really only existent in my mind. I would rather have an enjoyable visit and not have to concern myself with any unnecessary discomfort, blockages or limitations, so I’m doing this before they arrive, rather than afterwards.
I’m doing this because of the reactions that are coming up, such as stress (will I have enough food/money etc...), anxieties (will they have a good time, will everyone get along?) and fears (will I become overwhelmed by so many people in my house, will everything work out?) and then many thoughts which are simply a result of past experiences.
In the past, I have had trouble expressing myself around my family. This is not due to anything they have done, nor has anything been done ‘to me’ by them to have ‘made’ me fall into these patterns. It is actually a result of me defining myself in relation to them, and now that I know how to decide for myself what I want my experience to be (which is to be capable of expressing myself as who I am around any person I come in to contact with), I will direct myself accordingly within the principle of equality and oneness.
Family relationships are complicated and complex, I think, within any family. I have been working through this for some time now, and my current reactions to this upcoming visit have provided me with the opportunity of having more points to work with.
So I’m just going to start with whatever is coming up in the moment and move on from there. Hopefully more points will come up that I hadn’t considered as I dig deeper and remove the layers which prohibit me from ‘just being myself.’

Self-Forgiveness on Family:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress myself around my family.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel stressed around my family because I want everything to go perfectly, I want to impress them and I feel responsible for the quality of the visit.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want my family visit to go ‘perfectly’, as if such a thing existed.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the desire for a ‘perfect visit’ to exist within and as me.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project in to the future and imagine all the things that could go ‘wrong’ during a family visit, such as conflict between people.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear conflict between family members because I’m not comfortable with people not acting like everything is ok, fine and perfect all the time, as I have done my whole life.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to act like everything is ok, fine and perfect all the time instead of expressing myself as who I am in the moment.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress myself by acting like everything is ok, fine and perfect all the time.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing the ideal of ‘everything being ok, fine and perfect all the time’ to exist within and as me.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself as ‘one who is ok, fine and perfect all the time’ instead of expressing who I really am.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to exist as ok, fine and perfect all the time instead of existing Here, within and as the physical.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear existing Here, as the physical.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear conflict between family members because it’s more ‘real’ than what I’m used to.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear conflict between family members because it would reveal that everything is not fine, ok and perfect all the time.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear conflict between family members because it reveals to me that I am not fine, ok and perfect all the time.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear conflict between family members because it reveals to me the conflict within myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the conflict within myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to avoid the conflict within me by pretending that I’m fine, ok and perfect all the time.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to trust that I can stand in the face of my inner conflict.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing conflict to exist within and as me.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing separation within myself, which creates inner conflict, self-judgment and emotional turmoil.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself by existing within and as my mind.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate within my mind.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself within and as the mind.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing separation within myself by existing within and as ego.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate within ego.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself within and as ego.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing inner conflict, self-judgment and ego to exist within and as me.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that which is not the pre-programmed design.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have habituated myself to a ‘script’ wherein I play a role within a pre-programmed design, where everything is ok, fine and perfect all the time.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abdicate myself to a script, rather than taking responsibility for myself as life, because the script is more comfortable, and it’s what I’m used to.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to choose comfort and habitual patterns over life.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be tempted and seduced into the pre-programmed design because it seems easier, more comfortable and safe.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be tempted and seduced by experiential living rather than living according to principle.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define/believe/perceive living according to principle to be hard, scary and tiring.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress myself into comfortable habits and patterns instead of facing myself as life, Here.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear conflict between family members because I can’t control it.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear conflict between family members because I feel I need to choose a side.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe I need to chose sides rather than standing on my own two feet, alone, in oneness and equality with all that’s Here.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear conflict between family members because it reminds me of past conflicts where I felt powerless and scared.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel powerless and scared in the face of conflict.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing powerlessness and fear, within the context of conflict, to exist within and as me.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe I need to rely on harmony and stability outside of myself in order to experience it within.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from harmony and stability by holding on to the belief that it needs to exist within the relationships in my world in order for it to exist within and as me.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from harmony and stability by defining harmony and stability within the relationships in my world.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the topic of Desteni to be brought up by family.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not want to face the realness of Desteni, by fearing facing it in other people.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to trust myself enough to speak about Dseteni to others with full confidence and understanding.
To be continued...

