I ended off in my previous post with saying how I started internalizing ‘pats on the back’ – in that, if I felt I had done something well, I would ‘congratulate myself’ and ‘feel proud about myself’ in relation to what I’d done. As well as the other side of trying to hide the mistakes I made, not only from others, but from myself as well.
Now, where I find the Prideful Character to be most apparent is in moments where someone makes a suggestion to me or points out that something I did could have been done differently. How I experience my reactions in such moments it that there is a sudden jolt of anxiety in my solar plexus area, as though the anxiety is coming from all over my body and centers in the solar plexus. And, you know, how anxiety is experienced like a ‘current’ – like a wild river suddenly rushing in – well, with the anxiety centering in my solar plexus, I first experience it as that fast moving energy, but only for a split second – and then it’s like I harden it into a rock. Like – if you’d have molten lava, and pour icy water of it and then it turns to hard rock. So, in those moments, there is first anxiety, which I then immediately transmute into that hardness/toughness, which you can call stubbornness, arrogance, righteousness. And then, from within that experience, I reply with justifications.
Now, this reaction pattern moves very fast and very automated. I had previously looked at the point, but there was a dimension I was missing. In opening up the Prideful character, I saw a new dimension. I had already seen the point of taking it personally, the fear of making mistakes, the self-judgment and the polarization from inferiority to superiority – but there is a specific dynamic that I had overlooked. And that dynamic is that – the action for which a person is giving me suggestions/comments/criticism – I had already congratulated myself on that, I had already classified it as a good thing or the right thing to do, and from there, given myself a pat on the back for doing that – and then, of course, I felt proud about myself. So, afterwards, in someone suggesting I could/should have done it differently – I’d feel I have to ‘give back’ that ‘pat on the back’ that I gave myself – and… well… I didn’t want to – lol. In slowing down the experience, there’s a thought of ‘no, no, no! I already made myself feel proud over that decision/action, I already validated myself through that – no, I don’t want to reconsider that at all!’
And of course, herein I am completely limiting myself – because all I want to do is stick to my opinion, the perception I had of myself in the past in terms of what I did and what I considered within making that decision/performing that action. I am unwilling to re-evaluate myself – let alone take responsibility for my mistakes.
If I allow myself to stick to that stance within myself, of righteousness, stubbornness, arrogance – then we get to that ‘other meaning’ of the word ‘pride’ – where a person takes on a stance of superiority to justify what self is doing, in spite of what is common sense or best for all. And so we’ve come full circle in the base design of ‘Pride’ and how it starts off seemingly innocent - ‘just a pat on the back’, but dependent on one’s relationship with these gestures – one can develop pride in the sense of arrogance, righteousness, spitefulness, self-centeredness and total disregard for others – which, fascinatingly, are characteristics described to whom? To female villains! Have a look at the evil queen in Snow White, the evil witch in Sleeping Beauty, the evil step mother in Cinderella – each of them are the Characterization of PRIDE – look at the stance, look at the facial expressions, look at the obsessions – they are all expressions of pride.
I’ll continue in my next post by using the movie ‘Maleficent’ as a reference of the play-out of the pattern of pride, as it is quite clearly depicted there.
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I've had several people asking how to make a self-honest decision - like, how can they be sure that the decision they make is self-honest. See - the tendency exists to try to make decisions in one's mind, where reasons for one or the other way are floating around in one's mind and one cannot really see clearly. The mind will continuously jump from one side to the other, from one reason to the other, creating confusion, doubt and fear.
The method I use, especially with decisions that involve a lot of fear - where the mind perceives it has a lot to lose if one goes for 'Door 1' or 'Door 2' - to make the decision-making process a practical one. Practical - meaning: to not try/attempt to make a decision in one's mind - because herein one will never see where one is self-honest and where one is not. Therefore - here is a suggested method:
To take a piece of paper and make two columns. Let's say the decision pertains to moving in with someone or staying to live by oneself. A decision has to be made between:
Option 1: Moving in with X
Option 2: Living by myself
Once you have established what options are involved in your decision - you write at the top of the first column 'Moving in with X' - or whatever your first option is - and 'Living by myself' - or whatever your second option is - at the top of the second column. Then strike a horizontal line underneath those words, accross both columns.
