Day 279 - Thumb Sucka

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Yesterday, I ended my post with a postscript as a note to self to go back and investigate the relationship between my nail biting habit and my early childhood thumb sucking habit. No time like the present.

Today, I was half aware and proactively examining my nail biting behavior while at the cinema. I did noticed that there was a factor of comfort that I haven't really been aware of in my past considerations of this habit.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not make the connection between my nail biting habit and my previous thumb sucking habit, never realizing that I maintaining the habit of comfort I received from this posture/behavior.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be afraid that I have become orally fixated.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to thinks that I will stop my nail biting habit sometime in the future, not realizing how placing a future date on self-change directs self-responsibility to change self away from here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to desire to wait until I am more able to take on a point that I believe is too deeply ingrained for me to be able to effectively address now.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I fear change and will make up nearly an excuse to avoid self-responsibility, here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to comfort myself within nail biting and not realize this as a reactive starting point to something I found makes me uncomfortable.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not investigate what drives me to discomfort when and as I bite my fingernails.

When and as I see myself biting my nails, I stop I breathe, and I hold that in-breath for 4 counts. I realize my responsibility of self-direction in that moment. I commit myself to understanding that I will only ever break this habit through applied self-will in every moment.

When and as I see myself overwhelmed with a sense that I cannot take on such a deep seated point as nail biting or thumb sucking, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am the only person who can take on any points I discover within myself. I also realize that I am the one allowing myself to fear/resist self-change. I commit myself to identifying and breathing through the self-change fear as an experience of resistance.

When and as I see myself feeling fidgety with a desire to chew on my nails or surrounding skin, I stop I breathe. I realize that if I really breathe through this desire, I will prevent myself from entering another nail biting timeloop. I commit myself to repeatedly act within this principle of awareness of self, as who self is as thought, word and deed. As I practice applying my breath awareness, I become increasingly self-directive within and as my breath. I commit myself to stop allowing myself to bite my nails through suppressing my self, my will, my life, my decision to live and understand my automation so that I may walk the correction in moving myself into alignment with what is best for all.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to waste time biting my nails.

To Be Continued

Day 278 - The History of a Nail Biter

Continued from Day 277 - Expansion and Growth

Yesterday, I opened up a few new perspectives to what's going on behind my nail biting habit. Today, I'm going to explore the major components as memories in my past that supported the nail biting character.

Going back to my past there are a few moments that stand out in relation to my decision to chew my nails. The most prominent memory was seeing my brother's fingernail get ripped off in a screen door accident.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to shape who I am through a fear of pain from having my fingernail ripped off.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continue to bite my nails even since I've realized that I repeatedly manifesting the nail pain that I fear through biting/clipping my fingernails too short.

The second memory that stands out is a vague remembrance of the thought that long fingernails are are feminine/girly and that was a risk to my social status. Striving to be cool and accepted back in elementary school was a challenge point that has largely shaped my socialization process throughout my life thus far.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to how others might judge me if I were to have long fingernails, not realizing that I am actually judging myself within this.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being perceived as feminine, and in this compromising my reputation and ability to be accepted and liked by others, particularly females.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear and create a relationship of dislike toward the image of having long fingernails as a male.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself by the picture representation of myself.
• I realize that I've constructed an archive of pictures connected to meanings within my mind for the purpose of comparison and positioning myself as ego.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare my physical image to others, not realizing that the only purpose herein is to serve my ego by relative self-definition.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that my ego-self-definition is 

The third significant component to my nail biting was a personality I created through backchat of comparative spite toward my brother. In our younger years, one of his key defenses against me was scratching me. I absolutely hated when he did it. Exactly why, I do not know, but definitely in part because I couldn't make it fair by scratching him back. Within this, a need for things to be fair between us was an internal reality that I enforced to the extent of my ability. Back then, I didn't care to be honest with myself about how unfairly I was treating him. I would throw a fit when he would get the best of me, I digress. I would also ridicule him in the context of the above (2nd memory) point to attempt to control him, to validate my fear/perspective. So, this was just a point I would think about that contributed to justification of biting my nails. It served primarily to increase the separation between my brother and I so I could build my ego up. Shucks.

• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to put myself before my brother in such a way that I would construct a false confidence within me by putting him down and separating myself from him.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to lie to myself and not consider the consequences of my words and actions from his shoes.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that the way I treated him was okay because "I only wanted the best for him" and would try to induce behavior change in him with derogatory insults.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to bite my nails through a belief/backchat that it would make me superior to my brother.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define long fingernails as negative and worthy of ridicule within myself and with-out into my world.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fuel my nail biting habit to achieve a mental superiority complex, not realizing how I am compromising myself, my brother, and our relationship.

The fourth and final point that comes up when I think back to why I originally started this habit is convenience. It was more convenient to just bite my nails, rather than go through the process of manicuring myself.

• I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to define my relationship to self-maintenance and hygiene within difficulty.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to bite my nails as a shortcut to practical hygiene, not realizing in self-honesty that this form of substitution is actually rather unhygienic.
• I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to prefer shortcuts and compromise to being thorough and honest with myself.

This post is an excavation of the historical justifications that I used while implementing the nail biting behavior. There is still more to be investigated within this point. As I walk this process of stopping my fingernail snacking through writing, I am strengthening my awareness of when I start to bite. I'm not going to make the same miss-take as I had before by imposing an expectation of myself of which I can fail and go into a depressive state of giving up on myself. I breathe, I walk. I develop self-honesty and stability as I sort myself out and apply myself to change myself.

I realize that there is nothing inherently wrong with biting fingernails. I have automated this behavior and infused anxiety such that it had become an unconscious outlet of my anxious state. I commit myself to persist in uprooting this nail biting habit to reveal to myself the nature of my mental programming. With this information, I commit myself to apply it practically through self-forgiveness and the process of thorough self-change.

Average appearance for over a decade

P.S. Yesterday, I also mentioned the relationship to nail biting as a potential alternate form of the thumb sucking habit that I "stopped"earlier on. Re-investigate this point later on.

Thanks reader!

Day 277 - Expansion and Growth

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear growing and becoming more responsible.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear my fear, not realizing how I'm holding myself back from growing and expanding my self expression through fearing fear and fearing myself as fear.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear what I might find by expanding myself through self-honesty.

