Sunday, June 16, 2013

Day 195- Becoming My Own Safe Haven (pt 2)


This is continued from this blog: Day194- Becoming My Own Safe Haven


 

“I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to worry and stress about moving locations.

 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the reality that my environment is going to change drastically.”

When and as I see that I am picturing my current location, and then picturing my future location, and then creating fear within me, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to stability by reminding myself that fearing the situation will not change or move anything, but will rather only lead to fear-based actions and decisions, which are never beneficial. I push myself to direct one thing at a time, as I have time, until everything is tended to and seen through.

I commit myself to identify issues/tasks/responsibilities/obligations, and push myself to begin them, follow up , and see them through.

I commit myself to address the thoughts that create a reaction within me, and to determine whether action is required, or if the thought should simply be stopped in one breath and not participated within or as.

When and as I see that I am creating and manifesting the fear of change, I bring myself back to stability by reminding myself that the fear of change is the fear of the unknown, and the fear of loss.

Fear of the unknown: I commit myself to write myself out in order to get to know the unknown parts of myself and my hidden fears/needs/desires, to instead create a foundation of self-support, to assist and support myself to bring myself back to the present moment, as the present movement, and direct myself within and as the present moment and be ‘known’ to myself as Who I Am, and Why I Make the Decisions I Make.

Fear of Loss: I commit myself to write out that which I fear losing, and to use common sense to take practical steps to support myself to ensure I have the basic necessities that I require to survive, and to manage myself in order to make the most of what I have.

I commit myself to let go of my dependence on those things I fear losing that I do not require to survive, within the understanding and self-commitment, that I will give myself everything I need to live a dignified life, as I am able to with what I am able to work with in my current position in the system.

I commit myself to realize that I have defined myself by those things I fear losing, and thus I fear losing my self-definition. Within this, I commit myself to live the realization that I define me, not my environment and the people, places and things within it.

What I fear to lose:

Stable income

Close Friend

Access to the ocean, the woods, nature

Peace and quiet and open spaces

The animals

Donation-based Yoga Studio

The cafes. Restaurants and shops I enjoy

My independence

My privacy

Being foreign

Unusual cultural norms that remind me that I am a product of my culture

Friendlier People

Cheap gas/food/products

Anonymity

The fantasies and imaginings and ‘dreams’ I had created about a future here.

Summers on the beach

Going to the ocean or the woods when I feel stressed or overwhelmed or adventurous.

The cats

The horses

My coworkers/work dynamic

The experience of a small town

Open roads
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Thursday, June 13, 2013

Day 194- Becoming My Own Safe Haven

" Assertiveness as Steadfastness as Breath as Consistent Equilibrium, is How we Learn to be Able to Manage the Storms of Life and to Emerge from it As a Harbour that becomes a Safe Haven"



“if you don't move it through writing, it's just going to continue to weigh you down within you cause you are accumulating it by not moving it”


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to worry and stress about moving locations.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear the reality that my environment is going to change drastically.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist directing my reality for fear of taking responsibility, and within this:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become aloof and pull back within myself and allow situations and events play out without my input, participation or direction, within the hopes that I can reemerge at a later point when things calm down, in hopes that it will all work out, leaving myself to  deal with the consequences, which may be detrimental to me, maybe not.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become anxious and fearful and then angry with myself when I don’t step up and direct events in my life, and within this:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continue to become aloof and retreat within myself when the time comes where events in my life need to be directed.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to retreat and withdraw within myself during big changes or when I make decisions, within the thought, idea, perception or belief that I don’t know how to direct it, or I don’t know what to do, or where to begin.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think, believe or perceive that if I don’t already know something, or if it is not clear right away, then I am helpless.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear putting in a sincere effort, because it is more difficult and there is risk involved, because it may be difficult, it may not work out, or it may fail.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think, believe or perceive that if Iapply myself fully and put in a sincere effort, that failure is a possibility, because in reality, there is always a solution.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project into the future, all the ways in which my efforts can lead to failure, when the only real failure that exists is giving up.

