Not wanting to look into the face of fear of survival. 18/12/2011

A few days ago while doing groceries, my partner P. and I ended up at the fishmonger. It’s a shop run by a couple, who are always cheerful and ready to give you assistance and service. This week a new lady started working with the wife of the owners couple. The lady didn’t look like she took great care of herself. She was in her forties, had long greasy hair and a face full of pimples. And we were the happy clients that were going to be served by her.

She acted nervous, which isn’t an uncommon thing when you just start a new job. We pointed at a certain fish and asked for 2 of those fishes, already stating that the fish were quite big. The new lady weighed the fish and made the bill. I was a bit puzzled since she asked 20 euro. We both said that’s too much money, that’s not what our budget can handle. So we picked another pair of fishes less expensive and less big. The new lady was not really amused with our behavior, since she already had made the bill, therefore the pay desk had to be reset in order to switch to the new price. She stepped back after one try and called the owner to fix the problem for her. The newly picked fishes were weighed and we paid a reasonable amount of money in relation to our budget.

When we left the shop we wondered what had went differently and how this confusing could have happend. We came to the conclusion that the owners always before making up the bill, ask whether we agree with the weight and amount of fish. In that moment we usually change it into more or bigger fish or smaller fish. No big deal, it’s just in the game of buying. So we missed one step wherein we as a client were able to accept and allow the deal that was about to be made. Now we were confronted with a price that we didn’t want to pay.

Then I looked further and deeper inside myself, because the new lady had left an impression on me that I interpret as not comfortable to look at. I felt some what disgusted with her, not blaming and judging her for her actions in the physical reality so much, but more blaming her for her overall presence. I realized when slowing myself down after rewinding the whole event that I didn’t like to look her in the face. Why? What had the lady done that I was disgusted by looking her in the face? What reaction was triggered inside of me?

It was the heaviness of how she looked, the total separation when she failed resetting the pay desk, where her eyes almost rolled back as if she jumped into her mind. And then I knew what she triggered in me, I was looking in the face of fear of survival.This lady didn’t want to be there and dealing with “difficult” clients, this lady was there to earn money in order to survive. Lets be realistic, no one’s career desires are serving people in a fishmonger. Although I’ve been in a position of doing work to survive and still are in the position of doing shitty jobs in order to survive, I hated to look into the face of the very same thing that also I fear.

I always make sure that I look cheerful while doing my job, since it’s my doing why I ended up having to do shitty jobs, another person has nothing to do with my unresolved shit. So I rather not show feelings of not being satisfied with my job, while this lady on the contrary wasn’t capable of doing so. There is no wrong or right in showing your feelings or not, it is about being self-honest towards yourself and making the situation into the best interest of all. So when I look at myself it’s obvious that suppressing these feelings of disliking my job as a cleaning slave for someone else, isn’t in the best interest of all. It’s best to deal with these feelings of discomfort and then for the time being accepting  and allowing the job as it is, which gives me the opportunity to look for other job options that are less abusive. Therefore throwing ones disgust for the job on ones employer or clients and not taking responsibility for it is not a self-responsible thing to do, simply dealing with it without suppressing the feelings is moving forward.

There are things though that I no longer will accept and allow from my employer, like cleaning a clean Persian carpet on my knees with a small brush. My employer has this desire for cleanness that’s on the edge of hosophobia. She calls me to clean the house because it’s so dirty, we clearly do not have the same definition of clean and dirty. If I stood in her shoes within her house, I would have said, it’s still clean I do not need to clean the house now, lets spend some time with the kids. But I need the money and my relation with her is not one of equality, a slave and a master are never equal. So saying to her that her house isn’t in need of a cleaning, isn’t something I can say within our relationship, if I want to keep the job.

So the bottom line here is that I do not want to see in others what I experience within myself as negative. Therefore the first reaction in me is separation from what I’m dealing with and only focussing on the other. Lucky enough I’m doing the Desteni I Process which enables me to look behind that first reaction and not getting distracted with my outer world while the problem for me is within my inner world. Isn’t that what we, humanity, tend to do? Finger pointing at others when they make us feel uneasy? We better stop if we really want to evolute and starting to understand ourselves. Our reactions are always about us, they won’t go away if we separate ourselves from it while blaming others. I intend to take responsibility for my own reactions, to clean out the shit inside of me, how about you?