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I've realized some interestingly resilient resistance when it comes to self-change and ending some of those deeply ingrained habits. In particular, I am thinking about my nail biting habit that I keep turning away from. I have heard that biting fingernails is related to limiting self-growth/expansion. It makes sense from a literal perspective, and also from a psyche consideration. I begin nibbling whenever I am nervous, anxious, and/or fearful of a future oriented event, and through this frightfulness, I limit my range of expression to a mere quandary. It's like I shell up to to protect myself/ego from that which I fear. Finger tip to mouth is a closed posture, related to thumb sucking (which I also did)...and I overcame that through a reward system my parents had placed for me...oh dear.

I wasn't at all planning on this connection.  When I was really young, I stopped sucking my thumb so I could get the Grape Escape board game I saw on the television (commercial). All I had to do was stop the habit for 30 days, which took the visual form of placing gold stars on a calendar. I was excited for my prize, and each day I was motivated to get a gold star. Years later, the 'door opened up' for me to revive my oral fixation when the screen door closed on my brother's hand. His fingernail ripped right off, effectively traumatizing me. This vivid childhood memory has been what I thought was the start of this nail biting habit, but not I see there is more to it than just one incident. I also recall the thought that having long nails was a feminine attribute, deeming ridicule as valid. I also resented each moment when my brother would scratch me.

So, I have a lot more now to work with in relation to the nail biting point. Another point I wanted to make: The 'interestingly resilient resistance' that I've been experiencing in relation to stopping my habit is, in part, due to trying to take on too much at once by looking at the point from a distant perspective. I visualize it as standing up over a 5 foot diameter, 2 inch regression in the dirt, and I need to keep digging this hole until it's at least 4 feet deep. It also feels like I've been using the Self-Forgiveness trowel, and I really need to pick up the SF spade and begin shoveling more effectively. And by that I mean I can be using self-forgiveness more effectively by getting specific and thorough, instead of quick and general. I've been more of a big picture guy, so maybe that's another reason I resist getting into the nitty gritty. 

Back to my original point: (fear of) growth and expansion.  Nail biting is but one physical form of this fear. The internal resistance I feel in relation to putting myself 'out there' falls under this umbrella as well. I realize that the only effective way to deal with all of this is by focusing on one scoop at a time. 

Key points:

• Nail biting is just the surface conception or physical manifestation of what's going in relation to my fear of expansion and growing into self-responsibility
• Ending habits within a reward system has consequences:
• habit is transformed; not actually stopped through understanding and self-will
• strengthens relationship to being externally motivated, instead of internally self-willed
• Self-Honesty & Self-Forgiveness are keys to Self-change. Self-Will is using the key.
• Resistance flag point
• check if point is too general. "What else is going on within this?"
• check for fear of self-expansion. "What do I fear here? Why?"

I'll continue with self-forgiveness and corrective application tomorrow.

For now, I'm going to re-read my nail biting support from the Desteni forum here: Establishing Self-Trust to Stop Serious Habits. Thanks for being here to read me.

Day 276 - Embracing the In-Breath

I became aware of a cool point today while practicing my breathing application. I was laying down during the final resting pose in yoga (savasana), and this is a moment that I used to let my mind wander. My physical had just undergone a strenuous workout, and I always considered savasana to be prime time for daydreaming. The thoughts would run so naturally and my body would melt into the floor as I drift away in consciousness. It's interesting to consider that I typically fall asleep this way as well..

Over the past few months of practicing yoga, I began utilizing my savasana as a time to practice staying in my body, with my breath. I do this by applying the 4-count breath technique. Lindsay Craver did a blog post that gives a good idea of what this tool is and how it is used here.

I've tried this technique many times to support myself to remain present and grounded, here, within my physical body. Today I finally noticed a pattern of having the most trouble with holding the in-breath.

I contemplated on what this could mean. The first thing to mind was my presence. By anxiously rushing through the in-breath hold, I was severely compromising my presence. I associated this phenomena/habit of cutting my in-breath short with self-doubt and impatience. I experimented: When I held my in-breath, I was really, really present for it. I could visualize myself moving more effectively from this starting point.

Now, I am noticing myself fall into another consciousness trap. From that in-breath, I decided to direct myself into a visualization/imagination of potential out flow. That in itself isn't the trap. The trap is buying into or becoming vested in the feeling of being in control, unencumbered as a result of my imagined successfullness. I walked that point in the beginning of my 10 day series on success.

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Recap:

• I realized I've been short changing myself by not being present with my in-breath.
• I realized the power of staying present within my in-breath is presence itself,
• and the ability to direct self.
• I directed myself into an experiment of testing the difference in my relationship to my in-breath when cut short vs when I am patient and give myself the full 4 counts.

Why might I be rushing through the in-breath:

• Self-Trust
• I do not trust that my breath will carry me.
• weird fear, maybe related to my underwater fears post.
• Self-Doubt
• Related to not trusting myself
• fear of being present
• fear of being self-responsible.
• trusting the mind consciousness system
• feels safe, known, & comfortable

Consequences:

By not embracing my in-breath, I am not present. It's the difference between automatic living mode and self-directed living. It's very easy to forget about the breathing...must set lots of flag points!

Solution:

Utilize flag points to prevent full system possession states of being. Acquire awareness and build flag points through writing. Awareness of every breath is not a goal I hope to achieve tonight...or ever (within the context of hope). I will stay consistent within my process of self-realization within self-honesty to realize my breathing in every moment. To hold an expectation, goal, or hope is to externalize the responsibility to live as this mental/behavioral change.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to undervalue my breathing application.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to value my breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself not to just breathe and be the breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it is hard to be aware of my breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to forget that I am my breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that becoming aware of every breath is a process that will be walked over the course of many years, that my mind is the starting point of wanting it done as soon as yesterday.

I commit myself to repeatedly bring myself back into my breath, not to fight the mind, but to work with it in discovering why and where I am still afraid to fully be with every in-breath.

I commit myself to becoming evermore acquainted with my breath, until it's of my nature to be within and as every breath.

I redesign myself here.

Give it a try @ DIP Lite

Day 275 - Discipline

Polarity flip!!

Yesterday I felt so in control. I even noticed the positive feeling charge within me while I was writing yesterday's post. Today felt less in control. It was a negative experience. Polarity of inner experience.

In the past, I would let this polarity flip be perceived as failure, let it build and compound, and suppress it as quickly as possible. Today, I was not feeling the same, and I let that direct me. This time, instead of reacting to my negative experience and labeling myself as a 'failure', or worse as 'overall unable/ineffective' within self-change. That reactive experience multiplies the adverse effects of a fall.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that my internal experience of myself in relation to productivity/failure/discipline is unstable and based within polarity.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that positively charge experience will balance with a negatively charged experience.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself according to the negative experience and the positive experience (like I did yesterday), not realizing that I do not need to define myself by the unstable, energetic experience within me. Who I am is the physical reality..

