Marlen's Blogs

Marlen
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616. Savoring the Moment March 2nd, 2018

Or enjoying living and substantiating one’s day to day living

I listened to the audio It is Not About Oneness but About Living and what caught my attention of it is how I’ve been reflecting on what it means to live and how we’ve extrapolated this word ‘living’ and have elevated it to something separate from ourselves, almost turning it into something that we are supposed to ‘get to do’ someday, or get to ‘attain’ somehow ‘out there’, instead of realizing that we are already IT, we are already that life and we are that potential that we have been dreaming/thinking about, we just haven’t been LIVING as it. So what does that mean?

I see how daunting it can be to look at ‘life’ and ‘living’ and try and substance these words in an ‘utmost potential’ type of idea right away with ideas, projects, dreams ‘out there’ in the future… and so we spend most of our time thinking, wishing, hoping, dreaming, planning of a moment where we can ‘finally live’ instead of realizing that we are already living, and we are wasting those moments chasing a moment that doesn’t even belong to us.

I’ve also been recently listening a lot to Jordan Peterson and something he explained in one of his discussions with Joe Rogan is how living is about all of those moments and things we repeat on a daily basis, all of those hours that we spend sharing our meals with our partners/family, all of the time spent with our children, all of the time spent on cooking, cleaning, grooming ourselves, going to work, having the normal day to day activities that we many times become frustrated with, tired of or even resist doing as a basic part of living a life in this world.

This caught my attention and particularly correlates to how I’ve been deciding to take on my day to day and really get to live my routine in a different way, because in the past I was resisting to do the basics, there was a time where I came to loathe having to eat, having to take a shower, having to do the basics for living, seeing them as a drag, a waste of time. So I had been working with seeing routine as something that assists me in structuring my day, yet it still only became a doing in a structured manner, a ‘getting things done’ only – but not yet really living, which is where I’m focusing on now.

I am learning and practicing to imprint me/ enjoy myself more in the moments of doing the day to day thing from the moment I wake up, to getting dressed, to making coffee and breakfast meals and genuinely enjoying sharing those moments and the expression that I decide to create of me while preparing meals, enjoying to decide what I’ll wear in the day, enjoying the simplicity of communicating and sharing the basic living activities; enjoying attending to my responsibilities and integrate myself fully into it to get it well done, to not half ass it or do it with the ‘least effort possible,’ but really live the decision and realization of: this is my moment, this is what’s here in front of me, for me to do so I do it the best way possible.

Interestingly enough this has also currently been including the dimension of the ability to enjoy these day to day routines, and even if the activities are basically ‘the same’ day after day, I am realizing how I can truly decide to be present and enjoy the living of these activities and discovering how it is a decision based on – in my case – doing things the best way that I can. To me that’s what satisfies me and it’s even better if I get to share these moments with others or do something that I know will benefit/support others at the same time.

In essence this also correlates to another very cool interview on Eqafe.com A Well Made Moment is a Well Made Self which I definitely could relate to and enjoyed for the same reason, where this emphasis on what we do moment by moment and doing it well, doing it to the best of our capacity is what substantiates and gives meaning to our lives.

This might seem very obvious or simplistic, but I’ve also been reflecting a lot on how many times I projected ‘my life’ as something I’d be doing in a future, way out there at some point in my life where I could finally say ‘I’m living, I’m satisfied with myself’ and kind of building this bubble of ‘greatness’ as ‘living’. I’ve been instead learning to actually appreciate the day to day moments that we take for granted, just like someone reminded me today, we take for granted the ease with which we can do ‘the day to day’ things and forget about the fact that it is a marvel that we are alive, that we can have food in our fridge and have the ability to prepare these meals, to have running water, to have a roof over our heads, to live in an environment where we can walk around and enjoy ourselves in spite of the regular things that may go astray in our societies.

I stopped for a moment to realize how true that is and how many times I had taken for granted the simplicity of enjoying being able to eat, to take a shower, to walk around, to chat with people, to enjoy hanging out with people that you enjoy being with… there are so many things that in the past I would experience as things I just have to ‘deal with’ or ‘swallow’, kind of experiencing them as these little ‘obstacles’ that I had to get through while ‘looking forward’ to something ‘more’ or ‘greater’ in my life out there/somewhere else and far away in the future. That means, I wasn’t really living, but pursuing something outside of myself while dismissing the actual life and living that happens every single moment we are here.

So this is more like a reminder for myself of how many times I’ve almost defined these basic aspects of living mentioned above that are part of my ‘living routine’ as a waste of time or ‘loss of time’ or ‘tedious things’ to do and how I am currently deciding to enjoy them, to be creative in them, to make them interesting based on how I decide to express myself while doing them all.

What I’ve noticed is that my satisfaction does emerge from doing things the best possible way, to add that spark of enjoyment and liveliness to what I do, even if it’s ‘the same’ day after day apparently, I’m learning to enjoy the simplicity of these moments in fact, which again I didn’t use to do before.

I am more and more realizing that life is happening in every moment, it is only us that may be stuck in our heads in plans, ideas, hopes, dreams of ‘what our lives can be’ instead of actually living and enjoying the totality of what we are doing in the moment, no matter how repetitive, how simplistic, how ‘monotonous’ it might seem – all of these adjectives in fact exist as experiences in our minds that become the way that we live out our day to day, always in our heads longing for ‘something more’ instead of realizing this is it! This is where we are, this is what we got, we got ourselves, we have the absolute capacity to decide how to live the moment.

So that’s how living the best that we can in everything we do actually changes the world, because we are the matter that matters and shapes the world – and yes I take this quote from that initial audio I quoted at the beginning of this blog, but it also correlates to what I’ve been hearing from Jordan Peterson – which confirms what we’ve been walking and sharing within the Desteni process – on the importance of focusing on the individual change to create social change, instead of the other way around, which is where people get lost in social justice movements, identity politics and finding culprits for why their lives can’t be as fulfilling as they compare others’ to be.

Living out day to day to the best of our ability is a real gift that we have and that I’m deciding to stop taking for granted or ‘zombing-by’ anymore. I’m grateful also for the people that have assisted me to realize how much of my life, my context and situation I had taken for granted and was getting too lost in life happening ‘out there’ and instead get back to what it means to be in physicality, its potential and enjoyment, in its simplicity.

What has emerged for me to work with/look at and fine tune from practicing this? I noticed that there is this underlying anxiety that is constantly there as a form of ‘rushing’ from all the times I have imprinted an almost ‘anxious’ way of existing where I used to take these day to day living activities as ‘obstacles,’ as things I just had to ‘rush through’ in my day to day to get to ‘do’ things, to ‘be productive’ and all other kinds of things that I regarded as my life’s mission, missing out enjoying the actual living that happens in every moment that I’m doing the day to day activities and routine.

Sometimes we do need reminders to slow down, to enjoy the ordinary in life, to enjoy the moment, to decide to live it and create it as if it was truly ‘the last day of our lives’ which I came to discover in a rather interesting way at the same time with having the idea of leaving a certain place and I made the decision to ‘enjoy the last moments’ there and then I asked myself ‘well, why am I not living this way every day? Why did I have to have this idea of ‘leaving’ as a crutch for me to decide to see things differently, to enjoy my day to day in a genuine way?’ And that was in fact a key point for me to start appreciating my day to day routine because of seeing my day to day with a different set of eyes so to speak, and I’m quite grateful then that I decided to take this new way of living the ‘day to day’ now, because it makes living much more enjoyable and not only that, but I am more aware of the expression that I can imprint in everything that I am doing, more aware of the kind of words I’m living in the matter that I am, and so making sure I matter in the basics, in the ‘little things’ that I do as part of my day to day living.

So that’s something to try out, to live everyday as if it was your ‘last day’ and then see how to integrate that into one’s day to day living as a new way of living – of course not with the fear of loss or fear of dying or whatever else – but as if it was truly one’s last chance to fully enjoy that meal that one likes eating, fully enjoying that cup of coffee, that walk out in the streets, that going to the movies, that doing our tasks and job the best that we can, that simple conversation with someone that we can enjoy communicating with, that best version of ourselves that can interact with others, enjoying the basic elements of living and living responsibly with it all.

I don’t intend to sound all ‘blissful’ and magical here, lol – because this entails actual doing, actual dedication, actual focus and detail into what one does because giving or creating that best of ourselves in every moment requires that, and that’s what I am deciding to integrate as part of what makes me fulfilled, satisfied on a daily basis, savoring the moment if you will instead of living more in my head and waiting for ‘better times’ in the future – nope, instead I realize I’m here, I decide what I make of it = I decide how I live myself, that’s my essential creative power.

Thanks for reading.
Marlen
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Joined: 12 Jun 2011, 20:16
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617. To Be A Part Of

Sharing about developing empathy and nurturing my life experience in my community.

I had quite a shift during my day yesterday where I consider I finally understood what was missing in my life experience before, wherein I used to be very ‘utilitarian’ in a sense and judge things based on them being useful for something tangible or not and within this, write off a lot of experiences that had to do with what I judged as a waste of time like getting together in a concert to presence live music, or going to the movies, or seeing a play, or attending a conference about some kind of creative process.

I actually considered that the ‘click’ of realizing this emerged yesterday with a series of small moments of contact and connection with people that renewed this understanding that I’ve actually been expanding on throughout this first half of the year for the most part and getting to genuinely enjoy my human experience – at last – lol.

If anyone has a recollection of me, I defined myself as a Grinch, the person that hates family reunions, large crowds, having to ‘deal with people,’ would rather be alone and isolated from everything that didn’t just ‘make sense’ or ‘agreed’ with how I view things or would be zero productive in a utilitarian sense. I stopped watching anything entertaining and only focused on sucking all kinds of information I could and placed myself in a higher ground where I believed that ‘everyone else that seemed to be enjoying their life were fools and disingenuous about reality.’ Well, the joke was on me, because I truly got bitter and lifeless to say the least, and it was only through a decision to challenge this ‘me’ mindset that I’ve been – slowly but surely – cracking open from that hardened shell.

Now, this is something that I would not have been able to do alone at all. Yes, I had to make the decision to – as they say – put myself out there and actually give myself the time to stop moving from ‘task to task’ for a moment and give myself some time to stop and ‘smell the roses’ so to speak. For example, I’m so used to taking a walk everyday for over a decade now, and I had the phases where I’d do something ‘productive’ in it like taking pictures and videos and so forth – then It was just me walking, going to get things somewhere and come back, have the least contact with people throughout that and be quite generally ‘lacking’ something in my life in doing that, yet being very disciplined about it and believing I was achieving some form of self mastery in doing so.

Well, from the past year I decided to not only do the walk but actually use the time to also get to interact with others and actually establish relationships through that. It all started with opening up to enjoying listening to music in the street and standing there enough time where I’m not in my usual ‘rush’ of having to leave the place or having this race against time, but genuinely set myself to enjoy observing ‘life passing by’ which is something I had avoided doing – again – within the mindset of: ‘Oh this is just a waste of time, no one is getting anything out of it, I’m not getting anything done’ etc. But over time, I realized that it was through that sort of dedication and openness that I got to connect more with people in my environment and stopped seeing it only as a nice ‘background’ or ‘scenario’ to look at or walk by, and instead I decided to be more a part of it all, to actually stop seeing myself as an outsider, as someone that will most likely ‘leave at any time from here’ and actually grow some roots as I heard someone in a documentary I watched yesterday say.

Man, it’s been such a change and I don’t mean to turn my bleak view on the world into a suddenly rosy everything is fine now mindset, nope, because in actually getting to create relationships with people, getting to know more about their lives and relationships, one does realize a lot of messed up things going on, which have also opened up my eyes tremendously to realize how much I was sort of deluded into just blabbering these higher than life principles but in reality there was no actual decision from me to create an actual Empathy with people, to actually connect, to actually step out of my misanthropy and get to really connect and decide to care about others. That’s the change that I’ve been working on and has definitely changed my life experience in quite a significant way and I’m only starting with this.

How did I got to this? By deciding to grow roots, to finally settle in and ‘go out there’, and instead be more present, be more HERE which I thought I was doing by keeping myself in a semi-monkish way with little to not distractions and very few interactions that I could be perturbed by. I avoided people, that’s the reality – and now it’s sort of the other way around and it’s not a 100% change, but I definitely now push through to show up to meetings and places and family reunions that I would usually talk myself out of, giving myself certain excuses like being able to use the time for something ‘more productive’ apparently.

Looking back, I can see all the many things that I cut myself off from, like cousins that had kids and I wasn’t there at all when they were baptized or born or had their first birthdays, I always said no to any of it. Now that I’ve been rekindling those relationships, there is a bit of sadness about having missed out on all of that growth and now I see them with 12, 18, 5 years old and missed out on all of their initial developmental phases, including that of my direct nephew and niece because I was in such mindset of detaching myself from everything and everyone and believing that way I would not ‘be hurt’ if I had to leave this place that I live in. I deliberately created detachment to things and that definitely wasn’t the way… and yes, I’ve also gone through the route of being resentful to myself for making such decisions, looking back at ‘all that I didn’t do’ or that ‘could have been different,’ but, at the same time I’ve deliberately decided to not beat myself up for it, to make peace with it because that was me back then, having a very rigid mindset going on about my life and what I should do and how I should think, and yes I deliberately separated myself a lot from virtually everything around me, I was like an alien living where I am but not really TRULY seeing myself as a part of it all, I was just like an observer, a temporary observer. Of course this may sound like I didn’t connect ‘at all’ with people, I remember having had equally enjoyable time when being in art school, but once that was done, I did isolate myself quite a bit.

How did I come to open this up today at last? I was listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast, which is something I’ve been listening to for several months now and I’ve genuinely nurtured myself from it because I find that it is through people’s lives and experiences, the challenges they create for themselves that they create successful and enjoyable lives that do not come easy, they come with hardship, but see the benefit and satisfaction in doing so. So, yesterday’s podcast was about a guy that went to live with a certain kind of monks – not Buddhists – for 15 days and the stuff he gathered from it, and as I was listening to his description of how the monks lived, I realized that for quite a few years I lived like that, I’d like to say these past 7 or more years I sort of did that kind of detachment and unwavering discipline for certain things where one is living in the world and believing one is cultivating certain things – which yes I probably did – but are not really going ‘out there’ and really being a part of the world. I did this detachment for several years and I didn’t have to only go and live somewhere else in a similar seclusion for a year to do that as part of this process, but I sort of continued living that way even when coming back and I consider that was entirely my comfort zone and – still is in many ways – to not challenge myself further, even if I know that doing so is the most supportive thing to do.

Here I want to leave things clear that no one told me to do this but myself, that’s how I saw ‘the way’ to become a better person in this world, by not participating in a lot of what I considered useless, a waste of time, harmful, pointless, brainless, etc. And with that, I lost touch with actually being in reality and being able to enjoy and savor the various seemingly ‘meaningless’ living experiences.

I have to say that I actually have benefitted a lot from the various years I’ve spent going to documentary festivals now, like Ambulante festival here in Mexico, it was through that that I got back to seeing how people are living in the country I live in, the things that are unfortunately going on around me and that I was fully oblivious of, because I was focusing more on expecting some kind of world-reset-overnight-change in the economic and political level and a somehow miraculous ‘saving’ grace for this world to the point where I wasn’t concerned or rather interested at all in what was happening at a local level. It was through the documentaries and actually showing up to the screenings that I started getting ‘in touch’ with people in my community, it was a matter of deciding to care and push through the idea that it was pointless, that it was just entertainment and not judge it as that, and place myself there, learn to watch/hear/see the stories and kind of allow the idea to sink in that this that I am watching is not just some fictional story for entertainment, these are people’s lives.

