Relationships as Religion

 

 

In Osho’s book ‘The Magic of Self-Respect’, he explains how birth is the first death we experience, where we cross a great divide into the unknown. How we have to leave a world we have become comfortable in, safe, taken care of – and this leaving is forced, it is not by choice or by volition. We then spend our lives creating (or trying to create) a new life where we experience again a little comfort, a little security, we “carve out a little corner of the world” for ourselves and call it home. And then after having spent a lifetime creating it, we are met again with another great divide – another forced leap into the unknown.

Within all of this, according to Osho there is one ingredient that makes the difference between a believer in God and a non-believer, and that ingredient is FEAR. Osho had an atheist as a grandfather and a theist as a father, and so he always had the two to observe, to compare and contrast what they believed in, what they spoke and what they actually lived in fact. His grandfather claimed an absence of fear and thus no need for a god. Until his dying breath, he never called upon a god to save him - from what? He had lived fully, done nothing wrong, had nothing to pay for in the end, and was simply ready to pass on to whatever came next with no concern as to what that could be.

The religious men around Osho, on the other hand, prayed and chanted for hours a day, asking for protection – protection from what? Osho observed only many instances of fear.  Fear was always at the root, at the core and the starting point of religious beliefs and actions.  

I am not however, here to write a book report. I am here to share my own, personal realization I had from reading the first parts of this book, and how even though I have never defined myself as religious, I have used ideas and beliefs in the same ways the devoutly religious do in the book in terms of comforting self with a belief in a god - I saw how we are capable of creating a ‘religion’ out of other ideas - repressing fear with beliefs not necessarily related to the idea of God or divinity, but rather exalting ordinary things not normally deified, creating a personalized religion inside of self to cling to, adhere to, to abandon self for.

“the moment you think of dropping the idea of God, fear comes up. It is a simple indication that with the rock of the idea of God, you are repressing fear; so the moment you remove the rock, the fear springs up.”

What ideas serve as these rocks for me? For you? These ideas which, if removed from your life, will uncover a hidden (or not-so-hidden) well of fear?

There is one paragraph in particular which helped me to identify what I have ben living as a ‘god’ or ‘religion’ in my life, it is as follows:

“You asked for God to be invented because you could not live alone.

You were incapable of facing life, its beauties, its joys, its sufferings, its anguishes. You were not ready to experience them on your own without anybody protecting you, without somebody being an umbrella to you. You asked for God out of fear.”

This hit me like that rock, I felt it hard, as if it were speaking to the depths of me when it comes to how I have lived within my definition and belief of RELATIONSHIPS in my life. And it was not until I deliberately and painstakingly began removing this construct from my life that I began to see the fear it was repressing.

And it has to be deliberate, because relationships, as they currently exist in our society, are omnipresent. It is a construct that exists that is taught to us from our birth, as we are born into them much like one would be born into a religion and know nothing else. The construct is fed and impulsed to us from every direction, including religion. Every media outlet will sell to us ‘relationships’, it even has its own market share, and it is weaved into the fabric or our society through marriage, laws and legal contracts. I would say, the religion of ‘relationships’ is more pervasive than the godly or spiritual religions that exist today, because even atheist and non-believers are still susceptible to hiding from their fear in relationships.

I made a decision one and a half years ago to no longer participate in the construct of ‘relationship’, and decided instead to enter into an Agreement. In an agreement, there is no hiding. There is no game playing, no hierarchy, no manipulation, no control, no room for feelings and emotions, and there is no morality. This essentially has turned everything I have lived and understood upside-down.

It may sound like chaos, with nothing giving direction or holding the partnership in place, because we automatically assume that taking away one thing means replacing it with it’s opposite: without the game-playing there is boredom, without hiding there is only shame and judgment for who we really are in our minds towards each other, without hierarchy there is only conflict, without manipulation there is no fidelity. Without control there is no fulfillment, without feelings and emotions there is nothing but a void, without morality there is no consideration, and so on… but this is not the case at all, because it is only looking at what an Agreement isn’t, or how it is NOT a relationship, instead of looking at what it IS, how it is something that stands independent of the construct of relationship.