Which means that my actions is a communicative statement of myself. Whether in the context of others or even more significantly within the context of me alone, who I am in a moment can be defined by my lived choices.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize my responsibility within and of every action I take..

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that my thoughts precede and determine my actions and word choices, and I am therefore responsible for my thoughts as well.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that prevention is the best cure.

I commit myself to begin seeing and flag pointing the thoughts that lead me into an experience that is in separation of reality.

I commit myself to become increasingly disciplined by identifying every moment where I decide not to take responsibility for my behavior/actions, and writing about the specifics tat come up within me in those moments.

I commit myself to recognizing the positive experiences within me, so I may choose not to define myself as them.

I commit myself to remembering my breath when I am in moments of indecision and passively approaching the day.

I commit myself to reorienting myself when and as I see that I have begun my day in a way that promotes further noncommittal attitude. This is not who I am. I no longer accept and allow myself to submit to the internal energy experience...and when I do, I breathe myself back into the physical. Here I go.

Day 274 - Success and Failure pt.10

Continuing with:
Day 264 - Success vs Projected Success
Day 265 - Success and Failure pt.1 - Imagination Dimension of Success
Day 266 - Success and Failure pt.2 - Opening Resistance to Success
Day 267 - Success and Failure pt.3 - Spiraling Distraction
Day 268 - Success and Failure pt.4 - Components of Resistance
Day 269 - Success and Failure pt.5 - The Critical Moment
Day 270 - Success and Failure pt.6 - The Direction Question
Day 271 - Success and Failure pt.7 - Externalized Directive
Day 272 - Success and Failure pt.8 - The Problem with Mind-Self Separation
Day 273 - Success and Failure pt.9 - The Failure Character

...Effective Planning

That's my secret to success that you've all been waiting for since yesterday. This is a topic I've written on before, so it's not a hefty realization. The real substance of this concept comes in with discipline. I was debating on changing the title of this post to be 'discipline' while I was listening to the What If? Life Review because it was mentioned in that interview as one of the critical points of success. I recommend this interview especially to those that have that feeling of waiting for the perfect chance to blossom into success. I spent a lot of my life so far developing this idea in my head that I would achieve great things, and yet I hardly ever took proactive steps to achieve my visions of grandeur that I had for myself. This interview was like a relieving slap to the face.

I stayed with the effective planning title because it requires discipline within it. Ineffective planning obviously does not lead to success. So the big mystery is: What does it take to be effective?

Today, I was effective. I had taken just a few moments last night to write down what I wanted to do with my day, and this time I only put 3-5 items. Some of them were time heavy. Others items didn't make it on the list last night, but were pressing...such as listening to some EQAFE interviews. Another task was from the day before. This flexability contributed to me having a productive day. And I was still able to get in some unicycling, yoga, and under an hour of video games. What was different about today?

In days past, I would have no plan of practical accomplishment to adhere to. I used to smoke weed and enjoy the moment, listen to music and waste time with enjoyment and fleeting, positive feeling activities that had consequences. I would just delay/deny the consequence as long as I could. The moment I had to pay for it was so compressed that I could just rush through my responsibilities at the 'last minute' effectively condensing the experience of consequence...which in itself created more, longer-term consequences. When I stopped smoking the ganja just over 4 months ago, I didn't realize that I still had to deal with the various habits of procrastination and desire indulgence. It's like I had peeled back just one layer, and since then I've been able to continue in my process of self-change and becoming increasingly self-responsible. It's really cool!

I'm finding that by setting achievable goals daily, the only other thing I have to do is do them! The resistance that I experience in relation to actually doing the work fades the more I push myself into the new habit of self-will. It's really quite something to look at from the old perspective of that resistance energy that was seemingly too much to deal with, that laziness drug of the mind; it's made my will-power look like a wimpy little muscle. The more that I've flexed that muscle, the more my perspective has changed. In retrospect, pushing myself to get through the resistance of self-change is the most rewarding gift I have ever given to myself. Once I know what I can accomplish, once I start lifting heavy weights, I have no reason to regress.

Occasionally, I might regress as I am building my consistency. I plan to not be perfect from the get go anymore. This it the new failure attitude that I wrote about yesterday. I can only truly fail if I fall and don't get back up. It makes sense that focusing my efforts on getting up faster would speed up my process in becoming consistently effective. So, I plan to have a bunch of micro-fails. I plan to stick with myself, with my breath, to pick myself up as many times as it takes until I stop falling down. Once I've stabilized with one point, I'll move on to the next point that isn't stable. Next point I've already decided to work on...is another big one. One of those points that seems impossible to control now, but now, I know what I am capable of doing. Now, I understand that as sucky as it may seem to walk through the resistance of self-change, it really pays off. That next point: The sweet tooth character.

Thank you to all the supportive people in the desteni group, on the forum, those involved in my Desteni I Process, and all those close to me that reflect who I have become. And most of all, thank me for taking on the challenge of self-change through self-honesty and self-forgiveness. And thank YOU for reading. Stay tuned for more living insight to come.

Until then, support yourself by clicking on any of the links in this post.

Except this little one at the bottom. That one doesn't count as self-support assistance  :)

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Day 273 - Success and Failure pt.9

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Continuing with:
Day 264 - Success vs Projected Success
Day 265 - Success and Failure pt.1 - Imagination Dimension of Success
Day 266 - Success and Failure pt.2 - Opening Resistance to Success
Day 267 - Success and Failure pt.3 - Spiraling Distraction
Day 268 - Success and Failure pt.4 - Components of Resistance
Day 269 - Success and Failure pt.5 - The Critical Moment
Day 270 - Success and Failure pt.6 - The Direction Question
Day 271 - Success and Failure pt.7 - Externalized Directive
Day 272 - Success and Failure pt.8 - The Problem with Mind-Self Separation

Failure Character

You see what I did there? Today is the first time I put a title ^ and from now on, I'm going to only not name my blog in the beginning with intention. This way I am either direct and focused on my writing point, or I am directing an exploration of myself through writing. Now, I wish to speak on a point that has held me back from expanding myself soooooo many times. It's one of those things that's shameful in retrospect and "if I could go back in time, I'd tell myself..."  SO, my solution here is to acknowledge this habit and forgive it. I will also begin applying the living correction, but there's an interesting dynamic at play in this.