It’s been such a nurturing process and it has assisted me a lot to finally develop that care, consideration, empathy and – god I will dare to say – affection for people. I never thought I would say that! Lol ‘so out of character’ and sure it damn is! It is as if the center of my being is finally ‘opening up’ in reality, not at an intellectual level in which ‘I thought’ that I cared about people and life on earth…. Seriously? By me having this constant ‘fighting’ mode and bitterness from the moment I’d step out of my home? No way, how could I have in fact been ‘best for all’ with that sort of misanthropy exuding from my pores? Nope, yet I thought I was the most caring and self aware person walking on the streets…

This is what I was chatting about with my partner today, how much I have benefitted from art or artistic expressions actually, specifically documentaries and going to screenings and start getting to know of my community, and start seeing people that are presenting their work and realize I know them from another contact and getting to see their work and what their interests are and their different views on life and things… it has assisted me a lot to slowly but surely be stepping out of this rigid mentality where I thought that ‘everyone has to be like me’ or ‘think the same way I do’ because ‘it makes sense and it’s best for all,’ and instead, realize it’s about me being open to the myriad of living-ways that each human being represents, each one has got fascinating stories to tell in their own way, their own struggles and motivations to live and with their own purpose. I am now definitely interested in getting to know them, and savor it, and enjoy it.

This is me here writing it out at last, but this has been an accumulation process of several years now, like 3 at least where I noticed that I decided to step out of this ‘Grinch’ mode and started opening up to few things here and there and currently I am a lot more settled into this ‘newly’ found enjoyment and interest in being a part of a community, which I just didn’t care at all to do before.

Yesterday I got to confirm and kind of finally realized why I started being so drawn to these activities like going to watch documentaries or certain live acts downtown and through that developing a kinship to people that are more involved with this kind of activities, people that I had always just ‘passed by’ that I am now deciding to actually talk to and get to know and possibly collaborate with. I went to this short film festival from locals and it is so out of character for me to say this, but it was heart-warming to see some of the youngsters share their story of why they got to do certain works like an animation – which I personally didn’t ‘get’ much – but I got a lot more from seeing the nervous-stricken guy tell the story about his dad leaving home to do some PHD and having certain legos left with him that he got kind of an obsession with and developing an entire animation with them which surely must have been a LOT of work to do, but it was a way for him to deal with that sort of situation of how he lives his life, his own ‘isolation’ if you will and how genuinely happy – to the brink of tears – he was to be able to show his work, his many hours of production to the people in his community, to his co-citizens, as he called us and at that emblematic place that is built for that kind of local reunion to watch certain acts live – music, theatre, movies, etc. His words were a way to finally ‘put words’ to the reason why I also showed up, it is a form of care and interesting in other humans and their lives and creations.

Lol, I kind of finally ‘got’ why art is relevant. I laugh because I ‘studied’ it and practice it, but I had not truly given words to the reason ‘why’ it is relevant. And this I also got from listening to someone in a podcast or so say that we need kids in this world, newborns, that will grow up to be the next inventors, the next artists that enrich our living experience – and that hit a core right there. See, I had no ‘clear’ idea why I would like doing art, or watching movies now on a regular basis as part of my time with my partner and going out to be a part of a communal show like it is to go to the movies, or going to the documentary festivals which I also very much enjoy as those activities that have genuinely made my life better, building myself as a part of the world through these activities. Showing up to all of these is a statement of ‘hey I’m here, I want to commune-icate with you, you are part of my community, we’re all here, let’s connect and support each other’ which to me, is becoming ‘the’ thing that moves me and drives me in my life: developing these relationships and connections with others.

This is quite a big change because I like being productive, there’s no way around it, I ‘dwindle’ if I just place myself in non-action consuming only information or watching something and not ‘doing’ something at the same time, which is why going to the movies is almost a requirement for me to watch something and be still, and it also forces me to go out, to meet with others, to be ‘part’ of a community for a moment, even if I don’t get to speak with the rest of the attendants, I’m there, we’re there and sharing a moment.

I guess that’s what it also boils down to. I was so glad to arrive yesterday to downtown’s theatre and see this long queue of people waiting to come in to watch these 4 short films made by locals. Sure, it could have been that each one of them invited all of their friends and family, but so what! It was such a nice thing to witness and again, be a part of, where I decided to make that time of my day to meet up with these other hundreds of people, fill out an entire auditorium to watch these emerging film makers that share the same city with us. It certainly isn’t the same as watching foreign films, because these are people around you, growing in the same culture, moving through the same spaces and seeing that on film kind of creates a form of bond that I had completely disregarded as ‘pointless’ or a ‘mind thing’ before.

I’ve talked about how I realized the actual care and enjoyment of people around me nowadays and how I went from hating crowds to enjoying the moment of standing in a crowd and watching musicians play, or being sitting around many that are there watching documentaries, and enjoying their laughter and their sadness which at times comes with watching these stories and knowing that we all got that experience right there to stay with us. And that’s – I guess – the power and purpose of the art sharing experience, or simply sharing experiences through film, music, seeing some visual art… but even more so, I get to enjoy hearing the voices behind those creations, that to me is essential nowadays. Yesterday I got to see that as well how some of the things that I watched were just ‘meh’ or not ‘my style’ but hearing the story behind it, about the connections they had to create to have it done, the challenges, the dedication, the effort, the resources pulled for it, that definitely became interesting and inspiring as well.

I was also very much touched by a guy that told his story of how he initially started his documentary wanting to share about how much he loathed his family – lol – because of a treason situation his uncle did, but through making the documentary and getting to know his friends’ stories about their relationship to their family, he realized that his initial premise for the documentary was going to be shitty and not inspiring at all. So through the making process, he literally said it was an act of forgiveness and him realizing the importance of family even if one feels like the ‘odd one out’ which I very much could relate to, so this documentary definitely spoke to me quite a bit because I had been so reluctant about family, family gatherings and such and it is only now throughout these past months that I’ve come to enjoy it and cherish it for what they are and represent, and this documentary also made me realize there’s plenty of people that felt like me, some that are still in that detachment phase – which seems to be related to being a young adult – and others that accept and have come to make peace with the variety of characters that a family represents yet, sticking together for the network of support and community that it is.

It was very cool for me to see this in the shape of several stories linked with this common denominator, somehow seeing people from your same city talking about these things turns a moment into an enriching experience where I felt a little more ‘connected’ to everyone around me and within that, taking one further step out of my bubble. Even with hearing another person next to me laugh at the same situation I could personally relate to from the documentary, became an ‘Ah! I’m not alone!’ type of realization, even if it is very obvious that we live in a city with lots of people and we barely communicate to each other – yet, it is in this kind of gatherings where to me the movie is a bridge to connect with each other, and that’s awesome. I’ve made a couple of friends now this way because of seeing what they created and wanting to get to know more about them and finding that kinship within their drive for this kind of creation.

After I went out from that whole after-film discussion, I was walking down the street with my partner and we saw one of his friends playing at a café, there was barely anyone there so we decided to join in. The sheer fact of seeing him see us decide to come in and drink a cup of coffee while listening to him play was enjoyable in itself, a decision to say ‘Hey I’m here, came to see you!’ and it surely was also enjoyable and ‘out of routine’ to do this kind of decisions, sitting there for a moment and share about our day became such an enjoyable moment as well, where we could later talk with his friend – our friend I’d say now – and get to give him some ideas of how to get out of a rut he was stuck with and impulse him to test out other ways to use his kills and make money out of it. It was a short meeting, a ‘moment’ only if you will, but to me this is the kind of substantial bits that make my life experience a lot richer… and it would not happen if I didn’t take the time to be ‘out there’ and actually have the disposition to connect with others too. I’m grateful for the connections like this that I’ve been able to make through my partner who is also very much linked to the local community and I am appreciating the benefit of having that starting point to be able to relate to many more people. In a way, I’ve come to definitely no longer enjoy myself only being ‘isolated’ and not having this sort of connections around others, and realizing more and more how no man is an island and when I pretended to be so, I definitely sank in it.

One thing I realized as well is that it’s not about creating ‘best friends’ with all kinds of people, but definitely relating to many more and being open to the variety of people in a community is part of what living life is… a complement to the rest of the personal doings, productive ways and personal achievements. I am opening my eyes to see how I definitely want to become a participating-part of my community and use the ways and means I have to start doing so, starting relating to others, instead of living like a hermit even when surrounded by people.

So, it feels like I had some kind of writing constipation for several months – I’ve certainly been processing several things and rerouting a bit my life and deciding to ‘grow roots’ here, which I am finally doing and looking forward to continuing developing.

I also realized that the most important thing is to share my story, how I’ve changed, what I’m busy changing, instead of wanting to come here and stand in a moral highground about how things should be or could be – I’ve been there and done that – so, there’s a tendency for me to want to end this with a note of ‘find your passion’ or ‘find your way’ to enjoy life, to genuinely get to experience that your life, your presence, your words, your doings are creating a form of meaning to you and others that is supportive, that is nurturing and expansive.

I am finding and developing that in ways that are very simple currently, as I shared in my past blog, that still stands and continues to be developing where the sheer process of getting to know one person and having that common stand point of creating a relationship in a way where living together becomes enjoyable and supportive IS worth living for, and seeing how that ripples out into the lives of others, without even ‘wanting’ to have an effect on them. That’s quite the remarkable thing I’d say and not to adjudicate any credits here to myself or anything like that, but simply seeing the effect of deciding to be a part of something and dedicate time to it, dedicate willingness to it, that’s quite an enjoyable thing to do.

This is currently the path for me, but I also understand it’s not everyone’s -and thank god for that, what would be the point if everyone would think or do the same things? – It’s all about being able to challenge ourselves, our ways, our ‘views’ and ask a very honest question: if we are dissatisfied about something in our lives, then what do we need to change and stop doing to stop making them shitty, meaningless and feeling miserable? And then dedicate the effort, time and actions to change that. I know the obstacles, I know the doubts, I know the fears, so, just taking the first steps over time is all I can say will open up new paths in how to get to enjoy living and seeing the benefit of it. I definitely am grateful to all of the people that have decided to share their music, share their films and documentaries, their stories with me and with many more. I get to enjoy my life more ever since opening up more to them and that’s great, otherwise, life would be too bland as I used to experience it.

Thanks for reading.
Marlen
Posts: 4376
Joined: 12 Jun 2011, 20:16
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Post by Marlen »

618. Being Taken for a Ride vs. Taking the Wheel and Driving Yourself

Or learning how to slow down, calm down and get out of anxious ingrained ways of behaving.

I’ve been becoming more and more aware of the very – very – ingrained aspects in me that have become so much so ‘how I am’ and ‘my nature’ that I had overlooked, that I hadn’t directly intervened because, in a way, I had not been aware of it as much, or had not seen it as something that would ‘affect’ others, because in my mind I was just being ‘the best I can be’… but is it really? Lol

We were discussing in today’s group chat about the addictive nature that we create towards our emotions – or feelings – and how we have to directly intervene and direct ourselves, actually take the wheel whenever we are being ‘driven’ by something and it’s not us driving, sitting at the wheel and directing where we want to go and who we want to be in every moment of our lives.

The word autopilot is a keyword for me whenever I see I am in such kind of ‘addictive’ patterns which interestingly enough do not involve actually ‘doing’ something in particular hat I am addicted to – but more like a state of being. The reality is that I had not questioned this ‘way of being’ as much before and I am quite thankful that I have someone in my life that is daring to point out all of the various – many – times when I go into this ‘antsy’mode, yes, a rushing-mode, almost like a state of being where I constantly have to be ‘on the run’ to do something even if I don’t actually have to.

I’ve noticed how I am blind to this for some months now and it is quite shocking at times that if it wasn’t because of my partner saying ‘hey, sloooow doooown’ or ‘what’s the rush?’ or ‘caaalm doooown’ and holding me for a moment – lol – I would not be as aware of it because of being so used to doing things in ‘fast mode’ and it has been so much of ‘my way of being’ that I’ve seen it as part of my traits, a good trait in fact to be ‘always on time’, being fast, accurate, efficient, etc. Nothing wrong with those words though! But I definitely know WHO I am when I am living those words through this energy-driven mode, which actually happens when I consider I am on autopilot mode and being taken for a ride by these ingrained lifelong ‘ways of being’ which I am quite aware I copied from my parents as well.

So, during today’s chat I brought up the analogy of how we have to be more directive in taking the wheel and driving ourselves, directing ourselves to what we want to do and how we want to live those moments, instead of riding in the back of the car and ‘being taken for a ride’ without any awareness of our state of being, of how we may be going down ‘the same old road’ that we know leads nowhere but sabotage, despair, inaction or just problems without solution.

If I look at myself as a back rider, I don’t have to pay attention or decide which way to go or be fully knowing where I am going or how to get there, I’m just being ‘driven’ by something or someone else. Being in the driver’s seat requires my full attention, full awareness on every single detail from how to operate the car, the direction, the way to get there, the timing, the traffic, other cars, fuel, …. Etc. Yes, yes, eventually that also becomes ‘automated’ but the point here is to understand the difference of riding in the backseat within ourselves and in our minds where we just ‘repeat’ ourselves in addictive states of being and experiences that we no longer question – even if we know we are compromising our lives and that of others in one way or another with our actions or inactions – and how we can instead remind ourselves to be the driver, the one that directs, that is intervening directly on the way to go, that tests out new routes if the ‘same old ones’ are leading us to places and states of being that we know are detrimental to our lives. It requires such responsibility of deciding to take the wheel, it’s not limiting, it is expansive.

I was actually discussing that with my partner recently, and we were wondering about how there’s many people that prefer to do the least or stay the same because it seems ‘easier’ or ‘more comfortable’ when in fact, doing the most and pushing to do the best, and developing discipline and adding new challenges to our lives is the one thing that makes one grow the most. This is a bit out of topic but we also talked about how most relationships get into big problems right after the honey moon phase, and that’s because everyone starts the relationship or even prepares to ‘get the person’ by becoming the ‘best version of themselves’ for a moment, to impress, to attract the other person and so ‘play safe’ as they say, meaning they appear to be nice, loving, hard working, kind, responsible, adamant, etc. And once that the ‘prey has been caught’ as in establishing a relationship with each other, bam! The reality – the real-reality unfortunately – of each other comes out in full force, because it becomes quite difficult to maintain a façade of being better than ‘one actually is.’ It is unfortunate thought that this ‘how one actually is’ means the worst version of ourselves, but hey we are here to become aware of these accepted patterns in society and be able to change them.

That’s when people start to ‘show their true colors’ and embark themselves in endless fights with destructive behavior towards one another because one or the other – or both – are not really who they ‘appeared’ to be. Whereas, as he shared, he conceived a relationship as a point of responsibility that would actually, yes, be more demanding and a point of responsibility, but for the best. I like this approach as well because it definitely means one has to intervene, to change, to adapt, to upgrade, to become the driver, to actually truly use that relationship as an opportunity to become in fact a better person, and this is what I’m focusing on.

It is for me –a person that has dedicated some 10 years of her life to develop self-awareness and such – quite a shocker at times to see these very ingrained patterns of rushing, being ‘antsy’ as in wanting things fast, now, being very demanding and exigent with others or within a situation… very controlling to say the least. It’s great that there’s a person that can say ‘yes I knew you were like that, but I decided to be with you anyways’, because this has opened up the possibility for me to become aware of my patterns, to not take it personally or see it as ‘faulty’ or wrong things within me – even if I get shocked at times by it – I do remind myself why I am the way I am, I know my background at home, I am aware how I picked up all of these ‘ways of being’ from both my parents in general, I know there’s nothing or no one to blame but to take responsibility for it myself now. And what assists a lot is to be able to see a person first hand on how they deal with the same situation in such a different way, with calm, patience, in a more ‘chilled’ manner, because that’s precisely the example I didn’t have at home, but now I do in a way so, that’s for the best because one can then look at ways in which the person acts and behaves and learn from how it can be done, test out at least if it works for me to act differently in situations where I would usually be in antsy mode.

Another point is that, at first, when he would point out these things to me, there was a slight reaction of ‘How dare you say that to Me?’ lol, yes because I had this big ego idea of being the one that is working on self, that is a ‘very self-aware person’, but I had to immediately take the guard down and put on my humbleness shoes and admit myself to see what he was saying and picking up from my attitude, and reflect back to say ‘yes, it is so, that’s what I’m doing in fact’ and within that, start realizing the many aspects that I had no way of ‘cross-checking’ before because there had been no one that dared to question those ways of being before, because in my mind I was just being ‘the best’ to my ability – but I had overlooked the tension, the anxiety, the rushing, the impatience that usually accompanies that ‘dutiful’ and ‘disciplined’ manner I can have a times, so that’s not a way to live those words.

