Asking 07/03/2011

Asking is a skill we all learn as soon as we can speak. As toddlers we understand that things will arrive at will when we ask for the subject. Milk, cookies, toys even kisses. At a certain point we get even pretty good at asking and fathom the art of manipulation within asking. The moment we ask, adults immediately act on it. Great, you are king within your own world.

When we get bigger and become a kid our parents and teachers tell us that it’s inappropriate to start asking for things when we want to. We have to wait in turn and when we keep asking for the same thing simply because our question hasn’t been rewarded we will be punished or called a by nag. So it’s make or brake, or we fine tune our manipulative skills or not asking for much.

Later in school rules are changed. The students who ask “intelligent” questions are rewarded and praised and those that are asking the same thing over and over again are seen as stupid. Those who do not ask are simply not noticed.

I was one of those unnoticed, because I hardly asked. I didn’t ask, because I didn’t want to be seen as a by nag or as stupid. So I developed an attitude of being proud of myself for figuring it all out by myself. Till the extent that asking felt like being incapable not up for the task, a failure. I have been in this mode till adulthood and feeling quite independent for dealing with my own affairs.

When starting with the Desteni material almost 3 years ago I understood that every form of communication I have with others equals asking them for something. So in a way I hadn’t stopped asking, I had been fine tuning my manipulative skills. I could see how I was wrapping up my questions and wants within my communications. Even within my relationship I preferred saying: “Honey, I’m quite busy cooking and I aslo have to get the laundry inside, please help me remembering.” On which my partner P. of course responded with: “Oh, do you want me to get the laundry inside?” And I would respond with: “Well if you don’t mind, it would be great if you do that”.

I still find myself within such communications, but correct myself and communicate in a clear way. Or in other words I would ask for instance P. if he wants to do something for me.

At a later point when I started with SRA, I again didn’t ask all the questions I could ask. Then I found out that wanting to do things all by myself and not asking is an act of egoism. Wow that hit home. It didn’t fit in with the picture I had of myself, me egoistic, no! Though after considering it again I could clearly see that it was indeed an act of egoism. I wasn’t considering myself equal to others. I was going back and forth with this polarisation of feeling less and feeling more. Not asking made me feel more, having the opportunity to ask made me insecure. All that I could ask from others, was something I could also figure out myself, I had the tools. It even irritated me as people asked about things that was already provided for. As every irritation it was merely an reflection of me being irritated with the fact that I could ask things, but just wasn’t able.

I’m again confronted with the fact that I may ask whatever I want to ask within my process and I close down completely. I got irritated by myself, I feel locked in and not able to reach out to others in order to reach out to myself. Maybe this is a nice point to ask, although my mind wants me to believe that I first have to investigate this point for myself before asking. No, no that’s a fuck up too, I’ve been there. Asking about something I already worked through is asking for validation. Then asking becomes asking for the sake of asking. Now looking at it closer I can see that not wanting to ask is of the same energy as validation. Okay lets dig.

I muscle communicated a phrase from a book to see what lies underneath this asking and asking for validation. “Okay, because I do not believe that what I ask for I really will receive. My life is a living example of it. In fact I rarely get what I ask for. If it happens, I’m intensely happy.” Wow, now I see it I fear to be disappointed within asking. Memories of not receiving what I asked for are this heavy burden on my shoulders that makes it almost impossible, incapable to ask. I have to stop this, breathe and slow down. I have to be in the moment and experience every moment every question I ask as a new experience and then I will not be disappointed, then it is what it is without any definition from the past attached to it. Okay this is workable and doable, I’m not saying that I will get it right from now on. At least I brought it to my attention now I can apply it and correct myself whenever necessary.

Now I will quote myself: “Maybe this is a nice point to ask, although my mind wants me to believe that I first have to investigate this point for myself before asking”. And what did I do just now… I investigated it myself. So I know now why, but it was an act of egoism. Time to really slow down and see what it is that I need to ask without doing the smoke curtain trick. So lets start.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to ask questions.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to ask questions without manipulating.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be proud on figuring things out by myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel a failure when having to ask things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel independent when not asking.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be manipulative within my communication towards others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be egoistic by not asking and wanting to do it alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I’m not egoistic within my not asking.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I’m not equal to all the others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate within the polarisation of more and less within asking.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel irritated by others while they ask obvious questions, instead of seeing that it was me who was irritated about me not asking.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel insecure when having to ask something.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel locked in myself and not being able to reach out to others and therefore myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have the opinion that I have to find things out myself first.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel that asking something I already figured out is asking for the sake of asking and that in itself is asking for validation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear asking out of the opinion that asking is never about receiving what I asked for.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be egoistic and at all costs investigate instead of asking first.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to carry past memories as a burden within asking in the present.