An Agreement stands upon principles – doing what is best for all involved. It stands upon commitment, regardless of feelings and emotions. It stands upon holding the best of someone and not letting go of that, even while they walk through their worst. Within this, it stands upon patience, trust, and integrity. An Agreement stands upon accountability and taking self-responsibility – which leaves no space for hiding, for victimization or for blame. It embraces the fact that each individual is a Whole, not requiring to be fulfilled by another. An Agreement stands as ‘two or more’ in the name of the principles agreed upon.And most of all, an Agreement stands upon FORGIVENESS - Forgiveness of Self and the Other as Self. And here I am talking about REAL forgiveness; the kind where you can in one moment drop the past and give each other a blank slate. Start fresh. Start over. Not even one trace of the past or an emotional reaction to it must exist in the minds of everyone involved.

Importantly – an Agreement is created in awareness, and not something blindly fallen into like love, falling in love, blind love. This is because we are in fact broken people coming from a broken system, beaten down by survival, dominated by authority, brainwashed by school, media and culture, emotionally underdeveloped and reactive, and our personalities are deeply rooted in so much fear. This is why you cannot ‘fall’ into an agreement. It is deliberate, it is worked on, it is seen through to the end, despite the discomforts or unbearable points we may face when stripping away the ideas that have kept us safe (from ourselves!) for as long as we can remember.

And it is this ‘stripping away’ of the idea of relationship that exposed to me the hidden fear I had – and not only the hidden fear, but what had become of me over time because of and due to living with this fear. And it is important to note that the truths of me that I exposed to myself were never visible to the naked eye. On the surface, I have been a very independent woman, having worked in careers, supported others financially, travelled across the world by myself, thrived after a divorce, aced my way through university later in life – everything I could have defined as ‘independent’ and ‘fulfilled’, I had done it.

But what I didn’t see until I really dropped the idea of ‘relationship’, was that even while I was alone and feeling independent, unstoppable, empowered: I still caried with me the faith, the belief that one day, I would get my perfect relationship. It was as though one is floating on clouds of hope, keeping one elevated just above the reality of self. The belief that, I am alone right now, but will not be forever.  I will not ever really have to peak under this cloud to see what I have become over the years. I will not have to admit I have been avoiding my fears while busy contorting myself into things that I am not in order to secure relationships; placing the ‘eventual perfect relationship’ as my starting point, essentially disregarding myself and not exploring Who I Am, but rather, who must I be to get into heaven?

“You can either be a person who is a coward, afraid, ready to submit, surrender, a person who has himself no dignity, no respect for his own being – or you can be fearless.”

…needless to say, I have not been entirely fearless. Not at all.

So, what happened as I stripped away the comfort, security, the exalted nature I held of the idea of relationships? I sank deeply into the reality of me – that which I feared - into the void that was there which I had never filled for myself, the parts of me I had abandoned and neglected, thinking and believing it was someone else’s job to tend to.

My demons came out as I tried to escape the reality of me, looking for someone, something to blame, to make it better, feeling as though this had all been done ‘unto’ me by some hand other than my own. I faced the aloneness that existed within me – that utterly alone feeling that drives one to God… or in my case to dance clubs and bars, dating sites and lovely fantasies. That emptiness that comes up from time to time, that motivates you to pray to something outside yourself, or in my case to look my best and go out into the world as an eligible individual, looking to meet her ‘other half’.

Relationship had become my god, my religion with which I covered up my fear of being alone, the emptiness I felt when things that should be enjoyed were not able to be enjoyed, or pain and sorrow seemed too painful to bear by myself. So, yes, it looks entirely different. But if you break it down and look at how we use it, any idea, belief, or construct can be used as one uses a religion or belief in God. It’s only when the fact of the matter (the truth of the Self in the Flesh) is realized and known that one can open one’s eyes to be able to see through the veil of religion, and it’s only through actually DOING it, LIVING it for real that the truth can be fully exposed. The truth of Self exposed to Self– there is no one else involved here.