So, because I am grateful for having that in my life currently, the least I can do is to share that as well with people I consider I have the ability to give feedback to. Sometimes people might react to it, but at least I’ve said it, it is then something they can look at or throw away. My responsibility is to test out the waters and see with whom I can give that kind of feedback – who is open for it – and where to ‘keep shut’ because at times, yes, I do tend to be too ‘intervening’ with others – to say it in one way, lol – and some people do get genuinely offended by my questions about what their experience might be in a moment. I can only learn from it, just like with everything. But for now I stick to having that opening of feedback with my partner and also at times with my mother, who actually gives that ‘in the moment’ feedback based on very subtle behaviors that can only be picked up by someone that has been ‘there’ seeing you growing for most of your life – yep, it is so, she nails it every time, so I at times still deny it but that’s when I know I am suppressing something – so, now I’m learning to admit it and be willing to open up about it.

We all can do this no matter what kind of interaction with others we have. Even if it’s only one or a few people you relate to on a daily basis, each interaction with each kind of person can assist us to see more of ourselves. Some may give direct feedback, some may not dare to say it, but we can always cross-reference our experiences with them to take note of what created a subtle ‘shock’ in us, meaning, a moment where something just didn’t ‘feel right’ or ‘sit right’ and made us react, or where we saw that others reacted, so that we can cross-reference how one acted in such moments.

But, I must say that by being alone or being with a person that is not daring to say straight feedback to me would have created more ‘untold’ reactions and consequences, a longer road for me to realize: “man, this is affecting other’s experience around me, I need to chill out, I need to slow down, I need to stop being so controlling, I need to stop being so exigent and ‘right-here-right-now’ type of demanding person that I’ve become.’ So, my suggestion – very personal – if you are the kind of person that is ready for full on – and in your face- feedback about our bits here and there that we need to change or become aware of, then align with people in your life that are on the same page and will take nothing personal about it, but instead be grateful for that kind of communication, because it is something I appreciate a lot, something I kind of longed for in a relationship so, I aligned with someone that would be in the same page of how to take feedback and work with it.

And yes, at times a hug or a simple point of touch can assist me to ground myself in those moments – yes it may sound like I have some kind of mental problem that needs to be ‘calmed down’ with a pat on the back, lol! – But! I’ve found it is actually supportive to make it that physically visible for me, because it becomes a very visible to myself and others, like a wake up call of ‘Holy crap! I’ve been in autopilot just running the ‘rushy mode’ or the ‘antsy mode’ or ‘bossy mode’ and now I got my wake up call.

Now the point is not to create dependency or even a sort of a ‘relationship dynamic’ to always have to be calmed down or pointed out that I am rushing or I am being demanding, or that I need to chill out. Nope, the point is to be able to direct myself so that I can in fact stand up to my standards which I tend to project onto others or situations outside of myself. If I am indeed exigent, I need to be congruent and apply that to myself first. So I can apply the word in being exigent to no longer have to be told that I need to chill out and slow down, but step into the driver’s seat to direct myself, so that my interaction can also open up to seeing more of myself within the interactions that I have with my partner and others in my life.

All I can share at the moment is to be able to – or dare – to create an agreement with someone that you are close with to say the facts about what one is seeing in another. Sometimes I just say things and I completely assume and misread the situation, but it’s ok, no one takes it personally, I’m just clarified about the situation and I learn to ask things differently instead of asking within assumption. Sometimes I assume too much and don’t communicate, that is usually the worst, so I take that step to ask directly and go creating that confidence to have that open communication with someone in the bits that we notice about one another, and know that we are made aware of these things not as a judgment or a point to be spiteful about, but as things that we know we can become aware of, discuss and decide to change within ourselves.

So how am I changing it? By ensuring I am not tensing up my body when doing things, being ok with not ‘having to be doing’ something I’ve defined as ‘productive’ all the time and enjoying a simple moment of eating, walking outside, watching something in the internet that is for fun or entertainment, to enjoy seemingly ‘silly’ conversations – lol – to become creative in what I can make for food, to remind myself I don’t have to pressure myself to do things, but simply do them, without the energy-rush. To remind myself that whenever I feel like I want to go home already when being outside, it is merely a habit because there is nothing really ‘pressing’ for me to be at home for most of the times, it’s just a habit that tends to kick in as a mode of rushing to get back to some kind of ‘comfort zone.’ Also to not demand to others to act in what I believe is ‘the best way’ because some people are just not up for it and will react to it, and I have to be ‘ok’ with it no matter how it may make common sense – I tend to do this with strangers, not a good idea, so learning to read the different situations better, lol.

So this is about changing the way I live the moments, because in my case it’s about the inner experience, how I become tense within my body when doing things or when knowing I have to get to do something and putting some kind of extra pressure that is Not needed at all. I simply have to take the wheel and direct myself to do it. It is about removing this almost addictive ‘stress’ that I’ve become so used to carrying – shall I say burdening myself with – which comes through in the way I move and express which seems a bit too ‘fast’ or ‘erratic’ at times for some, lol, I do laugh at being calmed down in such moments, but I do need to become more aware of this so as to not make it a part of my personality, because I know my body is not at ease when being in that mode. It happens because I am ‘up there’ in the autopilot – whereas I know when I am here, stable, directive – there’s actually calm, a slowness, an ‘everything is alright’ within me – which is not a sense of delusion, but an actual cross reference of walking my day according to what I have to do and so de-pressuring from the ‘burdening’ sense of rush that I have tended to attach to things.

Ok, so that’s my take on this current point of awareness of where I need to take the driver’s seat and not be ‘driven’ constantly by the rush-mode or have to be driven by someone else to the point of becoming aware of it. So it’s cool to have a cross-reference outside, yes, but then to take the wheel and not become dependent on that to change. Yes, this is part of the result of applying the Desteni support and the Eqafe recordings, some of which I will also share down here so that you can start gearing up to this ongoing process in everyone’s life on Earth.
Marlen
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Re: Marlen's Blogs

Post by Marlen »

619. Learning From Relationships

I listened to three audios on Eqafe that I find essential to listen for everyone, considering how most of us – or so far I’ve only known one person in my life that was not interested in having a relationship – are usually looking for and aiming to ‘find that ONE person’ to establish a relationship with. Here are the titles: Fear of Missing Out on a Fulfilling Relationship - Fears & Phobias, Using Relationships to Hide From Myself - Life Review, Time Alone Before Time Together - Life Review.

When I listened to the Life Review specifically, I could relate to what the woman shared with regards to the little time spent without and in between relationships and how that affected her in disconnecting from herself, from who she was and how much the constant seeking for a relationship made her dependent on the ‘other’ person to be complete within herself – this might be a bit of a vague description on my side, so I definitely recommend you listen to her story yourself. But! here I’m focusing on sharing what opened up for me as I was listening to her story.

First of all realizing that I have been in such kind of situation where I would end a relationship and start another one right away, not spending time alone to reconsider where I am and who I have been in the relationship – in terms of what were my lessons learned, points expanded, faults, mistakes, things I can be grateful for etc. - and instead jumping into the next relationship. This is probably one of those weakest points I’ve had throughout my life and one that I have been particularly – secretly – ashamed of because it is obvious that it involves a lack of honesty towards myself within relationships in terms of what I can accept and allow, what I can commit to and how I have disregarded the consequences and the effect that me changing my mind about relationships can have on the partner and people around as well.

I share this because I do consider it vital to apply what the woman shares about her story, to be able to take some time off from relationships in order to ‘get back to oneself’. I’ve done both things and will share my experience in both situations.

There was a time that I’ve recently in my mind judged as very bleak, lonely and fruitless, this happened when I was living in Mexico City and I deliberately decided to learn to be alone – in a rather ‘extreme’ way to be alone I’d say - being then fully aware of my tendency to become dependent on being ‘always there’ for other people, being the kind of partner that lives the life of the partner and has none of her own – I decided to learn to be by myself –that means without relationships - and learn to know what I enjoy doing, learn to be comfortable being alone and doing things alone, going out shopping, to the movies, living on my own. Yes, maybe I took it to the extreme in terms of the lack of interaction I had with other people – including family and friends - but that’s something I am also now learning to do in terms of not being too extreme in the way that I decide to change things. So, in a nutshell, I call it my monkish period, and as much as in my mind I’ve judged it as a generally ‘bleak’ time, when I recently looked deeper into it to not resent my choices at that time, I see that such years were dedicated to live ‘me’, to know me better, to learn to be alone, to learn to do things that I decide to do – not that someone else ‘takes me’ to do – and there was a sense of independence formed that I would not trade off or change, because it assisted me to see where and how I compromised myself many times for the sake of being in a relationship and existing in fear of ‘losing’ something that I now know was not best for me, was constantly emotional, troublesome and detrimental to my expression and my living.

Then I got to a point where I decided I could establish a relationship again and I did, again looking back not having the best starting point because it did come from having formed an experience of alones at the time, but I tried to make it work nonetheless. I had settled in one relationship believing I could change the person, conforming in certain ways to make it work and taking the compromise lightly to say the least, not fully being aware of the commitment that I was making at the time and the challenges it represented. But I wanted to make it work for both of us, which didn’t happen. At least I proved to myself that I could fully and absolutely commit to another and still see that even if I am doing all that I can to assist and be ‘there’ for another, it takes two to tango to stand on the same page. I broke that relationship even if there were legal formalities formed with it.

After that, I had a few months to yes go through the sorrow, pain and ‘disconnection’ process from that relationship but I did decide to enter a new relationship after that; though fortunately enough did still have the opportunity to be alone and process through all of the things that I had accepted and allowed – created – in the previous relationship. But still, I do consider that I went ahead too fast and without much consideration of the implication of making such decisions not only for myself, but for the other person as well. This year I repeated the same, because of not having had that needed time to ground myself around relationships and one thing I can tell is that unless one has an understanding partner that has full awareness of the previous relationship patterns, it can be a disaster recipe to go jumping from one relationship to another.

I was in a way fortunate that my partner was understanding of it all, not that he approves of what I’ve done and my relationship habits, but again, he is aware and he made a decision to stand with me anyways and understood that I had things to process from my previous relationships at the same time as starting a new one. The thing that I want to share is how it’s not a bright idea to not give oneself time to be alone after a relationship ends, it can lead to not fully considering things in terms of what one is able to commit to and the effect it may have by making a decision without proper time for reflection, for personal assessment of the mistakes, the things allowed, the points that one needs to self-forgive and work through, because it does ‘filter’ or ‘spill through’ to the new relationship and it may lead to ruin if one does not handle the situation with proper sense of responsibility and communicating about it and again, having a partner that can understand and not take it personally either.

So from my recent experience, this kind of situation led to a great amount of stress that I became unaware of – apparently – and I became sick or having certain health issues almost on a regular basis for the past months. This can also be a narrow perspective on my health situation, but this is what I’ve concluded recently, that I put myself under a lot of stress because of the decisions I made in relation to relationships, where not being honest with myself and towards others led me to compromise myself and that became an ingredient to constantly be thinking of guilt, burdening myself with the ‘wrong doings’ while at the same time starting a new relationship and opening up all the potentials that this entails. It’s not a great thing to walk an ending and a beginning simultaneously – point learned.

I would not be able to share this from a clearer view currently if it wasn’t for the process that I did to self-forgive myself for my decisions, my actions and mistakes, my short-sights and also forgiving myself for the damage caused to others by my lack of consideration or selfishness that this kind of situations entail. However, I also understood that there’s no point in continuing to flagellate myself emotionally, all that I can do is learn from it and know that I cannot repeat this kind of behavior again in my life, or I’d be simply falling again into my old patterns that I’ve worked on already. I did judge myself because of wanting to ‘make things right’ and ‘work through it’ and in a way being in disbelief that I could have managed to ‘repeat myself’ in patterns that I thought I had changed over the ‘monkish’ phase of being alone and without relationships – but, as I now know, I cannot be sure that something is entirely ‘clear’ and ‘transcended’ within me at all, it always takes a daily - constant - decision to act in the way that is right, that is supportive, that is considering consequences, that is responsible and self-honest for myself and for others that I have an effect on.

Currently I assess my situation on a constant basis when it comes to my relationship, because it has enabled me to see where I could be compromising myself or constructively compare how I have now seen that I was compromising myself before when trying to ‘be’ something for someone else in a relationship. When I decided to be in this relationship, I did take the time to consider who I wanted to be in it and what would be of myself IF the relationship simply doesn’t work, knowing I could stand on my own two feet as well. So, I might have taken a ‘big risk’ considering the rushed and somewhat risky decision making processes I’ve taken in the past without much ‘thought’ into my relationships, but this time I did make sure to entirely be ‘me’ making the decision and fully taking the responsibility for what I decide to make of it.

I did take the time to assess the person, even if it was a relative short amount of time of doing this, there were characteristics that stood out for me enough to consider how this could work through, which included sharing with him the process I’ve walked with relationships, the weaknesses, the mistakes I’ve made, the dishonesties, the repetitive patterns I’ve had and that I still have such points to work through for me, to reestablish my self-trust in relationships – with all the past disclosed – and this is now where I can prove to myself that I can stand in an equal manner in loyalty, honor, respect and integrity that such person has given to himself throughout his life, which I am currently learning a lot from as well.

It is not my position to share his views here, but in a way I do want to do it, because he’s that person I mentioned at the beginning that has been known by everyone – and himself - to not desire a relationship or ‘lust’ over women at all. Everyone had always asked him when he would have a relationship and he always said that wasn’t something he was looking for, explicitly not interested on because he knew himself as a different kind of person that would find it hard to find a woman that could ‘stand’ through his ways of living life and the principles he has. He just wanted to work and focus on bettering his life. Well, that kind of approach led him to learn to live and be for himself the best that he can be. He is probably one of the few people I know that loves himself and regards himself as a self-made man that wasn’t always dedicated and hardworking to get to be who he is now, but made a decision to step out of the shadows and strive to do what he was told was ‘impossible’ for him to achieve. That sort of strength made him aware of his capacity and potential, which is part of the characteristics that I saw made him a ‘whole’ man already, not really looking or searching or being ‘needy’ for anything or anyone to ‘complete’ him or make him feel ‘better’ about himself.

This is how he considers that most people should not constantly go jumping from one relationship to another, but be able to be alone even for the rest of their lives if necessary, because they are not yet the best for and towards themselves. This view is perceived as too ‘extreme’ by his friends, but I’ve come to understand his point based on what he has lived and what I have lived and the consequences I’ve faced because of having held this constant belief that ‘I need to be in a relationship’ and the outflow this has. I’m not saying that this is how it’s supposed to be, but simply different ways to approach the relationships. Mine was more ‘trial and error’ and yes causing consequences for me and for others, his was more of a holistic approach of deciding to be in a relationship if and when the right person would exist for that.

Of course, he is now in a relationship and that may seem contradictory for many, but he explains how this is the first relationship he’s ever had – and took it to the level of absolute commitment and responsibility, which has led him to explore and open up many more ways of enjoyment in life, more than the ones that he already had been living on his own. I don’t want to sound like I’m praising him, but I do want to share this because I’ve noticed how many strengths are built through deciding to be ‘the best for you’, to learn to be a man – or a woman – for oneself first, to learn to love, care, be the joy of our own lives instead of expecting something or someone to come and ‘save us’ or ‘fulfill’ our lives in one way or another. So, his usual perspective or ‘advice’ to anyone is to learn to be alone and learn to be ok with themselves, letting go of the notion of needing a relationship – and even better, to not participate or create a habit in desiring sex or porn or that sort of mental-masturbation in relation to women – or the opposite sex – at all, which leads to a genuine discovery of physical expression in a relationship, probably something that most people ‘seek out’ through mind stimulation and my take is that this pollutes or ‘disconnects’ us from the ‘hereness’, the physical development of actual touch and clear-mindedness so to speak required in a developing a physical relationship. This is not only related to sexual expression, but also in relation to fully focusing on being with the one person you decide to be with and not entertaining any thoughts, ideas, beliefs or glances at something or ‘someone else out there’ that ‘could be better’ than the relationship one has decided to be in.

