Marlen's Blogs

Marlen
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536. Transparency (No Pretense!)

§ Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction


Here I look straight into the word ‘pretentious’ as it being something that I have a general negative association to – and it being the opposite of the word I’m looking at integrating here which is transparency, without pretense specifically - and it’s interesting to read the whole list of synonyms and antonyms of this word here http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/pretentious because it gives a general feel to what my interest or ‘attraction’ and also ‘repulsion’ towards someone’s expression is all about yet, it all relates to my own judgments towards my own expression.

The first thing that pops into my mind is myself expressing me in what I considered was an ‘over the top’ type of expression, mostly related to memories of how I have been –according to my judgment - conceited or pretentious, which is something I definitely want to fine tune into a point of humbleness, simplicity in expression, transparency – in a way of expressing: here I am, this is my expression, no need to pretend to be ‘more’ or anything less than what I am, which is coming through more in who I am and how I interact with others, but it wasn’t definitely an immediate process to get to be that.

Looking back in my expression a decade ago, I definitely had placed a lot of personalities before me in order to ‘cope’ with reality, sometimes being too shy and reserved – read fearful and judging how others would experience my ‘real’ expression – and some other times appearing too extravagant, conceited, snobbish and getting myself into a ‘high’ of sorts, stemming from the actual inferiority I would experience towards others which led me to create a somewhat defensive self with a tinge of grandeur in order to make myself noticed in fear of being unnoticed – and the rest of the polarities that stem from simply not being accepting oneself.

I can say that I could have come off as pretentious or petulant lol, which I must say was quite a hard-wired personality in me, mostly veering towards the ‘giving a punch with words’ and my expression rather than simply sharing myself in calm and stability, without seeking attention or a form of specialness.

The point is to notice how it has been a process for me to get to a relative point of transparency, openness, comfort when sharing myself with others - walking from the shy, fearful character that didn’t even want to record videos and upload them on the internet (yes, I had made a decision upon first encountering YouTube back in 2006 that I would never be on it, lol) to then deciding to start sharing myself in relation to this process with Desteni and finding ‘my expression’ in those videos, which at times I can see myself currently cringing at how I expressed myself back then and pondering if others considered it too brusque, ‘in your face’ and maybe a bit too snobbish or pretentious at times – which of course were also expressions I have generally disliked in others, which proves again that ‘what one dislikes, exists within oneself as well’ – however, if I had judged myself as all of this and had refrained myself from recording those videos, I would have prevented me from learning to be comfortable in front of a camera and speaking into a recording that will stay there as an archive for posterity, which sure, may sound intimidating at times, but I’ve also learned to not go and ‘delete’ the stuff, but leave it there as a process walked at a certain point in my life – it’s part of the process, as we say.

So, this point of transparency linked to a humbleness and an unconceited expression is something I want to practice more in my expression within specifically getting back to recording videos, because I had also prevented myself from doing so because of how I had judged the ‘YouTube persona’ that I have there as some kind of embarrassment that I could just bury for a while and not get back to my personal vlogs – however this is now out of the bag and I will look at recording myself again, because it is quite supportive to do so, it assisted a lot to see myself, to even get to know myself by seeing how I speak, how I move my face and the rest of tonalities that may come through it, it’s quite a great process of self-exploration as well.

I enjoy writing and apply transparency in the sense of being self-honest, being able to see the ‘nitty gritty’ of myself and have no problem with me sharing it, I’ve been in hangouts and it’s definitely enjoyable also to share oneself because of the interaction with others - but now I have to go back to the self-recording and see what comes up. And one of the words I want to integrate in my expression is that of being transparent, not having any hidden agenda of wanting to be perceived in a certain way, but simply sharing myself, without pretense, without fears, without having to ‘appear’ a certain way that I’ve defined as ‘acceptable for the world to see’ – lol. That’s the pretense right there to stop and correct within me.

This is an interesting thing to look at because it is mostly in the notion of ‘recording’ myself that this experience of having to put on a show comes up, because I have seen myself how I can enjoy and be expressive when sharing with other people real time and no fears like that emerge – but it is in the consideration of doing vlogs – as in material that will remain for posterity and multiple replays - that this emerges, which is in fact something I did to myself, considering how I have been the one that has re-played myself and gotten to judge my expression, therefore

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have refrained from recording myself in vlogs again due to how I have judged my expression before and perceiving that I am mildly embarrassed by my previous expression, yet it is what it is, a part and phase of my process where I was discovering ‘who I want to be’ and how I want to express myself, which is also a fine tuning process that I cannot expect to come through ‘perfectly’ at first – also here realizing that I am the one that has to stop seeing myself through the eyes of judgment, of seeking ‘perfection’ in such videos, but instead embrace my expression in the moment, being transparent, having no ‘hidden agendas’ or pretense around it all, but giving myself that opportunity to see me this time through judgment-less eyes, and not doing it only to myself, but also towards others as well.

And the reason is mostly because of how I became a certain person/character on those videos that do not represent what I’m really like currently. I am still quite direct and frank but without that sulkiness or the tinge of cynicism that would come through at times, however I’ll only know until I actually record myself. And this is another thing to debunk here, how I expected myself to kind of ‘replay’ how I presented myself in the past, which is of course not something that is common sensical to do and I’ve been using this excuse as a reason to not do personal vlogs and have given my power away to these justifications and excuses, which doesn’t make sense at all, because if anything then I can show how change is possible and how we don’t have to be the same as yesterday, that change is healthy and it’s actually something that we should all do as well considering it is very much needed to fine tune ourselves to be best for ourselves and so best for all.

I said in my first vlog ever that ‘I felt like an open book’ and it was so in the sense that I was writing out the first pages within this process of self-discovery, self-change and self-honesty creation, and now it’s time to continue doing so not only in writing but get back on doing videos and any other methods I can plan on directing as well in my reality.

So, I’ll be soon recording myself also to share more about my personal process of self-change based on my participation within Desteni – officially for 9 years in my case – and all the bits of changes that I’ve been creating within myself, what I’ve learned, what I’m still working on, etc. And that is then a way to live transparency as well, where I don’t have to put on a show or create an entertaining display of knowledge as myself but instead do a simple practical self-sharing, which I already do in these words, in these blogs – now it’s simply taking it to the vlog level again and get back to being comfortable recording myself.

Bottom line is, if transparency is something I appreciate as an expression in others, why have I separated myself from such transparency and unconceitedness and making it something that I long to experience through a relationship with someone that I perceive as transparent? Why do we create these barriers in our lives of waiting for someone to ‘be that for us’ instead of us taking the lead and learn from them, integrate that expression as ourselves and walk the process that it takes to live a word for real within and for ourselves?

Also, this is not as simple and quick as in saying ‘I want to be transparent here and now’ and that’s it – living this word is also a process and starts with developing self-honesty which is a pillar of this process from consciousness to self-awareness as life. This is just an example in terms of transparency in expression when sharing oneself, going from the notion of having to ‘put on a show’ or ‘appear’ a certain way at the eyes of others, or becoming defensive instead of being vulnerable, open and genuine – aiming at simplicity, instead of trying to do something ‘larger than life’ and ending up elevating oneself too much, losing ground, missing the earthy-expression of saying things as they are, as we are, in a moment, without edits, that’s what’s enjoyable as well from human expression for sure. Therefore I stop expecting others ‘to be that towards me’ or ‘for me’, I have to be the one that lives the word and sets the example.

Transparency to be lived as a direct, frank expression yet self-honest which means, within self-responsibility, within humbleness – not as a ‘show off’ or another kind of pretense of ‘being transparent’ lol, but as a genuine expression without hidden agendas nor back doors, that’s the kind of expression that I am here placing on my table of words to practice in living and developing for myself within communication specifically, considering I have already developed a point of self-transparency as self-intimacy= seeing within myself, getting to know me as I am, pushing through fears of seeing my truth and reality, being willing to see and open up whatever is needed to continue ‘processing’ myself, not hiding from myself – that’s settled to a certain extent over time and with the tools of self-writings, self-forgiveness and the feedback gotten through the network of support as the Desteni I Process, which has been a lighthouse in a vast sea of darkness lol, seriously, considering how one can lose one’s direction at times, the support one gets to get back to self-honesty and self-responsibility to one’s self-creation is always a gift in life to have.

So! Transparency, openness, vulnerability and self-enjoyment in my expression, here I come.

Thanks for reading
Marlen
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Joined: 12 Jun 2011, 20:16
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537. Comfortable in My Own skin


§ Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction


Being comfortable in my own skin’ is something I’ve been paying close attention to and looking at with more detail these days, more so in the presence of more people, whether it’s people I know or simply people while walking on the streets.

The physical discomfort I have had is related to being what some might define as being ‘self-conscious’ in relation to how I can be perceived by others, specially to ‘new’ people and that’s been a constant which even if I doesn’t end up determining how I can eventually get to speak towards them, at the very initial moments of interaction there’s been this ‘discomfort’ experienced in my body, which I have also learned to not ‘close up to’ or go completely tense and stiff, but learn to kind of ‘acclimate’ to the situation, to the people. And of course this is definitely not a discomfort that has to do with myself in my own body per se, but has all to do with perceptions and judgments about myself, my expression or the ideas I can instantly create about how I can be perceived by others. However even if I end up reminding myself that I’m the only one that is making up these judgments and get to integrate myself and manage to correct myself ‘as I go’ in a conversation or interaction with others, an initial ‘stiffness’ in my body does emerge, slight but still there and here I’d like to be able to be comfortable within me no matter where or with whom.

Now this is me sharing more of the ‘work in progress’ and over time that I’ve been applying based on understanding the nature of my judgments, projections, beliefs, expectations in my mind that create such physical discomfort, but I can also remind myself that it hasn’t always been like that.

If anything a decade ago I also found my sense of security based on the people I surrounded myself with and alone I would be very much of an introvert with new people or people that I would instantly judge and perceive weren’t ‘my type’ to interact with lol – I have worked a lot with prejudices, elitism, superiority/inferiority, personality pickiness during the initial interactions with others, I would only open up and be comfortable with people I wanted to talk to based on preference or personality. Eventually I could get to be ok around people, say if I’d see them every day like in school, but in any other social context, first thing would be like a tightness/freezing over wherein I’d just be observing and keeping quiet. And currently I’ve moved more into a point of comfort in interacting after I pass the initial ‘interaction stiffness,’ and this comes as a deliberate decision to make myself part of a moment.

I saw it yesterday when I was suddenly in a room with quite a few people I know in a very sheer manner, and I precisely practiced self-awareness at a body level, being aware of my body, the way I stood, ensuring I was relaxed – no pressures – and also getting to interact at moments which came as a complete decision to do so, because it’s not something that entirely ‘flows out of me’ yet, but it takes practice.