Am I crazy or communicating through objects with myself? 21/01/2011

Today I felt again anxiety and it was difficult to breathe, after half an hour I decided to investigate it briefly. I’m grateful for the support my body is giving me, but sometimes I long for ignorance and therefore no confrontation with myself. This state of mind doesn’t take long, considering the fact that hiding is a game where one eventually gets caught.

When I looked into this anxiety I found out that it had to do with me still seeking validation outside myself. Validation through what I do and not validating myself for who I am standing for life and as life. If I would validate myself standing as life I automatically would validate myself for what I do and therefore no need to seek it outside myself. Therefore what I would do wouldn’t be special, but simply an outflow. What has to be done has to be done. If what I do is in the best interest of all and that would make a difference in someone else’s life then I’m accumulating and adding something to this world. All again not special, simply honouring life for what it is. So I did self-forgiveness on all the points I could see in that moment. During today I had several moments in which I really had to say STOP, because this pattern had been accumulating over several weeks, months, I don’t know. It’s not something I can stop in a moment. The decision to stop it can be taken in a single moment the rest has to be walked in the physical.

Much later I had a confrontation with one fo my sewing machines, my serger. It’s not the first time and probably not the last. I in a way communicate with my serger, this sounds almost like saying: ” I’m hearing voices in my head and I see angels.” It’s not that I speak to my serger and he gives his perspective to me. It’s mostly me being preoccupied and in the mind, wanting to do my job quickly and taking all for granted. Then my serger refuses service and I have to troubleshoot and find out what’s wrong. This time, after quite some time searching for an answer, I found out that I had inserted one of the needles too low. The result was that all 4 tread’s were constantly tangled and I couldn’t see why. When I saw this point of the needle being too low I wondered why I hadn’t seen it before. Immediately I said to myself: “I’m tangled/confused and I have no idea what it’s all about, but the answer is obvious and in front of my nose.” My partner P. said that’s a nice title for a blog, but I dismissed the idea since I still didn’t know what I was talking about.

After I had spoken this sentence I looked at my computer and saw an e-mail from Esteni. She asked me to cross reference their information about my SRA payments with mine. In that moment I found out that I had been misunderstanding quite a lot about paying, payments, DIP and a message on my account. I was behind in my payments and I really dislike these kind of things. I normally make sure that these things don’t happen, so what happend here? I felt tangled and confused about all the information I had heard and read about it and I saw my lack of responsibility, the answer was right in front of my nose. I DIDN’T ASK ANY QUESTIONS, while I knew I was confused by the information given to me. My payment status said not to pay until a certain date, that didn’t make any sense at all. I didn’t ask any questions, it was a matter of wishful thinking and brought me in this survival mode of the more money I wasn’t spending the longer we could live from it. Any ways I had already saved the money up and had it in place last year and had been holding it aside for the moment the payments after the holiday started again.

It’s not alright to frustrate the whole ‘I’ process project financially by not paying out of ignorance. I started judging myself for the fact that I had allowed and accepted my behavior of not taking action and not moving money. P. said to me that it didn’t help the situation by judging myself, I better had to fix it and pay what I had to pay and get it over with. And yes that’s what it was, I felt guilty and all Desteni asked of me was if their figures matched mine and if not to make sure that they do match. Nothing personal, nothing emotional or feeling based.

So there I had it , my confrontation with my serger. It all played out just after I realised what it was that the serger was communicating. Fascinating when one doesn’t keep communication exclusive for humans. We are a whole as planet Earth and all counts and all is equal and capable of helping each other to bring forth equality and what is best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to dislike paying too late to others and others to me, instead of seeing that this disliking is an indicator of what I do not accept within myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel tangled and confused after studying the financial DIP information.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not take responsibility when it came to informing myself about my financial status.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not ask any questions and think that I could figure it out all lone by not taking responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think wishful and not dealing with my physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to frustrate the ‘I’process financially.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for getting myself in this situation of having a arrears.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty about my behavior instead of being my directive principle.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that this simple question of Esteni had anything to do with emotions and feelings or getting personal instead of seeing that this is how a business works.