Then - under the horizontal line, in column one - you list all the reasons that come to mind of why you would go for Option 1 - or in our example: why you would Move in with X. This can be for instance:
- I'll have more fun living with another person
- I need someone to help me financially
- I deserve to have the experience of having a roommate
- Then I don't have to miss X when I'm home
- etc.
Once you've listed all the reasons that come to mind in relation to Moving in with X (or your Option 1), do the same for Option 2.
IMPORTANT: Within Identifying the reasons that come to mind in relation to Option 1 or Option 2 - be Absolutely Self-Honest. Meaning: Don't leave anything out - even if it only pops up for a tiny second and then you go 'nah, that's not really a reason' - go back - and add the reason in. The fact that it came up means that on some level it does influence and impact your decision-making process.
Once you have listed all your reasons for either Moving in with X or staying ot live by yourself, take one reason at a time and unconditionally apply Self-Forgiveness on any point of self-dishonesty that you can identify within that particular reason for either chosing for Option 1 or Option 2. Once you have cleared the first reason of all Self-Dishonesty (after which you may or may not have debunked the reason altogether), you repeat the same process of self-forgiveness with every other reason on your piece of paper.
After your self-forgiveness, you'll find that most of the reasons you wrote down on your piece of paper were not actually self-honest reasons but were merely justifications used to try and convince yourself that either Option 1 or Option 2 is the right thing to do. So - after your self-forgiveness, you'll be able to identify which reasons are valid considerations and which are not. If you're lucky, you'll only have one valid reason - which makes your decision-making easy, because then you simply look at which column the reason is in and you see which option would be self-honest. If you have several options to consider, you can now do so without the other reasons floating around in the background, which 'clog' your view and make it difficult to see the trees through the forest.
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With this blog I am starting a 7 Year Journey to Life. One blog a day for 7 years, wherein I write myself out and let go of mind-patterns through using Self-Forgiveness, as well as creating the solution through Self-Corrective Statements, wherein I prepare myself to walk the change.
The first thought that popped into my head in relation to starting the 7 Year Journey was: I’ll never keep it up, I shouldn’t be doing this, because I won’t pull it through in any case. With this one thought – I indicated that I wanted to give up before I had even started! This is a recurring pattern in my life, where I only want to take on projects or endeavours where I am pretty much nearly 100% certain that I will be successful at it. And if I doubt myself in being able to pull something off, I’ll rather not start it in order to avoid feeling like a failure.
So, here goes:
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think that I’ll never keep up a 7 year commitment to blog each day.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to – before having even started – project what the outcome of this endeavour would be, and in imagining myself being inconsistent and eventually giving up – I believe that this is what will happen and therefore, instead of walking the process in the physical, I immediately give up then and there, to not give myself a chance to ‘screw up’.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that when I undertake a new project or endeavour, that I should be perfect at it from the start until the end – not allowing myself to process of learning from my mistakes and perfecting myself as I walk.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself as someone who can undertake and complete a project with great ease and to not defy that definition of myself, I will simply avoid any projects where I feel like I may possible fail.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself in terms of past memories where as a chid I would do things with great ease and everyone around me would be stunned at how easily I would complete a project or task.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself according to how other people see me and believe that if others start seeing me differently, that then I will lose myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear others starting to see me differently if I were to stumble and struggle to complete a project or endeavour.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I have to live up to the standard others hold me to in order not to lose myself, my self-worth and my self-esteem.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself, my self-worth and my self-esteem in how others judge me and to what extent they see me as worthy.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear to fail.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see failing as a definitive point where – if I fail, it is too late, I am a failure and there is nothing I can do to redeem myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear to fail in the eyes of others.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that stumbling and struggling is a part of learning a particular skill – where, as i stumble and struggle, I see where and how I can become more effective and thus, as I walk, I assist and support myself to expand, grow and excel.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to expand, grow and excel through only ever doing that which I know I’m good at.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to unconditionally undertake a new project or endeavour, but only do it in terms of what people will think of me if I pull it off and whether they will hold me in high esteem or not.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to exist in an illusionary realm where ‘who I am’ is someone who doesn’t make mistakes – instead of embracing the reality of the situation – that I am nowhere near perfect and I stumble, struggle and make mistakes in the process of learning and developing new skills.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that stumbling, struggling and making mistakes are bad things.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge stumbling, struggling and making mistakes as bad things.