What I’ve gathered from my time with him is how it truly takes that sort of diligence to honor and respect oneself and not exist solely for the idea of a ‘relationship’ as something to ‘get to’ or ‘find’ as an absolute goal in one’s life. It seems that as one focuses and works on fulfilling oneself and becoming that person that one enjoys looking at in the mirror – and not only for appearance level – but for the person one shapes of oneself - then one simply aligns with people that are on that same ‘track’ so to speak in their life, and that’s how you meet and realize that it is something that can work as a betterment platform for both, which was my approach as well when deciding to establish this relationship. We both agreed that this was going to be a relationship of two fulfilled individuals walking together, me knowing that if I decide to no longer be in the relationship, he’s not going to be ‘needing’ me as such, but will continue his life and endeavors as usual and vice versa – communication and understanding and assessment at any time. The relative ease with which this agreement- as he also called it – was able to be established is simply because of seeing the affinity in our ways of thinking and living and our principles and the way of living as well as our aims in life. I am fully aware some of my views are not that ‘popular’ with regular people, because they may sound too ‘out there’ or ‘difficult to achieve’- but not for him. Then it is simply like two notes resonating at the same level that consider they can join in and create a harmony that will better the sound in each other’s life – and that’s what it currently is and has been.

There are so many more things that I’ve been learning about myself in relation to him in that have opened my eyes to see what kind of limitations I was making ‘ok’ within previous relationships, where and how I was not being honest with myself and rather molding or making myself ‘comfortable 'about things that I wasn’t entirely willing to live with, but made it all ‘ok’ because of the idea that no one can be perfect and that I would always have to kind of ‘struggle’ in a relationship – now I know it doesn’t have to be this way. And I’m not saying this is currently perfect, but now I know that there can be people that can be at that same level of self-awareness and self will to live a different life than most people, which is what I’m here to do in this world, to continue cutting through the mold and not limit my expression, my ‘wacky’ way of being that I have come to re-ignite and rediscover within myself, something that makes me enjoy life more and something that I had judged as ‘not fit’ for everyone’s taste and so believing I had to be more ‘accommodating’ for others. In a nutshell, I’ve come to be aware of self-compromise, which is also one tendency I’ve had in relationships where I kind of sink into the background and mold myself to fit into the idea of who I believe the other person wants me to be – even if this is most of the times my own projection.

The bottom line is that even if one can make ‘mistakes’ in relationships, the point is to always learn more about oneself, to use each opportunity one has to share one’s life and expression with another to learn more about who we are with each person, and yes unfortunately at times getting to also know the ‘darker’ aspects of ourselves - not to be turned into something necessarily bad or evil - simply recognizing that there are things that may be subtle at first but eventually build up or accumulate to compromise, to diminish ourselves even in the most ‘unnoticeable’ ways and I say ‘unfortunately’ – yet at the same time, I would not have known otherwise if I had not made mistakes and learned to see where I truly want to be in terms of standing in a relationship with someone else, first of all checking – on a constant basis – not to limit, diminish or compromise me in order to ‘be’ in a relationship as a need point.

So, having said this, I now realize that as painful, troublesome and consequential it is, mistakes allow us to also see the paths that we don’t want to follow through. Sure, it’s best when we can identify this earlier on and not have situations escalate and have more consequential breakups, but I now see that this is something quite specific for me to face based on the life that I had lived before I started this process with Desteni, my ‘processing’ done in that alone time and how I do realize how easy it is to slip back into old programming if not fully considering one’s actions and acting again on a ‘whim’ so to speak, making decisions without giving myself time to know first of all where I stand and then where I would want to stand in relation to someone else.

Based on my experience and the example I shared about my partner and how he led his life, I see that the best thing one can do is to give oneself time to learn to BE for oneself, to learn to truly love and appreciate yourself first, to be that one person that you can enjoy living with so that no matter who you join your life with – or not at all – you continue being whole and complete by yourself, so that 1+1 equals 2 instead of being existing as a half that seeks another half to create a codependent relationship that most likely ends up in compromise, diminishment and harm towards one another.

A relationship is a platform of support to become a better person, to grow, to learn from each other, to communicate openly without holding back or secrets, to express openly, to test and try new ways of living and expressing without judgment, to walk through disagreements and challenges with understanding – but! to do all of these great things takes a lot of self-work first, otherwise we base our entire ‘wellbeing’ on another person ‘all of this’ for us, and that’s where the fuckup usually is. So! Self first, always, then the rest of the people or situations that may come into our live become opportunities of expansion, a complement that can be beneficial not only for the people in the relationship but also for those that surround the relationship and for whatever is created within the relationship, which becomes an example of what a supportive relationship can be in a world where most exist in consequences and conflict – my personal view and experience here.

Ok so that’s it, again, listen to the Eqafe recordings, they are a great eye opener to understand more of what I shared here as my ups and downs, my faults, my points to learn and correct through relationships.

Can also learn to do this through the Relationship Course in Desteni which assisted me to ground many of the foundations that I now realize have to be lived in a very disciplined way of establishing self-honesty within self, otherwise they become nice principles on paper only – as always, the key is to live it and REALLY stick to Doing it.

Thanks for reading
Marlen
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Joined: 12 Jun 2011, 20:16
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620. My perspective about Politics and Self Change



There’s been a series of audios that I recommend everyone to listen to if you find yourself focusing too much on the idea of political change and feeling disgraceful about the state of affairs that is unleashing everyday around us – or dare I say – that we decide to become aware of through our media, through learning to really observe the lives of those around us and in doing so deciding to really become aware of their lives, the suffering, the problems, the neglect, the corruption… and the list goes on.

Sure, it’s all of those things that make us cringe but it’s definitely possible to get past the reactive state into a more proactive and self-aware way to interact with the reality around us: our creation. So these EQAFE audios are of great support for this:


Attracting Consequence vs Creating Change - The Future of Awareness - Part 103
Political Fighting versus Political Change - Future of Awareness - Part 104

What is the Use if Change is Impossible - The Future of Awareness - Part 105

How Can We Be the Future if There is no Future? - Future of Awareness - Part 106

Can't Look Away from the Horrors of Reality - Quantum Mind Self Awareness

For anyone that has followed this blog and my process within the involvement in an intent to create political change, you may know that I became very vocal and passionate about promoting ways and solutions that at the time I saw as the only way through, a viable solution to stop the suffering, to save the world, to kind of say ‘let’s stop the madness right now, we can create a solution!’ But over the past 2 years I’ve become more and more solid in my realization which matches the explanation to the T of what is shared in the Eqafe recordings I listed above - which are an excellent presentation and walk through to confront this same point within yourself – which is about realizing that we need to stop focusing on wanting to impose a change in the current political and social systems, to understand them instead as a consequence that we are facing, while holding on to - and I’d say grounding oneself in - the realization that even if one is living in the ‘worst’ possible scenario, it is still possible to give birth to the life within self, it is definitely necessary to realize that any form of change cannot – and dare I say must not – be waited on and hoped for on the outside without one doing the necessary SELF work for it.

As I write this, I know I have shared my realization about this before and here I refer to that one blog written 2 years ago that I will continue to refer to where I disclose more of my ‘field work’ on this realization, which becomes more and more clear and cemented as a foundation for me to stand on and changing myself, because I was a person with great propensity to be constantly worrying and depressing about the state of affairs in the world. Seriously, most of the times my life would be alright but simply by living in the country I live in, it became obvious that life wasn’t ‘alright’ and that nothing was as good as it seemed at home when I stepped outside of it. This became a sort of emotional burden, a burden in my spirit if you will because I constantly felt sad, disempowered, hopeless, helpless – and yes early on in life as a teenager I would rant and rage against ‘the machine’ – which are all points that I learned to change and understand through walking the Desteni I Process and my relationship to the world system, to this state of affairs that is in a way - as I’ve learned to understand and see it - a necessary ‘ill’ for us to wake up from what we have accepted and allowed without a question for our entire history in existence. That has assisted me to stop blaming and instead take responsibility for myself. This didn’t change in one go, it’s taken years to repeat this to myself and allow it to sink in in order to actually act differently while continuing to live in the same world.

On the other hand, I was very much within the idea that I had to become politically involved to create a point of change. I’ve already shared how within doing that at a level of research and within getting in contact with people that are involved in associations and institutions or just groups with a similar intent to create changes in the world system, I found that as much as the intent was great and geared to something good, I found there was a lot of blame, finger pointing at ‘elites’ or those believed to be handling the system, a sort of a seemingly ‘beneficent’ vengefulness that would create ‘justice’ in the world. I found that the same human nature that we have not dared to accept that we have to change became the same problem even within organizations geared to this kind of social change. That became a very important learning point for me: the change genuinely has to first be walked through within self – maybe simultaneously if you are already involved in those associations and groups – but it just cannot be neglected, or we will simply recreate the same problems of the past, because it’s us that have created it, not the institutions, the state or ‘the system’ in itself. We are IT.

Now, the recordings I mention relate to a situation where even if one is involved in politics, it all seems too pointless or without a way out and within that becoming somewhat discouraged to keep going. The audio describes the rest of the points to face and walk through quite well but here I want to add something else that has assisted me to keep facing these points, aside from what I’ve already shared in yesterday’s group chat where these points opened up.

Something I’ve learned to let go of is the desire to see ‘change’ in this lifetime, and this I’ve also learned through the Eqafe recordings that I get to hear on a daily basis for the betterment of my understanding about myself, my mind, my life and how I can decide to live and create myself, for the better. So this means that I had to let go of desiring a certain outcome or result from ‘me’ participating in this process of developing and establishing my own awareness and my own direction for the betterment of my own life and consequently of what surrounds me/us. What I could see is that many people are in that position of wanting to just give up because of seeing problems just being ‘too much’ and it all becoming ‘crazier’ by the hour. I now see it as part of the unraveling of the old that needs to go in order for the new to grow. I know it’s not a ride in the park, it is difficult, it is disheartening, it affects us personally, but even that I now see as a necessary ‘pain’ for our very necessary growth.

What works for me is to not focus on the ‘effect’ or ‘reach’ of what I do and having that constant intent to ‘change others’ or ‘change the world’ or ‘save the world’ – which were expressions that I embodied for a long, long time in my life, which left me feeling more helpless and disheartened, because! I could not ‘do it’ by myself, lol. It’s funny how we burden ourselves with ‘the world’ as if it was only US that had to save it… nope, not going to happen like that at all. But I was so infatuated with the idea that I – me- had to take certain position or take charge of something ‘big’ in the world to change and turn the tables that it became this drive to achieve something that I wasn’t realistically going to do in my life at the time. I was following an idea of what I could do that felt good – and sure it wasn’t all bad, learned lots and promoted certain principles as well – but the reality is that in the meantime, I neglected a LOT of things about my personal life that I am currently facing the consequences of, not cool either, but again a very necessary process to see where I ‘took off’ and elevated my feet from the ground, of my life, what I have to do and can do to first of all get myself on my two feet in stability in all aspects within this reality, instead of already wanting to ‘live’ in the ‘perfected and changed world’ in the future.

Well, that’s been the learning process for me and in a way – at times painfully, yes -seeing how I distracted – purposely dare I say – from me, my process, my own introspection and directly seeing what I had to do, change, move on to with myself and my life, my career and projects – because it became in a way easier or more comfortable to be constantly focused, concerned and worried on all things ‘outside’ of myself. Again, not all wasted because I learned lots about the systems, society, the ways in which we’ve shaped our lives – but at the same time I also remained in a state of hoping that such change – especially financially and economic changes – could then benefit me and so I would not have to go through the usual ways to make money in the system… well that is definitely not going to happen and I have to step up in really making sure that I can first be best for myself, take responsibility for myself, instead of hoping for a change out there, which is most likely not going to happen in my lifetime – and that’s OK.

The other vital point here is that I’ve learned to do things by principle, not by the ‘result’ I may see. This is easy to say but it’s harder to remind myself of it because from time to time, this same ‘hopelessness’ rears its head about the belief that what I do in the seemingly ‘trivial’ things in my life have ‘no impact’ whatsoever in bettering anything or anyone. Instead of realizing that this is precisely where I need to focus and work on, to develop that self-respect, integrity, passion, dedication, discipline, care and consideration first for my own person. I can now look back and be honest about the fact that I wasn’t at ‘my best’ when preaching about world change, but it felt good to communicate such principles or turn it into a higher purpose, which without a doubt served a role and a function that got me out of my sunken reality of hopelessness, doom and gloom about reality. However, such passionate intent wasn’t matching the life that I was living in its totality - nor is it now really, but I am on the way to take care of that as well, as we all are.

So, this means that even if one is deciding to get involved in politics or any other group or association that is geared to create changes in the world system or in your community, the point is to do it as an expression and an extension of what you’ve done first for yourself – or simultaneously doing so, if you find it’s easier to ignite that passion to get yourself moving when it involves doing something for others/something outside of yourself. It doesn’t matter where or how that inner fire is ignited, but what is of primary importance is to not lose sight of oneself, especially of the emotions like discouragement, hopelessness and victimization – or even vengefulness - that may emerge as one decides to get more involved, more aware and participative in any effort to create awareness and so change in the world systems. What has worked for me is to focus on the principle, on the actual matter that I am to create an impact upon myself and express that, externalize that through what I speak, do and share.

For example, this means that even if I decided to take on a position in politics at some point, I would do so if I could guarantee that my life would not be in danger, which at the moment is just not an option in the country I live in – not even being a journalist that reports ‘truth’ is safe, so I rather just not risk myself with that and continue focusing on what I can, what is at my reach here: my own life, my own wellbeing, my relationships, my family, the people I support within this process, the work that I do, the words, the actions, the expressions that any person may come in contact with coming from me: that’s the current impact I have and that’s my current ‘enough’ based on the conditions and situation I live in. This is another great point that was outlined in that interview, defining what is Enough in self-honesty, what one can honestly do without compromising our own wellbeing, because then we’d stop being ‘the best for ourselves’ and end up just becoming another sort of ‘savior’ that intends to create ‘change’ out there, but within self all is chaotic and problematic and reactive and enacting angry and irresponsible behaviors with a sense of ‘doing good’ – which now I understand are the very reactions that I needed to work on and change within me.

One of the key points then for me was to leave the notion aside of having to do something that is ‘out there’ at ‘the eyes of others’ and to become something ‘relevant’ at the level that I see other people are doing in the system. That’s me – myself – if anyone is at that position, that’s great and I’d say it is also specific that some can do that, but for now I keep track of what goes on in the world, continuing to strengthen my understanding and within that my resolve to focus on myself, my own self-education about how we got to where we are in creating the problems and within that learning to see the solutions that would be possible within a longer period of time with my generation and the many generations to come.

To me it is currently more relevant to ensure I am no longer placing a pressure within myself to want to have ‘some impact’ out there, stressing about world problems and instead learning to do the seemingly ‘insignificant’ things that are actually part of taking care of myself, my health, my relationships and no longer see all of it as mere things to ‘get past’ to get to the ‘meat’ of life such as having an important political position and such to genuinely ‘change the world’ or feel like I finally am ‘making it.’ Nope, now I understand that those seemingly ‘insignificant’ things are the gist of what change means, by continuing to create habits, relationships, ways of being and expression that represent the potential that I see in myself as the life that I am and that I would like to see in the world out there.

This is what is the real challenge for me, to not become overshadowed by being drowned in the sea of consequences, but by staying afloat – and why not, at times walking on water so to speak – when it comes to understanding consequences, realizing them and living the solutions within my life and my context that would sort the ‘major’ problems out there if more would stand up and do the same.

I must say that having this ‘standard’ in life in how I now see it has led me to align with people that see the same and live the same principles, which is somewhat difficult to find but at the same time, I now dare to say ‘that’s not entirely so!’ because I’m seeing a lot of people ‘waking up’ to these principles of self responsibility and first learning to care for ourselves, our lives, our environment instead of being distracted with various ‘social causes’ that may lead to more fighting, confrontations, conflict, division, protests, media frenzies and general divide and conquer tactics that a lot of people have become blind to because of holding to a very narrow view of the world and their role in it.