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to judge another for her uncared appearance, while it’s simply pointing out the fear I have inside of me to become a person that will neglect herself.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to fear neglecting myself out of separation of my body.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to ignore the needs of my physical body while I’m allowing the mind to occupying my existence.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to judge another for the very things that I dislike inside of myself.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to blame the lady at the fishmonger for being nervous and making me feel uneasy, while it’s me that decides to act on the reaction I have towards a nervous person an define it as negative.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to justify the nervous behaviour of the lady at the fishmonger with the fact that it’s normal to be nervous at a new job, while I’m being agitated over it and start back chats about her unfriendly approach.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to measure myself with other standards than the lady at the fishmongers, it’s okay for me to be nervous, yet it isn’t okay for her since she makes me feel uneasy. Not seeing that there cannot be 2 standards of measurements over the same feeling when I’m equal to all there is.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to judge the lady at the fishmongers for working in a different way than her boss does. While in fact it’s my fear of change and not being here within the physical that makes it difficult to adjust my actions within my physical reality.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to feel disgusted with the lady of the fishmonger, while in fact I was disgusted with myself for having to do slave work that I dislike in order to survive.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to fear the fear of survival as it is this signal that entails that I fucked up in life and not being able to fit into the system money wise.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to fear that I’ll never will arrise above shitty jobs and never will see a dignified life.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to reject the mirror that my fellow human is to me and instead dislike my fellow human for the negativity that they reflect onto me.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from those beings that express the things that I have defined as negative within myself.

I am one and equal to all that is life and I will stop and breathe whenever I see myself hiding in separation afraid of others who are pointing out how afraid I am of myself. I will no longer deny myself, separate myself nor sabotage my physical body. I will take life, as life, here in every moment and every breath, in the best interest of all. I will direct myself to become my own improved version to change myself inside and outside. A responsible world citizen that takes care of herself and others.

I directed myself and not the situation 06/02/2011

It took me about 10 years to get at the point where I’m at today, not knowing if this is the final stage or if it needs more fine tuning. I tried it through manipulating, directing, being more than, spreading fear, apathy, but it all led back to more of the same status quo I was in. The reality I had co-created wasn’t meeting up to my expectations and desires. Big time future projecting within ignorance and playing out my mother-construct.

Since my daughter A. was able to help organize her toys after playing with it I taught her to be responsible for these belongings. Quite soon I was facing my reality of cleaning up after A., because she was too small or had no interest in cleaning up what so ever.   So I cleaned A.’s room every week and within an hour her room looked like there had been an explosion. I took it personal and ended up being frustrated and wasn’t to eager to start cleaning her room every week. I did so, but had to motivate myself in order to get it done. Then I came up with this capitalistic idea of offering A. a little amount of money when she cleaned up her room just before cleaning day. A plan that was to be doomed from the start since we learned A. that money wasn’t the highest form of happiness, the value of money represented within our world didn’t mean anything to her. I made up stories about dead and living insects in her room and initiated fear within A., this fear paralyzed her or wasn’t strong enough to act upon. I still do not know which of the two buttons I had pushed. At a certain point I felt that she was old enough and decided to give her the responsibility of cleaning up her room. Whenever the room was disentangled and the floor empty I would go in and vacuum and dust the room. This moment rarely arrived, maybe once in the 6 months. I pretended that it didn’t bother me as a mom or as a person. Obviously it did and I became quite apathetic to the whole situations and let it take it’s own path. I accepted and allowed this situation to continue and I wasn’t able to reach out to my child. I saw clearly that beside the mess in her room she also had a mess in her head which made life quite a challenge for her.

Now when I’m getting further in process I know that I can reach out to her, but only within equality. I saw one of Marlen’s video’s on how she had been able to clear this mess for herself, so I asked A. if she wanted to watch this video. She pertinently refused to watch this video. When possible I tried to open up this point together with A., but as long I was directing it, it didn’t work out. A few weeks ago I told A. that when she wanted to get rid of a lot of her fears and emotions she needs to clear her head and this can be done by physically  cleaning out the explosion of months in her room, she finally opened up and expressed that she resisted doing it all by herself. I told her that she only had to make an agreement with me and I would help her out organizing and clearing the fog. I was amazed but she asked me to help out, we scheduled yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s afternoon to get it done. I promised myself to not direct, manipulate or be more then A. I would take it within the moment breath by breath.