So this also gives me a clue as to how this ‘discomfort’ in my own skin has existed before, and that’s because of how I had always seen myself as ‘an outsider’ for most of my life – lol as a child, I used to think that I had truly been placed in the wrong family, that I probably had been dropped off by an alien or something like that – so figure that out, me growing up with that kind of ‘joking perceptions’ that evolved into an actual sense of ‘not belonging’ or ‘being an outsider’ or ‘being outshined by sisters’ expression’ which I’ve also written about before. And it’s interesting that it’s only lately how I have been finally finding ‘my ground’, more as in embracing myself, accepting myself, valuing myself which then also creates this sense of self-acceptance as a comfort in my own skin, and this is work in progress, will continue to fine tune myself – but it’s quite cool to give a bit of a review of ‘how I was’ before and where I would definitely not want to ‘accept me’ or ‘show me’ to the world, because of judgments, sense of inferiority or this same self-created ‘outsider’ experience, which won’t definitely get us anywhere in life but to isolation, exclusion and eventually missing out on life.

What I’ve realized over these past week in fact wherein I noticed the most discomfort in my physical walk, is that it was all related to perceptions, to ‘lacking’ a company in the moment, to being perceived as a ‘loner’ or simply becoming more ‘judgmental’ towards my own appearance even, which is something I don’t usually struggle with, but as I explained in a previous blog about comfort in solitude, this comfort was suddenly shaken once that I saw myself being walking alone in the streets, which I’ve tested out just today and saw that with the attention I’ve created towards this point of physical comfort and stopping any thoughts related to what causes the sense of ‘missing’, I was quite ok and comfortable in myself, which means, this works.

I also realize to what extent we are defined by memories, because this same ‘discomfort’ was really something I would experience more many, many years ago, it could have remained there in a more subtle manner, but it became exposed again once that my reality changed and suddenly I didn’t entirely establish this comfort within myself, alone, but went back to ‘experiencing the lack’ and so forth, which is also a matter of getting used to it and practicing physical awareness while walking outside.

Now I have to say that writing all of this out in detail in these blogs and so creating an inevitable awareness of myself at a physical level during my days has been very assisting. Today for example I did what I said I would do yesterday, which is to vlog again on YouTube this time alone – no hangouts or other world matters, but sharing me – and that was quite cool to do, much simpler to do than I had thought, and all I had to leave aside was the pretense, the perception that I had to behave in a certain way or portray myself in a certain manner. When dropping all of these beliefs, what came through is just me, as I could probably see myself in a mirror every time I exchange words with any other person, and that’s very cool, it usually would not be coming through like that in personal vlogs, maybe hangouts yes, but this was a cool step for me also to not have certain points of resistance hanging there in ‘waiting’ mode, but I simply walked my decision to start vlogging again and will continue sharing some pointers there for the YouTube community.

In relation to this ‘comfort in one’s own skin’ and particularly how I perceived this expression coming through someone that I perceived myself being attracted to – how I saw it was entirely related to being zero pretentious yet having a dose of ‘character’ in a way wherein one can be expressive yet without any hidden agenda, without trying to ‘impress’ or portray oneself in a ‘superior’ manner in any way, and this is precisely what I want to integrate fully within myself, especially when I am not interacting with people.

That’s the actual key here, because whenever I start making contact with people, it’s like a more or less instant-down-to-earth expression – yes, most of the times, maybe not entirely always, still got to fine tune that – but, when being alone in a public space and there’s zero interaction – like walking through busy streets, that discomfort can creep up and can be probably perceived as some kind of snobbishness in how I ‘carry’ myself lol which is actually coming from an experience of uncertainty in fact wherein in our minds we seek to create a point of comfort through some kind of superiority or ‘self-elevation’ so to speak. And I can relate a lot to this, being uber-serious but more in portraying a ‘do not mess with me’ type of expression, which is also a sense of defensiveness that eventually creates tension in my body and that means, I’m not really ‘here’ expressing comfortably in my body, especially when going out alone and not really interacting with others. Well, there’s also an aspect of being a female walking alone in the streets, but even that, should not really define me, I should not carry ‘fear’ within me while walking either, because that’s still me giving space to fear to exist within me throughout the whole time, and that’s not expression. All I can do is be cautious, without paranoia and take care of myself.

Who I am in fact should not change whether I am alone or with others in terms of my inner-expression so, this is the point for me to continue looking at in real time, but so far as of today, cool progress, less haste as well, more stability in my step so to speak and not rushing as if hell was about to break loose either, which I did a couple of weeks ago, eventually hurting the sole of foot with blisters, so that was a ‘stop!’ indication from my body, that I was still walking ‘in the past’ and perceiving a ‘lack’ as I walked – living in the past – instead of embracing the moment, without memories, which is something also learned from Gian and his experience with his feet which can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHXUgX-INQw&t=265s.

Ok, so I’ll share as I go other aspects that I go noticing of physical comfort and ‘being comfortable in my own skin,’ and simply to remind how all of this is of course an outflow of walking the Desteni Process and learning to support myself to change, to become the individual that I see I can be and express and so far it’s definitely the solution I see to genuinely becoming the kind of individuals that can create a new world, the change starts within ourselves.

Thanks for reading
Marlen
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Post by Marlen »

538. Living Authenticity

§ Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction


What does it really mean to be authentic in this world? And how have we shaped ourselves according to a desire to be authentic yet without having self as the starting point? Upon focusing and reflecting on this word today, I realized how much of the association to ‘authenticity’ in relation to a set of aspects or traits that are very much – or most of the times - personality-based, meaning, how I initially spotted it within the attributes I saw in another that I created a sense of ‘attraction’ for was related to a persona, the portrayal of themselves with particular set of preferences, perspectives and expressions that were not really of ‘substance’ as I call them when it comes to the person being expressing who they really are as life or being supportive in their expression – it was mostly a perception of authenticity being expressed through being rebellious, polemic, controversial, against-the-grain in fact, very much ‘on your face’ and standing up for something that the thinks is right for him. And sure that’s a way to ‘be authentic’ in consciousness-speak, but here I am definitely not looking at doing that for myself, dare I say ‘again’ and I’ll explain why.

How I had ‘strived’ to live authenticity was mostly through creating a persona/living a set of personalities where I could stand in an eccentric way (out of the norm, out of the circle) and create myself as a statement of ‘I don’t buy into any of that, I am the opposite of what everyone wants to be’ type of ideal, and surely this can be something very common in our teenage years or young adulthood that eventually becomes a self-definition for the rest of our lives if we don’t dare to question and re-create ourselves, very much like this person I took as an example above, which is ok for him and his process but not for myself, my life and process context.

So, what would have happened if I had not started this process from consciousness to self-awareness as life is that I would have most likely continued to be a person that stands very much in the definition of ‘misfit’ or ‘outcast’ or ‘eccentric persona’ that tries to be unique, special, ‘authentic’ as a portrayal of personalities, a palette of expressions used ‘towards others’ to create a certain impact/make a statement about ‘who I am’ as all the strengths and potencies that I ‘wanted’ to have and be at the eyes of others, but certainly most likely hiding quite a lot of insecurities, fears and inferiority behind all of that façade.

Throughout the years I’ve shared the detail of walking the writings, the self-forgiveness process on seeing, understanding and so correcting myself from feeding this ‘hard veneer’ I placed upon myself in order to really find out who I am behind the masks essentially. And this is exactly a first step to look at within the word ‘Authentic’ and self-creation.

Initially when I started removing ‘the masks’, what was left was this ‘me’ that was very much still to be re-sculpted, re-programmed so to speak because all I had ever known is how to be a character ‘for others’ and not really focus on asking myself: Who do I want to be? What do I want to create? Who am I as the words that I speak and live? Who am I as my expression? What do I want to create and live not only for myself but also for others in my world? What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses to work on and strengthen? What are some of the ‘unique skills’ I can develop/would like to focus on developing and so living/expressing throughout my life? What would I like to contribute to this world to create what’s best for all?

Therefore, authenticity became linked to ‘authority’ and ‘authorship’, which is something that I completely had overlooked in my plight to become this compendium of personalities and ways to ‘cope’ with the world and portray myself as being something I would define as ‘strong,’ but it was all going to be very much just an imitation of other people I admired and wanted to ‘be like’ in order to be as special or popular as I considered them to be.

Throughout this process with Desteni, we learn to see words beyond our predefined ways, beyond the surface scope and learn to open up a whole new way of looking at them, and this is through adding the ingredients of self-honesty and the ability to change who we are, being able to see who and what we are in the context of taking responsibility for ourselves, our creation, our words, our actions, who we want to be as a contributor to life being birthed again in this world. And that’s definitely something that opens up the real depth there is to authenticity.

Who and what have I become as authenticity through this process of several years of learning to understand the ‘who I had become’ and redesigning myself step by step in every single aspect where I saw my ‘character weaknesses,’ integrating a correction that I realize represents me as my living potential led me to where I am now, which is being able to look back and see how this authority and authorship as the creator of my life is something I’m very much ‘settled in’ with, meaning, it is a platform from which I am already ‘operating’ from, just had not realized it as such if I had not written it out and focused on this word today.

Yet, as with any living word, it is not something that is just ‘done’ for myself, it is - as with every word - a platform from which I can move to express, grow, expand as a person within the context of becoming a contributor to life itself – and no longer just a compendium of expressions ‘for others’ to appreciate, value or see as ‘unique’ which is one of the ways in which a personality can be confused with what I’d like to share as the real uniqueness we all have here.

How about considering authenticity as our unique position and ability to partake in the process of co-creation, where we start seeing each other as equals with equal potential to be developed and sculpted for and by each one of us in the name of what is best for all?

Many times we get lost in the ‘matrix of personalities’ where we are kind of always striving to be unique, to be perfect, to be successful, to be special as a personality ‘for the world out there’ instead of rather first of all considering who do we want to be and live for and as ourselves, what do I want to cultivate, grow and reap as my creation for myself and so for everyone else in this reality? In other words: what can I be and contribute with as my livelihood, my unique expression, my skills and live them in full responsibility and awareness of shaping me and what I do in the name of what’s best for all – where each one of us can in fact contribute unique aspects that makes us ‘who we are’ as individuals, yet equal in the context of that life-essence that we can learn to honor and live as our expression, in our very own day to day living.

This is where the context of stopping comparison also comes in, where in my experience, many times I’ve fallen into the trap of comparing my abilities, skills, expressions, behaviors, choices and outcomes in life to that of others; instead of reminding myself that each one of us as individuals are unique expressions, with a unique context that cannot be ‘repeated to the T’’ by any other individual – no one else has had our exact same life position and experience, in the same location/context, with the same challenges, with our same bodies and exact same patterns learned and copied from our very own parents – etc. So, the sheer notion of comparison with this becomes futile, it’s like trying to compare one tree to another tree – yes both are trees but they will always be different and there’s no point in comparing in the sense of who’s better or worse or more special etc. That’s all consciousness-speak which we have to start stopping within ourselves.

Stopping this consciousness-speak then leads one to tap into the essence of who can we be, what can we make of ourselves as an individual, what words do I want to live not only for myself and my life, but as an equal contributor to the co-creation of this reality?

