I hereby commit myself to live the following Principles:

1. Realising and living my utmost potential
2. Living by the principle of what is best for all – guiding me in thought, word and deed to always in all ways direct problems to the best possible outcome for all
3. Living by the principle of self honesty – to ensure I am pure in thought, word and deed: that my within and without is equal and one. Who I am within is who I am without and vice-versa
4. Self Purification through Writing and Self Forgiveness – the action of realising I am responsible for my own thoughts, words and deeds, to forgive myself for transgressions and change myself to ensure I take responsibility for who, what and how I am and through this know that I can trust myself to always be honest with me and so others
5. Living the principle of Self Responsibility – realising only I am responsible for what I accept and allow inside of me, my relationships and my outside world and so with this responsibility: only I have the power and ability to change that which I see is compromising who I am, what I live and how this affects others
6. Realising that who I am in thought, word and deed affects not only myself – but others as well and so with Self Responsibility in thought, word and deed – I take responsibility for myself and so my relationships to be Self Aware in every moment, in every moment and live in such a way that is best for me and so others as well
7. Living the Principle of Self Awareness – to be aware, to see, to recognize my own thoughts and Mind, to be self honest to the extent where I can take responsibility for when I see my thoughts / Mind is not what is best for me / others and commit to immediately take responsibility and change for myself and so for others
8. With taking responsibility for myself, becoming aware of myself – take responsibility and become aware of others in my life, to assist and support them as I am assisting and supporting myself – to give as you would like to receive and do the extra bit every day to see where I can contribute to other’s lives and so my own
9. Living the principle of self trust – as I commit myself to remain constant in my living of self honesty, self responsibility and self awareness, I stand as an unbending trust that I always in all ways know who I am no matter what I face and that in this I know, as proven in the constancy of my living that I will always honour and stand by what is best for all and so best for me
10. Making Love Visible – through me not accepting/allowing anything less than my utmost potential, I support those in my life to reach their utmost potential, to love them as I have shown love to myself by gifting to me my utmost potential, the best life/living experience and show others as I have shown myself what is means to LIVE
11. No one can save you, save yourself – the realisation that the tools and principles of Desteni is the guide, but I must walk the path myself. We are here to assist and support each other in this process from Consciousness to Awareness/LIFE and what it means to live – but the process itself, where you are alone with yourself in your own Mind: is walked alone
12. Not waiting for anything or anyone to take responsibility for me and this world – but that I realise I have created who and how I am in this moment, therefore I have the responsibility to change who and how I am and so the realisation that we as a collective created how and what this world is today and so it is the responsibility of the collective to change how and what this world is today
13. Honouring the life in each person, animal – everything from the great to the small of earth, that we expand our awareness and responsibility to creating the best possible life for everyone and everything and so ourselves
14. Relationships as Agreements: individuals coming together using agreements as a platform to one-on-one expand, grow and develop as individuals in life and living to support/assist each other unconditionally to reach their utmost potential where the agreement is a coming together of individuals understanding what it means to stand as equals and to stand as one
15. Sex as Self Expression – where sex is an united expression between individuals in honour, respect, consideration and regard of each other as equals, two physical bodies uniting in equality and oneness – a merging of two equals as one physically.
16. Realising that by the virtue of me being in this world – my responsibility does not only extend to my own Mind / my own Life, but to the minds and lives of everything and everyone of this earth and so my commitment is to extend this awareness to all of humanity to work together and live together to make this world heaven on earth for ourselves and the generations to come
17. I must in my thoughts, words and deeds – but most importantly in my living actions, become a living example for others in my world that is noticeable and visible when it comes to the potential of a person to change themselves and so change their world. So that more people can realise how we can change this world, by standing united in our self change within the principle of what is best for all to bring heaven to earth
18. I am the change I want to see in me and my world – to bring heaven to earth is to bring into being, into living the LIVING PROOF of a PRACTICAL HEAVEN that can be seen and heard in our actions and words. We are the Living Heaven that must come into creation in this living world.
19. Through purifying my thoughts, words and deeds – my inner becomes my outer, so I bring into creation me as heaven into earth, realising it is not enough to ‘see the change / be the change’ – for change to become REAL it must be a constant, consistent living of me through the words I speak and the actions I live visible and noticeable to all in every moment of breath
20. Realising that my physical body is my temple – my physical body is the living flesh through which and in which I will bring into being and create / manifest heaven on earth as me in my thoughts, words and deeds and so I honour, respect and regard – nurture and support my physical body as I would nurture and support me as equals: my body is me
21. We are the change in ourselves and this world we have been waiting for: and so I commit to dedicate myself and my life for each one as all to realise this as nothing will change if we don’t change in all that we are within and without
22. The realisation that for me to be able to change myself in thought, word and deed to the most effective living being that I can be and become – I first have to ‘know thyself’ and so commit myself to investigate, introspect and understand how I became who I am today, to prepare the road before me into self creation of a responsible, aware, self honest and trustworthy person for myself and so for all
23. The realisation that for me to be able to contribute to change in this world – I have to get to ‘know thyself’ as this world and so commit myself to research, investigate and introspect the inner and outer workings of this world and align the systems of today to present and give the best possible life for all on Earth.