We went upstairs and I told A. that she was in charge of this mission and that we had to cooperate to get this done as equals. Normally I would announce my plans and order A. around as a mom. I said: “so where do we start what do we need?” Surprisingly A. summed up the things that she wanted, including a garbage bag. Throwing away anything has always been a hot issue. I first felt a bit strange almost suppressing myself to not direct the situation. After a while we’ve got the hang of it and we were happily eating ourselves through the mess. I was disentangling all the stuff on the floor and A. was sorting it out and throwing it in all the different boxes. The floor is clear now after day 2 and tomorrow we’ll sort out the drawers and get everything into place again. We had moments in which we were cold and didn’t want to continue anymore, but we pushed through. Already the first evening I noticed a clearness within A., she is happy and is asking herself why she hasn’t done this before.

I suggested A. to start writing on a regular basis and to create a blog for herself. She was really interested and my partner P. and I shared our experiences with blogging and how also writing can clear your head and see the things for what they are. Fears can be seen as fears and easily dismantled within self-honesty. Right now she is writing her first blog in English, her third language. I really enjoy my new way of sharing myself with A. and our new way of interacting with each other. I will not wander of in the future or get stuck in the past experiences we had.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to manipulate my daughter in order to get her to clean up her room.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to direct the situation of cleaning up A.’s room without directing myself in the best interest of all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel more than my child when it came to cleaning up her room.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to spread fear within my my child in order to manipulate her to clean up her room.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to manipulate my daughter with money so she would take the baite and clean up her room.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire an outcome through manipulating my environment and not being one and equal to my environment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to play out my mother-costruct.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel frustrated when my desired results within A. cleaning up her room were not met.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel apathetic about my self created situation within this cleaning issue.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress myself in order not to direct the situation, instead of seeing that being equal isn’t about suppressing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think or consider almost giving in to this feeling of giving up.

At a party 29/11/2010

It has been a while that I went to a party. Mostly I let myself get overwhelmed with the amount of people, not knowing where to stand within it. Being frustrated when I hadn’t been able to talk about the things that I considered as important and I felt disappointed and ineffective. All ingredients to cook up a disastrous recipe for a party.

This time the party was at my American friends house. That made a big difference within my perception, they are relax and easy people to hang out with. So today I was laid back and relaxed,  I committed myself to just be in the moment. It wasn’t very crowded with people, just 22 people. I did recognize some of the people and spoke with a lot of them, switching from speaking Italian to English to Dutch. I  switched quite easily between the languages, at first I didn’t noticed it. I didn’t feel this resistance I often felt while talking in Italian, I was here in the moment. In being here in the moment I was able to see with whom to talk about the weather and with whom to talk about more serious stuff. Both type of conversations were fine, just sharing myself in equality, something I wasn’t able to do before.

We sat during Sunday pranzo (Italian lunch) together with another couple at the same table. They were relaxed and open to get to know each other. After exchanging the usual information and topics I saw that I could freely speak to this lady about Desteni related topics so I slowly but surely did. I spoke with her in Italian, the one language where I have the most insecurities on. Before I knew it, I was explaining/sharing quite complex information to/with her. Than she said: “You think your Italian is lousy, but look how we are discussing” and she was right I was capable of having a conversation!

The point of feeling less than the Italian language, which I had been taking on recently had the effect of being able to see the language as a neutral point. Being one and equal to it, nothing more and nothing less. So simple and so effective. I had a great time at a party and that was long ago.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel overwhelmed when being at a party, instead of seeing that feelings are of the mind and keeping me from directing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to let feelings keeping me from directing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel frustrated when I didn’t spoke about important things while being around people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see certain conversation topics as less than other topics.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel disappointed and ineffective when I didn’t speak about important things to people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider a party at J&A as relaxed and easy, while other parties are considered as stressful.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel insecure when speaking Italian.