Inner-Strength: What's Real? micro-blog from Desteni Universe

In my journey to redefining 'strength' I am learning about the ILLUSION of inner-strength (as apposed to REAL inner-strength) something I know all too well.

This is when I use my 'strength' to suppress what I am experiencing in moments, remaining completely stoic on the outside while internally I am actually emotional.

A recent example is when I was looking at some pictures, and I happened upon a picture of some dogs I've had to say goodbye to this last year, and it hit me all over again that they were now gone. In the moment I was struck with a deep sadness and wanted to cry, but instead I breathed and 'swallowed it' in a way, because there were others around. In so doing, I exerted my 'strength' to control my physical and to hold in my emotional reaction that was there in the moment.

At night, right before I go to sleep, I often do a 'scan' of my body/inner Self to see if there are any loose ends that need to be directed. That night, I found the pocket of emotion from having seen the dogs and suppressed the sadness. So I went into it and cried it out, being sure not to feed the sadness with any additional emotions, but just an unconditional letting go so that I was clear before going to sleep.

The recording explained that, if left unchecked, these emotions remain inside, creating pressure, strain, stress on the body, which builds over time and leads to emotional outbursts or physical illness/disease later on, sometimes years down the line.

So, even though we think we are being strong in the moment of 'keeping our composure', the reality is that in the long run, we loose more 'composure'/'control' over ourselves/bodies through outbursts or illness and disease.

For me, this has over the years contributed to migraines and psoriasis. Showing me the inner-strength I thought I had when it comes to keeping it together - is in fact suppression.

My solution apart from revisiting the emotion later, is to simply unconditionally let it out. Or, if that is not appropriate, can at least talk about it, define it, describe it, write it out or speak sf when I have a more appropriate moment later.

The recording leaves off with the practical application of being able to even identify these moments where we tend to immediately suppress, because it can very easily go unnoticed. So it's point of 'Man, Know Thyself'. We really need to be seeing this stuff we're doing to and within ourselves, and direct it/take it back in order to become empowered and not compromise our physical bodies or relationships with others in our world's.

Here's the recording, have a listen, enjoy!

Inner-Strength: What's Real? - Atlanteans - Part 324

Day 246 - Redefining Sharing

To Share:

have a portion of (something) with another or others.

give a portion of (something) to another or others.

use, occupy, or enjoy (something) jointly with another or others.

possess (a view or quality) in common with others.

tell someone about (something, especially something personal).

How have I lived sharing in my life really? HONESTLY? 

When I have shared a portion of something with another I would get a good feeling, because I thought the person would like me more, or I did it from a ‘saviour’ perspective where the other didn’t have something I had and so I would share as if I were saving or helping them from a position of superiority. When I would be shared with, where someone else is sharing something with me, I would generally go into a position of inferiority and unworthiness, feeling like a beggar with outstretched hands, and mostly my pride would interfere here and I would simply rather do without.

Or, I would share because it was the ‘right thing to do’, because good etiquette and manners required me to do so. In this case ‘greed’ and ‘lack’ would come in to play, where I would give something begrudgingly with the feeling that now I would have less, and would want it all to myself, but I would also feel good because I was being a good person and following the rules. If I were in a situation with another where the rules called for them to share with me, I would be comfortable. But if they rather chose not to share, I would feel spiteful because I am a rule-follower and they are now breaking those rules to my detriment, in which case I would feel righteous and now be superior for that, yet inferior because of the powerlessness I would feel when someone is breaking the rules and I am not speaking up for myself and bringing it up with them. I would rather supress my emotions and keep quiet.

When I would “use, occupy or enjoy jointly with others” I generally wouldn’t consider that sharing, because I wasn’t losing something or giving something away, and I wasn’t feeling superior or inferior, I would be simply equally enjoying something. So I see here I have limited my definition of ‘sharing’ with these ideas or emotions.

For this aspect of the definition: “possess (a view or quality) in common with other,” – I see that this would be falling into a pack mentality, where I would adopt a view in order to fit in, to identify with a certain group, to define myself as this or that, style, genre, political position etc…

The last aspect of ‘sharing is: “to tell someone about (something, especially something personal).” 