Friday, July 29, 2011

Getting through School

Right now I’m experiencing myself in school again, something I had a lot of difficulty with during the last semester. I took summer classes online and it’s interesting to be able to do it again, now that I’ve done it once. I get to experience everything I didn’t face the first time around, but a little more intense, because in not dealing with it appropriately the first time (or ‘times’; as this is a pattern that has been repeating for as long as I can recall) I have allowed it to accumulate and gain strength. My advantage, however, is the fact that because I have written these patterns out and forgiven myself for them, I’m a little more familiar with them, and I know where avoiding them leads (a living hell of anxiety, overwhelmedness and stress, where I stay up late and scramble to get things done, I crave all sorts of junk food and cave in to it, I get cranky with those around me and isolate myself, etc.. etc.. etc.. =NOT ACCEPTABLE!!).

So, in terms of my resistances to studying and not being able to focus, I’m able to look back and see that I’ve allowed myself to get away with always doing the bare minimum, and to become a survivor as a student. When I say this I mean that I would just barely pass my courses, and I would only apply myself a little more if I had pressure from my parents to do better. My motivation was to do as they said, and to not fail so as to avoid having to repeat a year and prolong the experience. Nowhere within me existed the desire to learn or improve myself, or to become a considerate human being, this was not taught at school. I learned how to regurgitate information and absorb concepts without ever applying them to actual reality.

At the age of 8 I was placed in special classes for learning disabilities, for ‘slow learners’, wherein my self-definition as ‘flawed’ and ‘incapable’ was stamped with the official seal of approval by the school, and I was effectively categorized and outcast by my peers, or at least this is how I experienced it. As a teenager I was placed in a support group because I had been reported by my teachers as displaying signs of abuse and addiction. This was not the case (unless of course, you consider the self-abuse of suppression and limitation through self-definitions etc...), this was a new school program designed to help troubled kids. I was required to speak with a counsellor once a week, with whom I applied what I had learned in all my years of schooling, which was to lie, to tell her what I thought she wanted to hear, and to regurgitate the information she spoke to me. To me the whole thing was like a circus side show, but to the school it was a successful mission to save the students in need. I successfully graduated and went on to flunk out of college. Mission complete?

So, how has my experience with the school system changed since Desteni?

After about two years of studying the Desteni material on my own, and having participated on several forums, I began to make directive decisions in my life by taking back my power and deleting, through self-forgiveness, all the definitions and limitations, fears and beliefs which had held me back as who I was. I went back to school, this time observing myself, through insight, to be able to see and trace back every difficulty I experienced. From participating in class, to speaking with professors to studying for exams to doing homework. I touched on self-discipline, time-management and even family relationships, as I had moved back in with my parents in order to afford the decision to become a student again. The Desteni process permeated every aspect of my life, because the process is of life, it is about who we are as life

The first semester of school was NOT easy! I was very confused as I untangled this image of ‘who I am’ as a student that I had spent my whole life building. On top of that, I had a bit of a rude awakening when it came to the seriousness and difficulty of the material I was learning, I was not used to being challenged like that, and also it was a huge change to be back in school, back in Canada, and back in my parent’s house after almost ten years. I fell a lot, but I didn’t give up. I didn’t do as well as I had envisioned, but I have steadily improved since then. It reminds me of something Bernard said, about how he’d rather fall many times then fail, because one who falls a lot proves one thing: that he will not give up.

The second semester I did better academically, but I had become obsessed with my grades. They meant everything to me, as if they were all I had to prove it to myself that I could do it, and that I had changed. Yes I had changed, but I had gotten better at regurgitation and memorization. I was trying what I thought was my absolute hardest, but I had reached this plateau in terms of marks, because I still couldn’t effectively prove that I had studied and derived my own understanding from the information. I had to learn how to learn.
This is where the Desteni I Process has come in handy. Because this course is real, in that it deals with real life, learning information, concepts and techniques and then actually applying them in my own life. It taught me how to go from simple memorization of knowledge and information, to creating a living understanding of it. This requires continued patience and consistent application, but in the end, this process is teaching me a fundamental life skill that the schooling system (in all 20 years I spent within it, and all the special programs and tutors) couldn’t accomplish: It taught me (is teaching me) how to learn.

So, this semester has been the best yet. I’m not so much concerned with my grades, although they are important, and it is imperative that I do well, they are now only a benefit, or a side effect of my personal process of training myself how to learn. I am more concerned now with who I am within the experience of school and learning. How I handle the stress and pressure, how I move myself through what needs to be done. These are the skills that are going to stay with me and assist and support me for the rest of my life. The importance of my grades may fade and become irrelevant over time, but the life skills of being able to effectively direct myself through any situation, expanding myself and taking back my power, becoming emotionally stable and relieved of stress and anxiety, being able to fall asleep at night and wake up early... this ever expanding list of what is becoming possible for me is what Desteni has given me, or should I say, what I have given myself through applying the tools, and I’ve only just begun!