Interestingly, what I had discovered through walking an Agreement, and a very unique one at that, was that the personal hell I discovered inside myself, the one I had buried, hid and feared, was entirely emotional (not a real, physical hell, not real pain) – because the reality of the situation was that I was not in fact alone – I was in an agreement. All the physical supports and structures are here. Everything I could ask for is Here – just not the participation in the emotions, feeling, conflict, drama, love, attachment, manipulations, control and everything else we do to keep a hold of another person, instead of just standing unconditionally there, Here with them no matter what.

Within this, I can emphasize and relate to those who begin to question or even give up on their gods, and how that can be a painful process. I can also now understand how people can be and become so devout, unwavering, defensive and protective of their religions and their gods. I understand how it is all based in fears – a unique array specifically designed by and for the individual.

Within this, I can admit that I have been devout. I have exalted something outside myself above myself and then submitted to it. I have been a coward in the face of life, and ran away afraid, surrendering my personal power to another, and built a false power on top of a faulty foundation, compromising my dignity, my self-respect for my own being, in believing I required another to do or be something for me.

I only slowly realized what Osho meant when he said:

“If the fear comes up, you have to face it; it is in no way going to help you to cover it with the idea of god”.

So now I am busy facing my lifetime of fears, using the tools of self-forgiveness, self-correction and self-commitments. Relationship systems and constructs had been programmed quite deeply into me by me, by my upbringing, by my culture and my family, by media and television and social circles. Questioning and letting go of something at this level involves shaking foundational parts of self, as self was created on top of this belief system as if it were fact, unmovable, unchangeable. It has, at times, felt like the entirety of me is being shaken, where it feels like there is nothing left of self to hold on to. Yet with breath and breathing, forgiveness and self-change, I have seen that there is always something of me to come back to. And until I am back Here completely, unwaveringly, unshakably, in the physical – I walk, breath by breath, step by step, re-creating myself as I go. Falling, getting up, repeating mistakes, facing the pain and the fear, realizing what is real and what is not. Realizing so much about the mind and how it functions – seeing more and more through the veils based on one point that extends into many other points, moving back to the title of the book that started of the blog, and rediscovering the Magic of Self-Respect.

 

Osho Card Reading of the Day: 'THE MISER' - Day 11 of 21

The issue I am looking for support on today is the feeling of 'rushed' I create within myself. Sometimes I wake up in the experience, while at other times, like today, I can feel it slowly creeping up within me until I can feel it within my entire body.

I took that sensation and held it within me as I drew my card today, and this is the card I drew:

THE MISER

Card Description:

"This woman has created a fortress around herself, and she is clinging to all the possessions she thinks are her treasures. In fact she has accumulated so much stuff with which to adorn herself--including the feathers and furs of living creatures--that she has made herself ugly in the effort. This card challenges us to look at what we are clinging to, and what we feel we possess that is so valuable it needs to be protected by a fortress. It needn't be a big bank balance or a box full of jewels--it could be something as simple as sharing our time with a friend, or taking the risk of expressing our love to another. Like a well that is sealed up and becomes stagnant from disuse, our treasures become tarnished and worthless if we refuse to share them. Whatever you're holding on to, remember that you can't take it with you. Loosen your grip and feel the freedom and expansiveness sharing can bring."

What I can take from this card and it's description is the concept of wanting to have something, and in an attempt to get it or create it, we end up gathering and accumulating something that causes the complete opposite effect of what we were intending.

My understanding here it that it is not about chasing something or 'getting' the thing we are seeking, but rather becoming it and integrating it as a part of Who We Are. So what am I attempting to 'get' or 'gain'?

For me, this is but one more element or dimension to the 'work' point I have been walking for several weeks now. I have opened up the 'avoidance' point, the 'time' point, the 'distraction' point, the 'confronting obstacles' point, the 'rage' point and the 'laziness point' (in a video you can see HERE). All of these points acting like threads that have created one gigantic knot within me, which can only be undone by following one thread at a time. Now I will be looking at the 'rushed' point within the context of THE MISER.

So, to answer my question, what I am seeking to gain or get is a sense of satisfaction that I have done enough, accomplished enough this day. This feeling comes from having completed many things or tasks, and having complete them well. This, in and of itself, is not a problem or issue if I endeavor to work similar to how nature functions slow and steady, never a rush, yet never wasting a moment.