So, all I can say is that I am slowly but surely regaining the sense of strength of who I am and what I can see my potential is – no matter what I do or where I am – because of understanding that I cannot be affected by what I see around, I cannot be discouraged by seeing the very necessary destruction of dinosaur institutions and old consequential ways of coexisting that are slowly but surely starting to change at the individual level.

Therefore I keep pushing at this level of change: focusing on myself – and realizing this is NOT selfishness, but it is now very obvious and clear that if I am not the best, I cannot dare to actually utter any form of solution or attempt of change ‘for the world’ if I haven’t yet honored myself enough to embody these words as who I am in every aspect of my life. That to me is real respect for life as well, to not only parrot words or feel good about apparently doing something ‘good’ for others – but to genuinely get to live that, embody and substantiate my life with that and therefore do it as an extension of what I have lived and done for myself first.

I focus on the matter, the things that are at hand for now, I ensure I can stand on my own two feet and keep the flame ignited of the life that I know I am able to live and enjoy, so that as I keep walking, I can open up opportunities and ways to continue expanding this process of creation of life, even in the midst of the rubble, because what matters is again who I am in those moments, not the ‘effect’ I can visibly see. This is then my principle, where I don’t allow myself to get discouraged by the news or what I see outside of my house, but use those as reminders of how I definitely need to keep standing and keep being that living best for myself, because that’s what I can do at the moment. And interestingly enough, without being too optimistic, interesting things happen when one starts seeing the world differently, as the potential it can be instead of being ‘sunk’ into this depressed state of ‘all is fucked, there’s no hope’ which was my ‘usual’ state of being before.

This is good enough for me at the moment and to me this is what I have to keep learning to integrate as a reminder of what I want to contribute to this world and how eventually we could all contribute to create if each one lives this best for themselves. This is what sounds very realistic, from generation to generation, to keep planting and growing, as long as it is needed – doesn’t matter – because what matters is who I am in the moment, in every day.

Thanks for reading.
Marlen
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621. Embracing The World at Distance

I went to watch a meaningful documentary for me a couple of days ago which is called “Llévate Mis Amores” – translated ‘All of Me’ which led me to experience a certain renewed ‘hope for humanity’ as it is said, but not in an airy fairy way. I mean it in the ‘love is work made visible’ way where a group of women have given themselves the purpose to daily cook for hundreds of migrants that hop on the train called ‘The Beast’ or ‘La Bestia’ which comes from southern México and passes through their hometown in a place of Veracruz, México, on their way to the north. They use their hands, their strength and will to make this daily routine work because they understand that one meal for them is a matter of life or death – and that life takes no ‘days off – in their quest to get to ‘the other side,’ which is migrating to the US.

I’ve heard of this documentary a couple of years ago and couldn’t make it that day to watch it during Ambulante Festival and only yesterday I got to watch it and even the showing in itself was again, a sort of simple yet remarkable decision coming from a lady at a corporate facility that bought the documentary DVD after meeting the creator of it and setting up a showing at the office where they work. This is the first time I don’t go to an ‘established’ or ‘well known’ place to watch a documentary, but instead go into a more private showing where most of the people knew each other – lol – and a few of us there got to know of the event through Facebook and showed up, giving in exchange a couple of bags of rice and beans that will be given to the ladies that appear in the film to continue doing their work.

It was also great to have the photography director there to share more about the way that they made the documentary. What I liked the most is that he shared how he is a human being first of all, which meant that at times he had to throw the camera to the ground to support the handling of the food to the people hanging from the train, who eagerly prepare themselves to grab the plastic bags with food and water bottles on a moving train, which means there’s only a split of a second to grab their meal.

That moment right there of seeing the handling of the food after seeing the whole process of preparation, the quantities of food, the logistics of making these lunch bags for them was heart wrenching if that’s the saying. I held back my tears because I didn’t want to start crying in that moment, but it was that touching considering that these people aren’t ‘well off’ themselves, it’s rather the other way around, which is quite common to find in this country: those with the least tend to help the most.

How did they do it? They go and ask for food or leftovers in the market, in stores that give them stuff for free to make the food they know they provide to the migrants. Now they are recognized by human rights associations and have won international prizes, I’m sure you can find info by searching ‘Las Patronas’ which is the name of the group of females that have done this work for over 25 years now. Yes, daily, yes, including Christmas and New Year’s Eve and day, and yes, they are not paid at all for that – but their society recognizes their work and provides them with the food they produce or sell in order to be part of the cause.

I stood for almost an hour after the documentary ended hearing the conversations and reactions from everyone else there, I asked the question of how they were able to afford it and got it answered – food donations, food that was going to be wasted, their own town assists now, etc. The documentary makers knew they had to tell this story, they gained recognition themselves and so forth, but the most relevant thing for them is for people to watch it and to have been able to work there, because he said that it was like a little utopia, to be able to work doing what they love, to assist with the cooking and support others in exchange of having a place to stay and food to eat. Simple.

I wondered how many of these projects would be able to be done if people decided to actually do something about it, instead of only looking at the problems that ‘the system’ apparently has. Sure, migration has become a consequence and I’ve written about it before, but if it is already happening, then some actions can be taken to at least make it easier for some to go through it, and these women are an example of that.

Their character showed such determination, will, discipline and an unbreakable spirit so to speak, which seemed like ‘a lot of work’ for most of us in that room, but then we all realized that THAT work made visible was their strength, their will, their courage, their determination and motivation to keep going in their own lives, and I’m talking about generations of people from the grandmother, daughters and granddaughters working on the same project. Well, yes, I take off my hat for these women for sure, but then the question came of ‘What can I do? What am I doing that can stand in a similar point of support for others?’

Times before when asking myself the same question, I’d become paralyzed, thinking I’d have to now go to shelters and save others, change people’s minds and kind of ‘shake them up’ to understand there’s more to life than limitation and struggle – or try to convert them to my newly found ‘path’ so to speak, which never worked lol – yet I was myself still very much living in such self-limitation in several aspects that I’ve come to identify over the years of walking this process. But it’s good that I had such intent anyways, I just wasn’t focusing so much on myself and I was too much focusing on the world ‘out there,’ well, I already told that story in the previous blog to this one.

After I left the documentary show, I realized that I cannot suddenly decide to go and live somewhere else to do the work that those women are already doing, nor do I see handing food for the poor as a solution either. It is a noble act, but I understand that my position and awareness of the totality of the conflict and situation we’re living in has an origin and starting point that needs to be understood and needs to be disclosed in the form of personal stories that relate to personal change, learning to change our values, our ways of perceiving our reality and making things work without simply falling into consequences or believing there is no way out.

As I was walking away from the place, I realized that I needed to stop rushing in my mind trying to ‘go and do more here and there’ because that has been a pattern in me that only becomes a nuisance, a worry-wart type of experience, and instead looked at how to me being part of Desteni and the work that I’ve committed to do for myself and to extend as a point of support for others walking the same process is my ‘grain of sand’ that I contribute with for now, which is what I can honestly do and can do based on what I’ve also learned and gained through the Desteni Process which is a whole new way of understanding our minds, the problems we face and create in our lives, to create a more meaningful and supportive life that in turn, can impact many more around us and I’m only now starting to see how that works, yes, after a decade of being ‘on it’ consistently.

To me even if the community is not physically together except for one place on Earth, being an interconnected community in the internet over these many years has been that pillar of support where we know we can always count on each other to share, to gain perspectives, to learn more about each other and in doing so, being able to reach out to more people that may resonate with what we do and the tools we live and apply, so that’s what I see has become my motivation, my response-ability, my contribution to the greater changes that need to take place in this world.

So, this way, I also remind myself why I like watching documentaries, I like embracing the lives of others, I like using them as a way to place my shoes in their lives and find a way through in it, to create my own solutions to it even if it ends ‘without a way out’ at times. I’m extremely grateful for documentaries – which is one of my favorite past times and activities – and currently there’s a burgeoning culture for them in my home city, so I’ve watched them not only by myself on my computer, but it’s become a collective meeting of sorts to go downtown to the theatre, watch the documentary, discuss them with the creators – when available – and with others watching and that is extremely cool and I enjoy that a lot. For a moment I also pondered how I can contribute to this ongoing cycles of documentary showing for the people because it is great, it assists a lot of people to create awareness about seemingly distant situations that we would not be able to otherwise face or confront if it wasn’t for the work of documentary makers.

For now, I’m simply disciplined myself to attend to those events and invite others whenever I can, it is a point of self-enjoyment but also of self-education, because not all stories are la-la-land and rosy, most of them are not. I realize I should have done a little commentary on a lot of the documentaries I’ve watched over these past months and I’ve drowned this idea within me because of thinking ‘well, people can’t watch them because the docs are only available to be watched in film festivals – most of the time’ but I realize that I can share what I gained from it without ‘telling the whole story’ so, this is a first point of it and will look at sharing some insights and perspectives on the stuff that I watch and listen to. I say listen to because also long format podcasts have become a constant in my day to day while painting or doing anything that doesn’t require me to read or write – cleaning, cooking, laundry, walking etc. It’s amazing to have the internet, to have this media, these documentary festivals and that is really what ‘moves’ me so to speak, to see more and more people speaking about change, bettering themselves, overcoming their difficulties and troubled backgrounds in life, that’s just amazing that I can get to ‘know’ a bit of a person through a long podcast.

One of my favorite ones is Joe Rogan’s podcast which I appreciate a lot, even if I don’t entirely like or relate to all of the discussions going on at times – and even if I discredited it some 9 years ago or so – listening to the people there and the questions asked allows me to check my reactions, prejudices, my ‘dismissive’ way of being with people that I believed I would have ‘nothing to learn from’ and then, bam! I end up really taking a lot of what they shared and realizing how much I was assuming about them and their life stories just because of how they talked or dressed. That’s a sure kick back at my own ass-umptions and ego there, and I love doing that for myself J because it broadens my perspectives about life and it assists me to embrace different mentalities, ways of getting to the same solutions I am aiming to create in my life and learn from a variety of people that it’s quite difficult I’d get to meet otherwise in my reality.

So, the word here is embracing, embracing more of my reality without having to ‘go somewhere else’ like traveling to ‘get it’ because we know how expensive it is and sometimes even dangerous like in some areas of this country nowadays– but we have the possibility to do this, to learn from other cultures, ways of living through the internet and all the media created by you’s and me’s. So that’s something I commit myself to share even when I believe ‘there’s nothing to share’ – I’ll share more of what I like sharing to myself as well as a point of support, of broadening the confines of my mind and learning to step out of prejudice and embrace another human being as myself. Each documentary I watch is like stretching myself a little bit more, expanding my awareness of the lives of people in this same world, and that’s a priceless opportunity.
Marlen
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622. Update on Self-Honesty
Recently I’ve had two different situations that got me to a better understanding of self-honesty even though I’ve been integrating this concept for ten years now – it definitely changes as one goes walking life in trial and error mode, which is a constant point to consider in life as well and not have any judgment about it! Quite relevant too.

This opened up in relation to the audios related to Memories on Eqafe.com* and other ones that relate more to Self-Honesty** – and even though the main topic is not about what I will share here – it assisted greatly to see how I had been judging someone’s self honesty as good or bad and with that, my ‘usual’ approach to it is to try and ‘fix them’ which in my mind, sounded great! A ‘good thing’ to do, but that’s the problem!

See, I’ve justified intervening too much on someone’s path and process to the point where the hidden agenda is just trying to make them ‘fit’ my ideal version of them that I have created in my own mind (!) which has little to do with the reality and totality of who a person is and their own self-honesty – their pace to walk things, their nature, their pros and cons, their strengths and weaknesses – as something that needs to be gotten to be known, understood, respected, considered and honored because that’s what this process is about: realizing and understanding our individuality and deciding who we are in relation to each other within that awareness.

This opened up further as I commented on what I learned about those recordings with my partner and that was an enjoyable conversation where I got to consider and look back at my life, the various situations where I have considered myself ‘failing’ – such as in relationships for the most part’ – and based on what my partner shared as well, I got to see and realize what it means to embrace someone’s self-honesty and how much I have been wanting to control, manipulate and justify my desire to ‘change’ people even at a thought level of intent, in order to ‘suit me’ and ‘my ideal’ I have created about them.

This I’ve done especially within the context of partners in personal relationships and how upon discussing the various patterns I found in relation to my past relationships, he assisted me to look at the ‘repeated mistake’ so to speak that I ‘fell for’ every single time – and as much as I might not be seeing ‘the full picture’ now just yet – I did discover that a part of me would simply sugar coat and focus on all the good, all the potentials that I ‘saw’ in a person that I would decide to walk with in a relationship, which made me simply obfuscate, cringe at, brush aside, suppress any reactions to seeing the reality and totality of them in who they are – their ‘negative aspects’ or dare I say the totality of who they are in themselves – which of course Had to happen! Because none of us are perfect human beings, nor will we be to anyone else’s eyes (because each one has their own ‘ideals’ of perfection or what’s the best another can be and so forth, which is a point each one of us can look at because it is extremely limiting) and I had sort of built a trap every single time because of deciding to ‘make things work’ with men I decided to be in a relationship with and focusing on all the ‘good’ and ‘positive’ things I would see in them, and in a way believe that the rest of all that I defined as weaknesses, flaws, ‘problematic behaviors,’ would be ‘sorted out by themselves’ and that ‘I could live with it’, that it would ‘not matter…’

But reality has now shown me that I simply had the wrong starting point every single time which led to the inevitable end by creating a form of disenchantment ‘projected’ – dare I say Imposed – onto them based on the ideal that I had created as the ‘expected’ living potential that I imagined they could be 24/7, and in that simply not living with the reality of them, the facts of the matter which is: we all have our pros and cons and there’s no person that can be ONLY looked through the eyes of ‘all things good and benevolent’ at all. This is the self-deception point that I thought I was considering in my head, but it wasn’t a grounded consideration in terms of Living and applying that realization practically, but it was only an acceptance and allowance at a knowledge level which ended up mostly with me living in denial and saying to myself saying ‘yeah I can handle it’ but reality then would show: nope, you really don’t want to and didn’t consider all things and the reality of the matter in fact.

This leads to compromise and the points I’ve had to look at is why I was willing to compromise myself in order to ‘make something work out’ and then there is a fine balance between working with my own reactions and testing out living with a certain reality, or when living with a certain type of person is simply not part of what I am willing to live with, even if I work through my reactions, judgments etc. And that’s what my self-honesty is, not ‘good’ not ‘bad’ it just is where I am at the moment in my life.

What does that mean? At times I would set myself to be with people I defined to be ‘very challenging’, having particular issues within themselves that I thought I could assist them in figuring them out, so that the potential that I ‘saw’ in them would simply ‘reign’ over all the ‘negative’ stuff so to speak, and they would simply decide to ‘better themselves’ because of the relationship because of ‘being with me’ lol which is conditional and foolish too – which is absolutely compromising and conditional as well when it comes to asking someone ‘to change’ in order to be in a relationship…that’s just a recipe for codependence and disaster. But! I wasn’t aware of how I was standing in that position when I did this kind of calculations and not realizing the kind of disservice I was doing to someone else’s path and process in life, when wanting to – according to me- save them, help them, wanting to ‘achieve’ what I ‘thought’ was best for them… but in that not considering at all who they really are, what their actual intent on themselves and their own life is – sometimes not being anywhere around nearby or even looking at what I was looking – so in other words, I was imposing ‘my expectations’ on them and not considering the facts of who they are, in fact.

I can cringe at the memory of all of this and doing it over and over and over again in relationships, making it ‘ok’ for me to ‘gloss over’ all of those things that I wasn’t genuinely willing to live with – embrace – in another, and simply ‘kept focusing’ on all the ‘good things,’ resulting in creating a polarized way of looking, understanding and perceiving another human being, which is not supportive, not respectful and not honoring myself and them as individuals that in no way are perfect or completely ‘good’ or ‘completely bad’ for that matter.

