After listening to the Interview 'A Mother's Love of Guilt' - I realised that I have always romanticised what it would be like to have a child. You always picture those moments of holding a baby sleeping or playing with a child in the park and things like that - you know, the nice stuff. I also recently saw the movie 'What to Expect when You're Expecting' where this one lady was really eager to get pregnant and she was expecting to experience this state of 'bliss' in terms of having this profound connection with the baby and this whole lovey-dovey experience in relation to carrying a child. But then once she gets pregnant, the bliss is nowhere to be found and all there is is physical pain, tiredness, uncomfortableness, emotional turmoil, weird cravings, mood swings, uncontrollable peeing, and so the list goes on.
So - what our expectations are as what we project of pregnancy and motherhood have no connection in any way whatsoever to the reality of living and walking these points in the physical.
It's fascinating - because I've spent time with cihldren for long periods, like on camps, where I'd be responsible for entertaining a group of teenagers for ten days. Or, during the summer working at a daycare, where me and 4 others would be in charge of 30 to 40 toddlers each day. And sure - there was moments where I'd have so much fun with them and absolutely enjoyed their expressions and way of looking at things - but at the end of the day, I was just so fricking glad that I could send them back to their parents, because I was utterly and totally exhausted. So - I've had this practical experience of what it's like to spend a whole day or several days with a child, continuously having to place the child as the number one priority and where I basically have no time for myself, except after the children's bedtime - and yet, my ideas and projections of me having a child of my own don't consider these experiences in any way whatsoever.
I mean, I've even raised baby-chicks in my house - which is this tinly little being that you have to look after all the time. And if you for a moment don't give it the required attention by not feeding it in time or not letting it fall asleep under your shirt, it tweets so loud and continuously that your brain tries to flee from your head. And once they get older and start to want to wander around by themselves, I waddled around after them to clean up their poop from the floor. And when they still got older, I made them diapers, because their shits were now getting so big and frequent that I couldn't keep up. And so, then I was changing diapers every day - which was so not a pleasant experience - I mean, chicken-poo really stinks and I can imagine that baby-poop stinks a thousand times more. AND STILL - when I try to picture what it would be like to have a child, I focus only on that which I think I would enjoy - completely forgetting about the poo-factor and the fact that a baby-human can't walk by itself for a really long time, where you have to carry it around all the time. I mean, what's the deal with that anyways - even a chick can walk after day one!
Anyways... the point is that I'm deliberately ignoring the fact that having a child means to be responsible for the life and well-being of a completely helpless creature. Without me doing my part of taking care of the child 24/7 - the child dies - simple. If ever I thought choice existed - that perception would be completely annihilated when faced with a having a baby.
I don't want to spoil it for you by giving the details - you should really listen to it yourself - but the interview 'A Mother's Love of Guilt' explains very clearly how and why it is that our projections of what we think it will be like to have a child/be a mother never ever matches the actual reality of it. It also explains why mothers often have 'bad'/negative thoughts about their children of wondering if they didn't make a mistake in having a child, or wishing they'd never had kids or thinking they wasted their life in having a child. Obviously, this is a topic no-one speaks about, because the mother doesn't want to be judged as being a bad person or a bad mother. But, I mean - every mother has these thoughts - and it's not that it's a bad thing - but the thing is that mothers don't understand why these thoughts come up - and in listening to this interview, you'll get a clear explanation, which will allow you to understand these experiences and be able to direct them more effectively. So, if you're a mother and you can relate to these experiences - then listening to this interview is a MUST. If you're a mother and you're reading this and you're kind of feeling offended and thinking "no ways - I would never think that - these are lies" - then, by all means, leave this page and move on. Only those mothers who are honest with themselves about their experiences will be able to change them in any case.
To be continued.
