Day 136: Guarding My Thoughts and Words

When and as I see myself reacting to a topic, situation, or event within which I experience a compulsion to speak, I stop - I place a guard on my thoughts and words.  I do not participate - I remove myself if I must, get myself stable with breathing and then write out the topic, situation, or event and what I am seeing as a problem within the topic, situation, or event.  From here, I self-forgive for why I am reacting and what I want to say - which, I see, realize and understand is actually what I want to say to myself and work out a solution for. 

I commit myself to stop speaking when and as I experience a compulsion by allowing myself to be aware of myself within and as compulsion as indicated by imaginations that play into my fear, increased blood-pressure, movement in my solar-plexus, and jerky physical movements. 

I commit myself to further practice perfecting putting a guard on my thoughts and words by allowing myself to slow myself down so that I can stop myself when and as I am faced with a physical, mental, and/or emotional reaction. 

When and as I see that I am putting myself in-conflict with myself as indicated by the amount of thought, effort, time, justifications, and reasons for my actions, reactions, and my allowance of myself existing in-conflict with myself and others, I STOP.  I see, realize, and understand that this self-dishonesty takes a lot more time and effort to keep up and/or maintain and that it is best to make it simple for myself by taking a moment to write out what's going on and bring the points that emerge within this back to myself with self-forgiveness.

 

I commit myself to stopping placing myself in-conflict with myself by re-Minding myself that it takes a great deal more effort and time to justify my actions with reasons for 'why I did what I did' - additionally, I re-Mind myself that any reaction that I have after a thought is a response to fear -- that my thoughts are showing me who/what I am and because I fear what I am showing myself, I attempt to separate myself with a reaction when and as I say, 'Oh, that's not me ... let me show myself why'.

Within this,
I commit myself to watch my thoughts and to investigate where these thoughts are coming from by allowing myself to slow myself so that I can actually see/hear my thoughts and then look-back at my memories which will assist and support me in seeing and understanding where my thoughts are actually coming from and why. 

Day 122: How Could You Do This To Me?? -- Self-Correction

Traumatic Event 1 - Part 3

Day 120: How Could You Do This To Me?
Part 2 - Day 121: Self-Forgiveness 
In this blog, I am walking Day 122: Self-Correction



When and as I see that I am playing-out memories of past traumatic events and experiences, I stop.  I see, realize and understand that I am replaying these memories so that I can re-live myself being hurt, angry and vulnerable to show myself how/why others cannot be trusted and counted for support.  Instead of projecting myself within/as/from my past onto others, I bring these points of self-communications back to myself where I take responsibility rather than saying, "How could you do this to me?" which is blame and fleeing away.

When and as I see that I'm recalling my past experiences to show myself or to prove to myself that I am a bad person, I stop.  I see, realize, and understand that I cannot change my experiences in the past nor can I change who/what I was.  I remind myself that the past does not define who/what I am and that who/what I am can be determined here in breath where I remove what is bad and keep what is good.

When and as I see that I am going into my history to try out different 'if-then' scenarios where I try to correct past mistakes with, "If I had done THIS, then THAT would have happened," I stop.  I see, realize, and understand that when I do this I am programming myself for a future response that will be within/as my own self-interest - additionally within this, I see that this is in-part of how I create desire within and as myself where I fear that I will miss out on an opportunity for myself to live out my 'if-then' imaginations.  I see that breaking myself of the 'if-then' habit will assist and support me in breaking free from my patterns, programming, and stopping myself from becoming different characters/personalities.

When and as I see that I am attempting to force others into my definitions of what they 'should be' depending on what role they have in my living, I stop.  I see, realize, and understand that this not only creates unreal expectations of others but that it also creates conflict within and outside of myself.

When and as I see that I am waiting for or expecting some sort of an apology and/or sorry-ness from another outside of myself, I stop.  I see, realize, and understand that this is pointless and that I can not control what others do or say.  Instead of trying to control others with a single-point that I'm obsessing over, I re-direct myself to bring that point back to myself where I self-forgive and self-correct as I see, realize, and understand that the only being that I can move/direct/change is myself.