I recently suggested someone to do this for themselves as well considering how much we focus only on ‘stopping patterns’ and all the rest of destructive, self-sabotaging or self-abusive behaviors and contexts, leading oneself to temporarily lose footing within who we really are and only see all the negative aspects, getting obfuscated by the reality of self one can initially see in this process, all the ‘bad’ and the ‘negative’ which needs to be at the same time worked in an equal process and equilibrium with self-creation and having a starting point of who do we want to be and create ourselves as in this lifetime, this life-opportunity we have here on Earth if we dare and commit to step into it with our full life force and expression.

Therefore for me to be authentic or live authenticity is to be and live my unique set of skills, abilities, what I’ve learned to practice and develop over time which in my very own life experience has led me to be a person that can assist others in their own birthing process based on doing that in my own experience for almost a decade now and realizing that there is so much more that each one can be if we can step out of our own limitations first of all, out of our fears, out of our comparisons or personality ideals and place our focus and attention in our living potential, who we really want to live and be for the rest of our lives, in the context of what’s best for all life, considering self-responsibility within self-creation. This changes everything and it’s of course something that not only benefits us individually, but collectively because again if we are best for oneself = we become best for all in whichever we decide to be and create.

Here I am realizing how I had minimized such potential of this word by linking it to a set of personalities and expressions I defined as ‘interesting’ for example and seeing myself as ‘desiring that’ or ‘lacking that’ which is definitely not the case now that I’m opening this word in a substantial-context in living terms - it changes everything.

And this is the kind of perspective I’d like more of us to really integrate and acknowledge in our lives, to see where and how we diminish, in-fear-iorize or separate ourselves from a word through consciousness-speak like ‘attraction’ or ‘liking’ or ‘being drawn to’ something or someone based on an experience, instead of going directly into naming the experience, giving it a word and seeing first of all who are we already as this word, how are we living it and if we are living it, is it best for all? Is it considering using that ability and potential to support ourselves in our lives and others? Is it lived self-honestly? Is it within the context of life responsibility?

In this we can get to recognize how unique we already are and how much we are squandering in an attempt to fulfill ourselves through personalities or desiring relationships with others and the rest of it, all of it an outflow of separation from our very own living words and potential.

This kind of exercise I just shared here truly sets our record straight into realizing our potential and clearing one’s head from ‘ideals’ and ‘perceptions’ of what we’ve given value and meaning to- which is then again something to work through, self-forgive and correct within ourselves.

This is only a ‘self-assessment’ though because every aspect at the same time has been a process walked, every fear, inferiority, comparison, jealousy, personality development that I had taken on over the years and that I will continue to fine tune whenever it emerges again in me. So this is more like the ‘fruit’ that comes from a process of self-commitment to live and realize this for myself and this is something I see can make us better living parts and co-creators in this world, that can in turn change the nature of the world system and our interrelationships if we live this authenticity out of our personal-interests as consciousness-speak and into living-substance, into living potential.

Thanks for reading
Marlen
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Joined: 12 Jun 2011, 20:16
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Post by Marlen »

539. Taking Life Seriously

§ Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction


A particular trait that I had also defined as ‘superior’ was the expression of seriousness within people linked to a particular intellectual character wherein both points – the characterization or ‘portrayal’ at a physical manner level plus all the ‘right words’ would usually lead me to feel intimidated or perceiving that I was ‘less than’ people that would present themselves as very articulate, stoic in their expression and most of all serious in their expression or communication, perceiving that this seriousness was something that I lacked – apparently – and that I would therefore only get to admire in others for the rest of my life.

Over the years of walking the Desteni Process, I’ve been able to slowly but surely debunk my own perceptions around this seriousness wherein I myself have embodied such seriousness as a way to cause a certain impact upon people in an attempt to say: look, I mean this for real, I care for this – which would at the same time then be more of a ‘show’ for others in my expression than me living seriousness in a supportive manner, and this I explain in a certain perspective in a vlog I made today here.

Here I want to check where I am in relation to this ‘seriousness’ and aligning it to what I want to live as an expression of ‘taking life seriously’ which doesn’t mean I have to keep a straight face all the time or act in a rigid and in a controlled manner, appear stoic and ‘motion-less’ or be overtly intellectual to be perceived by others as ‘me being a serious person.’ It is interesting how the definition of seriousness is mostly linked to this rigid expression which of course myself as a female, it became easy to associate this ‘seriousness’ mostly with males, which I have linked to a form of ‘physicality’ (which I’ll open up in a blog to come, a stability, confidence, grounding experience which I had separated myself from based on comparing my expression to that of males mostly, considering my bubbly and ‘flowy’ expression at times as a form of weakness instead of simply embracing it as a part of my expression, no more or less than any other – so here again exposing the problem of going into comparison leading to an inevitable polarity of ‘more or less than’ which recreates consciousness-speak.

So, here what I separated myself from is again a mind-experience related to ‘seriousness,’ a set of characteristics that are portrayed as a personality, a façade, a way of behaving or presenting oneself towards others, instead of actually living the word seriousness.

What does ‘taking life seriously’ mean to me? Essentially comprehending the role that each one of us have as creators of this reality and acting accordingly, which implies taking responsibility for our lives in our mind, being and body, learning to and applying ourselves to correct every aspect of our lives that we are the creators of and understand then the relevance each one of us has in this process of birthing life from the physical, in other words: taking seriously our role as ‘gods’ of our creation.

Here I want to specify how I’ve observed this within myself and other people that I’ve come to be in close contact with throughout my life wherein I would be intimidated or ‘in awe’ of certain people presenting themselves in this ‘serious’ character, yet when it comes to actually ‘walking the talk’ as in living the seriousness and intellect they might have had into a supportive manner, there was still quite a threshold and I could observe this within myself as well where I became more of a ‘show for others’ than fully grasping the actual capacity I had to live what I was preaching to the T and so genuinely take life seriously.

This assists me to debunk my own perceptions about what I’ve defined in me as a lack of ‘seriousness’ and instead now realize that I can assess for myself according to how I’ve lived, the decisions I’ve made and what I’ve committed myself to in order to define whether I am taking life seriously or not. I can self-honestly say yes based on the self-commitment I have, not to the utmost potential of ‘taking life seriously’ yet though, but I have a direction and set of ways to continue doing my part in whichever way I can to contribute to this living process from consciousness to self awareness as life.

I can therefore say that I have yet to fully embody taking my life seriously, but I understand and have walked in a consistent manner this practical learning process called life in self-awareness of us being the creators of our lives, all of us being responsible for every action and consequence that has shaped our lives and that of others – understanding the scope of this existential process and at the same time understanding our role in it all.

Taking life seriously means participating in this process, being a life-birther so to speak not only in thoughts or eloquent speeches, but in who we are in our day to day actions, decisions, choices, ways of living, behaving, the kind of relationships we form with people, the kind of life we lead towards others and in our very own ‘secret mind’ – all of this is what reveals how serious we are with our own life and so life itself.

And because I cannot really ever measure or judge anyone as being serious or not about life, I can only live and do that for myself in my own life, and that’s what I commit to do, so that whenever I see I am being lax about the effect of my thoughts, words and actions in the constant and continuous process of co-creation in this reality, I have to ground myself back into taking life seriously and reminding myself that nothing that I participate for is ‘unaccounted for’ or ‘forgotten’ or ‘erased’ from the physical memory in this reality.

We have been existing into a seemingly ‘comfortable’ tunnel vision to understand the actual immediate co-creative abilities we have onto our reality with our very thoughts, words and deeds and their consequences of course as the proof of that, no matter how we may justify them or ‘paint’ them, we are all equal co-creators in this - yet, each one of us has the ability to decide what kind of creation process one gives life to, and the level of self-awareness that we have the potential to exist as vs. the level of awareness we ‘choose’ to blind ourselves with from our individual and collective responsibility to the whole.

So, here I commit to remind myself to not be impressed or intimidated by a personality that looks and sounds serious, eloquent, precise, meticulous, common sensical yet intellectual in nature, because this is where I need to always remind myself that as simple as it might sound: talk is cheap, words are ‘easy to say,’ they are ultimately just words, speeches – but Living Words is a whole different story. What we need is people actually living what we preach and this applies not only as an external ‘role’ or ‘profession’ for the world out there, but actually being so in one’s day to day.

Therefore, the point here is for me to be an example of what it means to take life seriously in my every thought, word and deed, wherein I commit to do what I set myself to be and do in the name of what’s best for all, where my life can stand as a testimony of what it means to ‘be the change you want to see in this world’ and do so without having to resort to the usual traits and personalities that may use ‘seriousness’ as a way to portray a form of superiority or ‘authority’ which many times – if not most – are not congruent in terms of ‘personal’ and ‘professional’ life.

That’s the divide I want to break here in my own life where I am not just someone that divides life and work in order to be ‘two separate beings’ that can take life seriously and not at the same time - no matter ‘what’ I do and where I am in the system, I commit myself to taking life seriously as in not being lax to my own application of self-correction and living expansion, and to honor that commitment through every decision I make in my life, which translates into living integrity and self-respect as creators of our lives= as within, so without.

That’s the kind of individuals that I’d like us all to become and debunk for once and for all the external facades of ‘care towards life’ that are not genuinely honored in the nature of who we are as individuals, becoming ‘cheap talk’ with no substance at all – and this is what I am here challenging within myself, to stick to my truth, to live my words, to practice what I preach in my living reality on a day to day basis, beyond only conveying good sounding words which anyone can ultimately convey – this is about sharing one’s truth and one’s commitment to actually live and embody as the new nature of ourselves as human beings, and that’s the kind of seriousness I’m definitely all in for in my existence.

Thanks for reading
Marlen
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540. Being Funny

§ Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction

This word relates to the relationship to humor and jokes specifically where I genuinely enjoy laughing at someone’s jokes or expression that is generally intended within enjoying a moment of laughing out a bit. At some point I started investigating who I am as this ‘funniness’ in both laughing at jokes and general enjoyment where I became quite critical also of my ability to laugh and enjoy myself as ‘fun’, very much linking it to a sense of morality that I shared in a vlog recently wherein I thought that in order to be honest with myself, I had to stop participating in anything that I deemed of a feeling or energetic experience – and so my reasoning was to look at the constant nature of our world-wide reality which is yes,not of fun and enjoyment for the most part, but of suffering, abuse, neglect and in general all the worst that can exist in all of us.

However over time I realized I could not continually exist in that sense of embodying all of this in my ‘state of mind’ considering it doesn’t change anything for anyone in this world and I was only denying my expression of being funny, having fun and enjoying myself as a form of ‘sacrifice’ or ‘loyalty’ to the majority of humanity, but of course this ‘piousness’ doesn’t change anything. I was only becoming quite bitter actually and mostly getting to judge and at times envy whoever else I would see was enjoying themselves, having fun and generally being a regular human being, lol.

That’s when I started questioning why would I deny myself this ability to enjoy myself?