After high school I pursued an education to become a professional dancer. Dancing was my passion - what I loved to do and what I wanted to do forever. I quit towards the end of the first year, because within this training, within this school - I felt I no longer enjoyed dancing the way I used to. The training was intense of course and the school was competitive. Dancing for me had always been something I did in my free time, for me - where I 'got away from it all'.

In movies they romanticize what it means to get in to a professional dancing school, and so had I. The physical reality was different from what I had expected. The group I started in seemed to share the same expectations - we were all excited initially, but it didn't take long before we were all continuously exhausted and struggling emotionally to make it through the week. The weekend, when I wasn't dancing, was now the time we would get 'away from it all'.

After I quit the school, I joined an amateur dance company. I had seen them perform while I was still in the professional dance school and remember being impressed by the choreography, their level of technique/ability and the passion of the dancers.

There were several new dancers in the company when I joined. The group was obviously 'tight' with each other and so the newbies would mostly hang with each other - but this didn't last for long. Within the choreographies, there was a lot of partnerwork - where two or more dancers have to work in absolute harmony in order to pull of a particular part/section of the choreography - and for no one to fall or get hurt. Your timing, your positioning, your intensity, your speed has to be absolutely specific - and you have to trust the other to do the same. And if for some reason you get out of sync, you have to adjust yourself in a moment - and trust that the other would do the same. Trust on this level is quite interesting - because it is a decision that has to be made - where you allow yourself to place trust in another - to catch you, to hold you or to release you.

To be continued

This post is a continuation to the blog post Day 132: Who am I in a Group? Clashes of cultures and so continuing with the memory on my High School Group.

In my previous posted I ended off talking about the group weekend that my math teacher had organized and how within only a few days we already saw some individuals 'crawling out of their shells' - allowing themselves to participate in ways they hadn't before.

One of the individuals whose behavior had started changing was the 'leader of the macho-guys'. Instead of becoming louder/more expressive/more visible, he had become more quiet, more serious, more 'down to Earth' - more genuine I suppose. There was one moment which kind of became a 'symbol' in our group. Closeby the building where we were staying, there was a very thick horizontal tree branch where we'd hang out once in a while. In that specific moment, I was sitting on the tree brach, my legs on either side. At some point the 'leader of the macho group' came sitting behind me, in the same position, facing the same direction, so that i was facing away from him and he was facing my back. I had my hands behind my back on the tree brach. And then with a simple movement, he took my hands and started fiddling with them. I'd had a moment of 'huh?' because I hadn't expected him to do something like this, but when I looked at it, I wasn't uncomfortable, so I let him. The fact that I wasn't uncomfortable may have been what I was suprised about, lol. This was a person that so far I'd utterly resented every time he'd shown his face or made a remark - as though he represented everything that was 'wrong' with this world - but in that moment, there was nothing - I didn't mind at all. We also didn't speak. It was a simple quiet moment and for the first time in his presense I was really comfortable and just here enjoying myself with the others around us. At some point people stopped and looked and later I found out some had taken pictures - because here was a scene that no one had expected. We ended up sitting there for quite a while, eventually just holding hands - still in the same position. It was turned into a symbol of how two apparent opposites were able to share and enjoy a moment together - and became a symbol of how as a group we had moved from separation to harmony.