Christmas ridicule 24/12/2010

Today I had a few times on which I felt this energy go around in my stomach and earlier this evening I was a bit oppressed. The feeling of being oppressed faded away within more or less 10 minutes. I did slow down and breathed through these moments. I had no specific thoughts prior both events or that is, I do not recall having specific thoughts.

With muscle communication I searched within myself and found a piece in a book that made me aware of what was unconscious bothering me.

“Approval and ostentation will never go together with inner decisions. Celebrations never surround the choices to follow your personal truth. In fact the opposite is often true. Others may not only fail to celebrate, they can also make you the subject of ridicule. What?  Do you think for yourself? Do you take your own decisions? You put your own border markers out, your own judgements, your own values? Who do you think you are?”

I had to read it a few times to see the connection between this text and my current situation. And then I saw the “light” the angels started singing oh hallelujah.

It’s Christmas eve and it’s all in the spirit of Christmas! How appropriate…

“Approval and ostentation will never go together with inner decisions”

It’s approval in the sense of validation and approval to belong to the rest of the world that celebrate Christmas. People try to persuade me to only celebrate this one day a year and say things like: “It won’t harm you to celebrate Christmas, don’t be so negative and bitter or famine will not be solved if you don’t celebrate Christmas.” It’s as if people like to trap me into this celebration and I know already for years that Christmas is more evil than anybody could suspect. So my inner decision is not to accept and allow Christmas within my world and that doesn’t go together with the urge of not being an out stander and different for not celebrating Christmas. This is all unconscious, I had no idea that I had this urge to be accepted in this way.

“Celebrations never surround the choices to follow your personal truth”.

Indeed celebrations are most of the time not voluntary even if we think they are. People celebrate, because that’s the way it is done and always was. When I started living on my own at the age of 19, I decided that this was the moment to stop celebrating my birthday with a party. Really odd for most people in my surroundings, but quite a few followed my example after recognizing what birthday parties really contained. I can see that all celebrations, religious ones and common ones, are done within dishonesty. Of not being faithful to myself or what I stand for. Most of the times I compromised myself through celebrating within the starting point of outside validation and wanting to belong.

“Others may not only fail to celebrate”

Indeed when I look at Christmas I see that almost everybody takes it as an excuse to go overboard with eating, spending and having a moment off. People who don’t follow the religious message behind Christmas do also celebrate it. People take it as an excuse to over eat and then complain about it and the spending of money on useless gifts is almost compulsive. It’s all about fitting in, being appreciated and this greedy feeling that it would not be fair if you could not celebrate Christmas.

“Make you the subject of ridicule”,

this is the most important reason for my discomfort today. I had no idea that the underlying thought was about ridicule, but when I look at myself and how my approach towards people has been especially today it’s just hitting the nail on the head. A few times today clients wished me merry Christmas and I didn’t really respond, so they didn’t questioning my way of celebrating Christmas. Now when I replay it again I see that I did feel dishonest of the fact that I didn’t share with them how I really think about Christmas. Others who wished me merry Christmas and afterwards asked me if I did celebrate it I simply replied with no. And there was one lady who asked if I did celebrate Christmas and I said no. Then she said:” Oh you’re having another religion? Or do Dutch people not celebrate Christmas?” I said: “Dutch people do celebrate Christmas only I don’t and yes I’m not a Catholic. ” Oh you have another religion”, she said. “I have no religion”, I said. “You’re an Atheist”, she said with a certain reassurance in her voice. “Nope I’m not a Atheist, because they have the faith of not believing”. “Who needs religion anyways”, I said. “We can take our own responsibility.” She looked at me in a unkempt way and she left. I was only being myself in this moment with my client, but yes she could ridicule me with this kind of information. I’m not really scared of it or feel fear of being seen as odd within the village. I already do as bald foreigner. So unconscious I do make a fuss about it, hhmmm.

