Day 159: From Auto-Parent To Self-Parent

Self-correction and self-commitment for Day 155: Automated Parent


When and as I see that I am being unnecessarily hard on myself as a means to make a situation or event better or more acceptable, I stop, I breath, and I bring myself back here to my physical.  I see, realize, and understand that using words or thoughts to punish myself does not make my mistakes better, more acceptable, nor does it support me as a being - no, this supports me to go into my mind as I go into negatively charged emotions where I do not consider practical, livable solutions for the situation/event I've faced in which I made a mistake.

I commit myself to stopping myself from punishing myself with words and thoughts by reminding myself that punishing myself is not going to make my mistakes better and that going into my mind is not a solution.  I commit myself to, when I make mistakes, to instead breath and bring myself back to the physical where I can actually look at practical, livable solutions that will assist and support me to not repeat the mistakes.

When and as I see that I am angry or disappointed with myself because I have self-judged myself to be in the wrong and that being angry and/or disappointed is the appropriate response in such situations or events, I stop.  I see, realize, and understand that being angry and/or disappointed with/at myself is not the responsible action that I believe it to be and that in reality, it's quite the opposite in that the actual responsible action is to direct myself to solutions and prevention.

I commit myself to stopping self-anger, self-disappointment, and self-judgment by allowing myself to see solutions rather than problems only when and as I am faced with an event or experience where a mistake has been made or could potentially be made.  I allow myself to slow down and to look at the situation or event practically and realistically so that I can determine the change for myself that is best for all.

When and as I see that I have gone into being an Automated Parent where I expect to see remorse or some other emotional reaction that demonstrates shame and/or regret, I stop and I breath myself back to my physical reality.  I see, realize, and understand that I have accepted, allowed, and been participating in this behavior/character for so long that I have integrated into and as myself to such an extent that I do not question it - it is automated.  So, here, my responsibility is to question myself as a parent:  Why do I continue to inflict emotional and mental harm when I have seen time-and-time again that this does not change nor improve anything?  Why do I believe that I must see shame, remorse, or regret when/as a mistake is made in order for me to see that the situation or event has a chance to get better?

I commit myself to stopping myself as an Automated Parent by no longer accepting and allowing myself to go right into expecting to see shame, regret, or remorse and instead breathing, slowing myself down, and allowing myself question myself and what changes I could make. Rather than go on Auto-Parent,  I practice self-parenting where I go over the mistake, consider other decisions/actions that I could have made where the outcome was best, work out a plan for how I will be in the same situation in the future, and commit myself to the change.

I commit myself to stopping myself from bullying, diminishing, and belittling myself by questioning my self-judgments.  And within this, I commit myself to not use self-judgment against myself and to instead work on self-acceptance, self-respect, and problem prevention.

Day 154: I'm Broken

Two weeks ago I fractured my ankle and have been told that it will take a total 6-weeks to heal.  For the most of the these past two weeks I've been on the couch with my leg elevated and I am just now getting to the point in my recovery process of where I can start working at my desk again.  I have been writing daily in a notebook and am sharing this writing starting here:

Monday, August 26, 2013

I fractured my left ankle.  Up until the moment that I broke the bone, there as a timeline of physical warnings that I ignored.  For about 6 weeks prior to my injury, I consistently would twist my ankles as I rushed around from one task to another.  I was aware that I needed to slow down but I reasoned this was impossible for me to do and instead of practicing slowing myself and practicing moving/walking in breath, I changed my shoes.  I continued to twist my ankles and continued to ignore it until I finally took a short step that needed to be a long step and my bone gave out.

In the moment before I took that wrong step, I was reacting.  I was angry, I was disappointed, and I was backchatting.

When I heard my bone POP, I told myself that I 'really effed myself up this time' and I was aware of why: In spite of the fact that my body had given me plenty of warning and in spite of the consequences I have walked in the recent past for being too hard on my body, I made a decision to repeat a pattern.

Now I am looking at a 6-week recovery time.  And thus far, I have been able to do very little.  All that I can do is decide how to move or IF I actually can which has assisted in putting my process of slowing myself down into perspective as I now see, realize, and understand what and how it is to have a relationship in every moment of every breath with my physical body and what's in my immediate external environment where I have to be present and consider everything when and as I move.

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 101: Journey To Life Review – Day 1 – Part 14

Continuing here with Self-Commitments for my Journey To Life Review - Day 1.
For other posts within my Journey To Life Review - Day 1, see:

Day 100: Journey To Life Review - Day 1 - Part 13
Day 99: Journey To Life Review - Day 1 - Part 12
Day 98: Journey To Life Review – Day 1 – Part 11
Day 97: Journey To Life Review - Day 1 - Part 10
Day 96: Journey To Life Review – Day 1 – Part 9
Day 95: Journey To Life Review - Day 1 - Part 8
Day 94: Journey To Life Review - Day 1 - Part 7
Day 93: Journey To Life Review – Day 1 – Part 6
Day 92: Journey To Life Review – Day 1 – Part 5
Day 91: Journey To Life Review - Day 1 - Part 4
Day 90: Journey To Life Review - Day 1 - Part 3
Day 89: Journey To Life Review - Day 1 - Part 2
Day 88: Journey To Life Review - Day 1 - Part 1









I commit myself to not longer allow myself to be 'Just a Kid' and to instead become and be a mature, responsible human being with integrity.




I commit myself to no longer hide from my mistakes or hide behind others to avoid changing within my mistakes by standing, facing my mistakes, and making decisions to change.

I commit myself to equalize fun-time with work-time by giving each equal value.

I commit myself to stopping myself from attempting to hide and/or shut down when faced with a decision.  I no longer accept and allow myself to direct myself within, 'This is too much for me.  WHY do I have to do this? Why must I make a decision.  I am not equipped to deal with this.' by standing up, taking points on, using the tools of self-forgiveness and self correction, and getting support when I get into a problem that I am struggling to come up with a solution for.

I commit myself to removing the thought traps I've created for myself that lead me into playing out a character that does not value my life or any others by using the tools of self-forgiveness, self-correction, self-commitment, and self-application.

I commit myself to stopping myself from requiring others to remind me of the tasks that I need to complete by either completing a task in the moment or writing it down on my notepad for myself to direct myself to complete later. I commit myself to finishing the tasks on my notepad daily or as soon as possible.

I commit myself to stop myself from seeing myself as small, helpless, and/or having no voice nor significance - as I see, realize and understand that this is not me - that is a version of me that I have created from fear and is not real.  I commit myself to remove these illusions of myself within my previous commitments to remove my fears using the tools of writing and self-forgiveness.

I commit myself to stopping myself from re-living my past within and as my mind instead of being here by walking my path within and as my direction so that I can understand myself, release myself from reactions, and no longer take imaginary roller-coaster rides through twists-and-turns and ups-and-downs that I cannot change.  Instead, I bring my awareness here where I can change.

I commit myself to stopping myself from getting caught up in positive reactions because 'it feels good' and to put my positive reactions through the same process as negative reactions with self-forgiveness, self-correction, self-commitment, and self-application.

I commit myself to stopping myself from beating myself down with Guilt when and as I make a mistake in my self-commitments, self-application, and decisions.  I walk myself to the point where the Guilt is coming from and I self-forgive and make adjustments to my application. Additionally, I will be gentle with myself.

This is the end of my self-commitments for the moment within my Journey To Life Review - Day 1, and thus from here I will move on to review Day 2.