When I commit to live the change that I have written about, and fail, my past tendency had been to retreat and isolate myself into myself. Like a very real, lived suppression, I hide inside of myself. It's some ass backwards self-protection mechanism that I picked up some where along the way. This is no longer allowed.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear failure, create failure and to within failure, react to failure by suppressing myself into an alternate mind reality where I believe I am safer than if I am present within the physical space-time reality moment of here. In this, I realize now that I've been compounding the fear of failure by reacting to it within fear. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be afraid of fear.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to react to failure within fear, not realizing that I'm completely entranced within circular fear.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize the extent to which I was compromising myself in a downward spiral of manifesting fear, when and as I perceive failure.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define failure according to something that is bad and needs to be avoided, run from, hidden from, within this allowing myself to react to failure by going into a mental, ego protection stance within myself. I've never before been directly aware of how/why I feared failure. It sure is nice to dig it up and face it!

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear failing myself within not being able to uphold my commitments to myself such that when I do failure, I react instead of standing back up to resiliently persist.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fall and retreat.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not stand up and press forward with failure perceived as a supportive lesson to take with me.

Ahh, that is the key. My perception of failure needs to be gradually shifted and practiced like anything else.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I will fail in applying what I have learned about my fear of failure.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize my backdoor, encryption programs that exist to ensure I do not change and realize my power to move myself one and equal within and as a directive principle.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize how I've been holding myself back by fearing to face my fear. It's a simple encryption when I see it, but it's rather effective when I'm in it.

When and as I see myself within a cyclical experience of fear of failure, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am not here, directing the situation effectively. I commit myself to remembering who I am with my breath, to stand up, and chose to move/speak within common sense.

When and as I see myself fearing my inability to produce practical, living change of myself, I stop I breathe. I now recognize how this 2 bit encryption (fearing fear) is me actually creating the conditions for failing and so compounding failure repetitively. I commit myself to seriously confronting fear when and as I experience myself within a fear fit. If that fails, I commit myself to reflect on the incident at the end of the day and speak self forgiveness aloud.

When and as I see myself brushing off failure, suppressing fear, I stop I breathe. I realize that my ego does not want to own up to fear. I commit myself to taking responsibility for the fear, as one and equal with me, the creator.

When and as I see myself directed by fear of failure, I stop I breathe. Too many times have I turned and went the other way because I did not have the courage to risk failing. I commit myself to shifting my perspective of failure such that I am willing to fail in front of the whole world. Why? Because I know I will keep trying until I succeed. With each failure, I have the opportunity to pick myself back up and continue, knowing how not to fail the same way. And if I do fail the same way twice, three times or more, I commit myself to investigate that point, and not allow myself to define myself with the failure, rather define myself by how I choose to react to failure. If I fail to change within failure, I realize I have as many times as I personally require to live the change. This is my process.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare myself to others in such a way that I amplify my fear of failure. Dang, there's a whole different dimension to fear of failure. Will explore in posts to come. For now, I will continue with the last point I wish to address in this Success and Failure series. The key to success. Join tomorrow to read my solution of...

Day 272 - Success and Failure pt.8

Continuing with:
Day 264 - Success vs Projected Success
Day 265 - Success and Failure pt.1 - Imagination Dimension of Success
Day 266 - Success and Failure pt.2 - Opening Resistance to Success
Day 267 - Success and Failure pt.3 - Spiraling Distraction
Day 268 - Success and Failure pt.4 - Components of Resistance
Day 269 - Success and Failure pt.5 - The Critical Moment
Day 270 - Success and Failure pt.6 - The Direction Question

Day 271 - Success and Failure pt.7 - Externalized Directive

Yesterday I started exploring where and when I have abdicated my responsibility to direct myself. I found that there are many specific subjects/scenarios/situations that I let my mind simply choose my path, as if on auto-pilot. There are many ways that I allow my mind to day dream off into other things that I could be doing, other than the current task at hand. For example, since I've begun writing this paragraph, I've wanted to shower...but first maybe go for a run...and then I think about what points I want to write about for the rest of this post...and tomorrow. My focus in the moment wanders without my permission..

Is that what's really happening? Or am I making subtle choices to go into thought about what I want to do/write next?

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame my mind, as a separate entity than myself, for making my mind wander, and so placing self as a victim of my mind that was created from my past. Wow. This is probably how everybody dodges the responsibility of self's choices. I have this awareness of what I know is the self-responsible thing to do, but then the desire steps in to suggest I do otherwise. NOW, the interesting thing: I place myself as a victim of my own desire. I separate myself from the desire. And within that, I place myself as inferior without even realizing this whole process.

All the while I have completely forgotten about my breath, forgotten that I am here, and my mind continues to have this internal battle, friction of right and wrong...but the curious thing here is that the purpose of this internal friction seems to just charge the desire. Back and forth until my argument for the desire wins.

This is a real problem. I could have just accepted that I have a hard time focusing and spent the rest of my life trying to focus, potentially medicating with mental aids like Adderall. Fortunately, I've been able to rely on my "do or die mode" to get the important stuff done when it matters. Doubly fortunate, I've stumbled upon an effective method of self-investigation through self-forgiveness to strengthen and bring my directive principle back to myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from my mind and become a victim of my desire, not realizing that I am the creator of that desire.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize my responsibility in having programmed my own mind to desire certain things based on past experiences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not want to accept that I am responsible for my desires.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to follow my desires when experiencing resistance toward writing/work, and within this I apologize to myself (I am sorry) that I have been foolish and let myself go when even faced with a little resistance.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give up and give into my programming, to relinquish myself to the internal energies that I have structured to suit my self interest and that which makes me feel good.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not consider how much my past influences who I am now, and in this, for forgetting that I created my perspective from past experiences and as the creator, I am responsible for all of me.

When and as I see myself within an internal battle, creating friction between two wants, I stop I breathe. I realize that I know what I really want to do is aligned with what's best for all (and me), and that by participating in the internal debate, I am actually building the argument for the self-compromising desire. I commit myself to live here, and continually bring myself back here, to my breath, when I make self-directive decisions.

I commit myself to make self-honest agreements with myself.

I commit myself to stop trying to spin/justify my choices without being self-honest and considering the whole picture, including the consequences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate the act from the consequence.

I commit myself to realizing the connection between the act and the consequential outflow when making a decision to move or speak. (thought, word, deed...interesting how I left out the thought dimension of this commitment...not ready?..thought dimension to come)

I realize that some of my commitments seem 'ideal' and may to some readers seem impossible. I commit myself to share with my readers my entire 7 year journey to life, the entire process of deconstructing my internal mind programs and recreating them with awareness of what is best for all.