So I’ve been lately more and more embracing the ‘funniness’ in me which comes more through my interaction with others, but I am also doing it for myself, being comfortable in being funny. However this has been a process of ensuring that my starting point is clear.

In retrospect, sometimes being ‘funny’ would emerge as a desire to fit in with others, or to get someone’s attention, sometimes it would be plain sarcastic with some judgments coming through, therefore I also have worked with this to ensure that this funny-me emerges spontaneously, without a preconceived agenda, without ‘thinking it’ so to speak or planning it meticulously to obtain a particular purpose. I definitely enjoy being spontaneous and also laughing at other people’s spontaneous jokes and expressions in a conversation or an everyday moment.

Some other times I have also contained myself because of doubting how others will receive the jokes, sometimes I go into considering too much how others ‘might be’ on their end and their general self-experience in order to express myself in a fun manner or not, but it’s all a matter of seeing the context of course, without refraining myself from it.

However I do ensure that whatever I say is not at all implying any form of ‘jokes’ that are currently abundant related to judgments, opinions, politics or the rest of constructs that we use to ‘laugh at each other’ in a vicious and separation manner. It does take a form of childish innocence to be able to be fun and as an outcome what comes is a sense of comfort that can be created with other people, a form of openness where I personally use it to ‘lose’ my self-perceived seriousness at times with people.

I appreciate another’s expression in being comfortable to be funny and serious at the same time and not be defined by either or, but simply act and express according to ‘what’s here in the moment’ and this is something I’m definitely implementing in my life and more so practicing letting go of my doubt in expressing myself this way, and going for it as long as it is here and spontaneous – not controlled, premeditated or attempting to get a particular reaction from others, but doing so unconditionally, as my expression in the moment.

I also enjoy expressing with kids, like with my niece we spent some time together yesterday and we had quite a lot of fun because she’s quite similar to me and it was quite funny seeing her, her ways of expressing that I would laugh at because I could see me all the way, a bit quirky and uninhibited, so that was also the kind of innocent fun I very much enjoy wherein anything we do can be lived in a lively manner that in itself makes it fun and enjoyable, no matter how ‘simple’ the moment is.

Laughing and being funny is part of the things that I can enjoy in life, those bits and moments that become a ‘breather’ in our day to day, without creating any ‘need’ or ‘addiction’ to it, but seeing it as the spice that one can express for a moment and then carry on with the rest of what we have to be, do and face in our reality.

So! No need to separate myself from this expression anymore, I’ve definitely been more comfortable in embracing this expression as myself and will continue to do so in my life.

Thanks for reading
Marlen
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541. Creativity and Self-Creation

§ Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction

This word right here is ‘close to my heart’ so to speak considering how I have previously conceived creativity in a rather limited way, linking it to artistic skills for the most part and traits within myself and others that would be geared towards expressing oneself in any form of art or doing something ingenious, witty or clever that serves a practical purpose.

However throughout this process with walking the tools of self-support at Desteni, I’ve learned to understand the actual depth of who we are as creators, created and creation, which might sound a bit too ‘out there’ initially - and it certainly does require a vast context that one can find support to walk through step by step in several series that can be found at Eqafe.com. Here I’ll focus on debunking this limited perception of how I can at times still perceive that I can be separate from my ‘creative abilities’ by defining that only related to ‘doing original work’ or creating a particular trademark in relation to artistic creations, instead of realizing that these are all results, the byproduct of a much more intricate and personal self-process of understanding self-creation and the actual ability we have to determine our lives and so our destiny, not only in creating something ‘out there’ but as ourselves, identifying ourselves as our own creators too and honoring that creative ability in our lives.

Here I am therefore giving a step forward from my initial approach to this word as seen in relation to ‘liking another person for being creative’ and taking this word back to myself, to see who am I as this word and how I am living it, what needs to be fine-tuned and what I want to continue creating of myself and my life in the context of being an individual that can stand as an example of what it means to honor one’s creation and one’s contribution to the whole that we are all a part of.

Perceiving that we are not the sole creators of our lives leads to a sense of disempowerment, of ‘atrophy’ in believing that we are always subject to our weaknesses, our faults, our ‘human nature’ in which in my experience can show up at times being very quick to judge things or determine that something is not ‘good enough’ and get doubtful about myself and the totality of what I am doing in a moment, tending to compare myself to others or get impatient in this process of self-creation. All of these aspects are precisely the points that I have to continue working on and being detailed about, because whatever we eventually create and manifest not only as things we do or create in the external world, but every single thought, word and deed will be ultimately influenced by the very core of our being, who we are in every moment of our day = what we accept and allow to determine ourselves in our minds and so in our reality.

What does that mean? I’ve noticed that if I for example accept an experience of pointlessness or defeatism within something that I am doing, and believing that ‘there’s no point for it’ and lose my ground and initial vision to create something in my reality, I am quick to ‘give up’ on it and then judge it as something that ‘just isn’t for me’ and consider that there are ‘others that are better at it, but not me,’ resulting in separating myself from a particular capacity that I simply had to keep practicing and working on, but was very quick to give up to, meaning I didn’t live perseverance on it.

I discovered this when painting last year – which yes, certainly this is what might be considered a ‘formal creative activity’, but I’ve discovered that interestingly enough it is the one thing that had become a point I separated myself from due to reacting to what I was painting and drowning into judgments of pointlessness, dissatisfaction, lacking a purpose in it, ending up losing ground on what I was physically doing as the painting. The outcome? A painting that I was dissatisfied with and that I used as an excuse to say ‘I don’t want to paint anymore, this is useless, it’s futile, I’m done with this, I’m not good at it, there’s no point to it, I just give it up’

What I became aware of within that process is how I created my own outcome in relation to painting entirely through having allowed these judgments, thoughts that translated into emotions creeping up and completely directing myself in that moment as I was painting. I also realized that my very starting point for painting was flawed, because in that one day I was using painting as a way to evade my reality and a particular conflictive situation I was experiencing with someone in my reality, but not dealing with it in myself – so I essentially created my ‘sabotaged outcome’ when attempting to create something while I wasn’t stable within myself or ‘at my core’ in that moment, and using painting as a way to ‘evade’ instead of being there and create as myself.

So, who was I as creator in that moment? Evading myself first of all, believing I could create a better experience through painting and forgetting about the inner conflict in relation to something else in my reality. This created an outcome of recreating all of my weaknesses of the past and bringing them through in my act of painting charged with all of these judgments and inner-annoyance that I allowed within myself even before painting and it eventually outflowed into what I ended up painting.

The painting itself stood there for over a year as a reminder of something I left half way through and as a statement of ‘this is why I don’t want to go back to painting again,’ which I knew was unacceptable, but interestingly enough I also procrastinated getting back at it.

A month ago I took that same canvas and reworked it into a different outcome that I decided to experiment with, mostly to precisely in real time work on changing my relationship to painting itself, this time being aware of having a clear starting point, being stable and grounded within myself and my decision and ensuring that I wasn’t entertaining backchats and thoughts of how ‘terrible’ it was or how ‘pointless’ this was, but instead decided that: this is me directing myself to express in this painting, being flexible and open to the outcome of it, not having a fixed idea on it and walking through that resistance that I kept ‘alive’ within me for a year or so to not paint.

While having this clear starting point, of course the ‘usual doubts’ that I had experienced in the past emerged, the notions of ‘I should be doing something else’ and various other judgments, but I decided to continue doing it anyways, continuing directing, not focusing on the ‘result’ only but rather focusing on ‘who I am’ in this whole creative process. And this can stand as a good analogy to our lives where many times we can be very ‘result-based’ and if we don’t manage to create what we want, we drown into a low, a depression, a giving up – instead of rather seeing what can we learn about ourselves in the process of creating ourselves, what skills do we develop, what challenges can we identify and practically work on overcoming? All of this makes any creative process much more enjoyable where we don’t only focus on ‘a result in the future,’ but rather focus on who am I all the step of the way to get to do or become something, which is what matters in the context of life.

This example is a way to illustrate how we are the sole creators of ourselves. If I in that past moment of painting defined myself as not good enough, as having a ‘bad experience’ while painting, then of course the outcome became a reflection on that and I would resist painting after those few hours when I started that painting - and I ‘gave up’ even attempting to do something about it and instead made of my experience ‘who I am’ by letting everyone know how pointless it was to paint, how I am done with arts, how there’s no point to it – lol – now having to eat my words and forgive myself for it because I realized how it was a way of throwing a tantrum as a result of my own self-created sabotage. It was like deliberately cutting an arm off and then believing that “I’m fine without it” This is not only about arts though, but it can be applied to anything else in one’s life.

Another example can be where I go into judgment about an expression in another and remaining with that judgment about another, not questioning, not seeing it as something I actually must debunk within myself and align within myself in order to stand equal to that person – and what happens when I remain in that judgment is I am in fact diminishing my capacity to get to know that other person, to really live the word equality and create that relationship that I can essentially establish with anyone in this world if I decide to create it and nurture it, because it ultimately is our creation: we decide, we make the changes, we live the corrections, we walk the talk so to speak and there one goes.

One can walk through a veil of judgments and into getting to know a person for real, which I’ve personally have experienced various times where there was an initial judgment toward them and through self-forgiving and stopping my participation in those judgments within myself- along with time and in a deliberate decision to get to know them better - I’ve proven myself how much I had ‘made up my mind’ about them and all that I would have prevented myself from creating if I had remained in my mind-patterns.

Self-creation therefore can be as simple as deciding to make a change about a behavior or thought pattern in our lives, we determine it, we decide on it and we ‘give it life’ by integrating such change or point of creation in our day to day living, and that’s precisely what living words is all about as well, where these words won’t ‘come up’ like thoughts or backchat in our minds as a ‘natural flow’ or ‘desire’ even to live and create - nope, we are unfortunately not hard-wired to live creation as life, we are mostly hard-wire to self-sabotage which is illustrated in what I shared about my relationship with arts and painting when I allowed myself to be dictated by my mind, instead of standing as the directive principle.

My current relationship to self-creation is thus a relationship of self-discovery, self-awareness and ultimately self-empowerment, which comes also with the understanding that in being responsible for all that I am and create, it also gives me that certainty that no matter ‘what’ I create – if I make mistakes, if I ‘fall’, if I go the ‘wrong route’ in my choices, decisions and actions – I can trust myself that I have my self-honesty to assess myself and so do the process with self-writing, self-forgiveness in self honesty, lay out the corrections and stand up again to continue walking.

There’s no excuse anymore to ‘give up’ on something based on a ‘bad experience’ with something, I can instead practically assess what is practical to do, what makes sense to change as well as what’s practical to dedicate my time, breath of life and effort to, to be the sole director of who am I day to day – that’s self-creation right there and accordingly, we also then determine ‘who we will be’ because this reality works in patterns, so we essentially can re-wire or re-write ourselves by imprinting new ways to live from morning to night time, we can decide how we look at our day: a day to create or a day to ‘relive the problems of the past’, we can decide to be solution-oriented, to learn to live words in moments where we see the emotions or self-sabotage creep up, to make that decision to stand up and be directive in the moment – all of these moment to moment changes and decisions are already a point of self-creation and this is precisely what this process is all about.