Of course - when I say 'moved from separation to harmony' - it was more a perception, an experience - it was not so in an absolute way as this would require each one to remove the separations within themselves first.

As I wrote about this moment, I experienced nostalgia and sadness. I had come to define this moment as 'magical' within myself - it marked the end of me trying my best to avoid this person and wanting to have nothing to do with him, which was only based on superficial indicators of 'what kind of person he is' and 'what kind of person I am'. And at the same time it marked the beginning of a new relationship - one that lasted for a long time and was quite... well, that's for another blog, lol. I just had a realization about how my interpretation of this moment defined the rest of our relationship - so will definitely share it in a blog later on.

So - back to that weekend - the last evening, we had a specific activity that also left quite a 'mark' on the group so to speak. I don't remember the specifics of it - but we were basically all sitting in a circle. The room was quite dark with only candles, it was quite cozy, yet serious and focused. We each had a pice of paper and were asked to answer several questions. I remember one of them was how we saw ourselves in the group. It was meant as a moment of honesty and vulnerability. One by one we would sit in the middle of the cirlce and share what we wrote on the piece of paper, after which the group would then give us feedback. I don't remember anything in particular that was discussed - only that each one really tried to be 'as honest as they could' and put themselves on the spot and shared with the group on a level of intimacy that we had never done before. Many had gone into tears and there was an overall experience of support towards each one that shared their story. For myself, I remember being disappointed with the feedback I received. I ended up not saying what was on the piece of paper as I found the answers was not what I actually wanted to say. I shared that I felt that no one really knew me in the group and that I didn't know who I was in the group, because I was different with different people, where some knew me one way and others knew me in another - but felt that no one REALLY knew ME and that I had never really been myself or even knew what it would mean to 'be myself'. When people gave me feedback it was as though they had blocked out everything I had just said and instead said things like 'I see you as this carpe diem girl - every day just taking it as it is'. To me this feedback only confirmed what I had just said - because the person they were describing - that wasn't me, not really. And I saw at the same time that this wouldn't be changing any time soon. I saw that within and as this group, we could change up to a point - but there was a limit. Nonetheless, I adjusted myself to that and accepted the limitations we would be working with - and instead focused on what we did achieve, what did change, the people I had gotten to know or had gotten to know in a different way.

After this weekend - we felt like a group - and we behaved like a group. Every break the people we would spend time with would be different, we didn't stick to the previous 'clicks'. We acknowledged that some people we were closer to than others and that there are still 'subgroups' of people who share specific views and values - but we were all part of the same group and within that everyone was able to interact and have fun with everyone. The dynamics in the group had changed completely and we would feel it when someone wasn't there for a day - it was like the group was not whole - someone was being missed.

The person that had opted not to go with on the second weekend regretted it after seeing how the group had changed - nonetheless, he was 'absorbed' within the same group so to speak without a problem.

For the rest of that school year and the year after that we continued to be this one group - we were strong together despite our many differences and we were grateful for each other. In our final year we decided that we would meet up every year on the first of May, because it would be a holidy for the rest of our lives - labour day - everyone takes that day off. We vowed that we would ensure that we would keep in touch this way and wouldn't let what we had built wither away or fall apart.

After graduation, each one went their separate ways, different colleges, universities or jobs - different cities. Our paths would cross - some we remained good friends with and spent a lot of time with - but others we rarely saw. I think we met up twice on the first of May, two years in a row - where in the second year there were already less people showing up. After that, I don't think another first of May gathering was even attempted to be organized - because it was clear to everyone that the group was no more.

During the last gathering too much effort had to be put into trying to bring back memories and I was disappointed in how much people had changed - developed personalities, mannerisms, postures and behaviors that I found betrayed who they were - they were no longer the same people, as they had adapted and changed according to their new environments, their new 'place in life'. I was saddened because I felt I had lost those people that I had shared an amazing time with, I was sad because I felt that they had lost themselves and I was said that the connection we had sworn would remain forever, was just gone, was just given up on.