Day 399 - Self-Leadership in a Relationship

I am quickly approaching the one year mark of living with my agreement partner. The past three weeks have been pivotal for me in realizing who I have become since moving in with my life partner, and who I want to be as a self-lead individual, acting to create that which is best for all within common sense.

We had little break for a weekend, and this space and time served as an opportune moment for me to reflect on who I have become. We have been constantly falling into the age-old pattern blaming each other as the problem and source of disharmony in our lives. Why would I continue unchanged when I see that the real problem is how I perceive and approach conflict in my life? Why am I here in this pattern? What happened to how I used to be?

I used to have this inner drive to excel and create, mind you, this drive is not free of energy. The desire for superiority, for praise and pride, for power, for longevity, for immortality through lasting creation, all of this contributed to the energetic personality that I specifically structured in my younger years.

That, I had to protect. Those false priorities of narrow and self-interested mind...they held my inner drive for excellence together. They comprised a very intimate sense of self. Before beginning my agreement-relationship, I was not fully ready to take on these dimensions of character. I was preserving them, and justifying how they can still exist in alignment with Desteni / best for all living. Living in close proximity with another process walker is an outstanding amplifier of self-honesty.

And because neither of us have walked this process of creating a comprehensive set of living agreements from which we define and shape our lives, individually and together, neither of us had an overwhelming quality of grace when trying to support the other to see themselves self-honestly. Lots of finger pointing, and disgruntled nights. It was uncomfortable for both of us. Reminding myself how the squabbling and reactive fights are revealing the mind's dominion of my vocal chords, and reminding myself of the end-picture, the potential that I know we will create together, is how I remained stable through the dark hours of the mind. It's only energy, and I'll be damned if I'm going to allow it to sabotage a physical potential for authentic love.

--

What have I come to realize? I'll share that tomorrow.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to protect my self-dishonest nature of self as the desires for greatness, immortality through the creations that will outlast my lifetime.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fixate on manifesting moments with others in which I will feel praised, so that I can feel proud within the self-concept construct of the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that who I believe myself to be is not who I am physically, and within this, for not realizing that who I am physically (in writing, in the spoken word, in action) is all that truly matters in the grand scheme of life on earth.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to really let go of who I am as the mind, as the self-concept, as the person I desire to be reassured by my external reality, of who I fear I'm not.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to exist as the solution of covering up my own fears. I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see, realize and understand that hiding my fears is but a bandage bound to fall off.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see, realize, understand and ACT within the ultimate solution as facing all of myself within self-honesty, to dispel the illusion of grandeur, to forgive the fears, and to create lasting, best for all solutions that will stand into eternity.

And,

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to continually blame my external world and the people in it when life isn't handing me ego-validation on a silver platter.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take this journey to life for granted, and within that, for taking my agreement partnership for granted.

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand how I've been taking these processes for granted by attempting to perpetuate constructs that support me as the mind, as my ego.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to project how I want the world to be and how I want others in my world to be and be toward me, onto the physical reality, and to not see how this is a serious force creating conflict in my life.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to consider the physical first.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to run within the energies of the mind that pop up so nice and automatically for me...from me.


Thank you, my precious ego. You're prior ideas about the world and yourself in it are no longer of service.

Thank you, my dearest breathing body, for sticking with me through this horrible abuse that my ego perpetuates. I promise to diligently work through all the layers of dishonesty and bring myself home to the physical. I can, and I will.

*Picture attribution link

Day 369 - Playing the Fool

Things just got bumped to the next level of serious. I currently now reside in the small town of Medfield Massachusetts in a quaint little apartment house with Garbrielle Goodrow. She and I have recently embarked on a life venture together known as an Agreement by fellow Destonians. I've spent the past few days just settling in: unpacking, adjusting to the cold weather, getting sick, setting up the internet, the basics.

Tonight was unique in two ways. One, I now live with a dog for the first time in my life! Woo! Two, we tested out the Tarot Cards that I had just unpacked from my luggage of goodies. Our starting point was curiosity, but my reason for bringing them in the first place was to find process points we could walk together. By process points, I mean issues or relationships within ourselves that need to be corrected or aligned into a stability that supports what is best for self and all. It turned out to be the most intense, self-reflecting, reading I've ever done.

Without getting too much into it, I’ll just give the highlights that need to be focused on here in my journey to life. The main card that was pulled was the Fool, and all the following cards were to be read in the context of the first card. In essence, the overall message was not good, and the way that I interpreted it all was by seeing the choice to either continue playing the fool in and of my life, or get self-honest and start directing myself to create outcomes that are best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to live a light-hearted and free spirited life, wherein I do not concern myself with real world problems, just enough to survive and support my little world inside my head where I am this awesome person that has nothing weighing me down.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that the outcome of this tarot card reading is inevitable and that I will likely fail in achieving my goals. Within this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I won’t be able to overcome my preprogramming: to act the fool.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that through fearing the playout of my original destiny, I empower it by giving into this fear energy reaction, participating in it, and thus creating a starting point for manifesting it in my world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be directed by fear in my self-creation process.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be swayed by this tarot card reading into a self-compromising belief and self-judgment, instead of simply acknowledging the information and investigating a practical solution within the creation of myself and how I live on a day to day basis.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I am a victim of my past behaviors. And within this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that it is too difficult for me to actually change myself, to create myself in spite of my preprogrammed destiny.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my own fears.