I commit myself to continually investigating where my commitments do not hold up. This relates to 'failure' and my whole failure character. More on this tomorrow!

When and as I see myself experiencing resistance toward my work, I stop, breathe, and realize that I am now within a system/program where my goal is to abdicate my responsibility to be self-directive. I commit myself to write about resistance as it comes up. I commit myself to further exploring the starting point of that resistance. I commit myself to also explore the desirable distractions that I turn to when resistance comes up to investigate that side of the equation and find out how I've created that desire in the context of my past.

I commit myself to giving myself plenty of time to work this all out for myself. This is not a race. This is me effectively applying myself in every moment, every breath. This is me having fun! :)

For a cool, related perspective:

This interview nicely depicts
self-change vs self-compromise.

Day 271 - Success and Failure pt.7

Continuing with:
Day 264 - Success vs Projected Success
Day 265 - Success and Failure pt.1 - Imagination Dimension of Success
Day 266 - Success and Failure pt.2 - Opening Resistance to Success
Day 267 - Success and Failure pt.3 - Spiraling Distraction
Day 268 - Success and Failure pt.4 - Components of Resistance
Day 269 - Success and Failure pt.5 - The Critical Moment
Day 270 - Success and Failure pt.6 - The Direction Question

How am I directing myself today? I am directing myself to write on self-direction and write Self-forgiveness on what I find today and found yesterday.

How have I been directing myself today? There multiple moments of self-direction. So how can I effectively address this question? Bullet List!

• The moments where I was directing myself
• Study DIP material
• time pressure within it
• The moments when I was just going with the flow
• Went for McDonalds breakfast
• craving something delicious
• reason to ride my bike
• Helping out around the house / yard work
• earning my keep; obvious priority
• Little time distractions

So what's going on here? What patterns can I hone in on and focus on? It's interesting how the only moments where I am pushing myself to be a director of myself is when the time pressure point is present. Other than that, I am functioning within obligation and desire / resistance to be self-responsible. Within that, I recognize that I am creating an illusion that I have nothing pressing, by ignoring all that I could be doing. This is the primary point of self-sabotage within the design of procrastination.

Now that I'm seeing how much goes into my procrastination system, I will patiently move through the layers. First to recap my understanding: I procrastinate because I neglect work that I could do that is not forced upon me either by others or my own externally positioned decision. It will be a process to bring myself back to the here moment where I simply work for me without an external motivation. I look forward to breaking this system down and rebuilding myself as a self-responsible productivity man man man!

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define success as according to achievement of externally imposed missions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create internal motivation ONLY according to desire and positive feeling experiences, not realizing how I am limiting myself and compromising my responsibility to myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can accomplish my journey to life within a particular time frame such that I create a feeling of rushedness and desire to move fast.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that desire to move fast will ultimately slow me down because without a stable starting point, I will not create stability.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to practice becoming stable within myself when and as I direct myself within accomplishment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to bring my past track record of moment to moment awareness and responsibility into mind and use it as an elusive and vague excuse to not remember my breath.

When and as I see myself waiting for an external point of motivation, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am holding myself back from achieving success for myself in every moment that I choose the desirable distraction over self-responsibility. I commit myself to take responsibility for each moment that I choose to delay what I could be doing. In this, I commit myself to investigate why I gave into a particular distraction program within delay.

I realize that delay / procrastination is an umbrella system, not to be decoded with one fell swoop. Same with my nail biting habit. It's not the habit itself that needs to be addressed. It's the internally structured, energetic experience pattern behind it that I need to hone in on and take responsibility for stopping. I keep delaying that point because the anxiety system seems bigger than me....crazy. I need to get back to that, soon.

When and as I see myself wanting to move fast through a point, I stop I breathe. I realize that there is a significant difference between desire to accomplish more faster, and a stable application of myself that is effective, consistent and reliable. I commit myself to the restructuring of my internal motivation sources, slowly, and first by deconstructing the existing self-interest that really isn't serving what's BEST for me. What is best for me is also best for all.

When and as I see myself moving from a point of instability with regards to being productive or doing hard work, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am not practicing a sustainable solution. I commit myself to stop looking at the keys on my keyboard so that I will ultimately type faster than if I keep cheating by looking, for example. I'll post more on this point as well. So many points. Point, point, point.

I commit myself to really be serious about understanding what is going on inside of me when I abdicate self-responsibility. What system is at play? When did I start doing this? Regret? Shame? Doubt? I commit myself to keep digging. No excuses for not taking responsibility for myself. Investigate.

picture credit

Day 270 - Success and Failure pt.6

Continuing with:
Day 264 - Success vs Projected Success
Day 265 - Success and Failure pt.1 - Imagination Dimension of Success
Day 266 - Success and Failure pt.2 - Opening Resistance to Success
Day 267 - Success and Failure pt.3 - Spiraling Distraction
Day 268 - Success and Failure pt.4 - Components of Resistance
Day 269 - Success and Failure pt.5 - The Critical Moment

I am not sure why I am titling these posts in retrospect, but I like how it's working out! I have a general idea of what I'll name today's post. See if you can guess it right! The answer will be revealed tomorrow :)

While I was writing part 5 yesterday, I was very tuned into that critical moment of deciding to keep writing or to fall into a distraction. So much so that for the first time, I had followed through on an older commitment: To write down what distractions call for attention so that I may address them after I am finished with my intended line of duty. By writing them down, I felt a release of the tension caused by the inner struggle of whether or not to act on the desirable distraction, going into delay vs. staying on task. I simply made a physical note, and I could focus on my task more easily.

Why? I no longer feared forgetting to do what I wanted to do. Big one. That fear of losing what I had once wanted to do is highly uncomfortable. Interesting how I lead myself here.

How am I directing myself and yet digging up something I didn't already know I was going to find? Silly question. Or is it? I can determine how well I stay on task if I have a title written before I write the blog post.. On the other hand, this question's answer will show me if I am actively discovering myself through writing, or if I'm just reporting, embellishing, elaborating, and/or putting into perspective a point that I've already discovered.

The dynamic here is interesting because I can hide behind 'discovery writing' when the self-honest truth is I am not directing myself. I have already given into a cocktail of internally structured energetic forces. Let's see how much I can reveal about my writing motivation today.