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This blog-post is a continuation to Day 55: Letting Go of an Old Flame.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear I did something wrong in contacting J.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I am kidding myself within making the decision to contact J like there is no way that this could be the point that was missing from my application.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to worry about right and wrong in relation to the decision I made and action of contaction of contacting J to create a clear ending to the relationship - instead of realising that this is what I saw in the moment and if there are any points that I missed, then I will face the points as I am faced with the consequences - and within facing the consequences, I will take responsibility and learn from the mistake.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to test something unconditionally, but want to be sure/certain of the outcome beforehand.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to trust myself when assessing that there are no points I see I can address in writing and self-forgiveness at this stage and thus, that an action as communicating with J might be what is missing from my application as the one thing I have resisted doing from the start.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare this point of communication with J to the other moments in my process where I considered communicating with him, where the other times I realised the starting point was self-dishonest, and therefore assumed that this time it must be self-dishonest as well - immediately prefering to believe that I fucked up instead of giving myself the benefit of the doubt and simply see what happens/what points come up and work through them as they are revealed.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I am trying to 'fix' myself through someone else.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I am being self-dishonest and thus, fear my own self-dishonesty.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear my self-dishonest, and thus, fear myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear myself.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to get to know myself in every possible detail and ensuring that what I get to know of myself is always aligned to oneness and equality as what is best for all - so that I can enjoy myself, trust myself and stand as myself absolutely - without having to constantly second-guess myself because of fearing that I have some secretly hidden agenda.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have blinded myself from my own self-dishonesties because of not wanting to face myself - resulting now in the constant experience of not being able to trust myself, because I am not aware of myself as the entirety of who I am and constantly fear that there is a self-interested motivation lurking behind my actions in the dark corners of myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from my own self-dishonesties.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have created and designed myself in such a way that I don't feel comfortable in my own skin - because I simply don't know who I am.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear regretting my decision to contact/communicate with J.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to assume that I made a mistake in contacting/communicating with J and project myself into the future experiencing the regret I would feel if I were to realise I had made a mistake - but because of the future projection, already bring the regret here, in this moment - and thus, 'confirming' within myself the idea that I did indeed make a mistake - because 'I am already regretting my decision'.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think 'what if i did something wrong?'.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear having to face possible consequential out-flows of my actions.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear taking responsibility for possible consequential out-flows and their origin-points.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that within communicating with J I was taking responsibiilty for a consequential outflow and its origin-point!
When and as I see myself doubting my actions, I stop, I breathe. I realise that I cannot know the outcome of my actions beforehand and that if my starting point was indeed not clear, then I will see it within the manifested consequences. And thus, I commit myself to unconditionally test things without the desire of having absolute certainty of the outcome before I have done it and I commit myself to accept that I will make mistakes and that when I see/realise that I have made a mistake, I can and will learn from them.
When and as I see myself thinking that I may have done something wrong, I stop, I breathe. I realise that I am accessing the morality and judgment character where I attempt to place my action in a box of either 'right' or 'wrong' - and thus, I commit myself to let go of the want/desire to judge my actions and simply see it for what it is - without trying/attempting to predict the future in terms of consequences I may be facing as a way of trying/attempting to prepare myself for facing a future consequence.
When and as I see myself regretting a decision I have made/action I have taken because I have doubts about whether or not the decision/action was self-honest - I stop, I breathe - I realise I am accessing the control character and am trying to make sure that I will have no unpleasant aftertaste of this decision - and that, I have really just projected myself into the future in playing out the worst case scenario and brought the expeirence of regret that I would experience in such a scenario here, and accepted it as being real. Therefore, I commit myself to let go of the experience of regret and don't allow myself to accept it as real/validate the experience of regret within myself - but instead stay in the moment and walk one breath at a time - without anticipating any future moment, but remaining in the present moment and 'concerning' myself only with what is here right now.
When and as I see myself fearing the future as facing consequences of self-dishonesties - I stop, I breathe. I realise that the manifestation of consequences is a necessary point within process as we do not know the entirety of ourselves and thus - within facing consequences we reveal a part of ourselves that was hidden before, allowing us to find all pieces of ourselves that we have hidden and separated ourselves from and aligning them to oneness and equality as what is best for all. And thus, I commit myself to let go of the fear of the future and the fear of facing consequences and accept that I am walking a process of learning, where I can only act within the information that is available to me in the present moment - and thus, I commit myself to stop expecting perfection of myself when I know that that is a premature demand at this stage in my process, as I am aware that there are still parts/aspects of myself that I have not yet explored/seen/aligned.
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