When and as I see that I am looking outside of myself for another to provide a pre-defined/imagined safety, caring, and relationship of trust, I stop.  Instead of expecting, hoping, and/or desiring for another to give me safety, caring, and/or a relationship of trust, I continue to investigate ways of giving these to myself and to support a solution that will give all the opportunity to do the same.

Day 109: Are YOU A Shame?

I'm pausing from my walking my I Am Curious Character for a moment to take self-responsibility for a point that I was faced with today which was Shame.  When I was presented with a moment that I could experience shame, I put up my self-defenses immediately where instead of facing myself within and as a negative experience I was having with shame, I projected it onto others as being something that they're doing that's not best instead of allowing myself to see it within and as myself as my origin point.


I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to experience shame as a negative emotion where when I questioned myself, "Am I doing what's best?" and my answer was, "I could do better," I physically experienced a sinking in my stomach to which I responded to with, "But I tried - it may not have been a perfect effort but I did it when others did not."

Within this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to cover-up the negative experience of myself with neutral and positive responses.  Additionally, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to further separate myself from Shame by projecting it on to others.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see how I constantly and continuously exist within and as self-doubt and self-distrust because I do not allow myself to become equal to my mind within and as my companion thoughts: I Am Not Good Enough. I could have done more.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to the Word Shame with the thoughts: I Am Not Good Enough. I could have done more.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed the Word Shame to trigger a pattern within and as me where I see myself negatively, have a physical pain reaction with which I invert into myself by suppressing it, smooth over my negative experience with neutral and positive affirmations, and then projecting the experience of myself on to others as a means to further separate myself from the Word.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attempt to separate myself from the Word Shame rather than embracing myself within and as Shame so that I am able to bring this piece of myself back to myself where I can take responsibility for the Word, see myself within and as the word, and give myself the opportunity to break myself from my trigger response to the Word so that I can self-correct myself and release myself from the pattern.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to reject and flee from Shame because I have defined it as 'Bad'.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attach the Word Shame to Bad.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, as a child, attach the Word Shame to anothers expression of anger and disappointment as they looked at me with a disgusted 'look' on their face and said, "You should be a-Shamed of yourself."  And when as the person that should be a-shamed, there was no way that I could see for myself fixing what I had done - it was permanent and could not be changed ever.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use Shame as a point of acceptance for my actions and use it to tell myself I can not change, that it is fruitless to change and say within myself, "Why bother?"  Because it will not improve how another sees me.  I did not allow myself to change myself for myself within and as Shame - instead, I used it as an excuse or a backdoor out of my uncomfortable zone.

I forgive myself that I not accepted and allowed myself to see that I flee from Shame because I fear it - I fear being seen negatively - and specifically, I fear angering and disappointing others whom I see as greater than myself.  And because I did not see this, I did not see that Shame threatens my system of survival as I have become a People Pleaser to ensure my survival within the system.

When and as I see myself fleeing from myself within and as Shame, I stop.  I see, realize, and understand that there is a point to be faced within myself as Shame that I must be self-honest and equal-to.  I breath, I slow myself, and I investigate my triggers for/of/as the experience of Shame and direct myself to to self-forgive, self-correct, and self-commit so that I can effectively free myself from the pattern.

I commit myself to stopping myself from fleeing from Shame and to instead embrace myself within and as Shame self-honestly with writing, self-forgiveness, self-correction, and self-commitment until I am no longer reacting to the Word Shame and thus triggering a pattern of separation from the experience of Shame.

Day 105: Journey To Life Review - Day 2 - Part 4

 

Continuing here from Day 104: Journey To Life Review - Day 2 - Part 3, Day 103: Journey To Life Review - Day 2 - Part 2 and Day 102: Journey To Life Review - Day 2.