• I am rushed by the self-imposed time stamp rule.
• I am typing from within my procrastination character
• I justified my delay of this post through having a general idea for how I would start it
• No way was I planning to write about the self-honesty of discovering myself through writing point.
• Because I didn't have to do the prep work for the blog since I did it after my last post, I was able to continually use that excuse all day.
• And furthermore, once I had accepted that excuse/justification for delay, it became automated in a way that made it much harder to see when I was utilizing it. Which gives some perspective to the elusive nature of resistance that I found during part 4.
• Fear
• that I can't make a good post if I have time to doubt myself.
• I use the time pressure to assist with a flow
• Justified
• don't want to sound contrived
• easier to stay focused when I can't afford the time not to be.
• I choose to ignore that I can flow without time pressure
• I choose to ignore that I am less effective when forced to flow.
• The writing is not for me when I place a system of delay/rushedness onto myself from an external standpoint (i.e. time)
• Justified
• I spend less time blogging when I am rushed/limited than when I give myself plenty of time (1hr vs 3hrs is a likely example)

There's a lot here. And I could probably keep going, but I'm limited to just 8 more minutes. "It's ok though because I've written a 'good' amount (consistent length)." What's cool about throwing words out of my fingers like today, is that I actually do discover and open up lots of points. What's not cool is how this habit limits my potential to expand within depth on a single point. So far, in my JTL, I've been kind of skimming the surface. I knew I would be because I had the excuse that "I'm just a beginner at this" so "as long as I'm writing.." I now realize there is a quality factor that I can only give myself when I really give myself the time to walk my self-investigation process as well as the time to practice the living application.

This is what process is.

I commit myself to practice living a self-directed structure of activity tomorrow, and write about the moments when I give into my internal energy structure that is the habits that guide me from day to day without awareness of my physical body. Join me tomorrow for an exploration into what I wrote today and the answer to the secret question: What is the title of this post going to be?

question mark credit

Day 269 - Success and Failure pt.5

Continuing with:
Day 264 - Success vs Projected Success
Day 265 - Success and Failure pt.1 - Imagination Dimension of Success
Day 266 - Success and Failure pt.2 - Opening Resistance to Success
Day 267 - Success and Failure pt.3 - Spiraling Distraction
Day 268 - Success and Failure pt.4 - Components of Resistance

Today's focus is letting go of my attachments to the design of resistance when I'm faced with work. I've already begun to bring awareness into the critical moment. Because of all the writing I've been doing on this point, I'm finally starting to slow down and stop the resistance driven movement and bring my attention back to the work that I am facing. My goal is to do this consistently. To accomplish this goal, I must not rely on hope or waiting for myself to get my act together because I realize that it is my active participation with myself that determines who I am as a directive principle of self. 'Hope' is a mental diffusion of responsibility. I can't wait any longer because I now realize how the design of waiting contributes to delay / procrastination.

Through this mini-series, I've come to a point where my awareness of what is here, as who I am in my relationship to work, and from here forward it is my responsibility to take the next step: Living the correction. I've not discovered and written about each and every point that is related to this character / behavior pattern, so when the specific points come up, I'll support myself by writing in my side journal to investigate why. By so doing, I am living the correction of active participation within my process of self-purification.

I commit myself to stop at no hurdle.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fall and create a perception of myself as a failure. Within this I realize that by marking myself as a failure when I fall, I am creating myself as a failure and creating a spiral of negativity as I move my thoughts into living application.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize how I manifest my negative thoughts about myself (i.e. failure, doubt, general inability).

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear failure and to act within this fear by not acting so I won't have to risk failure.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear fear.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define failure as bad/negative, not realizing how my perception of failure is what is keeping me from transforming a fall into a moment of learning and growth.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize myself within resistance energy as I look for excusable, desirable distractions/deviations from my intention to responsibly apply myself within work.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe it is difficult to stay focused and that this is because of reasons that are outside of my control / creation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from my positively charged desires and my negatively charged resistances. I commit myself to realizing my responsibility for the internal movements that are charged +/- instead of subscribing to the illusion that these forces are out of my control / jurisdiction.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be moved by internally charged relationships without fully understanding why I am moving myself. I commit myself to continue bringing awareness to situations where I do not fully understand my motivations behind behavioral inclinations.

When and as I see myself mentally processing to find a justification for something that would take me away from my work, I stop I breathe. I realize that this is the critical moment where I may decide abdicate the responsibility of self-direction by giving into the persuasive, internal, energetic game of tug-o-war, or to stand up within the stability of myself and exercise my ability to direct myself in each and every here-moment.

I commit myself to the realization that I am so very able to stop the energetic movement of resistance / desirable distraction. This internal movement is an energy program that I had, indeed, set into motion at some point in my past. I must take responsibility for my creation. I will release the programming that no longer suits my interest, which has shifted from solely self-interest, to now include what's in the best interest of ALL. I commit myself to release my outdated energetic programming with living self-forgiveness statements.

AND NOW, this is the point of achievement. This is the point of success. This is the moment of truth:

Who am I in the critical moment?

I commit myself to practicing the living application of the awareness, realizations and insight that I arrive at through writing in my Journey to Life blog.

I commit myself to show others the purpose of the Journey to Life blog is to prepare for actual, living self-change by practically applying myself in the process of bringing self-awareness through into living self-correction.

Flickr credit

Day 268 - Success and Failure pt.4

Continuing with:

Day 264 - Success vs Projected Success
Day 265 - Success and Failure pt.1 - Imagination Dimension of Success
Day 266 - Success and Failure pt.2 - Opening Resistance to Success

Day 267 - Success and Failure pt.3 - Spiraling Distraction

Today, I wrote an expansion on the components of resistance within my personal experience of it. The primary points I dug up are: Elusive, Justified & Uncomfortable. The order that they came up was interesting.

I find it hard to place myself within the awareness of myself when moving within an experience of resistance. As if I'm so quickly suppressing it that I can hardly even notice it. This is the first and most prominent layer.

Second layer is when I am aware of the resistance. Here, I allow myself to quickly find a way to be okay with my giving into the resistance -> desire outlet. In this, I know that I am not considering everything because I am having an internal fight with a bias for the excuse so that I so not have to face the resistance energy.

When the distraction excuses are not very good, I turn to face the point of resistance and this moment is quite uncomfortable. Here, I can see my mind race back to the 2nd layer, frantically looking for an excuse. This design is often why I find myself biting my nails or munching on candy. Perhaps the best excuse to not do work is related to social life.