Taking all into consideration, I commit myself to no longer fearing my own fears, because within this I realize that I disempower myself to overcome fear and direct myself creation efforts from a clear starting point of here and now, within and as a breath.

Also, when and as I see myself looking at my past mistakes and failures in relation to who I want to be, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am not necessarily bound by my past. I commit myself to not judge my past, nor fear it. I commit myself to utilize my memories to see where I might has wanted to do something differently, and then write about it, align the solution within me, and map out how I will walk the correction from now onward, effectively putting the past to good use :)

When and as I see any fear building up within me, I stop, I breathe. I do not accept and allow myself to go willy-nilly about my world creating outcomes that started from an internal starting point of fear. Within this I realize that I must become more specific with each exact fear to effectively stop this process of mental programming creation. And so, I commit myself to get specific with the fears that still hold me back from unconditional self-expression, and release them through the process of self-forgiveness and corrective application. I commit myself to flagging all fears for processing as such.

When and as I see that I am desiring to live a care free life, I stop, I breathe. I realize that this luxury is not available in our current world system for anyone AND everyone. Therefore, I commit myself to putting in the man-hours to ensure that I am adequately supporting myself financially, and then putting the extra man-hours to contribute everything I can to the creation of a world system that supports what is best, from birth to death, for all.

Day 356 - Redefining 'Acceptance'

My partner and I were discussing and coming to an agreement on how we define the word 'trust' when I got hung up on the word 'acceptance.' She was using the word in a way to take responsibility for where we are in process. To me, I had for a long time been using the word 'acceptance' more in the context of what I do not 'accept and allow' in/as/of me. So I had placed things in my mind in two categories, what I do accept and what I don't accept.

Now at first, I had on my 'I am right' hat (character), and I was fighting more to make her see how I use the word 'acceptance', which is more to describe what I do not accept. And she was trying to show me how I was creating friction and conflict through only defining the word within polarity. Eventually I realized that I had to hear her perspective and consider it equally as my own. At that point, I dropped my barriers and started to really listen to the point she was raising.

Once I started seeing her perspective that by separating myself into what I do and don't accept, I encourage the split-self syndrome (new term :) and essentially judge the parts of myself that I don't like or don't want to accept. The result being that I am disempowered to change myself. So then I had to reconsider and investigate how I was defining acceptance within the context of her definition. She was making the point that we have accepted ourselves to be a certain way, and that only through acceptance of what I am can I stand up and change myself. I reconciled our definition conflict through bringing in the time component, where I accept my flaws, but only for the moment until I do the writing and self-forgiveness to reach the understanding that is needed to proceed to produce real, consistently applied change within myself.

To clarify my original perspective, I did not accept and allow this world (me, her, you, them, us) to continue as it is unchanged. That was my frame of the definition for 'acceptance' that I had solidified over time. This definition made sense for me and was also reinforced by passing as a point of motivation to walk my process and become an effective and responsible leader...that I do accept.

Now, I do see and realize that I have accepted and allowed this world (her, me, us, them & you) to exist the way that it does, AND with that realization, I take responsibility to move points into practical, corrective application. The difference is subtle but so significant! In the first case, I am defining all my relationships within polarity. In the second case, I define myself in relation to everything in such a way that I give myself the chance to see my responsibility within it, and then the ability to change and correct the points within myself first becomes available as a movement of self.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize how I have separated myself into aspects that I do and do not accept, not realizing the self-judgment within and behind this.

I forgive myself that I had accepted and allowed myself to project this 'acceptance' judgment system onto others, whereby doing so, I do not see the nature of my reactive judgments in their true light as self judgment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to automatically believe that I have the correct definitions within all of my words. This false assumption is based on my inner over-confidence which is a pattern that needs correction because through it, I am currently placing value in being dishonest with myself to protect that pattern.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my own process of coming to knowledge.

I trusted my knowledge integration within every moment of my past learning. In the process of realigning from self-interest to best for all interest, I am finding that much of the knowledge and information that I have was acquired through a tainted filter of ego perspective. When I consider all angles and choose what is best, it takes an effort. All the angles don't automatically get added into the equation. So, I commit myself to investigating more angles than just my own, and within this, I commit myself to expand my capacity to consider more and more angles and begin to consider the bigger picture.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to look at information objectively, instead of placing value in it and in myself for possessing the 'valuable' knowledge and information. Through a more objective starting point perspective, I will more clearly be able to direct myself and choose what is best for all.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to take all the information that I have for granted and not consider the means and methods with which I integrate knowledge.