Here I see that even this dimension of the word I have tainted with ego and self-interest, where I would share aspects of my personal self as a form of gossip, like having some juicy tidbit of information that others will want to hear, where I will get attention and feel special and important for a moment as I tell it and get the questions and reactions from others, making me and my life some center of some attention somewhere, which I would then use to feel important and special. I can also see a dimension of sharing myself in an attempt to gain validation, confirmation or approval about some part of me that I had not yet completely accepted and embraced.

So, there I am exposed in my living of the word ‘sharing’, where the starting point is selfishness, greed, fear of loss, superiority/inferiority and lack. This, to me, as simply the ‘way that I am’ is unacceptable. I can see that when or if billions of people live this out on a large scale, it does not make the world a better place, but rather infuses reality and human interaction with separation and division as each one holds tight to their possessions, conflict as the ‘have-nots’ versus the ‘haves’, and superiority/inferiority as we use our possessions, whether they be tangible or intangible, as a way to place ourselves above or below others. And then we bring these ways into our most intimate relationships and pollute them behind the façade of consciousness (consciousness meaning: the acts we play, the face we present, the ulterior motives, the thoughts, feelings and emotions behind our actions) where all of this seems acceptable because everybody is actually doing the same thing.

There is however, a solution to all of this, and it is a simple one. It is the simple principle of sharing from the starting point of ‘give as you would like to receive’. This includes not only the tangible items we are able to share, but the feelings and emotions that go with it. To share with someone to gain attention or because it makes you feel superior is not in fact equal and one sharing. Equal and one sharing meaning seeing the other AS you, really placing yourself in their shoes and giving to them as if it were giving to yourself.

With that understanding in place, I would like to now focus on sharing self, or self-sharing. Here looking at: what do I have to give, and what do I have to receive from others? I can specify this even further by looking at what I have to give to and receive from myself? I must say that I have experienced sharing with myself more so within and through walking the desteni process of writing, self-forgiveness and self-change than I ever had before when I was living my life ‘normally’, as in, according to my programming, environment and culture, etc. Now, in walking this process, I am creating my own new programming according to what is best for me, I am learning and growing within my environment, challenging limitations both real and perceived, and am thinking critically about my culture and how it has shaped and influenced me. Within this all, I have done a lot of learning, seeing, realizing and understanding about myself, my life and what it means to be human, as well as what it really means to be a human that cares about self and others.

What I would like to share more with and about myself is who I am beyond the mind of judgments and insecurities, thoughts, feelings and emotions. To do less sharing of my mind, and more quieting of my mind, revealing this deep inner ‘knowing’ I have experienced within myself, which is and has been developing from a self-trust and self-communication over the years and more prominently now since I have been living on the desteni farm. Also within the sharing I am interested in further developing is the constructive sharing of myself and what it is I am going through. This involves speaking from a point of stability, maturity and being solution oriented instead of ranting and raving about issues in an attempt to actually feed the emotion and re-generate an experience from a starting point of adrenaline, righteousness and argumenting/fighting (this is where we have conversations and arguments in our minds, picturing and imagining others with whom we are argumenting/fighting/proving our point/justifying our side and being right). To rather speak the point, see and understand the reaction and release it through realization and change.

Another dimension of sharing I will be looking at is speaking what I see without fear. I have for so long suppressed myself out of fear of conflict or upsetting others, that I hide my seeing/self-seeing and observations from others and even sometimes from myself. But I see, realize and understand that these things must be spoken and shared, even if they are wrong or cause conflict, to be vulnerable and put it out there to clarify it, or to work through the conflict.

Oftentimes, when I am about to share, I will get an energetic feeling right before. One the one hand, I can feel a sense of excitement, as if I am about to gain something. This is usually indicative that I am about to share from a starting point of self-interest. Then there are the times where I am about to share and I feel a wash of fear pour over me. In these moments, I tend to push myself to share, because the fear is usually indicative that I fear to create conflict or be exceptionally vulnerable about something within sharing my real truth, or some truth of me that I judge and am not proud of. In these moments, when I share I usually create clarity. It is alxo common that when I share parts of myself in these moments, those parts seemed really big, bad and ugly, but once shared, they shrink down and become manageable, or I can see them more clearly and then direct that part of myself.