I have been practicing this point of letting go of time, and instead giving myself the time to do things properly. It seemed counter-intuitive at the time, only to realize that I actually get more done when I let go of that time-pressure. The other internal experience I am having trouble letting go of is the 'rushed' feeling, where I feel I need to hang on to that in order to keep myself in line and move myself. It is as if I do not trust myself to let it go, for fear that I will just sit around all day an do nothing.

The thing is that the 'rushed' experience is uncomfortable, but I hang on to it like the miser, thinking and believing that without it, I will not get what I want. But, like the miser in the card, I realize that holding on to the experience is like  self-sabotage, because within holding on to it and experiencing that constant internal discomfort and my body's reaction to it (soreness, stiffness, lethargy), I find myself escaping in moments throughout the day, where i need to rest and take time off to settle myself.

Now, this too is not 'bad' or detrimental in and of itself, but it is the starting point within which I am doing it that needs to change. Instead of it being an escape from the internal experience I am creating, I can do it from a starting point of creating a balance in my day. Taking a moment to be with myself, re-connect with myself and my body instead of escaping myself and my body and spending that moment in distraction in my mind. It is all about the starting point.

So today, despite all my resistances and the fears coming up within me, I will practice a 'letting go'. In order to kick start this letting go by clearly identifying how I am actually creating it, i will use the tool of self-forgiveness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an internal energetic experience of 'rushed' within and as me by thinking about some of the bigger, more involved and time-consuming tasks I have on my agenda, and then imagining myself not getting it done or doing it poorly.

I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted and allowed myself to live the self-trust that I can and will get the task done, because I have done it so many times before already, and I know very well I can do it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think that if I don't get it done exactly perfectly and exactly on time, that I will feel terrible, because in the past I had accepted and allowed such reactions and have held on to them like a miser, thinking I will bring them up again if it happens again, instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that I can let that pattern go, and create a new way of being where, if I mess up the task or it is late, I am instead gentle with myself, take the lesson and move on.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to realize that i have also in the past been gentle with myself upon my errors, taken the lesson and moved on, where I have changed the way I do things based on these lessons, proving to myself that I can learn and improve, but due to the miser within me, I still stubbornly hold on to the 'negative' and 'bad' experiences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed subtle undertones of 'rushed' or 'rushing' by not living in awareness of what I am subconsciously creating, not taking my actually reality into consideration, but rather clinging on to the past and therefore re-creating it here, in the present moment, which is actually a brand new fresh moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to taint and sabotage my present moment by clinging on to experiences of the past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sabotage my learning and self-development by re-hashing and clinging to the accumulated possessions of the past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear letting go of feeling 'rushed', within the idea, thought, perception or belief that if i do not feel this way, I will not move, instead of seeing/realizing/understanding that I will in fact move better, more efficiently, and create myself more in the moment if I simply allow the moment to be what it is, and move myself within it.

When and as I see that I am going into that 'rushed', 'rushing' experience, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to presence by reminding myself  that I can trust myself to get it done, and there is no punishment waiting for me if I don't, I drop the feeling of rushed, and simply move, knowing that there is no punishment waiting for me at the end, and my goal is only to discover my best potential.

I commit myself let go and move in moments of accumulating 'rush'.

I commit myself to give myself a moment to breathe and slow down when and as I accept and allow myself to exist within and as 'rushed'.

Correction to live today: Curious.

Why? Because I have always had a curiosity within me where I find a fascination within things. This curiosity comes about when I am relaxed and fully engaged in the thing. I would like to take this curiosity and apply it towards myself and my process.

Cure-I-A-City

I cure my city.

My city being, the highways and by-ways, the inner building and bricks I have used to create myself which was not done in awareness or to my best benefit, where it feels like manyy different parts rushing in different directions, which creates a dis-ease within me. The 'Cure' to this dis-ease is within entering into this city and having a good look around, exploring each business, each individual building and all the personalities that populate this city, understand them and how they work, and offer a solution so that they instead begin to wok as one toward attaining my utmost potential.