“What?  Do you think for yourself? Do you take your own decisions? You put your own border markers out, your own judgements, your own values? Who do you think you are?”

Yes, this is also a hot item here, because by birth every Italian is Catholic. People here do envy me or us for not belonging to a religion. In fact they are judging themselves for not standing up and saying BASTA with religion. People here cannot make their own decisions, because family and church will show them the way. These people have their judgements and values according to the ones of the church and the pastor. Within this envy or jealousy people start ridiculing those who do stand up as life for all to reimburse their own actions. I’ve seen and experienced that already. People tend to go bad so that they can still feel good about themselves. Quite an interesting point I came about tonight, I’m really grateful for this one. No big brake through or anything, but just an insight.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to fear to be ridiculed.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to fear to be ridiculed while being self-honest.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to experience that I’m an out stander and suppressing this feeling.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to feel dishonest about the fact that I didn’t share my point of view about celebrating Christmas.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to believe unconscious that belonging to the majority is the best and safest way to go.

What retarded race are we? 17/11/2010

Today I wanted to make a video about EMO, it’s a type of lifestyle that I see quite often here in Italy. I’d never investigated what it was all about, so I started browsing the internet this afternoon. Collecting pictures and emo music and slowly but surely I understood why these kids are doing what they do and how they justify it all. As in all kinds of scenes or groups, when teenagers take the message the wrong way, being in such a group  can have catastrophic results. I read about a girl that had committed suicide, she had been listening to a lot of dark rock music and had been practising with auto mutilation. She had told her mom, who asked about it, that it was an initializing practice among emo’s.

The more extreme the lifestyles are the better the observer ( in this case me) can see how these teenagers create a whole fake world around them to manifest an identity. In essence it’s the point of acceptance, almost all of us want to belong to a group and feel accepted. One performs the rites of the group and is granted with an identity. No more searching, just keep it easy and simple. We have such a lack of self worth that the others within the group have to confirm that we are worthy and therefore a member of the group. Instead of being part of a group, participating within the group, because one sees that doing what’s best for all is also best for themselves. Without self interest and knowing that when one accepts oneself, one does not need validation from outside oneself. To practically apply and live this, most of us will not  experience this state of acceptance before we die.

I still see points of acceptance within me, but I’m able to see in those moments that I’m seeking outside of myself for validation. Therefore I can direct myself within that moment. When looking back on my life I can point out the moments in which I was seeking self validation outside myself, but also these moments  can be forgiven. That’s the great thing of process I’m always able to clean up the mess in the past and in the now what is an outflow of the past.

Back to my video again I had some problems with recording my voice. First of all my vocal cords are still covered with mucus and makes it hard to speak for a few minutes in a row. Than I  thought, after playing the recording back, that the sound was too soft. Later my partner P. found out, after recording it another time, that the volume of my computer was low. Frustration was building up. I had to ask my son J. to rip some music from a YT video to use in my video. I hated it,  to be depended on my son, who was still making his movie with his sister and the girl next door. Than I wasn’t able to do the Ken Burn effect on the pictures and P. wanted to experiment with the type of saving of the movie, before the uploading. I had to make dinner and I saw time passing by. Three times I had to redo the settings before YT accepted the amount of tags. They only said, too many tags. So how many am I allowed to add than? I went for 20 tags the last try and that worked. I was agitating myself and than P. got agitated about my agitation. He basically told me to take responsibility. Why was I so agitated? I made this commitment to myself to deliver one video a day for the coming period and I felt bad for maybe letting myself down. Two years ago I had probably felt bad about disappointing others within such a process, now the outside world wasn’t on my mind. Though the results/outflows were not different from how I was doing back than. I was agitated and was manifesting big time. Funny how I first created a situation and than began blaming my outside world for the situation I created in the first place. What retarded race are we?

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to let frustration/energy build up, instead of looking for the real point of frustration.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to hate being depended on my son J., because I don’t want to claim him.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to to claim J. his time while I could have installed real player myself and find out how to do it.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to be depended on J. instead of directing myself and take responsibility.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to get agitated over the computer who wasn’t doing what I wanted  it to do, instead of seeing that I was building up energy and synchronically manifesting.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to feel bad about the possibility of me letting myself down. Instead of seeing that I was projecting into the future.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to blame my outside world for what I had created.