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Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Day 193- Identifying the thoughts that cause OCD



Within my previous four blogs I have been looking at the obsessive-compulsive behavior that overcomes me when I am at work. This had been so at every job I have worked, and often ends up causing me to believe that the job is the problem, when in reality, the OCD is the source of the difficulty I experience within working/employment/my studies/etc…

The pattern I have been working on pulling apart and re-scripting has been the simple act of ‘seeing tasks through to proper completion’. Within this I have confronted being able to determine within myself,, and in terms of the actual physical work being performed, that which is a ‘job well-done’, that which is ‘overkill’ as a try or attempt to attain an unrealistic standard of unobtainable perfection (OCD behaviour), and that which leads to a ‘giving up’ or ‘giving in’ before the task, obligation or responsibility is seen through (OCD behaviour).

Within this, I want to dig a little deeper into what causes the compulsion to A) obsess over every little detail of a task, obligation or responsibility, or B) to become overwhelmed and give-up on my ability to actually see the task through, either before even beginning, or before completion.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to, while working on a specific project/task/obligation/responsibility, think about who will be judging me, my work, and the outcome of the work that I do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine the face of the person that I think, believe or perceive will be judging my work, or the outcome at my work, and to visualize it with a discerning or disappointed facial expression whenever I take a moment to contemplate the work I am doing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to connect anger, fear, anxiety and annoyance to the image of the discerning or disappointed facial expression of whomever I will be presenting my work to.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to base my judgment of the work that I do entirely upon the reaction of whomever I will be presenting my work to.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to consider Who I Am within the work that I do, but instead I have only considered the final judgment of others regarding the outcome of my work.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to define and determine Who I Am within the work that I do, because I had only ever concerned myself, worried about, and become paranoid about how my work will be perceived by those in the position of judging my work, signing my paycheck, or grading my assignments.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become paranoid about how my work will be judged or perceived in the end because of a fear of the unknown; because I do not know what is going on inside the mind of whomever I believe I need to impress, gain approval from, be validated by or meet the standards of.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become so critical of my own work, in a try and an attempt to cover every possible detail that might be scrutinized by whoever’s opinion I believe counts when it comes to determining the quality of my work.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to drive myself to paranoia by haunting my mind with the possible comments, criticisms, objections or disapproving statements that may be directed towards my work, or the outcome of my work.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sabotage myself within my work, by constantly and continuously thinking up more and more ways that my work can be criticized, objected, have apparent mistakes pointed out, or become scrutinized and taken apart, when in physical reality, there is only so much I am able to physically do, because I only have so much time to dedicate to each task before the work day is over/the assignment is due/the deadline arrives.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to realize that there is not enough time in the day to obsess over each detail of a task/obligation/responsibility in a way that would satisfy me, and within this:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe my emotional reaction of dissatisfaction towards my work to be the truth, and to be who and how I am, and to be an accurate measure of my work.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to experience myself as never having enough time because I can always twist my work in my mind in order to find a possible mistake or flaw, thus creating and manifesting the experience of ‘never being done’, or ‘never completing’ the task, obligation or responsibility, because I constantly and continuously cycle the thought, idea or belief that it may be pointed out that I had missed a point, left a flaw, made a mistake, or done something improperly.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to repeat and cycle the thought of having my work criticized, scrutinized, picked apart, and judged negatively, thus accumulating fear, anger, anxiety and annoyed energy experiences within myself until there is a constant pressure which I seek to appease and release through the obsessive behavior of picking apart my own work and scrutinizing it, judging it negatively and criticizing, by going over it again and again, and doing it over, until the point where I had repeated this pattern to automation and the behavior had become compulsive.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to overreact, to become offended and hurt, to feel self-conscious and embarrassed, to feel like I am ‘not good enough’ or a failure, when and as someone points out something in my work that can be improved, wherein instead of taking it as a constructive criticism, I would instead take it as a confirmation of the paranoid thoughts I had been repeating and cycling that my work can never be good enough because it is not perfect.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sabotage the work that I do by criticizing it, picking it apart, judging it negatively and scrutinizing it in an attempt to find the flaws and make it presentable, not for an actual person, but for the idea I hold of the person or people I feel will be judging my work, realizing also that the idea I hold of the person in my mind is based in the fear of the unknown and all that the person might judge in my work, instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that the ‘person’ I am creating an image of and projecting on to is Me; It is my self-criticism, my over-scrutinizing, it is only ever me picking apart my own work and finding every possible flaw, and it is myself that is judging my work negatively, and holding it to an impossible standard. Within this:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to enslave myself to my own self-criticism, self-scrutiny, self-judgment and the self-diminishment within this, by thinking, believing and perceiving that I have been doing this for someone else, or because of someone else.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghucaIdbrq_pGBigjqLOIjc3aw4FxC7PM8pwbK69DTSMJ1d66VV-tZFm0w0IL9Fnzkfx_mYzDOTBMYv1cHrLfPcpi9jHBJXmlKIb6SWrEuLBGDiXXuBrre3eSsybUZ48i2XiO8Gp18XOk/s400/never_quite_good_enough_by_Soda_Dreamer.jpg