How I will live this word today will be to observe myself within how I work and discover what comes up within me, but not to judge it, react to it or go into it, rather just observe it with an objective curiosity, see whether it is what is best, and if not, to then find a solution for it.

This is how I turn an internal city of many parts going this way and that, bustling and rushing each to their own end, causing me to want to go into a million different directions, creating dis-ease within me, and finding a 'cure' by creating a city of equality, where each piece has the same goal of working together to create the best whole.

Day 86- Moving Forward, Missing the NOW

While I was talking to someone today, it was pointed out to me that I have the tendency to seek ‘forward motion.’ Within this tendency, I look for signs of accomplishments which would indicate to me that I am taking steps towards my goals, in order to have the experience of forward motion. For example, I’m job hunting at the moment, and it hasn’t even been a week, and I was talking about how I don’t have a job yet, and how I want to have the job NOW so that I can have ‘forward motion’ and be saving money and getting on with my big plans. The problem within this is that, I’m literally taking on this stance of constantly looking into the future and judging my current progress as if I’m looking back at myself. So I am , in my mind, waaaay ahead, looking back at me Here and being like, “common, catch up”. So instead of living in the one Here moment that is actually real, participating in my life with presences and awareness, I’m furiously rushing within myself to catch up to… myself.

When I go into this ‘mode’ or character, I experience myself as constantly ‘checking in’, judging my progress and getting pretty down on myself, as if I’m never doing enough. The consequence of this is and has been that I actually work less effectively than I am able. This is because every little task is already a failure, because it won’t get me tHere, because I can only ever be right Here, within my current experience.

In the next few blogs, I will wright out this character that is in a constant race from Here, in order to see how I created this experience for myself so that I can stop and change it. It’s going to be really interesting because, I can already feel I’m having many resistances towards really looking at this point. It is a very familiar pattern in my life, and it really hasn’t served me at all. It’s quite stressful and it makes me anxious. It also feels disempowering because in my mind I want to be tHere, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t get away from my current experience. It requires time and steps to work towards my goals, it can’t just happen like a fast food order- as I have been taught by media, technology and MacDonald’s. I need to slooooow down, and bring myself back to Here, and take each step with a firmly planted foot.

Day 46- Wasting Time Cause Life is Hard

          It’s interesting to see the difference in my life pre and post Desteni. Before, it was repeating cycles, entertainment and sort of idleness, whereas now it is more a building, self-expansive doing and being. Before, I used to think living is what happened after I got home from work, in my spare time or time off, in which I would usually find ways to entertain myself and pass the time until I had to work again. Now I realize Life happens in every moment, no matter what one is doing. But what I find is that, I still hang on to this idea that “Life happens when work is done,” wherein, I end up waiting to be done things that I consider to be ‘work,’ which can be anything that requires me to apply myself, focus on, direct myself through or concentrate on. I find I’ve been catching myself wasting time in these moments of unawareness, where I have justified it somewhere at some time in my mind as a little ‘break,’ and that this moment is ‘for me.’ It’s totally acceptable and necessary to take breaks and take time for myself throughout the day. What I want to adjust is the proportion of that time, I want it to be directive wherein I make the directive decision to take a break or give myself some time, based on the practical situation, and not because I’m doing something to occupy myself when I should be doing something responsible- because then it’s like taking a break from life, which implies I have defined life as work, instead of defining Life as Life, work as Life, and time for myself as Life. It is all Life when self is Life, thus I see the main point as defining myself as Life and then actually living that definition of Life where Life is who I am as the living word.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ‘waste time,’ in the sense that I have passed time in complete unawareness and entertainment within the justification that I am ‘having a break’ or ‘taking time for myself,’ when I am really avoiding facing/moving me in the moment and up in the mind running through a million random useless thoughts/picture/ideas/perceptions/beliefs/backchats.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define Life as ‘that which happens after work,’ instead of realizing that Life is every moment no matter what one is doing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define work as not life (work being any time I apply myself, focus on, direct myself through or concentrate on something), instead of realizing that  work is a necessary part of Life, it must take place within one’s Life, and thus as one walks the process to birthing life, one’s work will at the same time become Life as one with self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define Life as ‘work’, instead of realizing that Life is as simple as breathing, and anything that makes it seem harder is of the mind, unless of course, one is starving or forced to slave labour etc…