Before sharing myself, there is this infinite moment where I can look at and explore Who I Am within my sharing. What is my starting point, and what I will create as a result of the sharing. I endeavor to share me, my truth, the reality of me that exists in my mind – to expose that of me that I perceive that I would prefer to hide, so that nothing of me is hidden, and the decision to share or not share comes from the starting point of what is best for all as me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear sharing myself with others and with myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear sharing those parts of me that are my REAL TRUTH.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear to share my REAL TRUTH as those parts of me that I am ashamed of or judge and thus want to hide as I feel that if I share them, others will judge me and see me as shameful.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear to create clarity and shine a light onto parts of myself I would prefer not to see, or would prefer others not to see, preferring instead vagueness and a lack of clarity which gives me more room to be manipulative and deceptive with myself and others about who and how I actually am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to to fear what others will think about the person that I am and have become, and within this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear looking at and really seeing the person I am and have become, without realizing that if I do not look, I cannot change

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being vulnerable about myself and who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in victimization when and as I share parts of myself that I feel vulnerable about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that I am victimized and weakened by myself, my life and my life-experience, instead of standing up and taking self-responsibility for every aspect of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to share from a starting point of having others save me and make me feel better.make it go away within the thought, perception, idea or belief that what others think/feel/say to me or about me is my truth and reality, within this, giving others the power and responsibility to 'make me right' again and tell me everything is okay, instead of standing up within and as Self-Responsibility, and using my moments, my experiences and my findings to strengthen me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the judgment of others within the thought/perception/idea/belief that the judgment of others is what determines Who and How I am or will be. instead of ME determining Who/How I am/will be from now on.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear sharing Who I Am or what i see due to fear of creating conflict, instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that both internal and external conflict, when directed within principle, can bring about clarity and change.

When and as I see that I am not sharing something out of fear, I stop, and I breathe. I bring myself back to standing and self-responsibility by reminding myself that only I can and will determine me, and that my sharing is a step towards clarity, stability and change within myself.

Day 221 - Why Are We Afraid to Cry?

I recently had a good cry. I was opening up to Sunette Spies about my appreciation for her and the process she has walked in her life, and I suddenly became teary. I realized why and I will explain that point later, but what struck me in that moment was how it affected me that someone else was seeing me cry. In that moment, I felt like I wanted to hide it, suppress it, and just try to stop and put on a brave face.

When I saw I could not stop it and it had to come out, I wanted to go back to my room and cry in private. But no such luck here at the Desteni farm – this is communal living, and my room is in a house with 7 other people – people that truly care and will go out of their way to ask me what’s wrong, and then open up the point with me until I am satisfied that I see and understand it – unless of course I ask for my space, which I did not.

I did not ask for space precisely because I wanted to challenge this point of being embarrassed about crying in front of others. Leila came in to my room to give me my phone, saw I was crying and asked what was going on. I told her what happened and what I had opened up in the moment with Sunette. I also told her I felt embarrassed about crying, and within myself, I could see that I was feeling a bit out of control due to the emotions welling up and overcoming me, and I felt exceptionally vulnerable.

I have been living in this house where Leila’s son Cesar also lives. He is three, and he immediately expresses everything that comes up in himself without judgment. I used Cesar as an example for me of how to ‘let it all out’ unconditionally, without judgment.

Soon LJ came in and I talked with him as well. I felt no judgment whatsoever from the two of them, which made it plain to see that the only judgment I was feeling was my own. LJ gave me THE most unconditional hug, which was exactly what I needed right then, but which made me want to cry even louder and harder. It brought up this one specific memory from way back, when I was about three. I was in my dad’s arms and I was crying. I was crying in that way that children cry, when the sound that comes out is like a deep, guttural sound coming from the very core of the child. The memory stayed with me because, although I was upset about something, I remember it feeling good to let it out., like it was natural, it was not supposed to be kept in.