So, we are all creative, we all create every single moment –for the good or for the worse – and realizing that ability we all are constantly exercising and learning to honor it and act as creators with integrity, with self-respect and regard to life can truly be the way to change the fabric of the relationships we create in this world.

Also, I remind my-self not to be discouraged if things don’t work as intended in terms of change in a few first set of times, it takes practice, it takes diligence, it takes focus, it takes dedication and a commitment to self, which are all words we have to also learn to practice, live and integrate into the fabric of our very being, considering that they are also not ‘natural’ aspects in ourselves for now, but they can become part of us with the same diligence and consistency one applies to learn or create anything in reality.

We live in a physical reality, so patience is very relevant, persevering is the actual word here to look at which is also a timely reminder for me, to not lose sight of what I create on a daily basis and always see it within the greater context as well of contributing to create and bring life into the physical through my day to day living.

Sounds great isn’t it? But it takes actual work to do, so my only suggestion is to consider this creative capacity we all have and decide who we want to be as artists creating ourselves as our own masterpiece, one that we will live with and embody for the rest of our lives.

Thanks for reading
Marlen
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542. Living Expression

Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction

I have identified the word ‘expressive’ with a set of personality traits where a person speaks in an assertive, directive manner and using mannerisms that look somewhat ‘effusive’ or ‘extroverted’ to me, like moving hands, doing various facial expressions, even being humorous as well. Now, all of these are aspects or traits when looking at them as something I merely react to in a positive manner, which leads me to create an assumption or judgment that the person is ‘expressive’ or ‘outgoing.’ However, this is only what I can perceive in a moment of a person’s expression - I realize that it does not represent what it actually means to be expressive. This initial approach I just described above would be a form of confinement to the potential that we all exist as in the word expressive. Now, what does that mean?

When investigating my feeling-based reaction that I’ve experienced towards people that present this kind of qualities – I have seen how I’ve actually at times gone into a bit of a ‘sinking’ next to them, when interacting with them or observing them, because of considering that no one can ‘top their expression,’ which unfolds in reacting within inferiority, which is an indication that I’ve separated myself from my own potential expression and therefore, judge someone else’s as ‘desirable.’

This is also why I’ve been debunking my own set of beliefs around these words I had felt ‘intimidated’ by or creating a form of ‘attraction’ towards and instead, directing myself to clear out their meaning for me and take those words back to self, which means realizing that we all have the ability to live these words in a self-supportive manner, and not only as some kind of ‘show’ for others or personality trait, but as a genuine expression of who we really are, which is also expression as a process in itself.

Part of what I’ve learned in this process within Desteni is to understand expression in self-honesty, wherein one actually goes ‘reverse engineering’ one’s preferences as likes and dislikes, our emotional and feeling reactions to virtually everything in our lives, and we can then spot what kind of energetic experience motivates us, essentially looking at what exists behind every thought, word and deed in our lives.

It has been a very grounding and supportive process for me to do this, to realize how much of what I deemed ‘my expression’ was motivated –in my case – as a ‘show for others,’ or a form of ‘mask’ that I could put on to be liked or accepted by others, seeking appreciation, approval, seeking relationships out of need or dissatisfaction with myself, wanting to appear as ‘more’ than what I was truly experiencing within myself in certain moments… and the list could go on.

So, upon going understanding and seeing clearly ‘what motivates me’ in my life and noticing all of these fears or desires as starting points, what was left was a decision within me to self-forgive all those fears, judgments, desires and instead, apply myself to now learn what it means to be the starting point of my expression, what it means to direct myself to do something for and as myself – in other words having no ‘fear’ or ‘judgment’ or ‘desire’ as a motivation to do something anymore – but instead genuinely in a moment decide to do something and live it, do it, ‘go for it’ in other words and create it, express it – of course in consideration of what’s best for all, in common sense and self-honesty, essentially making decisions that are supportive – not just ‘random’ stuff that could be consequential, lol.

This might sound too simplistic in words, but it can actually be a challenging process for most of us that have conditioned our very decision to move and do something in our lives for something or someone else but ourselves.

An example on changing this starting point is how I initially decided to start painting and get into arts to avoid being bored, to cope with being alone one summer at home and also desiring to someday be very famous and well known and travel the world and the rest of it. Of course this doesn’t mean that I now have to stop doing any art because I had a flawed starting point –which by the way, I actually did stop for a while because of thinking it wasn’t valid anymore in my life, lol - but in self-honesty one learns to then realize we can change that starting point or ‘reason’ for why we do things or ‘who we are’ within doing art in this case and so, learn to be my own starting point, learn to express myself as art, which means not doing it to ‘get’ an experience or ‘avoid myself’ or ‘expect’ me escalating my position in my society, but simply as an expression, a movement, a decision, a realization that I work on for myself.

Changing this starting point in whatever we do, make, say and think in order to make it an expression of ourselves is actually easier said than done of course, because we’ve mostly learned to do things ‘in separation of ourselves’ - therefore, such a point as being expressive or expressing ourselves may have a huge baggage behind it as a set of reasons to ‘do’ or not to do something – like for example having the starting point of wanting to compete against others to ‘win’ something, to ‘get a relationship’ out of a fear of experiencing loneliness as a ‘negative outcome’ and the list may go on.

These are just examples but the point here is to explain how we are the only ones that can truly be aware of when we are genuine and self-honest in our expression and when we are in fact not so. And this is what has been very supportive for me to understand considering that I had been the kind of person that would use any form of motivation ‘outside of myself’ to express and be in a particular manner to create a ‘show’ of myself for others - but saw little to no point on doing it ‘for myself,’ which as strange as it may sound, it is actually a far more common situation than we would like to accept.

A cool test for myself lately has been the situation of being by myself and not having anyone necessarily being the ‘receptor’ of my expression or ‘expressiveness.’ This has been very cool for me to see what of the things I used to do when having someone else around me most of the times I stopped doing or changed in the ways I would do it because there’s ‘no one else around me’ that could be the witness or receptor of such expression – whether it was something I do or how I express myself in those ‘little moments’ of interaction with others.

I initially saw that I was wallowing into a ‘pointlessness’ considering there was no one to interact with in relation to this expression – but I instead made a decision to apply this realization about self-expression: to be the source and reason of my expression. And so upon the various years of living alone in different phases in my life, I’ve learned to do things for myself, from the way that I care for my own body, how I dress, how I have my surroundings, the food I make for myself, the things I do for fun, the kind of work that I do, hobbies –I’ve learned to have ‘me’ as starting point for these points, of course every now and then having to re-mind myself of that considering how easy it is also to start placing something or someone as the ‘reason’ to do anything in this world in separation of ourselves.

Now, I understand some might say ‘oh isn’t that selfish, doing it only for you?’ but it is not, this is of course within the context of doing things that are supportive in nature and that I then through habits on a daily basis have turned into my own expression, which can be easily translated into ‘who I am, how I am, what I say, how I behave, what I write, how I present myself with people, how I look, how I speak’ within the starting point of being directive in it all and within the consideration of the principles of what’s best for all, being supportive in other words and without making it a point of ego.

Now going deeper into this word ‘expression’, we express ourselves in every moment. Every moment of breath is self expression, it’s my body expressing itself – every thought, emotion, reaction, judgment, opinion is also a form of expression, an expression of my mind that I’ve learned to now assess and question every time to see how supportive this expression is for one’s life and that of others, which is the self-honest application upon one’s expression and so placing the opportunity back to ourselves to decide: Who do we want to be and How do we really want to contribute to this life and existence in every moment that I am existing?

Being alive is already in itself an expression, it is ourselves existing as a plethora of potentials to develop according to our context, capacity and abilities - but the point is then to expand this word ‘expressive’ not only to a set of characteristics that can be perceived or received by others in only a fraction of interactions in one’s day, but it is about acknowledging that we are in fact expressing ourselves every moment of our day, whether we are aware of it or not.

So, one of the points here I would like to remind myself about is that, even if ‘no one is seeing me’ – apparently – and no one is ‘benefiting’ from my expression as my ‘doings’ in my day to day living, I actually am aware that by the sheer fact of being living in this world where we are in fact all the same – as in one and equal as life - whatever I accept and allow, what I change and correct within my life in common sense, what I work to develop in my life, the words I decide to live, the expressions I decide to fine tune within me, the destructive or self-sabotaging habits I decide to stop and correct within me, the words I choose to use to communicate, the foods that I eat, how I care of my body, the way that I l decide to confront a ‘problem’ or conflict in my life, the way I relate to people around me, the way that I present myself with others, the words that I write, the things I support in the internet, the way that I approach my work, the ideas that I have to create something and who I am in the process of creating something are all ways and forms of self-expression: they are all parts of me and they all stand as an impression or ‘signature’ of who I am in all of it – therefore we are constantly expressing, therefore also communicating with every single one of these in our day to day, it’s how we participate as co-creators of this reality.

That’s the kind of holistic self-awareness to practice in my day to day really, where I continue to align myself as the starting point of what I do within the understanding of being best for myself and so being best for all – and also in being able to enjoy all of this that I do as part of my self-creation process, which is actually something we tend to forget to do many times when we are too busy living ‘for others’ or to ‘get something’ out there, forgetting who we are as life yet to live to its utmost potential, which to me is precisely linked to self-creation, to sculpt ourselves as our creation, to work on our potentials, to fine tune our expression and genuinely learn to live, and so be an example for many more that might be ready to consider doing this for themselves in their own lives.

How to live then the word ‘expressive’ in relation to interactions with others? It’s actually quite simple because once that one walks through this process of self-writing, getting to know ourselves and deciding to change the judgments, limited perceptions, beliefs, opinions that we might create about ourselves or others, what is left is a core expression of oneself as an individual which is the definition of being ‘expressive’ as in not having obstacles to share, to be open, to enjoy, to share the kind of enthusiasm that emerges within oneself when we start ‘piecing ourselves back together’ from the scattered-self as all of the mind-traits that we had defined ourselves by.

Therefore, being expressive is also a result of walking this process using the tools of self-support provided by Desteni and realizing that we actually have much more potential than we thought we had when being only ‘in our minds’ and not yet getting to live who we really are as life, as our physical body – and this is only the start for me, there’s lots to do, fine tune, continue expanding and growing on but so far, best thing I’ve been able to decide to commit to in my life.

In this, I also learn to not ‘compare’ myself to others’ ways of expressing, but rather learn to appreciate others in their individuality, being aware that I can always enjoy it ‘with them’ while also sharing myself and learning from each other to become better human beings. Interestingly enough that’s very much what we also do as the Desteni community and that to me is definitely an example of what being expressive is about, it all being related to ‘sharing the life’ in one another and the ways in which one lives it, how one works through it, what kind of solutions and paths one creates to continue tapping into one’s potential and that to me is what life and living is all about.