Morality is usually the trap in this, and as much as I thought I wasn’t acting based on good vs bad assessments, I in fact was, because I got stuck in wanting to have another human being ‘fit my idea of an ideal partner’ and even if I thought I was embracing their struggles, points that are tough to change or that they are not willing to change, I wasn’t entirely considering what it would mean to live with them in the totality of who they are, because I kept ‘hope’ as a major obstacle in this: hoping They would change, instead of focusing on me and what I would have to work with in order to embrace someone else, or make a very factual decision of not being willing to live with that.

I have discussed this before in relation to helping and hope, but the ‘new’ I bring forth here is a second step to this realization, which is how I was essentially repeating the same type of approach in my current relationship, and it is only through sharing my ‘history’ behind this that I could get a grounded understanding on how it all starts with something ‘as simple as’ focusing only on the good, the positive, the agreeable aspects that I see in a partner or potential partner and ONLY focusing on that.

This practically means that in reality, I would still judge, react or suppress my thoughts and experiences when witnessing something that I would dislike about ‘them’ and cover this up with a compensation-thought (justification and reasoning) such as: ‘but they are very good at this/that and they have this/that type of beneficial aspect’ so in way, it was like turning a blind eye to it, not wanting to see it, understand it, admit it or embrace it as part of someone’s nature and self-honesty. I instead built a cocoon around them based on how I wanted to see them and stick to that view, which is what, yes, we as humans mostly do when deciding to engage with someone in a partnership relationship, that’s the infamous saying of ‘seeing someone through the eyes of love’ but! I wasn’t aware I was doing this… until fairly recently lol.

I made a recording called ‘Changing my relationship to memories’ about this explaining how this opened up with my partner – if you want to listen to it – and the examples he gave me, but I realized how much he had been very explicit in disclosing his major ‘defects’ from the very beginning and how he defines himself as being 55% ‘dishonest’ in that sense and disclosing all of the ways in which according to him, defines him as a person that has been living not in truth but in dishonesty and having to lie and cheat in order to make a living at times, in order to have a certain position in his life etc. and how he has managed to change his view on life and therefore towards others to embrace more of his dishonesties and ‘garbage’ as he calls it in order to stop feeling so negative and gloomy about life, which led him to become more authentic in that he is not afraid to admit his ‘garbage’ as he calls it and admit that ‘that’s who he is’ for now and the reasons why he is and how he is not planning to change those aspects for practical reasons in his life at the moment.

When he disclosed this, there was an immediate reaction of wanting to convince him that ‘he has to change those aspects now!’ or ‘that I would not want to be with someone that admits to being 55% garbage and not do anything about it!’ lol, I didn’t go into this kind of inner conflict in an overwhelming manner, but the thoughts that came up were in the nature of ‘I gotta do something to change his view about this’ – yet again! – but the discussion precisely became that of realizing that I precisely Have to Stop trying to manipulate, control and change him and others, for real!

I realized how I had felt always entitled to ‘ask’ this to people based on the situation of being in a partnership and how I felt entitled to demand some form of change in order to ‘stay in the relationship,’ instead of actually deciding to Embrace a person as they are – with their 55% percent of garbage or more, because that’s their self-honesty – and being willing to live with the 100% of who they are because of deciding that the principles they stand on and their personal purpose in life is something that I can live with, without judging, cringing at or secretly wanting them to change aspects that I see as ‘part of the 55% garbage.’

That conversation was sort of life changing for me, because from that moment on, even if he had been quite directive about all the times when I was imposing myself onto him, trying to control him and at times wanting to decide ‘what’s best for him,’ – and me being grateful for the feedback – it would only become that in me, he didn’t even cringe at the fact that I wasn’t changing my approach just ‘realizing’ what I was doing at a thought level but still justifying my imposition towards him.

So from that moment on, I’ve been able to more effectively stop my immediate reactions and responses to things he shares where I would literally behave like a mother that wants their child to ‘behave properly’ and ‘not be a bad person’ type of thing, which means, I would always come up with something that would impose, sometimes demand that such way of looking at things or people needed to be changed because! It didn’t ‘fit’ MY view or values on things, and in this not realizing I was imposing my own self-honesty onto him and others, making this recrimination look ‘good’ in my own eyes, perceiving I was doing a ‘good thing’ in externalizing this view and never questioning how and what it is to truly get to embrace and understand someone’s self-honesty, which means: I don’t need to change it, I don’t need to judge it, I can only work on my own reactions towards it, I need to focus on looking back at what I see I would like ‘someone else’ to change and do that within myself. Then, it becomes a practical assessment of whether I am willing to walk with or be related to someone based on that ‘totality’ of who they are, instead of seeing through a filter of ‘goodness and benevolence’ that leads to suppressing, judging, cringing at things that eventually become memories of things that I realized I wasn’t willing to live with/cope with or embrace in another as a life partner. And this is something that is also a very personal point of self-honesty, which means some people will be perfectly fine with embracing someone’s way of being in its totality, some others won’t – and that’s fine.

The same applies towards me. I realized how much I would put pressure on him on many aspects and it doesn’t create an emotional reaction in him, but simply him pointing out to me that very ingrained nature in me which is that of being a controller and manipulator in essence to have people in my life that I can shape, mold and turn them into what I believe is ‘the best version of themselves,’ but this is not considering the individuality of the other person, at all really. So, yep! I had understood my control-freakism and this stubborn nature at a knowledge level, it’s been merely an understanding or realization.

The point now is to live the actions that lead to a correction of this on a daily basis, and I got a cool match in this case because when living with someone that is not afraid to expose the ‘nasty’ aspects of his relationship with others and how he views things and is definitely tough-headed when it comes to how he likes to be and do things, it creates a more open and continuous challenge for me to not go into judgments, reactions or wanting to immediately ‘create a solution’ for them to change… this is then about me learning to understand, embrace and work with my own reactions towards all of those seemingly ‘bad’ aspects about another – but in fact, this is about learning to not see myself and others through the morality-filter of good or bad any longer, but as parts, aspects of another that are themselves as well, that I can give feedback on or share how I view things in my own life and how I deal with them Without! A secret agenda behind it, hoping that they would listen to my words and change their ways based on my feedback.

No, this is about me for real this time learning to stop reacting, stop wanting to immediately ‘sort someone out’ because I have also begun to understand how MY self-honesty is mine and mine alone, cannot be imposed onto anything or anyone else, that’s my process and I can only share how I walk things, how I approach things, what I decide to live with and what I decide I don’t want to live with. Not about judging, making more or less of something or someone, but about a simple assessment of asking myself ‘what am I willing to live with?’ and assessing my stance in relation to it all.

In the end, based on my various past experiences, If I lie and deceive myself and others, the truth eventually comes out and it will be invariably consequential if I allow myself to not be ‘ok’ with certain things in relationship to another and not voice them out or be frank and honest with myself to realize ‘Ok, I can’t live with this in fact’ and stop hoping that it would eventually change.

I consider that this opened up a cool phase in my relationship now, because we are both fully aware of the point I have to work with and it tests me to not always be having to give some kind of judgment of ‘this is good, this is bad’ and framing a person into a positive or negative light, but simply be willing to understand, get to know someone in the totality of who they are and why not, learning and appreciate them as well. In my case I am grateful for the fact that there is an openness to share things that maybe most people – including myself- would tend to hide and keep secret about ourselves and how we view life, people, situations. So this was also another lesson for me to be OK with sharing, saying the things that I am still aiming to work on and change, and not try and ‘stick to the positive side’ only, or always have ‘the right word to say’ because that also becomes a lockdown to not look at, accept and embrace the things I would usually hide or judge as just ‘plain negative’ and go into a form of denial about myself, which is the same as hiding from a truth that is also me and that I have to look at and work on.

In essence, this is about embracing my own mind as well, as much as I’ve discussed the embracing of someone else, it is about learning to do that for me first n my own life, and seeing that the world won’t fall apart if I start being more open to myself about my true nature, the one that I have kept secret or that I’ve wanted to hide because of wanting to be seen in a positive light. So see how limiting and caging those are? Lol, I’ve known about the dangers of polarizing stuff for a decade, but only now do I ‘get it’ as in really get to see and understand how I was doing that on a daily basis and even more so towards people that I was directly feeling entitled to be more intimate with, such as with partners in relationships.

Having this kind of conversation was quite liberating, it assisted me to understand a bunch of other things in relation to memories and how I was polarizing certain phases and people in my life to fit my own personal agenda, to create a ‘nice story’ about myself where I am the good one and others turn out to be the ‘bad ones,’ definitely not a way to hold anyone’s life captive in memories of good and bad morality judgments. This is about learning to live, embrace, get to know, appreciate and recognize others for who they are, without any further intent other than support, and that doesn’t mean: ‘I want to change them!’ but support them in whichever realizations or points of change they get to – or don’t get to. That’s where I can always decide what and who I share my life with, and this is quite empowering, to say the least.

Ok that’s the story, thanks for reading and definitely check out those Eqafe recordings, because they are very useful and life changing:

On Memories:

Satya: The Abuse of Memory – Journeys Into the Afterlife – Part 110
Satya: Distorting Truth Instead of Facing Truth – Journeys Into the Afterlife – Part 111
On Self-Honesty:

Self Honesty When Facing Deception and Hiding – The Soul of Money
Using Self Honesty to Hide Fear – The Soul of Money
Marlen
Posts: 4376
Joined: 12 Jun 2011, 20:16
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Re: Marlen's Blogs

Post by Marlen »

November 21, 2018
623. Learning to Listen: Becoming Aware vs. Acting to Change

Sometimes I hold myself back from writing because of perceiving that my topics are usually the same, about the same points that I seem to be constantly facing or working on. However, I also realized that this is something I write for sharing yes, but ultimately also as a point of accountability when it comes to the points that I’ve been facing.

So, there’s a main point related to listening. This is mainly in relation to how I’ve created filters in relation to how I decide to listen to someone, mostly imposing my own views, judgments – positive and negative – upon listening to someone, even more so if that someone is someone that is close to me, such as my partner.. and I am quite grateful that I’ve been able to discuss and open up all of these things to realize how much of a stubborn I’ve been in fact, and how much of the disdain, criticism and judgment I held toward my grandmother and mother about being control freaks and stubborn people relates back to me to the exact degree. Yep! It’s a frightening realization because at least my mother and I have realized the very consequential outflows of it, but now that I see the extent in which I am following ‘the same steps’ my female predecessors have played out with themselves, their bodies and towards their partners, I have a unique opportunity to change and ‘stop the sins of the fathers’ in this case, the mothers to be exact.

I am also aware that not everyone is able to have a direct cross-reference of this with their parents. Some don’t have their parents around and live far away, some have died already, some have never gotten to know their parents. This situation has led me to also appreciate the unique set up I was born into and be in a way grateful that I have this kind of cross-reference. However this doesn’t mean that if someone doesn’t have their parents or grandparents around you don’t get to know ‘how’ they are… just a look within self and you’ll get the gist of it. Lol

Anyways, getting to the bottom of this. I was quite shocked about myself – but also not really, because hello? I am in my own body and mind – in relation to how I’ve decided to not take certain feedback seriously about things and situations where I am being too over-bearing, obtuse, imposing, dictatorial and a plain control freak. I had expressed before how I was grateful to have this kind of feedback in the moment from my partner, but the reality is that I wasn’t honoring it as a point of self-change. I was only getting to KNOW and become Aware of the thing, but I wasn’t in fact deciding to fully change it.

Why? How come that if I was getting the direct feedback in the moment I wasn’t doing something about it? Well, I recently discovered quite an awful conditioning within me as well. When my partner was giving the feedback, there was no ‘raising of voices’ or showing any emotional outburst about it, in essence, there wasn’t a ‘big deal’ made out of it in my head. This is something I can relate to when one is a child, and one gets these warnings of things that may go wrong, or when one is doing something that one ‘shouldn’t do’ but only getting to stop doing it IF seeing the parent go completely upset and raise their voice and be noticeably annoyed, bothered, angry and really creating this emotional show where I would then realize ‘oh shit, that’s a real problem, I need to stop.’

This is where learning to listen comes in and where I also require to integrate the fact that this feedback I was receiving in the moment wont’ come with emotional outbursts for me to ‘take it seriously.’ In fact I was doing exactly what I would be bothered by for most of my life in relation to my mother, where I would say things to her or would like to ‘have a serious talk’ but she has a tendency to be quite ‘light’ about some things, not take things that seriously, not give them the ‘weight’ I was expecting and in doing so, I believed I wasn’t being taken seriously, it would piss me off, lol. So! It shouldn’t be as surprising that I was doing the exact same thing, almost going into that ignoring or ‘not taking seriously’ what my partner was sharing in those moments, and I just simply would not make any effort to change things, well a bit I guess, but that was entirely half-assed and not really living a decision to change in the moment.

How did I become aware of it? Of course when things get to a certain ‘boiling point’ where I repeat the same pattern, once again, and then I get reminded how I’ve gotten to hear the feedback about that situation several, several times before and I just haven’t listened. Yep, that was a bit of a shameful situation for me because in that moment I realized how much I was truly not deciding to listen as in taking the feedback in, and acknowledging that ‘ok yes I need to do something about this and create a plan to Change.’ I just ‘heard’ it and let it go by, really. And this is how I came to see how little importance or ‘weight’ so to speak I gave to this kind of feedback which in fact is precisely what I require to become aware and so change a very ingrained pattern I’ve lived when it comes to in essence being ‘control’ in a dictatorial and imposing way.

After that day, what I’ve been doing is then challenging the comfort I’ve created to ‘totally be me’ as the control freak with my partner, which is in a way cool because he now knows me and understands how far it can get, which is obviously not cool. And now I had to explain how this is one of the points that surely, is a difficult one for me, that I appreciate the feedback, that I am sorry that I haven’t changed yet in spite of the feedback and that I am now committing to change it.

What has happened a few days after that serious talk is that I’ve been now catching myself more often when I would say things out of habit that are in the same ‘tune’ of being a control freak. Sometimes I’ve been saying it and I’ve stopped myself from saying ‘but why not!?’ lol when wanting something to be done in a particular way that I had already been explained why it could not go that way. This is the stubbornness that I’ve also realized comes from an aloof sense of listening, where I get the explanation about certain things and then I decide to ‘not listen’ or comfortably ‘forget’ which I mean, it’s really a pain in the ass having to be told the same things over and over again, which I am not getting to properly integrate because I am not properly listening, but only being calculating in my mind what I want to hear, what I want to filter out in order to have some sort of very twisted comfort zone to not have to change ‘my ways.’

Needless to say that I realize how difficult it can be for any person to deal with someone like me, really, and not to make me a very tough person to deal with. But when it comes to living together and having the total openness to be ME then, all the real and nitty gritty aspects of my personality are exposed and I’m grateful that I’ve had someone in my life that is willing to be patient about it, but hey, one thing is to be patient and understanding, and another one is to be having to ‘bear’ with it and create a conditioning, an acceptance of it even If we both know it’s not the best way to live.

IT’s also needless to say how this exposes me as at times focusing too much on preaching certain principles, but letting these big points just ‘slip by’ as if they didn’t matter. It is also regrettable that I require to get to a point of having to notice an emotional reaction in order to make something seriously needing my attention and committing to change these patterns within me, because I also know and am aware when I’ve gone into this very obtuse, stubborn and controlling way of behaving that in my mind seems like ‘best for all’ but in that really forgetting about the individuality of others and realizing that even if I see it is ‘best’ for me, it can’t be applied ‘like that’ to others. And other times – most of them – realizing that each moment that I exert out my control-freakism it’s actually coming from a long-lived habit of being the one that ‘calls the shots’ as they say in a relationship, instead of creating an equal space for each other to be ourselves, to understand where we are at in relation to the points we are walking or changing and for me, yes to be also patient to not jump into conclusions, but to give space for another.

What comes up is how I’ve written a blog like this from a past relationship, what opens up is feeling like ‘I’ve learned nothing because I’ve been there before,’ but I also have to learn to forgive myself for that, for repeating myself and the same patterns as before and understanding that the same patterns may come up again and that it only means: I have to focus on changing them, instead of going into shame, regret or plain judgment about being repeating myself, because that leaves me nowhere but back into a comfort zone of thinking ‘well, that’s how I’m always going to be.’