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to see, realize and understand that the people I fear will judge me may very well have the ability to determine what is practically achievable, what acceptable and effective work is, and which standards are obtainable. If they do not, and they themselves display unrealistic standards, then there is nothing I can do about that, except learn and practice and direct myself to stand up within my own work, as Who I Am within what I do, so that the outcome of the work is well done by all practical measures, wherein another’s unreasonable standards will not create a reaction within me, because I determine Who I am within my work.

To be continued....

Continued from:

Day 192- OCD at Work: How to Keep Your Job (pt 4)

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Sunday, June 9, 2013

Day 192- OCD at Work: How to Keep Your Job (pt 4)

http://www.ocdsymptoms.co.uk/images/14429.jpg



I am continuing here with the pattern of self-sabotage within and as OCD.

The following forms of self-sabotage hinder any real progress, growing or evolving within one’s ability to function within a given task/set of tasks/job/activity.  Herein I am focusing on myself and my functioning within my employment because it is an ideal place for the OCD personality to emerge, as it is a constant string of tasks requiring prioritizing and successful completion.

The aforementioned self-sabotage takes place within and through the mind creation of the experience of ‘overwhelming-ness’, through OCD causing a fear of moving forward within finishing one task or set of tasks, and proceeding onto the next.
 Moving from one task to the next is a simple act which can be incredibly difficult to the OCD sufferer, because of the fear that something had been forgotten or missed, and the entire project would seem to be headed for failure or disaster. The constant repetition of a thought or action would be comforting, as if to assure one had looked at it thoroughly enough to have not missed anything. However, that experience of ‘thoroughly enough’ is not reached, or only reached after many attempts/repetitions. The amount of details that can be obsessed over in this way are innumerable, and the tendency to obsess becomes compulsive, meaning, beyond one’s control to refrain from.

Within the following two self-forgiveness statements, I am scripting out a path for myself to follow instead of falling into this pattern of self-sabotage, which is an overwhelming-ness caused by the amount of details to obsess over, due to the fear of missing something, thus never obtaining ‘completion’ or the experience of 'completion', which would free one up to move on to the next task/step/obligation. This lack of the experience of ‘completion’ is also combined with the fear of failure, which would be a projection of inevitable failure due to having missed a detail. (To read more about the ‘experience of completion’ versus ‘actual completion’ within OCD, read this blog: Day 155- I Have OCD, And for the correction, read this one: Day156- OCD: It Makes You Super-Human, 'Unstoppable').

“I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see a blur of innumerable tiny details within the desire to compulsively obsess over each one, instead of taking a step back and a moment to see the bigger picture, thus allowing myself to prioritize my cases/tasks.’

When and as I see that I am creating a wall of resistance by obsessing over each detail as if each detail were as important as the one detail that would actually count, and would actually be the thing to do to move forward, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to self-movement within the realization and understanding that I overwhelm myself with all the tiny details when I am confronted with a detail that would actually count, and actually be a move forward due to fear of taking the self-responsibility of directing myself to see a task through to practical completion. I move myself to identify the task which triggered the overwhelming-ness, and I give myself a moment to look at that task in the timelessness of the present moment, and within one breath I move myself to begin that task.

I commit myself to walk the self-trust required to direct myself to stop avoiding, but instead actually begin the tasks/obligations/responsibilities that I am faced with within my work, and to see them through to a place (and not an experience) where I can then begin to work on the next task.

I commit myself to take a breath and look at the entire situation, and the practical steps I can take within the situation, instead of overwhelming myself with all the small details and avoiding it.