Thanks for reading.
Marlen
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543. Living Simplicity

Or how to step out of a complex mindset and over-wrought approaches towards life

§ Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction


Before I dive into the word to look at today, I’d like to reflect on what this process of making a list of all the points that I have separated from myself and turned into an ‘attraction’ towards someone else has been for me in the sense of realizing that, what I ‘see’ in another comes from how I see and perceive another, and it’s not of course necessarily something that the other person ‘is’ in fact, but what I am able to see and define, which is ultimately about myself.

And that’s also why upon reflecting on each word I’ve opened up in these blogs, I’ve seen how they are actually key aspects to ground myself on and kind of assert my expression within those words that I considered I was ‘lacking’ within me. This realization was opened up when I listened to a very interesting process shared in this Eqafe interview today where an individual speaks of comparing themselves to someone else and seeing aspects in another that they believe they lack, instead of realizing that all of these ‘points’ or ‘expressions’ are actually identified and so originating from the person himself, meaning it is not about ‘the other’ person he’s comparing himself at all, which was another way to confirm what I’ve been seeing emerge throughout this exploration on these words.

So, simplicity is a word that I’ve learned to consider in my life mostly from walking this Desteni Process. The way that I am ‘wired’ to be is to be very elaborate, writing too many words, describing too much – even in my art it definitely would come off as being ‘all over the place’ which would lead me to at times envy the ability that others had to create very simple things yet be quite expressive at the same time and this extends to types of personalities that are ‘of few words’ so to speak but saying a lot with less. Here I’m still talking in personality/traits terms.

Some years ago I definitely tended to be operating on an ‘horroris vacui’ type of personality, which means constantly thinking, filling the gaps everywhere I could and this is a literal consideration also when it came to decoration – still working on it, lol – and at a mental level, I have tended to avoid the simplicity of silence, of simply ‘being here’ in the presence of others but not having to constantly ‘be interacting.’

When it comes to myself and who I was, I definitely could not be ‘keeping it simple’ because I was constantly ‘searching for something,’ existing in almost an ‘anxious’ drive to be analyzing, thinking, creating my own theories about life and why we’re here, believing that the more complex I was, the more I was reaching out to some kind of ‘higher understanding’ about life, and that the more I studied or acquired certain information, the closer to my ‘wholiness’ I would be – lol. This led me to also be quite ‘jumpy’ and sometimes getting ahead of myself, being quite emotional at times in my day to day, very much driven by the ‘highs and lows’ that I could face in my life and being in essence ‘blown around like a leaf in the wind’ and believing that my whole life was subject to some ‘higher path’ that I had no direction on, therefore I had to get into all kinds of knowledge and information as philosophies, religions, spirituality movements and anything else I could use in order to find some kind of ‘ultimate truth’ that I could rely on for the rest of my life.

Even in my personal presentation or ‘style’ so to speak, from how I surrounded myself of things in my environment, to all the stuff I would wear as ornaments, to the kind of clothes I used to wear, it was all very much ‘over done’ at times, which is simply a reflection nowadays where I away more simpler approach that I feel quite comfortable with – for now, lol - but it’s cool to see how I could not see myself being ‘the same’ as I used to look like, act like, think like some 10 years ago when I was at the height of this ‘unquenchable thirst’ to get somewhere meaningful in my life through complex methods and over-the-top routes.

All of that came to a slow but sure calmed down stance when I started applying myself within this process in Desteni, getting to know who I really am behind all of that ‘over-wrought’ version of myself and starting to understand the meaning of the ever present and famous Desteni quote said by Bernard Poolman of ‘Simplicity is the Key’ – and this word right there ‘simplicity’ was quite a revolutionary concept in my life, because I had truly considered that it all had to be the other way around: the more complex, the more accumulation of information, the more intertwining of information it would mean ‘better outcomes’ or ‘having a more solid understanding of reality’ – but I’ve come to realize for myself that this is not actually so.

Here another great quote applies which I also hold close to my heart: ‘Knowledge without Application is Useless’ which allowed me to see how much I was ‘layering’ myself with all kinds of data and information that wasn’t really necessary in order for me to learn how to live and develop common sense and get to create the person that I’d like to become and contribute back to life and what’s best for all this way.

I’ll share some examples here of some references I’ve taken on with me as the word simplicity.

When I look at the word simplicity, what comes to mind is the simplicity of life that I got to experience while living at the Desteni Farm for one year 8 years ago, where I was out of my usual environment and the city life and the rest of ‘complexities’ that usually surrounded me and learned to appreciate the simplicity of farm life, to get used to a ‘slower’ pace in life, to be less concerned with how I look and dress and all the personality masks I’d place upon and instead focus on working with my hands and body to create stuff, to learn from people around there, learn to forge this new phase of my life by having people around me that were living the definition of ‘simple lives,’ which to me was life changing and life-impressing which I took on as a way to appreciate the simple things in life and not requiring all the ‘stuff’ around me to be ok or doing ‘things out there’ to be able to enjoy life and a moment, it really was quite a challenge for me to slow down and learn to ‘smell the flowers’ really, and still it is something I have to actively remind myself of and so I constantly reference myself back to that time as a reminder of ‘slowing down, taking it easy, live in simplicity.’

Another word that comes up when looking at the word ‘simplicity’ is common sense, because this is the way in which I’ve learned to assess virtually anything that I’ve faced in my life wherein I would usually tend to over-complicate myself with potentials, over analyzing, scrutinizing, judging, being uncertain, doubtful, apprehensive about things and through this process and learning to apply common sense to any situation, life simplifies a lot, because it all boils down to self-creation, self-responsibility, self-honesty and using the tools of self-forgiveness and self-writing in order to solve, create solutions, develop ways and methods to create solutions, to see other ways in which we can make something work.

Common sense is not something taught in schools and it’s definitely not logic – I’ve written a blog on that so you can check it out for reference - yet it is the simplest way of approaching life, and this has translated into a complete change in my approach towards my life and the usual ‘issues’ and points we have to face and all of the outcomes and consequences in this reality. There’s a lot compressed in this sentence according to what I’ve walked, realized, changed, applied, learned from but I consider that this entire blog site is a proof of that application of common sense learned through the Desteni perspective and specifically first hand from Bernard Poolman.

Now, one of the distinctive aspects that I see I’ve been able to see this simplicity as myself more noticeably as a change within me is where I used to be a person that was constantly like in ‘waiting’ mode or ‘seeking’ some kind of stimulation, experience, some ‘sign’ for me to do or move or create something. This ultimately created a complete separation from my ability to be directive, to take initiative, to take the first steps to be or do something.

This also relates to an outflow of generally slowing down in my mind and getting to be more ‘here’ or grounded in my physical body as a result of applying the Desteni tools, one gets to see that there’s no more ‘chaos’ going on all the time, there are no more rollercoaster rides and life simplifies a lot in that way, there’s no more confusion or ‘greater questionings’ but simply directing myself to do what I need to do, being breathing and learning to be content in that simplicity, which is actually a physical marvel that I was just reflecting, I know so little of, yet grateful to be existing as this physical body and being able to be here alive and sharing this.

And if something happens in my reality that completely takes me by surprise, I can still direct myself to slow down, see what is needed to be done and even if the situation might trigger reactions, I can work with it and be more settled and grounded within it all, because I simplify the points I have – and can – work with as my responsibility, so that also simplifies the way I approach and look at things and outcomes in my reality.

Currently from the space that I live in and how it looks to the way that I look at life, to the things that I occupy myself on, to the plans that I have, they all start simple and remind myself of this humbleness required to ‘start small, start simple’ in any point of change or plan I want to take on in my life, considering there’s also that tendency to want to go ‘over the top’ on something and that usually makes things too complicated.

This has been a great learning process for me in my life, to not attempt to kind of ‘engulf’ or ‘eat the world’ in one go, lol, even with this process wherein my initial approach was to ‘get it done as fast as possible’ until I dropped that expectation and made it simple by instead integrating this process as myself/my life, a constant in who I am – no distinction – therefore no longer seeking an ‘end’ to it, but seeing the end of this process with the end of my own life on Earth – and then another one will come but that’s not here so, I take it easy/simple by working with what’s here.

That’s also another great point to consider as simplicity, working with ‘one point at a time’ and ‘working with what’s here’ in our reality. I used to be the kind of person that thought of the world being on my shoulders and me having to be the kind of person that ‘saves everyone in it’ lol! So, yes this simplicity of self-responsibility and understanding my own role in it all has been supportive to instead of trying to focus on changing ‘the world out there’ I start with myself, start simple - and it’s easier said than done, but again, if one starts with one pattern, one habit, one set of thoughts we realize are not supportive, one kind of experiences that are preventing us from living to our utmost potential, then we get to understand how indeed, simplicity is the key in this process.

One challenge for me though is to be able to eventually – and this is a maybe, because who knows? – simplify my written expression lol! I am aware I write a lot and some people have made comments on my super-complex and very long sentences, and at times I’ve tried to ‘simplify’ them by not going into very ‘holistic’ considerations, yet they still come through. Maybe this is a point to simply not judge myself for and simply learn to fine tune as I continue writing and so ‘keep it simple’ in the sense of not having to give ‘all the details’ all the time, but learning to share the core or essence of something in order for another person to also discover for themselves what that means in their own experience.

I also see that being laconic may not be the living definition of an approach of simplicity towards life, because a person can express ‘few words’ but be constantly busy inside themselves. So I have to learn also to not create an assumption of ‘less is more’ in that sense, because ultimately it’s not only about what we show or express towards others, but how we express, live, see, approach life within ourselves in every moment. So, it all goes back to ‘who we are’ in whatever we are, do or create – not necessarily how something ‘looks like’ or sounds like or seems like, and that’s self-honesty: we are the only ones that can really know whether we are living a word or not.

What I see as a life changing approach within living simplicity is precisely on my overall new approach to life, which for a lack of a better expression is like a gust of wind that one can create for oneself whenever we start ‘over-boiling’ our thoughts or experiences and realize that we are getting too ‘dense’ and ‘complex’ and need to cool down, slow down, look at the bits instead of trying to fit ‘the whole picture’ in one go – and that’s precisely where this word simplicity comes handy as a reminder of not making something ‘more’ in our minds than it actually is, remembering to take it easy, to slow down, to breathe, to take a moment to ‘smell the flowers’ and appreciate the simplicity of life happening around us while we are ‘busy up there’ in our minds, a life that can be a quieter one inside us even when being in the midst of the busiest environments, of learning to more immediately see and devise solutions, instead of going into complex ways and experiences that obfuscate us from seeing or resourcing simple solutions we can apply and live in those moments.