I can see how, over the years, I developed judgments about showing my emotions, and slowly over time, began to stop myself in moments where I would have otherwise had a good cry or even a quick cry. It eventually became ‘natural’ for me to suppress crying – within this, suppressing the reasons for which I wanted to cry, leaving them unchecked and left to fester deep down inside of me. Soon, I became comfortable with being uncomfortable, often feeling like I was carrying around an emotional burden that would just sit there with me and become triggered in moments, where I would have to push it back down again.

The last time I can remember ‘letting it all out’ was alone in my room. I had just come back from my visit to the Desteni farm in 2015, where I had gotten in touch with myself in ways that I forgot were even possible. When I got home, what hit me was how much of myself I suppress while living my ‘normal life’ in the system, at work, and with friends and family. Now, keep in mind that I liked my ‘normal life’. I thoroughly enjoy my family and friends, this has nothing to do with them. I simply had been dealing with some patterned behaviour that I couldn’t see until I took a step out of it within my visit to the Desteni farm back in 2015.

I also decided back then to ‘let it all out’ when the realizations came up. I cried alone in my room, a deep, wailing cry into my pillow. It felt good, but I did not fully understand or get to the bottom of it. I left it at ‘I have seen the way things could be’, let it all out, and moved on.

As adults, there is a certain discernment and stability that we need to maintain, using common sense and practicality when it comes to ‘expressing everything that comes up’, or ‘letting it all out’. In this moment recently, however, I knew I had some deeply suppressed emotions that I could not just talk about and write out – I had to also physically release it this time, and so I did. But what I noticed was that I could not completely let go and get to that place where I just let out completely. There was still some resistance to do so due to being an adult, in a room with two other adults.

But that is okay – I will also not judge myself for not being able to ‘go there’ completely. That will also be a process for me to walk as it comes. It will take time, understanding and patience as I develop the self-trust and resolve as I prove to myself that it is okay to be vulnerable, it is ok to let go sometimes.  I am learning that letting go, not being perfect and always in control, and having others see me like this, does not determine who I am at my core. If anything, I am living my process of self-change openly, for others to see where my weaknesses are, what my suppressions are, what I am actively working on.  

The fact that I was doing this with and in front of others also gave me the opportunity to talk about it as it was happening, sharing real time what exactly was going on within me. 

So, what was the point that I had opened up? It was in sharing and showing appreciation for someone else, in this case Sunette, on a deep level, I realized that I had never really taken a moment to show any appreciation towards myself.

On the contrary, I have been living my life highlighting my faults and challenging my weaknesses, creating quite a difficult path for myself while, for the longest time, not having a proper balance of self-creation, which I eventually started to focus on to do which began with this recording: Creating Balance while Changing Yourself,  which inspired me to begin the process here in this blog:

Letting Goof OCD While Birthing A New Me

I also felt a deep and profound sadness coming up from within me, which showed me that it wasn’t only a lack of appreciation, it was something much deeper. The point was made clear to me in this recording:You'll Never Become What You Don't Recognize Within You and I reveal it in detail in this blog:

 How Do I Turn My Abusive Self-Relationshipinto One of Self-Support: Update.

Two interviews mentioned: 

Creating Balance while Changing Yourself

“While you are in the process of changing an addiction or habitual pattern, how do you avoid the two common pitfalls of ending up suppressing the point or becoming obsessed and possessed within it?

How can you establish a balance so that you let go of the old, while creating the new?

This interview shares practical and creative ways to give yourself structure as well as freedom when taking on the more challenging and addictive patterns you want to change.”

 You'll Never Become What You Don't Recognize Within You

"Do the terms self-worth, self-intimacy, and self-value seem like far away ideas that you are still searching for in your life and yearning to one day express for yourself?

What if the very things you have been waiting for, yearning for, and searching for are already within you and all you have to do is to stop the things that are getting in the way of your real expression?"

Image source: https://arsalnas.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/ashamed1.jpg