I remember being a young person that kept waiting to be shown the goodness that exists within others.  I was aware of myself as being the Bad Kid as I was always in some sort of trouble and because I was the Bad Kid as the kid that stood out as being a Problem amongst the Good Kids and Good People of this world, I looked for the goodness in people as I believed it must be there because it was the Good People that would point out my faults, what was wrong with me, and what I need to do to be 'Good' like them. As I got older, I would ask directly for feedback, observe others, and internalize what was Good or what works in this world so that I could create Good Characters for myself to play-out.

Anyway, because I became a person that quietly studied others and became quite skilled at absorbing their personalities so that I could be a reflection of the Good that I saw in them, people opened up to me and would tell me their secrets - which may have been easier for them to do because I was rarely shocked as my secrets were far more unacceptable, taboo, dark, and morbid in comparison to what I was hearing.  To me, these things I were told were not secrets at all - just good people making mistakes.  Unless someone told me directly, "DO NOT TELL ANYONE," I would share the stories that I was told with others - it was always an 'oh crap' moment when others would react to the stories that I shared with them about others and I would often say, "I shouldn't have said anything.  I didn't realize that was bad."

So through the years, I got myself in a lot of trouble within this point and had to 'bail myself out' time-and-time again.  I learned that there are just some things we don't talk about with others.  Actually, I learned it but I never accepted it because of my belief that humans were innately good and/or had a natural desire to be good.

In all fairness, I have been fortunate to see a raw kind of kindness, gentleness, caring, sharing and compassion in humans who assisted me many times so that I would not fall and I would not 'get lost' amongst the messiness of my living.  And from this I would re-spark my hope, faith, and belief that others had a capacity within them to be able to hear the truth without reacting - and from this point of hope, faith, and seeing that maybe my belief was correct, I would begin to share with another but it would never work out in a way that I anticipated which was to 'share, trust each other with the experiences shared, and move on'.  Instead, in a matter of weeks or months there would be a disagreement and within anger and bitterness what was shared in trust would be used against each other.

To be clear, as tempting as it is to push blame, I cannot do this as what I am showing here is in-fact reactions and behaviors that I have participated in myself as I will show in my self-forgiveness that follows:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think, "I can be trusted with all of this persons secrets and everything that they tell me about themselves that they would not share with another.  I will not judge this person.  I am their friend.  I understand them and I would never do anything to hurt them."

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be dishonest with myself where I attempt to suppress and ignore the negative thoughts within me where I tell myself, "I can not be this persons friend and this person cannot be my friend.  I will probably tell someone about what I'm hearing, I will let it 'slip', or I will use the information against them when and as relationship is ending or I need to defend myself.  I am judging this person - right now - because I do not understand and I do not agree with the decisions that this person has made."

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I am a kind, gentle, caring, sharing, and compassionate human being as this self-dishonest.  I have not seen, realized, nor understood that if I were in-fact a kind, gentle, caring, sharing, and compassionate human being that I would BE this in every moment of every breath - this would never change, regardless of any moment that I am experiencing and living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect for others to be something that I am not.  I have created an unreal expectation of others within my definition of a Friend or a Fellow Human Being where I show and tell myself that to be a Friend or a Fellow Human Being, one must be supportive, unconditionally understanding, kind, gentle, caring, sharing, compassionate, and able to give a strong, comforting hug.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not only attempt to force others into my imagined idea of a Friend or Fellow Human Being, but to also force myself into this role for others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react negatively when and as I hear something about another that I have defined as 'wrong', 'bad', 'taboo', 'something that you just don't do', and/or as something that does not agree with my Moral Code.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to act surprised, shocked, and completely taken-aback when and as I hear something about another that does not agree with my Moral system or whatever Moral Code I'm playing within a character at any given moment.  Physically, I widen my eyes and make my expression go blank, hold for a few seconds, then gasp, "Oh my god ... no way!" From here, I participate in gossiping with the group about the details and how messed up the situation is with another that we're talking about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react positively when and as I hear something negative about and gossip about another - first, I become both excited and relieved because the gossip isn't about ME or what I was doing and second, I tell myself, "Phew ... I would never do -that-," which makes me feel better about myself within my own experiences, memories, and secrets.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to NOT see the consequence of this reacting, gossiping, and self-dishonesty is: I am participating in and perpetuating a social behavior that takes the power away from one and gives it to the group that sees ourselves as 'better' because we are 'Good' - because of my agreement with this, I am in agreement with this exact same thing happening in our world where we take from the mouths of others to make ourselves more comfortable with ourselves with the justification that 'They are bad and we are good'.  When distracting myself with others processes, I am not facing my own process - I am not here in breath and I am projecting the negative about myself onto others instead of being here and bringing the negative stuff back to myself responsibly.  I am showing myself and others that I cannot be trusted - that I will react and go in for the 'kill' when and if it is within my self-interest to do so - and thus, I miss an opportunity to establish a points of integrity and self-trust with myself.  And, it is dishonest and a great disservice to myself to pretend that I am 'Better' person when I known darned well that what is going on inside of my mind is telling me that I am not this 'Better Person' at all.