Ultimately Life is very simple, it is ourselves in our minds that makes it complex, so here again a relevant reminder forever: Simplicity is the Key :)

Thanks for reading


“Understand that the same decision and dedication that created this world this way is the same dedication that will change this world --no one will do more than what they do now--it will just be in reverse--instead of a world of inequality, it will be a world of equality-- grasp this simplicity”

– Bernard Poolman
Marlen
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544. Being Inadaptable as Self-Limitation

§ Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction

When looking at this word I can self-honestly see that I have not yet lived ‘adaptability’ to the extent that I see I could. I may be living this word when it comes to getting along with people, but there is a particular aspect wherein I see I haven’t just yet learned to live this word. Upon looking at the word ‘adaptable’ what came up within me is that I still have allowed myself to be defined and conditioned according to the environment around me, specifically related to stepping out of my comfort zone in the polarity between ‘city life’ and ‘farm life’ or ‘rural’ environments.

In looking at the memories of where I’ve felt most inadaptable what first comes to mind is my ‘unbearable’ experience in relation to weather, where I’ve avoided extremely hot weather conditions and what emerges is this judgment towards heat and wanting to avoid heat itself, lol which I recently mentioned when chatting with some people about me going to a concert soon and they were suggesting things I could eat to have a good set up of food for the day, and I quickly responded that no, that’s not what I worry about but I truly worry about having to be an entire day under the sun… and there was no further comment on that lol where I then silently judged myself for possibly coming through as a picky-ghost that never goes out into the sun because of ‘disliking the heat.’

I’ve come to make decisions in my life based on wanting to avoid such heat and so making decisions and choices that can prevent me from having to be experiencing extreme heat.

I’ve sincerely seen myself as incapable of transcending such aversion to heat and it is a form of believing that I’m incapable of adapting to it and that it is one factor that can lead me to ‘give up’ on something because of being unable to bear the heat. This certainly is a self-sabotage pattern that previously I probably could have an option to ‘choose’ from in the sense of being capable of deciding to not live somewhere because I could be somewhere else where there’s less heat. But currently I do see that if there is a realistic necessity or opportunity for me to relocate to a place where heat is extensive and the activity I would be doing in such place is what I truly want to do and where I see I can develop my potential and share it with others, I’d have no choice but to adapt myself to the heat and assist me in finding ways to best coexist with it, instead of making a decision to not go somewhere because of the heat itself.

Being in a position of elitism in this world is also part of how I’ve been challenged when it comes to adaptability – not that I am ‘rich’ but all of us having this kind of services and basic infrastructure in our houses makes us part of the few percentage in this world that lives well enough, and I had a ‘glimpse’ of what it was to truly not have these services at hand which created a great impact in my life.

In high school – in my Jesuit school - we were taken to a very impoverished community for only 4 days to live and do what the locals did for a living. They were the most challenging four days of my life because there was no toilet, we had to sleep on the floor, access to water was limited, we had to be working under the sun and generally this ‘pickiness’ emerged within me where I would simply remind myself that this was only temporary, that in no time I’d be back to my comfort zone – which also made it unfathomable to me how these people seemed quite content with their lives, were hardworking and could conform with not having all of the services that I’ve taken for granted and gotten so used to have immediate access to in my life. It did create an impact within me that led me to wake up and smell reality, which is part of why I then got so invested in finding solutions for this world. In essence, we should all get our ‘rural experience’ in school or in life in order to truly wake up from all the things we take for granted and that billions of people have zero access to.

In this ‘rural experience’ as it was called in school, I witnessed how others that I had perceived as more ‘picky’ than me had a much better way of adapting and being comfortable in such a basic environment, even getting to enjoy it - whereas I struggled a lot more to the point of feeling completely disempowered and having this ‘knot’ in my throat both from the sadness of seeing people live in such places to my personal interest of missing the comfort of my own home. There, I can say I also mostly failed at adapting to this environment, even it if was truly only for a moment.

When I lived at the Desteni Farm for one year, the heat aversion came up within me, as well as any other set of conditions that to me were ‘out of my comfort zone’ like having little access to going to the city, being surrounded with all kinds of animals all the time and how since I was a child I developed certain fears toward horses that I did get to face to a great extent there, but I know I ‘left off’ where I was barely getting to ground myself around them, so I still see and consider my ability to adapt to a complete farm environment as a challenge for my ability to adapt in such an environment.

I’ve also noticed that throughout my life I have been fortunately surrounded by people that I consider are very simplistic and adaptable to ‘any environment’ and so I learned from them as I shared such environments with them. Because if it was based on a family-influence, it is definitely not something I could learn firsthand from them because no one in my immediate family has been that ‘outdoors’ adventurer, even though my grandfather is definitely an ‘earth worker’ throughout his entire life, I am a victim of having the apparent ‘simple life’ in the city, separate from the rural life or country side type of lifestyle that I got to learn a lot from and appreciate in several ways when I had that one year experience in South Africa – though I still left with a sensation of experiencing myself as having to be constantly ‘coping’ with the weather and the environmental conditions, wherein I didn’t get to entirely adapt and truly embrace the environment, the weather and the routines in that place, even if I got to ‘do it all’ and push myself to work hard from day 2 of stepping there, I still could not ‘find my footing’ completely settled, and I do see that it has to do more with a set of reactions towards the weather, the lack of this ‘matrix security’ that a city gives you, and more so finding it a bit unsettling to live in such an area that was somewhat far out from the nearest town, feeling in a form of confinement at times – lol even if one steps out into an entire open space around – which proves this is entirely a mind-created perception and experience that I could see wasn’t ‘there’ in others, which led me to consider that it was only me that was having this kind of ‘issues’ with the environment, and yes I did keep it quiet and not really investigating it at the time, which is something I could have opened up to work on and transcend real time, so this is a cool feedback for me to not suppress things.

Within past situations of going to what I can define as ‘uncertain’ areas – which are trips or situations I can count with my fingers in one hand – I would notice others’ ability to adapt to the set up and be comfortable, start opening up with the locals, and be generally ok with themselves even if the setup of where we would be staying was ‘rustic’ or not having all the comfort or services I would expect. So, I’m grateful for learning from others and how they can have this capacity to make themselves comfortable no matter ‘where they are’ – again what I’m having in mind is more natural environments, rural environments, places out of any perceived ‘comfort zone’ that I’ve defined a city to be for me.

Therefore in my life, I do consider I need to challenge myself more in getting out of my comfort zone or ‘city bubble’, and as I write this, there’s this slight fear that emerges as in really wanting to say ‘nooo! I don’t really want to!’ but, that’s the way that I see I would be tested out in terms of being able to adapt living somewhere that is different from my ‘usual’ environment or context.

And this is definitely related to city and countryside type of situation because when I lived alone in Mexico City, I chose to be in a rather basic set up that I got quite adapted to even if it wasn’t a ‘great’ environment to be in, but somehow the notion of being in the city and being able to move around whenever I wanted and having the usual ‘city services’ gave me a point of comfort and security that of course one lacks when being outside of the city and dealing with the reality of life outside of the matrix bubble.

This is also some hard wiring programming in me since I was a child where I learned to fear animals, dislike ‘getting dirty’ in natural environments, having to ‘eat whatever is available’ instead of me being able to choose for myself what I want to eat and having to do work that I would prefer not doing related to specifically again, being under the sun for a long time, fearing not having water – which interestingly enough I went through for just one day in Mexico City and I could not believe how ‘hellish’ that was for me and how apprehensive I got about it as in being fearful about it even paranoid about it which I’ve shared about before in this blog, and it was barely a 24 hour situation…

All of that surely has led me to reflect on the impoverished situations that other people live in wherein there’s this comfort in my mind of thinking that ‘they have adapted to it, they’re used to it’ – but of course this is not common sensical to justify at all! It is something unacceptable that we allow billions to live in such situations and conditions – but unfortunately this is something that I cannot change alone, we all have to realize this and eventually gather to create solutions for the majority.

For now I have to first deal with my perceived inability to adapt to such environments or living conditions. And I find it interesting that this ‘adaptability’ is not related to ‘being unable to adapt to people’ - people are not the problem in my case, but my own reactions to an environment, a living setup, a set of weather conditions. And if I truly want to support myself, well I’d have to also take myself out of my comfort zone where the whole set up in which I live - even if it is very simplistic - it still has all the basic services and even nearby environment where I get everything that I require at any time.

And this is where the notion of having to ‘move’ somewhere else becomes like a slight sensation of fear in the ‘pit of my stomach’ which is all related to a fear of the unknown and a conditioning that has to do with all that I’ve described having experienced before – which wasn’t really ‘bad’ at all – but it all has to do with all the unresolved emotional issues I created towards these environments, which I will be opening up within self-forgiveness in the next blog, because I can clearly see right now how this is truly one of those challenging points for me where I feel quite ‘unsettled’ opening it up lol, which means it’s great that I actually can open it up for once and for all.

How I came up with this notion of looking at the word adaptable in relation to that person I created an ‘attraction’ towards was upon seeing the guy take long hikes completely alone in the mountains and grabbing just one backpack with some basic items needed to do it. I envied his capacity to be completely fine and enjoying himself with just a few items on his back and wander into un-charted territory like a forest or hiking up some mountains, because my thoughts immediately went in the direction of ‘what if there are wild animals, what if he gets stung by something poisonous, what if he runs out of water or food, where will he go to the toilet, how does he manage to sleep!??’ and so picturing myself fearing missing all of those things that I’ve defined as ‘my security’ and basic services/environmental infrastructure.

I see that the one of the reasons why it has been not yet possible for me to adapt is because I keep holding on to the consideration of a situation like that only being temporary for me, that at some point I’ll go ‘back to my comfort zone’ in a city, in a preferred weather environment and so not having to actually embrace my reality completely, which is really not a nice experience at all, because even in one’s imagination, it all becomes about ‘longing’ or ‘yearning’ to be somewhere else but where you are and this I found a very unsettling experience. Yet I was creating it myself based on all the judgments and beliefs I had about my inability to adapt to those environments and truly embrace them as ‘my reality’ or ‘my home’ in that moment.

I therefore would very much like to get to be comfortable and be adaptable in relation to these weather conditions and environments that I’ve defined as uncertain or challenging, and shed that layer of discomfort or ‘pickiness’ that I haven’t managed to let go of – which is for now existing as a memory only as well, because in reality, I have not been in such conditions or environments for a long time. Even when people tell me that they went to the sierra/mountains to spend some days in a little town, there’s a part of me that would truly want to experience a sense of comfort in the notion of going to those places and genuinely enjoy myself, but at the same time what emerges in me is an idea of discomfort, of fear, of uncertainty, of lacking services, of insecurity, of being ‘at the mercy of an uncertain weather’, of not having the resources ‘at my disposition’ as easy as I have them where I live, etc.

I also consider that I’ve judged myself and have secretly been embarrassed throughout my life for having all of these fears I’ve defined as ‘pickiness,’ because I have seen how for many people such lifestyles related to farm life or country side are a ‘dream come true’ but for me it has always been the opposite for the most part and I am glad I did challenge myself to live in a farm for one year, but it wasn’t enough to truly enjoy and embrace my reality, because I knew it would not be permanent and this also sets a condition of ‘tolerating’ or ‘coping’ with something for some time only, instead of me having applied the ability to truly embrace that context and environment regardless of it being temporary or not and work through my reactions in real time.

