This blog-post is a continuation to:
Day 141: Pride - The Root of All Sin?
Day 142: Pride and Perfection
Day 143: Pride – Prize versus Hide
Day 144: It doesn't matter what you say, I already decided I won't listen to you
Maleficent is the name of the evil fairy in Sleeping Beauty and also the name of the new Disney movie where this classic fairy tale is told from Maleficent’s point of view. Without going into a debate about whether it’s a good movie or not or whether it is cool or not that the story was told from the villain’s point of view – I found the movie depicting the point of Pride quite nicely so will use it as a reference from that perspective.
In the story, Maleficent starts out as an ‘innocent’ fairy. She’s revered by the other creatures in her domain for her large wings, her expression, her devotion. At some point, she is ‘betrayed’ by a friend, a human, that she had trusted with access to ‘fairyland’ to call it that – I don’t recall the exact terms. In any case, her human friend cuts off her wings to bring them to his dying king so that he may ascend to the throne after the king’s death. When she realized the ‘betrayal’, she decided to take revenge and destroy what is most precious to him – his daughter.
In that moment, it seemed like the right thing to do – she felt justified in her decision of avenging her loss and betrayal. As the child grows up on the country-side under the stewardship of the ‘three good fairies’ – Maleficent keeps an eye on her and on occasion steps in to make sure the child is not harmed. As the child grows older, her and Maleficent start to develop a relationship – the child thinking/believing that Maleficent is her fairy godmother. It becomes clear how Maleficent starts to see the child in a different light – no longer just ‘the most precious possession of my enemy and therefore my target for destruction’ – but a child in her own right, with her own expression, her own life. More and more you can see the doubt in Maleficent in terms of the decision she had made and the curse she had placed on the girl, Sleeping Beauty. But she wipes away the doubt and the regret, because ‘she made that decision and in that moment, she felt so right and righteous about it, she cannot, she won’t, reconsider it. Then of course, she will only admit her mistake when it is too late and the curse takes effect.
Another way in which the prideful character is so nicely depicted in Maleficent is her total disregard for everything and everyone around her. Whereas she used to care and nurture, she starts to poison and harm – in the movie, she literally casts a ‘dark cloud’ over her land and ‘sucks the joy’ out of everything around her. The only thing on her mind is her revenge, her path, her point of view – nothing else matters – everything can be sacrificed for her self-interest. And anyone who tries to point it out to her is shut down.
Oh, how far we are willing to go to protect our self-interest. Would it not be easier to admit the mistake? To take a step back and see the consequences one is busy creating, for oneself and for everyone else involved? To see that: okay, I am experiencing some very strong emotions here and I reaaaaaallly want to stick with my point of view – but that is all it is: my point of view – am I really choosing the optimum path here? Is this really a solution? Whom does this benefit, whom does this harm?
In the movie, of course, all magically ends well, but we all know how, in real life, when our mistakes catch up with us, we don’t just get a ‘happily ever after’ handed to us – the consequences are already created and now have to be faced and walked through. Is our pride really worth it? Superimposing an experience over reality, superimposing ourselves over others – to what end? To eventually have to realize the same thing: 'crap, I made a mistake'.
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So, my relationship with pride was one of polarity. On the one hand there was this desire of being acknowledged, validated, appreciated, encouraged and admired. And within the belief that the only thing ‘adults’ liked and appreciated me for were my ‘performance levels’ – I started defining myself/my value entirely in terms of people being proud of me and me being proud of myself. So, that energy of pride became a ‘necessity’ – if there was no pride, either from others or from myself, then how did I matter?
On the other hand – any miss-step, any mistake, or the possibility of a mistake became huge fears, and these were parts of myself I would try to hide at all cost.
So, on the one side I was trying to be visible/seen/noticed, but on the other I was hiding and isolating myself.
So – within this Pride Character I found myself participating in two ‘opposing’ forces – an outward one and an inward one. And, interestingly, in looking at the word ‘Pride’ – it reflects this duality. Within the sound of the word ‘Pride’ one can see the words ‘prize’ and ‘hide’. ‘Prize’ in terms of winning, being the best, getting to be on the stage an in the spotlights. ‘Hide’ then of course, the opposite of wanting to hide in the shadows and not allow people to see one’s mistakes/failures or even the fact that one is capable of making mistakes or fail.
This dynamic started playing out within myself as well – meaning – I would start giving myself pats on the back when I thought I did something well and I would hide my mistakes from myself – trying to convince myself that I was innocent in the matter or any other forms of self-manipulation consisting of excuses and justifications so I wouldn’t need to admit and face up to my mistakes.
I’ll continue in my next post.
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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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