Day 139: Who Am I in a Group - Self-Forgiveness Pt 3

This blog-post is a continuation to:


Day 131: Who Am I in a Group?
Day 132: Who Am I in a Group? Clashes of Cultures
Day 133: Who Am I in a Group? - Nothing Left but Memories
Day 134: Who Am I in a Group? Dance Company - Pt1
Day 135: Who Am I in a Group? Dance Company Pt2
Day 136: Who Am I in a Group? Dancing with a Ghost
Day 137: Who Am I in a Group - Self-Forgiveness Pt 1
Day 138: Who Am I in a Group - Self-Forgiveness Pt 2


I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to let go of the past and approaching any new group/moment in a group as a new moment, where I am here, in the moment, participating in that moment, but instead, filter my experience, expectations and perceptions of the group/myself in the group through my memories in my mind of previous experiences in groups, wherein I in fact sabotage my participation and experience in the group as I then exist in continuous fear and hope in relation to the group – fear that the same patterns will play out again and hope that it might be different this time, and so never simply being ‘here’, participating directly, but where my behaviors, experiences and participation is influenced by this fear and this hope.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that I have sabotaged my participation in groups in the past through participating from a starting point of mind-experience – wherein I allowed my emotions/feelings to guide me in my participation in the group and use my emotions/feelings as a measuring stick for the value a group has to me – and wherein I have assumed that all individuals participate in groups in the same way and that this is the only way groups exist – based on the extent to which the group is able to provide more feelings than emotional experiences to each individual and if the individuals find that the group is not providing this, the group disintegrates.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that ‘groups’ were never the ‘problem’, but that it was my starting point and the starting point of the existence of the group that was not clear – wherein I desired/wanted the group to exist forever, but never clarified with myself and the others in the group what the foundation is of participating in the group, how the group will move forward; where no agreement ever existed as to each one’s responsibility within being part of the group, so that the group is not an ‘energy outlet’ to recharge our minds with positive experiences – but a group founded in mutual support – where the principles upon which the group is founded are communicated and clear for each individual and so that no abdication of responsibility can take place, where the group is made responsible for something self did or didn’t do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to use my own past experience as a reference of ‘what is possible’ and ‘what is not possible’, wherein I believe that if I haven’t experienced something before, then it is impossible for it to exist – where, with groups, because I haven’t experienced a group that didn’t disintegrate after a certain amount of time, I believe that it is impossible for groups to last for very long, simply because that has been my experience up until now.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to expect that when things become difficult/challenging within/for a group, that the group will seize to exist, because this has been my experience within previous groups that I ‘cherished’ – where the group of the summer camp stopped existing once we all lived in places far away and had to either devise new ways of communicating or do more effort to bring the group together, same with my high school group, and with the dance company, when one of the dancers died and we required to work through our grief.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have defined groups as something that only lasts so long and, in the bigger pictures, are only fleeting moments of beings walking together for a while, until it becomes too much of an effort for the individuals to keep the group standing.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to clarify with myself whether a group requires to exist forever, wherein I do not clarify for myself the purpose of the group and my participation within it and from there see: when is the existence of the group appropriate/applicable and when does it become irrelevant – but instead look at my positive experiences within the group and wanting those to last forever, and then wanting to force the group to last forever as well so that I can continue experiencing these positive feelings, rather than assessing whether the existence of this group is still relevant and simply moving on if I see it is not.