I forgive myself for ac
cepting and allowing myself to sabotage myself through holding unrealistic expectations of myself and if ever I may possible not answer to these expectations, sell myself short in giving up before I’ve started to not have to face any regret or shame.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear to face regret or shame.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that regret is an indicator that I am wallowing in self-pity over something I have done in the past, instead of forgiving myself, learning from the mistake and practically designing a solution to not make the same mistake again.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that shame is an indicator that I have sabotaged myself in a certain point and that I therefore require to investigate what I did it, how I did it and why I did it to be able to release the point in question and script a solution for myself for if I were to find myself in the same or a similar situation again.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to trust myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to always want to make sure that I will be right before I do something, or that what I’ll be doing will be successfully executed and I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that knowing that I will be successful is what self-trust is.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to expand self-trust to being sure that I will be here for myself no matter what and that I will learn from my mistakes and my past, assisting and supporting myself to expand, grow and excel to the point where I am certain that I am absolutely specific and effective in a particular point.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make up all kinds of excuses to justify why I it is okay for me to give up before I’ve even started a project so that I can feel like I did the right thing, while all the while I can self-honestly see that I am deceiving myself – but just to ‘shut myself up’, I’ll give myself all kinds of reasons to ‘prove’ and convince myself that I am doing the right thing.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to manipulate myself to a point of giving up by bringing up all kinds of memories from the past where I feel like I failed and where I felt hopeless and helpless as a way of convincing myself that if I take on the particular project before me – I will feel the same way and there will be nothing I can do to change myself, my experience, or my situation.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that resistance is a program that kicks in whenever I am standing in front of a transcendence point.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to – in giving in to the resistance – state that resistance is more than me, that my mind is more than me and that I will forever more be a slave to my mind and existence as it is – accepting that I will never and can never change or take responsibility for myself.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that resistance is merely a program that I can push through to be able to face myself, my reality, my relationships and create a version of myself, my reality and my relationships that is actually best for all.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realise that in giving in to resistance and making up excuses and justifications for why I shouldn’t push through, I am actually arguing for my own self-limitation.
I realise that resistance is an indicator that shows me that I am standing in front of a transcendence point, that it is merely a program that I can push and move myself through to allow myself to expand and improve myself to a point of absolute self-equality and oneness.
I realise that there is no valid excuse or justification for selling myself short and accepting self-limitation.
I realise that mistakes, stumbles and struggles don’t mean the end of an endeavour and a definitive failure – instead, they are points along the road in the journey to life.
When and as I see myself resisting to commit to a certain project or endeavour, I stop, I breathe – I realise I am standing in front of a transcendence point and that the experience is not real but merely an automated program of the mind – therefore, I push through the resistance and unconditionally commit myself to the project or the endeavour within the starting point of giving it all I’ve got.
When and as I see myself making up excuses and justifications for why I should or shouldn’t do something – I stop, I breathe – I look at what it is that I am resisting and afraid of, I apply the forgiveness, let go of the fear and embrace the new challenge before me.
When and as I see myself projecting myself into the future, imagining that I will fail at a project or endeavour that I haven’t even started yet – I stop, I breathe – I remind myself that I am not a fortune-teller and that it is unacceptable to sell myself short. Instead – I bring myself back here and practically move myself to undertake and complete the project or endeavour to the best of my ability.
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