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, based on my definition of Life as ‘work,’ tried to escape Life, similar to ‘getting out of work,’ or ‘avoiding hard work,’ wherein I steal little breaks for myself, which is really myself as my mind stealing me from myself, instead of facing me, taking myself back and actually Living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify stealing ‘little breaks’ for myself as my mind, within the definition of ‘Life as work,’ wherein I manipulate myself to think/believe/perceive that I am doing it ‘for myself,’ instead of realizing that I am taking time from myself, and wasting it, thus wasting myself and missing Life and missing myself within self-sabotage.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to waste time, avoid me, and dilly-dally within unawareness and indulgence of the mind instead of walking my process toward realizing myself.

To be continued…

Day 39- Here With Breath

Here with Breath

I’ve been finding my mind chatter incessant lately- many thoughts of a future that’s brighter than my current situation.. My current situation hit a certain level of shittiness because of timing and circumstance, but it is a necessary shittiness that had to happen in order for me to take my next steps. However, within this shittiness I’ve found it difficult to remain within presence and awareness because it’s so easy to make myself feel better by simply projecting into a brighter future by fantasizing about all sorts of stuff. However, because this creates a positive energetic experience, inevitably the opposite will manifest, so at other points in time my mind is bringing me into panic and fear about what could happen, how things can go horribly wrong and all the things other people might be thinking and feeling. This tendency to participate in positive projections a(nd thus experience negative ones as a result) played out a lot throughout my life as an escape and a coping mechanism, and I’ve become pretty fed up with it. Not only does it cause lack of presence and awareness, but also lack of self-movement in the moment, lack of focus… the negative side brings stress and anxiety. Because the two are inseparable, they have both got to go.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to escape my current situation by fantasizing into a future that’s better than this Here moment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fantasize and imagine a different life where I experience the perfect relationship in a different city  wherein I feel confident, ‘happy,’ and completely self-accepting, instead of looking at how I actually experience myself righ now because I realize that I have to move myself fom right here and right now in order to get anywhere. So if I don’t start from right here, I’ll never get anywhere and never change, and if I only fantasize about the future whilst I stagnate in the present, I will only remain exactly in this spot.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project in to the future and fantasize about being on my own, completely independent, wherein, in the fantasy I don’t have any of the ‘problems’ or ‘issues’ I deal with within myself presently, but within this again I realize that nothing will ever change until I ground myself Here and walk from this moment, this current reality that I am and exist as.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to also lose myself within the polar opposite negative thought projections, wherein I think about being harmed in those different places, failing my exams, not getting a job, hurting people, causing people jealousy, being hurt or jealous myself, feeling like a burden, instead of stopping and realizing that, no matter what I think, it’s not going to change my reality. The only thing that will change is me actually physically doing practical things in my life and reality, and the only place and time and space within which I can do anything is right Here, but if I’m up in the mind thinking, worrying and stressing then I am taking myself away from Here, causing myself to be distracted, stressed, worried etc… thus making me less effective in my life, thus actually disempowering myself from doing what it is I plan to do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not want to experience Hereness when my current situation is less than ideal, instead of realizing that I need to stand within any situation, as I cannot escape myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to escape myself and my current situation because it is nt a ‘positive’ experience.

When and as I see myself getting lost within my mind as entertainment, taking me away from Here, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back Here within the understanding that being and remaining Here takes practice and diligence, and each time a give in to the mind I am making it a little harder for myself to remain Here with/as breath. So each time I find myself participating within the negatice, neutral and positive energetic thoughts, projections and fantasies I simply stop and breath it away until the energy is gone and only I remain.

I commit myself to continuously apply myself to bring myself back Here and to remain Here until I am Here in fact.

I commit myself to see through and stop the positive, negative and neutrally charged thoughts that keep me from being Here with breath.