I commit myself to take notes of the important details when I am at work, and to actually tend to all of them as best as possible, and if I do not get to them all, to leave a note for the next person, and if I forget something, I commit myself to tend to it as best as possible when I realize I had forgotten it, to not judge myself or create and generate anger, fear and anxiety because I had forgotten a detail somewhere.

“I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project into an imagined future within my tasks/cases, that each outcome is doomed and will not work out, or will turn out  in the worst possible way due to the fear that I have missed a tiny detail along the way, instead of realizing that I will not accept or allow this to happen, and I know full well that I have the resources and a team to figure out even the most doomed scenarios, and to correct the situation if I did in fact miss a detail.”

When and as I see myself taking a step which I know could have potentially undesirable consequences, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to self-responsibility by directing myself to take each step properly, doing what’s best, with awareness and care, and functional practicality.

(Within this self-corrective statement I realized the tendency to actually try/attempt to avoid seeing the task through due to the fear and overwhelming-ness created before having even begun the task, or while initially starting the task. This would lead to cutting corners and the self-dishonesties of having put work into something that is below the level or standard of what one is actually capable of. Interestingly, this would cause the work to be done poorly and thus likely to fail. It would cause missed details and an inability to control or direct the outcome of the project, which is the exact conditions that would trigger the OCD in the first place. Within this, it is seen once again, how the disorder, or the being within and AS the disorder, would perpetuate and feed itself).

I commit myself to see a task through to completion by looking at the reality of the task and what needs to be done, or how it needs to be done, and then to let go and move on, despite the internal experience of having forgotten something or missed something.

I commit myself to trusting myself that I will return to a task and tend to any details or parts I may have missed the first time around, without judging myself or believing I had failed.

When and as I see that I am beginning a task within the internal experience/belief/perception/idea using fantasies and imaginings that it has already failed or will inevitably fail. I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to self-direction by breathing through the fear and resistance of not following these thoughts, but instead stopping my participation within and as them by uttering ‘stop’, either within myself or out loud, and looking at the task with ‘fresh eyes’ within the understanding and realization that the outcome of the task is NOT yet determined, and it Is within my ability to direct the task through to see the task through to proper completion. 

Within the above self-corrective statement I realize it is more comforting to see the tasks as having already failed, than it is to apply oneself to see it through to successful completion, because seeing the task through to failure is easier and more predictable or controllable, than a whole-hearted self-application to see it through successfully. What I have seen throughout my process thus far is that even when I apply myself fully, there is always the possibility of outside influences and elements that are beyond my control that can affect or hinder my work. Within OCD this induces fear and uncertainty, due to the OCD personality/entity wanting, needing and desiring absolute control/controlled environment and predictability. However, what must be realized and understood here is that we cannot function within complete isolation wherein we would then have complete control over an outcome.  Within fully applying oneself within one’s work, one is taking responsibility for that work. That would imply taking responsibility for one’s own work, as well as taking the self-responsibility to direct oneself within the work of others, as well as whatever other input is affecting the work, whether it be the customer, coworkers, employer, boss, supervisor, or client (at a place of employment). It can be any elements within one’s environment (teacher or class-mates at school, audience, weather etc… depending on the task).

I commit myself to push through the discomfort of realizing I do not have complete control over my environment , but by applying myself fully despite the fact that outside elements will influence the outcome of the work I do, I determine 'Who I Am' within the work I do.

I commit myself to let go of the idealized perfection I am able to obtain in my mind where only I exist, and to instead work in a social world as a social creature where outcomes are the result of innumerable factors which I have a limited ability to direct. I realize that this limitation ends within my ability to direct myself with and as self-honesty within the work that I do and the way that I Live.

I commit myself to apply myself fully within the work that I do and the Way that I  Live, and to direct every given situation to the Best of My Ability, within the understanding that the outcome can still be successful even if it does not match the play out I had imagined in my mind, and that real success is actually pushing myself to stand up within myself and within the Way I work and Live no Matter the outcomes of the situations I navigate at work.

I commit myself to Stand Up within the work I am able to do, and to do it to the best of my ability by taking Complete Self-Responsibility within my own work, within the realization that I am able to perfect my application,  not my ability to predict the exact outcomes. Realizing also that over time, My Work Will Stand if I continue to apply myself fully and take self-responsibility within the work that I am able to complete and direct.

To be continued....

Continued from:


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