I’m here walking this process to demonstrate to myself that I can in fact change even the most difficult or ingrained aspects within me that certainly can lead to ruin any relationship, because no one wants to be in a relationship with someone that acts like a dictator. To me, as I’ve shared many times before, it has to do with a sense of righteousness, believing I’m right and know what is the way to go. I have to humbly realize this is not so and in doing so, realize I have to get to place myself in the shoes of others in a much more ‘empty’ way, without placing myself in their shoes but still having ‘my own principles, my own mindset’ while doing so, which ends up in me thinking or perceiving that I know what they should do, what is best for them.

Yes, this is mainly the point and the reasoning behind it, which is why it has become so tricky and at times difficult to let go, because of holding on to the idea that I am right, I know the way’ but it’s best to realize I may have an idea of what could work, but it is up for each person to decide for themselves. I can only then focus on being there walking with others without wanting to impose ‘my ways’ onto them, and rather work on creating these moments within me where I can become aware of this pattern coming up in me, and so make a pause to realize ‘red flag, control freakism point here’ and take a breath to then speak back in an awareness of me having to Let Go of wanting to ‘show the way’ or ‘give instructions of what must be done’ or ‘give a judgment of what is right or wrong.’ I can always give perspectives but I must accept the fact that I can’t change others, I can’t impose myself onto others, I can’t ‘walk their solution’ for them either, nor do I have to conveniently ‘say what to do’ in a way where I’m only considering what benefits me or what I believe is best for me.

So this is where I’m at and working with currently – yep in my head it’s like ‘ah more of the same’ really, but that’s who I am and what I’ve become with this pattern, it’s like a lifetime habit that I have to now take responsibility for.

Thanks for reading.
Marlen
Posts: 4376
Joined: 12 Jun 2011, 20:16
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Re: Marlen's Blogs

Post by Marlen »

November 30, 2018

624. Getting Off My High-Horse

get off (one’s) high horse. To stop acting as if one is better than other people; to stop being arrogant or haughty.



A lot of what I shared in my previous blog was also inspired by listening to the recent Eqafe recordings called When the Honeymoon Phase is Over and After the Honeymoon Phase because it describes really well one of the main patterns that I have lived for a long time in my own mind where I have become very picky, deterministic and absolutist when it comes to creating a perception of ‘perfection’ existing in another that stands in the ‘position’ of being ‘my partner’ and creating this high standards about how the person ‘must be.’ In a way, I’ll be describing the creation of this ‘high horse’ character where I have been experiencing a sense of superiority and comparison towards my partners where I have been quite quick to determine what ‘is acceptable’ and what ‘isn’t’ based on forgetting and not considering a few things that I’ll be sharing here.

Even if I knew that I am changing this at a knowledge level when it comes to not judging people based on the emotional reactions they may have, but rather step up to create space for understanding them, placing myself in their shoes, not judging but instead, look back at how I can relate to the creation of reactions and how I have supported me to walk through them, I have at the same time held a very blind spot when it comes to the person that ‘occupies’ the role of being ‘MY partner’ and in that almost creating a separate ‘grading’ system for them, because of thinking a bit too high of myself and so considering that ‘they’ should be ‘up to my standards’ in a way, and so I’ll be sharing how this is quite consequential and the lessons I’ve learned by identifying this within me through the support of that couple of Eqafe recordings.

I can totally relate to the description in the audio recording of being almost like this king with his whole flair and absolutist power to simply say ‘No’ to something and make it unacceptable and create zero space for a second consideration about someone or something they are deciding on. This is in relation to how in my relationship there was a moment where I decided to question certain reaction in my partner which wasn’t really ‘new’ because, I had been aware of it since the beginning. The important point that I’ve shared before is how it has been me all the way that decided to polarize the idea or image of the other person into a positive way where all the actual characteristics that I could have ‘questioned’ from the beginning, were shoved aside. This is where I had to realize that there was no deliberate ‘hiding’ from my partner about those aspects before, I was the only one that decided to blur them, place them aside and keep sugar coating those reactions whenever they would come up, in essence, not taking it seriously.

Yes, this is part of what is commonly known as the ‘honey moon phase,’ but it is definitely something I created in my mind where it was only now after several months that I decided to question certain reactive pattern and take it ‘too damn serious’ to question him about it, which was of course a bit ‘out of nowhere’ considering this wasn’t something new in our interactions, it was just me that in a moment decided to get on this high-horse of questioning in a very serious tone how ‘bad’ such reaction is and if I may be able or capable of continuing a relationship with someone that is having this kind of reaction towards other people in a certain moment of frustration.

Well, here is where I need to explain what this ‘high horse’ character entails and what I’ve realized from the moment I’ve been able to hear it in the recording and, to be honest, as I was translating such recordings, I had to laugh a lot when it was described, because that’s exactly how ‘I feel’ inside myself when having this ‘serious questioning’ about someone’s reaction and getting into this absolutist throne where I can put my thumb up or down to say yay or nay to continuing an entire relationship just because of getting to – or deciding to – question a pattern that I had simply left aside, not opened up and not even reacted to before. But based on my own shared experience in that moment – which yes was also that of being fed up by a certain situation that was ‘out of our hands’ I decided that what he said was ‘too sensitive’ and required attention and needed to be opened up.

This turned out to be very cool because all in all, regardless of my high horse stance or not, it was a reaction that assisted us a lot to get to talk about many other things to settle where we’re generally ‘at’ with each other in the relationship. This assisted me to refresh my memory of how I was in that moment projecting ‘how I want him to be’ – which is yes, a very common pattern in me that I haven’t totally changed, I can see that – and forgetting in one moment about the totality of who the person is and the noticeable mutually supportive aspects that we’ve developed in our relationship together.

Yep, it can be a bit baffling how I can get myself in that ‘zone’ where I just zoom-in one single aspect that I find simply ‘unacceptable’ in a single moment and suddenly decide that this is ‘so questionable’ that the entirety of who the person is becomes questionable. This is a common pitfall that I can see becomes like a tunnel vision where one can spiral almost out of control and losing sight of the reality of the person that we are judging and creating a problem about in our minds.

The high-horse character also implied that I was not seeing at all ‘my problem’ or ‘my personality play-out’ at all, because in my mind, I was in fact like this royal person that decides that this/that is not acceptable in MY life. I felt that superiority stance where almost ‘nothing’ or no one would ‘ever’ be ‘up to my standards,’ which means that somehow I have been regarding myself in a very ‘superior’ stance that I tend to mostly compare and project to the partners that I’ve had in my life. I tend to be more considerate to everyone else BUT! Holy, if it’s the one person that becomes ‘my partner’ it’s almost as if they had to be the premium gladiators to be ‘up to the standard’ of what would be somewhat similar to how I am or how I see myself.

Here, there needs to be some point of equilibrium because I’ve been in both polarities where I’ve disregarded myself in the past where I had no self-worth, self appreciation or self love and I went looking for all of that in relationships that, for the most part, were no-good for me – and were quite compromising in fact – which has been a lifelong pattern to be honest. That’s been kind of my weakness, because I believed I could ‘change them’ and within doing so, create ‘the perfect partner’ IF only they could ‘step up to my standards’ – yep, wanting to change someone or asking someone to change in order to be in a relationship is just a No-go, ever. It’s unacceptable.

Even in the most subtle things where one is compromising oneself to do certain things to please another and knowing within that ‘it is not you,’ I now realize that is just a no-go and a recipe for disaster if one starts compromising with certain things to ‘fit’ into a relationship.

But that’s something I have only been able to see and realize now where I am with a person that accepts me as I am, even with the worst of the aspects that he also points out about myself. We recognize them and I’ve asked him to assist me when I am showing that worst of myself like the control freakism pattern I’ve shared about before and also whenever my ‘subtle ways’ come out to have him ‘be perfect for me’ type of thing, which is unreasonable and absolutely unacceptable, because it would only be about creating ‘my perfect partner’ and have this ‘perfect robot’ that doesn’t get to challenge me or question me at all. Man, that would be awful, because there is something that I am extremely grateful for which is the feedback and support that my partner provides in being very frank about the stuff that I do, how I do it and how it comes through in a moment, because let’s face it, not many people stand in such position in our lives to do that. In my life it’s been mostly my mother, some of the closest people I talk to from the Desteni community and my partner.

So getting off of my high horse happened while opening up the whole questioning of such reaction to him, where I got to actually realize that yes, I was again being too exigent, projecting ‘my ideals’ and only focusing on ‘how I think things SHOULD be’ and in that, yes, getting reminder that no person will be ‘equal to me’, nor should that ever happen because we are all individuals and part of the actual enjoyment in life is to get to know who we are and how we can decide to interact, live and coexist with a ‘world in itself’ in the shape and life of another human being.

One thing that baffles me as I said above is how much I simply became possessed for a moment about this questioning of a reaction, where I stopped considering the totality of the person and all that he has shown and lived with actions – not just judgments or backchat that he may speak out loud from time to time and yes, it was a frightening reminder of how ‘easy’ it is to fall into this pathological way of thinking where one simply focuses on ‘the worst’ of someone in one single moment and starts piling up stuff that one hadn’t worked with/looked at before and suddenly build up this whole sinister story about someone. It actually reminds me of those Thriller books I used to read as a child, where the story goes fine and dandy and then it gets to the climax where all those details and seemingly subtle points through the story build up to expose this huge problem and sinister case about a murderer or a psychopath etc. lol

I mean, really, I saw how in my mind it can easily go into that if I don’t ground myself in the basics. So that’s how what was supportive for me in that moment is to have a moment for myself to let the emotion out in crying and then realizing ok, yes, this is an emotional reaction though I know emotion and victimizing myself right now is not the way out, not talking about it is not the way out. This needs to be talked through and gotten to a point of understanding because! I already know how we are both quite level headed and there’s really no further problems between us where ‘big’ emotions emerge that could make our dialogues impossible, so that was also a grounding point to know we could simply talk about it and realize the many points that I had missed from my sight, where I went into my ‘high horse’ and create deliberate ‘sugar coatings’ as I explained in a blog about memories before. That way he could see where and how I am having a different idea of ‘how things should be’ that he simply takes as very normal stuff based on ‘who he is’ and ‘how he is’, which he has been and expressed from day 1.

So, in a way I realized I created my own storm, but it was beneficial to talk it out because it assisted me to realize how much I was not focusing on the reality of things, how I was holding on to a polarized version of him and of who he is – as I had mentioned some time ago, seeing him in this positive light only – and also how he had no clue of my relationship to certain words and attitudes and what it meant to me, while for him it was frankly normal stuff that ‘everyone does.’

This is where another aspect of the high-horse character comes through where yes, I realized that I forget that I’ve been learning how my mind operates, questioning, observing and working on myself, my reactions, my habits, changing ways in which I would ‘naturally react’ and re-wire myself on a day to day basis for over 10 years now based on the principles I’ve been learning and applying from the Desteni material. I do realize that because of how easy it was for me to understand myself with my partner and see that he was quite principled in a natural manner, I kind of created the belief that such principles would expand on to ‘changing’ certain reactions within him, certain ‘traits’ of character… and in that forgetting that nope, having such values/principles as a person does not mean that he is working with the totality of his nature to change it.

In fact it is only now through the relationship that we have, that he is becoming aware of many things that he didn’t even question before about himself and his way of being, because of being quite a ‘man to himself,’ meaning where he only would have to ‘respond’ to himself and not having developed any real deep relationships with any other person that could get him to open up about things that he hadn’t questioned or even seen about himself, and I find that fascinating as well! Because I tend to forget who he is, his personal history, the way he has lived for most of my life and in that compare me and ‘my process’, ‘my ways’ to his and create this sudden ‘nah-uh unacceptable!’ finger-pointing type of haughty attitude to something he had not even seen as ‘a problem’ within him at all. In this I also realized the ‘disconnect’ we can create when not sharing and communicating about the way that each one of us sees certain actions the other does, which is something he has done about me pretty much from the beginning, which has been great because that’s what I wanted, a point of honesty that leads to realizing the ‘worst’ of myself that few had dared to question or point out and now I get to be with someone that won’t take any shit either lol, so we are two very ‘peculiar’ beings so to speak where each one of us has very cemented principles and ways of being that at the same time are learning to create considerations for the other and create a middle ground, which is definitely doable, even if we are both very stubborn at times lol. We totally make it fun to do this kind of things, mostly because we love each other and we realize what it entails to live with another. May sound cheesy but! Omg, it is true! haha

So! to make it simple: the opening of this situation where I was able to get off my high horse, realize I was imposing/projecting my own process to my partner – who is not walking this process or the tools I use for self support – and in that, I was in fact not living the words that I’ve committed to live with any other person, like getting to hear them, to consider them, to place myself in their shoes, to understand they are not yet knowing ‘how’ to deal with their reactions and reminding myself that I can only be an example and share how I’ve walked through similar things myself. I was almost like creating a big deal about it as if it was a person that would already know ‘how’ to use tools like self-forgiveness or being in the path to change those aspects within him. He is not, and this is something that I am also fine with, because in general the person that he is, the words he lives, the way he lives and the challenges he represents for me in my life as well are what I need at the moment.

Something that I’ve realized is that it makes it difficult at times to really get to know How to talk to ‘regular people’ out in the world so to speak, because they don’t speak your same ‘lingo’ as when being with someone that walks this process. Not saying this should be ‘the way’ when it comes to relationships between people that walk the same process or people that walk with someone that doesn’t have the same background, but I find that this is specific for me, because I definitely have realized how much I lost ground and ‘contact’ with reality when being too focused on my personal process and only relating to people that are also walking this process. So, this year has also been a testing ground for me to realize in many ways where I am living only as a ‘preacher’ but not really living what I THINK is common sense, and bam, that’s just what I needed to realize as well. While at the same time also seeing how I’ve been able to change many aspects which surely make my current relationship possible.

Part of the ways to get off of my high horse was to focus and remind myself of all the words that I wrote out about him and the reasons why I decided to be with him, which have proven to be a great pillar of support that I’m quite grateful for. I may sound too laudably, but, that’s the reality based on what has opened up for both in the relationship. It’s quite something and I definitely have to create a flag-point whenever I see myself going into these tunnel-vision points where I lose my ground about something I define as ‘negative’ and ‘unacceptable’ in a very absolutist way. I have to take a moment by myself – which I did then – to slow down, let the emotion out so that I could then sit with him, eye to eye and talk about the whole situation which was one of the moments that definitely strengthened our resolve to be with one another, and this is priceless and definitely recommendable to do, because I got to understand much more about him and consider things that I had completely forgotten about in one single moment of reacting to his reaction.

This is one of the many more reasons why I recommend getting to listen to Eqafe recordings in your day to day, like the ones I mentioned which were definitely spot on and very timely for me to look at how I was stepping into this superiority pattern that was preventing me from SEEING reality and was blinding me with this kind of ‘perfection’ light that is definitely not realistic when we are talking about a relationship with two very real and direct people that don’t hold back about things. If anything, I actually appreciate he is ‘speaking his mind’ even if the things that come out are not ‘angelical’ lol, it’s at least commendable that there’s still people that dare to say: yes this is what I thought and yes this is who I am as well, and yes I know it’s not nice or pretty but never said I was. Because it is true, so many people only fake and paint a nice image of themselves in the first phases of a relationship that lead to the inevitable ‘monstering’ phase as some say here hehe where people show their true colors and so the relationship ends around that time when they start seeing the reality of themselves.

On my side, I have to remember my process, especially when it comes to the ‘standards’ I have created towards ‘my partner’ as if that was this very ‘difficult shoe to fit’ and as I mentioned in my previous blog, it sure is, I’m not an ‘easy person’ for most of the people really, lol, I am quite exigent to myself and so to that person that is closest to me. But fortunately I found someone that also has his personal exigencies very established as well, which is why I guess we get along so well. And even if we differ in many perspectives, ways of seeing or understanding the world or in how we deal with our own problems, I’ve also come to realize that such mental-aspects don’t really matter for me. What really matters is the conviviality, the habits, the livelihood and coexistence with a person that lives with personal integrity. I appreciate more that there is no presentation or attempt to ‘fake’ a certain idea of himself to ‘be liked’ or accepted, because he wasn’t seeking that at all, which have created a very comfortable space for us in the relationship, because no one else gets to see us as ‘we truly are’ and say what we truly think to anyone else. And her by comfortable I don’t mean, ‘easy’ because it’s not challenging, I’d say it’s the other way around, and it is paving a nice space for me to learn how to best relate to people ‘in the world’ in fact.