Day 9 - Saying Hello

The most important thing that I’ve learned from having experienced 30 ‘new years’ is that a specific moment or event does not wipe the slate clean and allow one for a new beginning or ‘fresh start.’ I moved home yesterday. I’ve been gone for two years away at school, and now after all that time, I’m back.  I came back for three months in the summer last year, when I was all full of hope and ideas of new beginnings and fresh starts because I was all excited about ‘who I was going to be’ this time, and how I had changed and how everything would be different. Well, that didn’t happen. My bullshit was waiting for me there, like a stalker waiting patiently for its unsuspecting prey, it pounced on me the moment the initial excitement of being back home left and the reality of me, of who I am, settled back in. This leads me to the topic of today’s pattern: saying hello.

When I say hello to people who I’m meeting for the first time, sometimes I project into the future about the wonderful friendship I will have with them, the friendship I always dreamed of, and I just get a feel that maybe this will happen with this person. Or with moving; I love moving- changing apartments, changing cities, states, countries- because of the false perception I’ve created where I feel as though I have a new chance at a fresh start, as if I can run away from my problems, or from myself.

This dd not happen this time, because I decided not to delay the inevitable by participating in the energetic excitement of ‘fresh starts’ and ‘new beginnings’. I fell back into my personality that I created here immediately and the familiarity of the struggles and battles that occurred within me daily two years ago were right here with me, because, obviously, they were never gone. Its only day one and I already resisted getting up in the morning, getting ready for the da, I went online for too long, I procrastinated on getting out to do my errands, unpacking and organizing my life here, and I became overwhelmed by all the things I have to do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe/perceive that when I am starting something new, that I can forget about who and what and how I am and have become as a human being and ‘start fresh’ without identifying, stopping and changing all the patterns I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in that have created me as I am.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe or perceive that I can ‘clean my slate’ by changing locations or starting new endeavors, without fully considering the entirety of who, what and how I am.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think/believe or perceive that I can so easily change, and that I can avoid facing me, or hide from myself by simply moving, doing something new or meeting new people.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want, need or desire to escape me and to not have to face and work through all the bullshit I have carried with me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want, need or desire to abdicate my responsibility to myself by hiding or running away from myself, thus abdicating my responsibility to Life and by trying to find a ‘way out’ or a back door I can slip through and escape from, instead of realizing the simple truth that I cannot run away or hide from myself, and every time I try to I actually undermine any progress I may have made towards self-change.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear facing me, and to resist working throu my bullshit as my baggage that I have created and manifested for myself throughout a life-time of not taking responsibility, instead of realizing that I am Here, and I’m not going anywhere so I might as well stop the games and start living for real, which begins by stepping up and exposing me to myself in order to stop and change.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to utilize energetic projections into the future to a future person or place I want to be without considering who I actually am and what it will take to get there.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project into the future a ‘me’ that is carefree, fun-loving, expressive, fearless and uninhibited and organized, instead of realizing myself as who and what I am, wherein I struggle with suppression, I often fear self-expression, I feel constantly inhibited by fear, shyness, embarrassment and judgment and I often struggle to get the basic life-stuff organized into an effective pattern of consistency.

Within this pattern of projecting, I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to sabotage myself by setting myself up for failure by projecting something that will take a process to get to, as if it is that easy to change the nature of who I am without first getting to know who I am, why I am, where I am and how I am. Until I know me completely, I will not be able to be fully Here, because there will always be a hidden part of me waiting to pounce on me in unsuspecting moments that will undermine me until I have faced me in my entirety.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fantasize and imagine what it would be like to be a different person, to experience myself as some ideal I have created instead of coming to terms with me Here, and walking with myself through space and time as I assist and support myself to let go, work through and expose me Here.

I commit myself to myself, the self that I am Here, to walking with myself through my manifested consequences until I am known in my entirety so that I may be able to be Here with the rest of humanity in this reality instead of in my head as a future projection that does not exist.

I commit myself to working towards self-change Here, where I actually am, within the realization that I cannot run from me, and that a new situation or place does not automatically grant me a ‘fresh start; but rather every breath I take is a fresh start as a starting point for me to start, and to keep starting until I’m done