So, the point here is for me to work with the fears, the anxiety that emerges when considering the potential of living in a place like that again and working with the mental-stuff related to it, to at least recognize how I’ve built this experience of me being apparently ‘inept’ in those environments – and so stopping ‘vetting’ myself from making certain decisions in my life based on an environment, to get the ‘weather’ situation out of the list of ‘cons’ to make decisions in my life and then, there will also be such a thing as testing the real thing and getting to apply myself with the corrections and realizations that I will lay out for myself, and discover for once and for all if I can truly be directive in an environment that I’ve defined as ‘challenging’ for me to be ‘this comfortable and stable me’ as I can apparently be in a familiar or city environment.

Of course all of these are self-limitations I have to break through and change within me as I continue ‘processing’ all of these with self-forgiveness in self-honesty.

More to come…. Thanks for reading.
Marlen
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Post by Marlen »

545. Living Adaptability

§ Continuing from: 530. The Secret Behind Attraction
and second part to 544. Being Inadaptable as Self-Limitation


I had an interesting dream after having written about this point of inadaptability which I explain in a nutshell in this vlog that I made today for context, but overall it was very cool for me to get some clarity of this point that I opened up yesterday about ‘inadaptability’ and seeing from another perspective what I was in fact accepting and allowing to exist within me but seen from another perspective.

Here I apply a suggested way to approach self-forgiveness which was shared in the following Eqafe.com interview: Breakups: Problem-Solution-Change! - Atlanteans - Part 466 which is a great series and this approach for the solution is something I’ll test out from here on.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to embrace reality as myself as where, through allowing judgments as liking or disliking a particular weather or a particular living set-up, I’ve allowed my judgments to create an obstacle in me being fully comfortable, grounded and enjoying my life and interaction with others regardless of ‘where’ I am located and what the weather conditions are or how the environment looks like.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live the word equality towards the physical environment I can be living in, wherein through allowing a belief such as “weather conditions can drain me and make me ‘lose my efficiency” I’ve been existing in a form of blame towards natural conditions that I’ve created a reaction to, instead of realizing that living this comfort and stability within me is not dependent on ‘the external factors’ or conditions, but it can only be lived through stopping the judgments I allowed myself to create towards heat for example or having fears towards particular animals, fearing having no access to basic resources wherein I believe that all of these factors place my life at risk – instead of seeing how I haven’t allowed myself to be expandable as in being grounded within myself wherever I am or can settle in and so focusing on living the word adaptability and flexibility when it comes to getting used to a particular environment and ensuring there are no judgments/separation towards it.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live the word embrace towards the environments I’ve lived in that I’ve judged as having ‘extreme’ conditions or particular lacks or deficiencies, making my entire experience subject to the external factors, instead of realizing how I am the directive principle within myself and I decide what kind of experiences or judgments I turn into an actual way to experience reality through my own acceptance and allowance – therefore I realize that living the word adaptability or being adaptable is the ability to embrace an environment as is, to not judge it, to not react to it based on preprogrammed reactions of my past that I have recreated and ‘rehashed’ in my current moment and making it ‘as the reality of who I am’ based on my own participation in it, wherein I haven’t allowed myself to be congruent in living the word Equality not only towards people, but also towards the physical environment, other beings that are non-human and all of its conditions in it that are also an extension of myself.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live the word flexibility whenever I have seen myself feeling appalled by a particular weather condition wherein there are ways to mitigate the outflows of extreme heat for example, yet while I was in those conditions I decided to get frustrated and feel ‘paralyzed’ instead of seeking solutions and stopping the irritation that I created within myself ‘towards the heat itself’ here

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to fully take responsibility for my own experiences as reactions created towards particular weather conditions, such as irritation, annoyance, discomfort and helplessness caused towards ‘heat’ which are entirely my own creation and I have the ability to decide to stop it all considering how much of a habit it has become in my life.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live the word disposition wherein I can be an ‘available matter’ to go, be or live in wherever environment I have to be at, wherein I’ve used the excuse of my reaction towards heat as a reason to not go to certain places, using the self-definition of having ‘aversion to heat’ as a reason to justify why I am not willing to embrace a particular environment and its weather condition – which is proof of how if I allow these judgments, beliefs and reactions towards reality, I cause myself a limitation, wherein I see that I can expand and be much more flexible and pliable if I let go of these charged memories of judging, disliking and being uncomfortable towards heat.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live the word humbleness in the context of being able to adapt to an environment that is not what I have conditioned to deem as ‘suitable’ or ‘perfect’ in terms of certain standards I’ve created throughout my life and within that, having allowed comparison to dictate my decisions of where to live, instead of making a practical assessment to see the reasons to go and live in a particular environment without making the weather factor, the cultural factor, the ‘people around the environment’ factor a reason to limit my ability to expand, learn and grow as a person in a new environment.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to be tranquil and at peace and ease when experiencing myself in extreme weather conditions or new environments wherein I can require a process of adaptation, wherein I’ve allowed myself to go into desperation, helplessness, irritation, annoyance and ‘blaming the heat’ instead of rather learning to question who am I as these words that exist within me, as experiences that I create and pull out whenever I ‘feel’ extreme heat, therefore I commit myself to live self-awareness in my relationship to how I experience my physical body in higher temperatures specifically and make sure I can breathe and ground myself in my body and not allow myself to recreate the same old patterns around it.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to not yet fully live the word responsibility for my reactions which stem from my mind, not my physical body because my body has the ability to adapt along with any form of additional support such as being well hydrated in terms of extreme heat – therefore I stop the blame towards ‘heat’ and instead look back at myself and my memorized reactions I have to stop participating in.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live the word relax when going out and feeling the rays of the sun hitting on my face and all over my body, wherein my immediate reaction is that of discomfort, annoyance, cringing, wanting to ‘go back inside’ or only seeking the shadows – which of course in terms of a prolonged sun exposure it can be too much for the body and skin, but it is possible to still be under the sun and be ok within oneself, not participating in reactions considering that weather can be challenging and all human beings get to experience it in a physical manner the same way – but it is up to each one of us how we decide to live through it: embracing it or constantly fighting it – and I choose to live the word embrace in relation to heat and embracing the sun rays and sun light along with the necessary support for the body to be ok with extreme heat.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live humbleness in the context of being in environments or households that lacked basic services wherein I’ve allowed myself to go into fear of not being able to survive through that, instead of realizing that my fear and stress consumes and affects my body a lot more than the lack of certain basic services in a momentary manner.

Of course here also realizing how much we are depriving fellow beings from living to their utmost potential because of not having placed ourselves in their shoes to realize what billions have to endure when not having access to their basic resources, starting with food and water, and so in this, I also realize I haven’t placed myself in a point of equality to genuinely see that what I’m accepting to exist towards those billions is actually done all to myself as well and that nothing will in fact change if I continue simply fearing being in such precarious condition, instead of living resilience, an ability to adapt and keep going even if basic things we take for granted are suddenly not available, yet of course continuing to create awareness of the need to sort out this problem for many more in the world.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to truly live the word equality towards animals, wherein I’ve still accepted fears and experiences of disgust towards them, perceiving some animals as intimidating or a cause of disruption of my environment, wherein I have in fact limited myself from really embracing them as life, as a part of who we all are and not seeing that I had existed in judgment towards them as something that I could only tolerate, but not fully embrace, instead of actually pushing myself to learn to embrace, which is to not judge, to not see through the filter of preferences, but to learn to see and live with them as an equal part of life that is here as myself.



I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live the word adaptability in relation to weather conditions, wherein I’ve conditioned my own ‘state of mind’ to be defined and influenced based on ‘weather conditions’ all the time – therefore allowing me to react to external conditions – instead of realizing I can decide who I am in every moment and not allowing a weather-condition to define me.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to embrace the different kinds of weather and instead having gone to specify what is an enjoyable weather and what is not, which means that I’ve made myself subject to a how hot or cold an environment is to feel a particular way, an amount of clouds or lack thereof in the sky, the amount of wind or lack thereof there is, the presence or absence of rain, how ‘clear’ the air around is, how noisy or quiet the environment is, how dirty or clean my surroundings are – all of which I’ve defined as the experience of being inadaptable and generally ‘picky’ in my reality, which I am determined to instead live as the words embrace, humbleness, being forgiving and uncritical, non-judgmental which is the actual way to stop then placing my body under a ‘programmed’ stress that I then have blamed ‘heat’ to be the cause of, when in fact, it’s all self-created.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to challenge the learned and acquired patterns related to ‘reacting towards heat’ learned from others in my environment, wherein it becomes a righteous experience that goes unquestioned, instead of realizing that we always have the ability to choose to not get reactive and emotionally overwhelmed about something, but embracing it, especially with everything that has to do with conditions, factors and contexts that I have no ability to change, such as weather.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to be flexible and pliable in relation to the process of adapting to a particular environment or set of weather conditions, instead of wanting to be controlling towards my environment which only results in a constant inner-fight wherein I do more damage to my very own physical body through the emotional experience than the weather condition I believe is making me ‘feel’ a certain way or causing certain damage in my body.





I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live the word acceptance and embracing when it comes to reality and all of its factors wherein the moment I start judging, I start separating myself and so begin justifying a fight, a conflict towards a part of reality – being it a context or environment, people, animals, wherein I have to remind myself to live equality towards them and that implies no judgment, not acting out on judgments, not making decisions based on emotional experiences or judgments, but learn to be very practically-oriented when making decisions, ensuring I am clear in my ability to work through these reactions which are really not a big deal if living the word embrace and acceptance – I definitely have blown things out of proportion in my head and that’s another thing I have to stop within me as well.

I forgive myself that I haven’t accepted and allowed myself to live the word flow wherein I can breathe through any emergence of reactions towards the weather, but instead I have become so used to always having a comment about the weather and how bothered I am by it or how much I am enjoying it which then becomes a polarity I’ve kept alive within me as some form of ‘righteousness’ with which I have created consequences in my life, that I had overlooked or deemed as not-important – when in fact, every single aspect of who we are in everything we do represents and speaks a lot about ourselves and ‘who we are’ in relation to life.

So this is one of those things that I would not have gone and opened up by my own volition because it was an ingrained set of reactions I had normalized in my life and it’s only through looking at the word adaptability as a trait that I would like to live and develop, that all of this opened up for me to look at and have present within myself whenever the ‘same old’ experiences may want to come up again, which is the moment where I need to apply myself and in essence, stop fighting my reality in whichever sensation I can perceive it to be, it is ultimately just that, a perception.

I commit myself to live the word challenge as in questioning myself and the righteous reactions I’ve created towards particular weather conditions, environments, cultures, livelihood set ups and instead be flexible, humble, considerate of others, be ‘flowy’ and adaptable wherever I get to be and live in or experience myself in, because it ultimately all depends on who I decide to be in every moment and live that decision as words to live.

So, this is a plan for me to keep awareness on and apply in my reality from here on.

Thanks for reading
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