Day 103: Journey To Life Review - Day 2 - Part 2

Why am I judging myself so harshly??


Here I begin applying the Solution of Self-Forgiveness as self-directed from writings on Day 102: Journey To Life Review - Day 2 where I saw the extent of which I am judging myself.

Artwork By Scott Cook

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assess myself as GOOD or BAD based on my review of myself within my self-commitments.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to automatically find reasons within my memories of why I am bad.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to my judgement of myself as being bad with guilt.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attach the experience of guilt to my judgement of myself of bad.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be disappointed with myself for not standing within and as my self-commitments.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attach the thought and spoken Words of 'I Forgot' to a blank picture or nothingness within my mind.  I have not seen, realized, nor understood the extent of which I have been looking to my mind for visual cues as a means to tell myself how I will react.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see and realize that I am interpreting the pictures in my mind - just like when I was reading Tarot Cards - and that I have trained myself to interpret the pictures that I see to have specific meanings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress the negative experiences/emotions within myself with the physical action of 'wincing' - I have not been aware of myself doing this and why and so I am not certain of when I started doing it.

Definition of Wincing = Wincing is an involuntary grimace or an involuntary slight move away because of pain, discomfort or anticipation of pain or discomfort.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to 'involuntarily' grimace or move away because of the pain and discomfort that I am subjecting myself to or are about to subject myself to rather than breathing, investigating why I am causing myself this pain of guilt, and work on stopping it. Instead of standing up and stopping it, I allowed it to go-on-and-on-and-on-and-on for many years.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself as being 'bad', 'dumb', 'naive', 'wrong' and 'not good enough' for not seeing, standing, stopping, and preventing this problem of myself inflicting pain on myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge and be hard on myself within my realization of myself trying to 'cover-up' my negative experiences of myself with good experiences of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself as 'bad', 'stupid', 'slow', and 'too caught up in myself' to notice where I am being dishonest with myself.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see:  I am lying to myself because I fear the badness in me and I fear others finding out about the badness in me and so I try to hide the 'badness' with what I tell myself that others will see as 'good' - the goodness of me. So I judge myself to keep myself 'in-check' and suppress myself with guilt, remorse, and disappointment to make certain that no one else ever sees the thoughts, memories, and pictures in my mind.  Because as hard as a try to make myself forget - I can't - all of my mistakes and all of the things that I have seen, done, spoke, and thought keeps coming back.

For many years prior to starting my self-forgiveness process, I was convinced that I was haunted and that a demon or an evil spirit was following me throughout my life and torturing me with this ringing in my ears, strange experiences, and whispers just beyond what I could hear.  I was certain that this evil presence could harm me and my family so I would 'ward it off' by surrounding myself and my family with the White-Blue Light and saying the Lords Prayer.

I was terrified and existed in absolute fear of what might happen at night when the lights were turned off or when I was alone during the day.

Interesting, huh?

Up next: More Self-Forgiveness!