This point of placing importance on the social scene deserves a lot of attention, but for right now, I'm just going to describe my related realization. Socializing is quite a positive experience for me. Fun with others is a positive experience that I prefer to doing hard work, obviously.

So, my realization of what needs to be done is to stop allowing myself to be recklessly thrown from negative experience into positive experience. How?

The first ideas to mind are:

• to firstly bring awareness to these moments
• by writing and applying realizations
• to expand my perspective of what's at stake, what the whole picture is, what are the consequences
• by slowing down & catching my breath
• to break down the relationships of +/- definitions toward
• hard work
• & the many desirable distractions

I've been doing the first point for a while now, and my awareness is slowly expanding; however, I have not been proactively living the change that needs to happen. The living application still needs work. I will best be able to apply my responsibility to myself through developing the relationship with my breathing.

The third point is a biggy! There are many +/- relationships that I've formed to numerous objects and experiences of particular situations. One bite at a time Dan.

For now, I'm going to leave this and attend a social event :)

Tomorrow I'll continue after further expansion to yield specific self-forgiveness statements and livable commitments to myself. What can I agree on with myself in relation to handling my experience of resistance?..

Day 267 - Success and Failure pt.3

Continuing with:

Day 264 - Success vs Projected Success
Day 265 - Success and Failure pt.1
Day 266 - Success and Failure pt.2

Yesterday, I ended pt.2 of this series with a commitment to begin making an application of breath a new habit when faced with resistance, and desirable distraction. What I haven't really taken into account is all of the step I need to take to establish this habit.

This is the basis of which I will achieve my success. With a plan. With diligence. With commitment to who I am in relation to work. As barriers come up, I work through them. No more wallowing in failure.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become discouraged when I fail. I commit myself to perceiving failure as opportunity for growth, and no longer allowing a spiral of negativity. In my past, I have been so good at suppressing the self-defeated, inadequacy, "I can't do it" character that I wouldn't even acknowledge it. Rather, I'd simply move into a distraction or diversion that would allow me to maintain an inner positivity.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to prioritize my own inner feeling in a single moment rather than considering how I would self-honestly feel about a situation while taking into everything into consideration. To procrastinate requires this dynamic. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to temporarily ignore the inevitable consequence of delaying work.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize how much more proficient I could be if I didn't delay even one task. Delaying one task, delays all tasks. Unless I agree with myself that the delay is warranted through having task 2 take priority over task 1, I need to stay focused on achievement. That yields success.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to delay achievement, not realizing the consequence of delaying my success. If this continues until I die, I will have failed.

So what I'm seeing now, is that delay leads to failure and could be considered one and the same. I commit myself to not become discouraged and spiral into delay.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize how delay is a fail, especially when I don't get up and give my whole moment/hour/day away to a feeling-guided storm of 'unproductivity'.  I commit myself to stop this when and as I see myself in this behavior.

Before the behavior comes thoughts. I commit myself to flag point which thoughts occur when I move into delay so that I will be best able to walk my process effectively in dismantling those specific thoughts so my directive power lies within my breath. From here, I move effectively.

I commit myself to continue to with this point until I am a living, breathing example of self-direction in every moment. Enjoy.

Picture credit

Day 266 - Success and Failure pt.2

Continuing with:

Day 264 - Success vs Projected Success
Day 265 - Success and Failure pt.1

Yesterday I forgave myself for living within a projected dream reality of myself as successful. I had realized that I've been holding myself back from achieving success in the real, physical reality by existing in the glorious realm of ego and imagination. Furthermore, I'm now realizing how desire is a barrier to success. How? Why?

When I self-honestly take a look at what's behind the desire, I'm suppressing facing myself in reality. The uncomfortable nature of resisting facing reality becomes enough to cave and cascade into desirable distractions such as chowing down on some delicious candy pieces, grooving to music videos on youtube or playing cheap video games that call for my attention pretending to be something that matters. These two points could warrant their own blog posts, but what matters, what really counts here, is doing what it takes to change my behavior.

Being thorough with exploring my motivations really helps in the writing process. It opens up my ability to understand myself and really, I mean really, self-intimately, forgive myself for allowing myself to exist within and as such a program. At that point of release, I open a door for myself to change my behavior which is the whole point of process. The commitment statements are the forging of the new program that I am creating for myself, except this time, I'm not doing it as an automated reaction. This time, I am the directive principle creating myself in alignment with what is best for myself and all others, equal and one.

Today, I commit myself to ending the abuse of my time. I realize that I can take breaks and enjoy life, but to be irresponsible and suppress reality with abusive consumption is no longer accepted or allowed. This is my life and despite the resistance I experience toward doing hard work, I commit myself to drive myself through it all and live here, in the moment to moment awareness of life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not see, realize or understand the self-compromise and imminent consequence that accumulate through abdicating my responsibility to direct myself within the common sense of each moment in self-honesty.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress who I am in relation to how I am spending my time through moving into distractions that are of fleeting enjoyment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to underestimate who I am within one breath, what I can accomplish within one breath, how I can change within one breath.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abdicate my responsibility of self-direction and give into the persuasive forces of the mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to empower the feeling of resistance through allowing it to expand and develop while I participate in it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I am the creator of the resistance energy, and that if I allow it to direct me it, I've given myself to the resistance program. The program of resistance being a feeling of discomfort when facing certain moments of reality that I have told myself I don't like doing (i.e. working hard), followed by alleviating that discomfort through suppression/distraction.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define 'hard work' within the parameters of the resistance program, when the reality is that I rather quite enjoy myself while working hard to achieve success.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give up on myself through the design of resistance -> desirable distraction -> compounding consequence.

When and as I see myself moving into a time sink (distraction) with little to no consideration of time management, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am habitually allowing myself to suppress resistance to maintain a positive experience of self without investigating why I feel resistance in the first place. I commit myself to breathe through resistance, and to continually do this until this becomes the new habit.