To me, this is supportive because he is quite an example that I definitely lacked when being in relationships in the past where my starting point was that of lack of personal appreciation, acceptance, self-worth which would reflect back on the people I would decide to be with. He is definitely the opposite of that, which is an awesome example to also take on, where is not in ‘need’ of a relationship, but sees the mutual benefit of it, he is not in ‘need’ of love because he lives that for himself, and yep to be honest I’m learning more about what it means to love oneself with actions, not just fluffy self-positive thinking. And! sure thing I’ve also been able to create an impact on the relationship he has with himself and his self-care too, so all in all, a very supportive and complementary process.

It is as simple as this: I would not have been able to be in this relationship if I had not worked with my own patterns and usual behaviors in relationships. This is STILL work to do of course, which is also cool when being with someone that has no past relationship history, so for him it’s a whole discovery process in itself that I’m quite happy and fortunate to be a part of.

And that’s how the story ends, where one moment of reacting to ‘character flaws’ and deciding to talk and open it up led to having a very supportive and vulnerable conversation that got me to realize ‘Oh fuck, I did it again!’ with being really inconsiderate of ‘where another is’ and ‘how they see things’ and imposing my own ‘change’ and even ‘my process’, instead of really considering the totality of who he is, the life he’s lived and get to also focus on the words, the actions, he has lived throughout the time we’ve been together.

I hope I didn’t spill too much honey here, hehe, but that’s what opens up within a relationship when transforming a moment of reaction, confronting it, opening it up, discussing, getting to understand each other and create a ‘new’ approach to things, which became another level of depth in the relationship.



Ok thanks for reading! And if you want to read a very supportive chat I had with fellow Destonians about this situation I share about here, read this chat transcript: Being in a High Horse: Becoming Aware of It and Looking at Corrections however you’ll have to sign-up to destonians.com to be able to do so, which I recommend because there’s no other group in the world where we dare to be that vulnerable in sharing the ways that we are being challenged and how to support each other to face ourselves and create the best version of ourselves. We always learn from each other.
Marlen
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Joined: 12 Jun 2011, 20:16
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Re: Marlen's Blogs

Post by Marlen »

December 19, 2018

625. What I’ve learned from facing Gossip in Social Media



Recently I’ve been caught in between the outflow or consequence of social media accusations related to someone that’s close to me, which has led me to unveil a few things about myself, my relationship with the person involved in this conflict – who is my partner – and in doing so, I’ve taken the opportunity and responsibility to look back within myself to see where and how I have participated in gossip throughout my life – whether it is within relationships with people, social media or even ‘news’ for that matter.

For example, I’ve done this when getting to hear or read people’s stories about a certain point of abuse or exposure of a certain problem where ‘the offended’ starts finger pointing at ‘the culprits’ and how I’ve taken such situations blindly ‘as facts’ without a question, taking sides with the part that ‘I believe the most’ and in many other cases, adding myself up to give credit to any form of ‘testimony’ that simply goes along the lines of what I perceive or believe ‘is right’ or is ‘the true one.’ This is where shortsightedness leads to fuel more problems than contribute to any solution, and this is what I am now committing to change within me, no matter how ‘subtle’ my participation may be in this process of ‘taking sides’ with someone without an actual first-hand understanding and investigation of the situation

One thing that I’ve precisely been talking about within our group chats is learning to discern, not being ‘gullible’ in the sense of taking a story ‘as is,’ but being more critical. This means, not immediately jumping into conclusions, pointing fingers or even demonizing the ‘culprit’ in the snap of a finger. Something that comes for me at the moment is how I’ve seen several people become ‘divided and conquered’ on social media specifically over a myriad of topics, which is why I have refrained from participating in taking any ‘side’ because, in order to do so, there’s a need to be genuinely informed or have a firsthand say or experience in the whole topic or situation in order to create a position about it that’s worth sharing. At times even the ‘idea’ of having to take a side or a position about something is already divisive in nature, and that’s why many times it is best to focus on reflecting back where I stand and from there assess my own self-honesty.

Keyword comes again here: self-honesty. My response towards the allegations that my partner has been accused of was to immediately to consult with him about the situation. I decided to not react or immediately go into a paranoia – which could have been my ways of dealing with conflict in the past – which is essential when dealing with accusations that one person may bring up. This of course could be questioned by any other person in the consideration of me having to stand on the side of ‘my partner’ because of ‘him being my partner,’ but the reality is that with the integrity that I hold to myself, my life, my living purpose and the process I have decided to take on in my life for the past decade, I would not mind at all having to recognize the responsibility that any close person would have towards a certain situation where any wrong or fault was committed by them, and ensure that they own to it.

So, this is where it is interesting how some people have questioned me and my relationship with my partner based on the allegations against him. I understand this kind of reactions as well, because it may come with the intent of care or consideration towards me. But, as one of my friends said, if you question me and my relationship based on social media gossip, you definitely have no idea who I am. And that is a fact.

One thing that I appreciate about my partner is his integrity. I’ve even explained in previous blogs how he’s always been quite straightforward in the way that he works, and how yes, some people have taken that personally to the point of attacking back in a very venomous manner. I also have decided to create an understanding of the ‘offended’ person’s position in this, which is part of what I have committed myself to do: to not take part just because ‘he is my partner,’ but to get to understand the situation, to see the facts claimed, to read the words, read the context – at a social and political level even – see where each person stands and from there make a decision of ‘who I am’ within and towards it all.

Within me there is no doubt about where my partner stands and who he is within his life. He’s an open book when it comes to how he works with people and his general intent with people. He is also quite aware that he’s got ways of dealing and treating people that are a consequence of how he was raised himself, and how even these habits and behavior patterns when teaching and showing people how to best do their work, have been misinterpreted as abuse or violent behavior. This is something that he now has to learn when it comes to how he relates to people, regardless of his inherent and ever present intent to support people to become a better person, to create some discipline and standing in their lives, where they can be less fearful, less doubting of themselves and gain more confidence in what they do by willing themselves to do something they would otherwise resist doing, to learn something, practice and become good at what they do.

To me it’s a bit heartbreaking to see how easy it is for outsiders to immediately jump into the gossip bandwagon, where there’s an aim to discredit, attack, threaten and even pose as open enemies towards people that had nothing to do with the situation. But, this is also part of what I’ve known for a long time as well by now, how ‘easy’ it is to be triggered at an emotional level due to a certain kind of information that ‘touches our core’ and with that, we take blind faith to ‘believe’ the person that’s posing themselves as aggravated without further questions or asking the people involved directly to get a holistic perspective of all parties involved. Nope, in this case and situation, it has been frankly disappointing to see even those people that were perceived as ‘friends’ fall for the victimization trap and immediately place themselves on one side based on personal benefits or any form of convenience. Again, self-honesty is something that stands within each one, can’t be demanded either.

This is concerning to me now because of how it affects my life at the moment as well. But the reality is that this may happen more and more until no one is left ‘untouched’ to see to what extent we can create and propagate our worst nature through gossip and accusations that can be spread everywhere now through the power of social media, where even a response of understanding and total assumption of responsibility is deliberately misinterpreted as further ammunition against the people in question. This means, there’s not even an opening to conciliate or solve anything, there’s just a blind desire for violence, revenge masqueraded in the form of justice.

I am in no way exculpating the people involved. My partner knows where he stands in his responsibility and that is something that I also appreciate a lot from him. There was an immediate understanding of the situation in how it came to be, what his role was and subsequently, sharing the story that was untold from the offended’s side. That is quite valuable in someone, that he is willing to recognize the things that need to be taken responsibility for, that he has no fear in facing whatever outflows or consequences and is willing to go ‘to whatever extent’ it is needed to create a solution for all parties involved. There is also a learning process that comes from the kind of situations that can be called out at a public and mass scale for personal growth, which is also something he has now taken to heart in terms of how he relates to people, how he expresses and learns to consider more about how others ‘may take his words’ and expression, to precisely prevent further problems like this one.

This is then something that I also got to learn from, how at times, yes, things need to ‘hit the fan’ this way to wake some people up about the nature of our actions and to realize in what ways they are affecting other people. One suggestion though is to always ask for support when it happens, instead of publishing information – or defaming – in social media, which causes irreversible consequences for everyone involved.

Is it sad that an attempt to support a person backfired in the worst imagined way? It is, but it’s not the first time that I’ve witnessed this kind of situations. Myself as part of the Desteni group have been subject of endless forms of trolling and abuse, we have proceeded legally many times to create any form of correction about it, without any real solution either. I have realized how facing this kind of situations can only lead to strengthen each one’s capacity to take responsibility for any damage done and see ourselves through it – while at the same time learning to prevent it in the way that we relate to others and how we do things.

Something else that I’ve come to see and realize is how there will be many people that will be completely siding with the person that has been the offended one without a question, and that is also part of the revelations that are here for all of us to witness. Seeing people’s responses as a confirmation of ‘who they are’ and what exists within them, where the subject of discussion disappears and all that’s left is the essence and nature of the person in their own words as response to something they may have no clue about, but are very quick to give immediate responses to. I also am learning to embrace – which means not react, not judge – but see it as situations that will continue to reflect back to each person who they are within themselves and where they stand as individuals – that is: becoming aware of our own self-honesty.

What I admire in my partner is his stance within it all. To not fall into a form of emotional experience, to stand through it without having anything to fear and at the same time, suggesting the person to proceed against him or any other person presumed to be culprits of the situation, because he knows where he stands. He also understands the political and social environment that this conflict arises within, where some people could be given preference because of being perceived as the common victims in situations like that. We also know that the legal framework might not even have a space to create conciliation and solutions this kind of situations, and that is also ok, part of the shared responsibility point we all hold wherein we haven’t yet worked on standing in and creating a legal system where people’s lives are honored and considered yet.

All that’s left for us to face and confront are our actions, our words, our life trajectories to speak for themselves. With regards to my partner, he is an open book as the public person that he is, the problem is not many have actually dared to ask directly what the story is in fact – and at the same time, cross-reference that story in alignment with the life that he’s led so far. And as we know, it’s easier, much easier to spread lies than to dare to do a proper investigation to get the full story on all sides involved. And that’s how I take responsibility to prevent myself from taking a side, but only suggesting what is honorable for me and him to do: to face the music, to assume responsibility and walk it all the way through as it may be needed. That’s what self-integrity is to me.

What’s left is not participating in emotional reactions about it, even if it surely makes me sad, but I realize my sadness is more concerning to him than the situation in itself. Whatever outcome there is, there is a complete disposition to face it and take responsibility for it. That’s something I am also learning from him in terms of how to face ‘worst case scenarios’ and how to always be sure and certain that our thoughts, words and deeds will speak for themselves, even if they don’t stand in the ‘legal’ framework of our current systems in place: in the end, it’s only life and ourselves that know the truth of who we are, and that’s something that no one, no social media opinions, judgment, conclusions or misrepresentation can define or change.

This certainty that he has in who he is has definitely inspired me a lot. He has shared the many times controversy has knocked at his door, and how he has learned over the years to not fear it, but totally cooperate and assume responsibility. This is the kind of person I am and continuing learning to be as well, to understand that we all have a few things to face and confront in this life, and how they mostly show up in the form of obstacles, difficulties, challenges at every level, even health issues or any other form of ‘inconvenience’ that can make us wiser and stronger if we take it to heart as a cross reference of who we are, where we stand and how we decide to lead our lives.

In my regard, I’ll be a lot more careful in how ‘easily’ I take sides on any subject or topic on social media or on personal matters I may become aware of. This is something that my partner has also told me many times before: to not believe anything blindly, to go and test for myself, to talk to the person, be certain of what I am speaking of – otherwise, I am only spreading lies, gossip, misinformation and not measuring the consequences of this. I have explained several times before how righteous I have been with such kind of things, so this is also a learning experience for me to ‘see what it’s like’ to be – in a way by association – on the receiving end of defamation and the effects and consequences it has on many other people, all because of not questioning what we accept and allow to exist within us and focus on sorting things out, rather than aiming at punishment, vengeance or even violence as solution.

In any case, I also understand that difficulties like this lead to a very necessary learning experience which may be very sour and possibly more harming than supportive – but in the end, we can’t control things getting ‘out of control,’ or control how other people react or respond to certain situations. We only have ourselves, our self-respect, self-integrity, self-honesty and the understanding of what one accepts and allows. As they say here ‘the one that doesn’t owe anything, doesn’t fear,’ and that’s the saying that he and I consequently stand by.

My commitment to this life is to also face obstacles, controversies and difficult situations in the best way that I can. This means realizing that reacting emotionally – like becoming sad or feel hopeless about it – is not the way to stand as a point of support for those that need it most. In a way it is needless to say that in being, there is no space to even consider disrespecting or judging the person that is coming out as the offended one, because I have applied the necessary understanding to see how easy it is for us to not measure the kind of situations we become a part of in our lives and how easy it is to blame, to fall into emotional traps, to be encouraged by group mentality to do things that we are not considering through and through in the consequences it creates, and as such, I take things from Who they come from and considering to the most of my ability the totality of the person they are, to the extent that I can visibly do. This leads me to understanding and forgiveness, which is I’d say the best approach to not ‘fuel the fire,’ while also of course considering the legal means and ways in which any form of conflict that has ‘gone out of control’ can be sorted through.

We live in very chaotic times, that is a fact. It’s not the first time I see this kind of things happening especially within the internet, but I also embrace it as a very necessary part of this existential process to truly get to uncover and expose more about the truth of each one in our lives. And as I’ve said many times, I stand in my own responsibility to the actions and choices I make, I have no intent of defending or painting a nice picture about myself or any human being for that matter, because that is not realistic at all.

I’ve made my point to share the process that I walk with facing my problems, character flaws and faults. We all have them, we all have our falls, we all can be singled out as ‘culprits’ of something – but if we continue to only point out the problems, without standing up to create and promote solutions, we are prone to end up causing far greater problems than then ones we already have in this world.

It is time where we can realize the value of our self-honesty, the value of being a person of integrity and honor towards ourselves and others, and if one is not doing so, surely, I believe life ‘dishes’ things our way to open our eyes and decide where we stand. So, as part of my learning process in this process and from the support I’ve gotten over the years from the many walking this process with Desteni and with the Eqafe material, I take this situation and adversity as an opportunity to strengthen my resolve to align with that and those who are of integrity in their own lives and so towards others. And if I make a false judgment about something or someone, I’ll face it inevitably too, it’s all part of the learning process in life, because the truth will always prevail.

This is where I can learn how to stand in my own truth, whichever it may be, and be willing to stand with it throughout the test of time. This is where I am the only one that can be responsible for my words, what I do, what I support or don’t support till the end of time as it’s said. And that is true empowerment to me, nothing can beat that.

This is something that I want to share considering that this kind of situations are becoming more and more prevalent in this world, to see and consider what one can learn, what kind of strength and resolve one can gather from deciding or making a choice of ‘who one is’ in the midst of conflict. That’s what defines a person: who they are in the face of conflict, not their past deeds and faults or however people may talk back about them, but how they are willing to own the situation and take responsibility for it. And this is what I take to heart as well, because that is what’s honorable to do for everyone involved, in the name of life itself.

We all make mistakes and what matters to me is how I decide to face my mistakes, my falls, my creation of consequences towards others and own it. That’s what matters – anything else people might say, will come and go, no one can control that. All we got is our self-honesty, and those words stand true today and most likely for the rest of time. What we can do is gain a holistic perspective of the situation by asking or talking to the people involved directly and taking a position based on that, considering all aspects of it to the point that we can, but in the end, not even that is a real solution. This is about personal responsibility in the end: each one can only know ‘who’ one is and who one was in the actions, words or deeds done or said.

Thanks for reading.
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