...letting that one sink in...overnight

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Day 265 - Success and Failure pt.1

In this mini blog series, I'm going to address what my barriers to success are by redefining my relationship to both words: SUCCESS and FAILURE. Yesterday I opened this up by uncovering how I've been living within two versions of success, one imagined and one real. Today, I'm going to expand on and get to the roots of my success character, mostly within the imagination dimension. If you haven't read my Day 264, give a quick look to the outline for reference here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine that I will be successful in the future without considering or having any regard for the practical steps that are required to achieve success.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to inflate my ego and feel good about myself by living within the imagination of my future projected self. In this, I am not living here, I am not practically considering how to achieve greatness.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine that I will be successful because I am special and lucky.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I will not have to work hard for a fortunate and successful life.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to separate myself from reality and live within the imagination of how great I am/will be. When reality hits, I've been pretty good about ignoring and suppressing my shortcomings.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress reality of my living and emphasize the imagined greatness of myself - for in so doing, I have greatly compromised myself in being able to actually achieve success.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize, after many, many timeloops, that procrastination does not lead to the success that I imagined and projected for myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize the extent of how I have been supported by my parent throughout my coming of age, such that I did not ever grasp the stark reality of life without a free source of money.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to undervalue money because I wasn't working for it. I'll expand on this point when I break into my relationship with money later on.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to utilize the law of attraction to gain what I desired without effort.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that law of attraction works without consequence.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe my hopes and dreams were already a part of my destiny, requiring no real effort, instead of planning how I can practically create myself in alignment with my vision of success.

When and as I see myself as a successful person in the future, I stop I breathe. I realize that's not who I am. I commit myself to stay here and focus on the small successes of the moment, that which is practically attainable.

When and as I see myself trying to achieve an imagined success without considering the details within it, I stop I breathe. I realize that by living in the mind, it's easy to get excited about what I conjure up in my imagination. I commit myself to assess the details of my pursuits of achievement/success so I can understand what is required in space and time to make it happen.

Okay, lots still to go. Thanks for reading. Catch ya tomorrow!

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Day 264 - Success vs Projected Success

Best way I can think to expand this point is through a bulleted list:

Projected Success

• Internalized from an imagination source starting point
• strong affect on ego / self-image
• feels real
• complete separation from reality
• Hoped for
• reliance on others / external forces (i.e. "the universe")
• self-responsibility & work ethic are compromised

Success

• Diligence
• meticulous
• planned + follow through
• hard work
• Real time, practical application.
• defined within the context of reality; measurable
• Integrity is upheld
• absolutely necessary

Maybe I could go on, but for now I feel comfortable with this outline. It depicts the general point that I am struggling with. For most of my life, I've live in my head. My future projected self was fortunate and successful. "Why would I work hard if I could just maintain that!?" Because I now see realize and understand that it's not practical. I'm not going to achieve this perfect version of self by sitting on my ass thinking about it.

Now that I'm in the real world (a.k.a. out of school) and walking my process within the daily JTL blogging and Desteni I Process, I simply cannot take the shortcuts anymore. I was able to justify it in school because I placed school as something imposed on me by external forces, and I didn't feel bad about cheating the system to get ahead. Now, I find that cheating myself just doesn't work, because why would I even try if I'm not going to be for real. I am directly affected by my work ethic. Integrity is key.

I'm going to take my time with this point. There is more going on here than I can effectively work with in one post. Slow down, break it up into measurable, lived success. See, I'm getting it! :)

Join me tomorrow for a continued expansion through self-forgiveness.

Day 263 - The Achievement Collector

This is an interesting perspective I've narrowed down within me.  A personality design, a character that comes out in many of life's scenarios. It's so deeply rooted that I can't remember for how long I've been this way, so it might take awhile before I can effectively address the entire system. I breathe, I walk.

The achievement collector is how I'm going to label this personality/drive that I've discovered. This is what it is to me:

• a way to become better & more powerful, to ultimately "save the world"/become famous
• climbing the ladder seemed like the best option for myself
• validation in and of my externalized self-definition
• do hard work now -> achievement; then take it easy and just ride the achievement
• as capital: achievement viewed as inherently valuable
• Competition, rush to gain as much achievement as I can to be safe & secure
• competing with the "general other"

OK, so with these above points, I can see how my starting point within achievement is skewed  and tainted by self-interest. Achievement has nothing inherently wrong in it. I'm not trying to stop achieving things. I'm investigating my motivations to achieve, and gather accomplishments like a commodity that increases my self-worth. That's not cool. My self-worth is defined as the life that I am, not the ego/externalized self-definition/others' judgments of me. I must realign who I am within seeking achievement to fulfill my potential and not succumb to creating myself through how I believe others want me to be or expect me to be.

--

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define my self-worth in separation of myself, such that I would define myself according to my accomplishments that were valid in the eyes of others as if that was all that really mattered. This is the primary reason and starting point for going to college and I ended p cheating myself out of getting the most I could have, had I been there for me and not for society's sake.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to pursue achievement in relation to others. This point of comparison as means to validate my value has been seriously detrimental to myself and others within how I would orient myself in relationships, needing to be superior.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define 'achievement' as being superior than others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to place a value on achievement from an external perspective, where I would be able to eventually stop working when I accumulate enough achievement. This is like capitalism, work hard, have success, and retire on the work of yesterday.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to escape working hard by only working hard on things that I perceive will yield a residual benefit so I won't have to work hard. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not want to work hard, and not realize that this desire plays out, and that there is no escape from my internal reality. I commit myself to seeing all of who I am within, so that I may own it, and change myself as who I really am into an expression of life, not ego/mind.

I commit myself to exposing to myself the entirety of my personality constructs that I have built to serve my ego/externalized self-definitions.

When and as I see myself working toward an achievement so that others will positively define me, I stop I breathe. I bring myself back to myself and see how I am motivated to accomplish whatever it is within the context of myself and what is best for all. If I was only motivated by how I think others will judge me, I realize this is a fear-based starting point. I commit myself to check my starting point within my motivation toward accomplishment to see if I am acting within a root of fear or have I really considered the implications/effects of a particular achievement.

When and as I see that I have not considered who I am within the starting point of obtaining achievement, I stop I breathe. I realize that my past behavior has momentum, it's my personality. I commit myself to breathe and create myself within an alignment of what is best for all when working toward achieving something.

When and as I see myself acting to become better than, more than, or superior to others, I stop I breathe. I realize that achievement based in comparison and competition is not what is best for all, rather what is best for my self-image as who I am as an ego in separation of others. I commit myself to identifying where I am still attached to this idealized self-image that is my ego within my imagination based on how I think others perceive me. Through identifying my 'vices' related to desire for superiority, I commit myself to patiently walking self-forgiveness and corrective application until I no longer am drive to succeed by treading on others.

When and as I see that I have been working hard at something so that I can eventually stop working hard, I stop I breathe. I realize that this particular form of achievement desire is actually holding me back as my starting point is to 'not have to work hard.' I commit myself to hard work, for the rest of my life.

No shortcuts.

No easy living... 

Not until all may live easy.

Investigate equal money system where basic human rights are guaranteed to all, and LIFE is honored.