When and as I see myself protecting my preexisting knowledge and information, I stop I breathe. I realize that I must consider all angles before I can trust myself within any one point of knowledge. I commit myself to redefining every word with which I have a charged relationship.


Updates to come.

Day 111 - Writing out Agreements

Today went well. I pushed through a shit-ton of communication resistance/apprehension. I started the date off with some tea and a game of chess before siting down to attempt establishing agreements. I opened my laptop and laid down the clipboard. First, we read a response from my buddy Garbrielle related to yesterday: Day 110 - Laying down agreements. Basically, she suggested to establish agreements with self first, and linked me in to some more agreement resources. You can see the post here: Re: Dan's Journey to Life. And she has a good point. I am a bit shaky with my self-trust and application of living agreements...I mean Day 111 of 2555 or seven years of commitment to publicly writing my life experience of self-realizing. The words stand. I stand with my words. Simple. Real.

And so our first practical living agreements were written out on real paper. It took a lot of effort to communicate shared points that we could commit to. The experience was an exercise in being vulnerable. To speak fear points openly enough to turn it into something on paper, is not a comfortable experience, but we got through it ok. I stumbled a bit, she was patient with me, understanding. Overall, it felt really good afterward. Expressing some fear points with another and doing so in a productive, written agreements kind of way had an effect of feeling closer, more comfortable.

I had to start sometime. And I will continue. I commit myself to working with self-agreements to a point of stability within my practice.

This is to be continued, it always is. Day-by-day, I write to figure out what's going on inside me, and sharing it with anyone in the world is just kinda cool.

Day 110 - Laying down agreements

The first agreement was to meet tomorrow and establish some agreements.

When she agreed to try to establish some agreements between each other, my reaction was of satisfaction. I was pleased that she was willing to meet on my terms. This feeling of satisfaction is clearly self-deception of ego. I felt more comfortable and open, knowing that she doesn't reject my notion of "doing things the hard way" as I also spoke of "standard relationships being the easy way."

I'm so very uncomfortable writing about this topic, let alone speaking about it with her or anyone. I partially realize the benefits of establishing agreements with others, but I prevent myself from trying, because of this awkward feeling. There's nothing cool or fake about establishing agreements. It real, grounded, and clear. I still have to work through some barriers/resistance to the process because I'm still heavily conditioned to hide my feelings and only selectively present myself toward another to receive the highest self-benefit. Pretty interesting how hiding my feelings has caused huge divides between myself and a woman, though not apparently so. It was hidden.

Ok, so because I'm still learning about agreements, I'm going to direct you to two great blog posts on the topic that have helped me to clarify, so far, what I am thinking about enacting: maitedip.blogspot.com/search/label/agreement

And now for a little forgiveness:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to seek a sexual partner within a hazy desire to calm the storm within me, where I look for and provide comfort. Come into my fort vs Come forth (the second blog about agreement by Maite), is two vastly different perceptions of comfort. Am I providing a fort for her to hide from herself in? Or am I seeking refuge from facing myself within my continued desire to be with a girl? Will I have the courage to come forth within self-honesty, speaking every practical point of self/other support?

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I have been seeking a girlfriend, in part, to re-energize my ego as I attempt to further separate myself from the thoughts as fear and insecurities; as if, I was able to gain by presenting a pretty, painted picture of myself  to her that she would validate, and all would be fine and dandy.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to wish I was back in my past where life was easy, great, fun, and simple when I had a girlfriend with whom I never revealed my intentions were not to stay together forever.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not push through the uncomfortableness of speaking and not figure out why I"m having trouble speaking an honest expression of myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I "won't do it right" (establish agreements correctly).

--

I commit myself to recognizing when the backchat of "won't do it right" is holding me back from acting, where I will then apply self-forgiveness...I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be petrified of being wrong or inadequate, such that it becomes a barrier to success/trying.

This fear of doing something or someone wrongly is intense. But that doesn't mean I'm going to back down. Rather, set the program: seek and destroy all thoughts related to "need to be right"
It's going to take some time. "Right," is who I've decided I want to be from a prety early age...interestingly, also existed a continued pattern of wanting to hide that I am always right. I guess this was to protect me from being wrong...haha, oh boy!

Again, one-step at a time. Set agreements with self and others. Keep slowing down until I can feel my breath. In any given moment, I breathe to stop the overwhelmingness or drive to make the world fit into my design. Knockin' down points, point by point...even now, I want to type a growl out into my computer as the energy of this paragraph has be worked up - overwhelmed. I breathe, and focus on the moment of what gets done next. Thanks. See ya tomorrow.

Day 109 - Self-Honesty in a relationship

I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to compromise my self-honesty within a relationship so that I won't hurt her feelings or damage the positive image of myself in her eyes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hide my thoughts/opinions about another in a relationship, essentially dragging it on within a fear of her opinion of my opinion.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that my plan to increase my attractiveness as the male ego is only taking me into consideration and not the other person, so I forgive myself for allowing me to carve the path for the ego as me with total disregard for the other individual as an equal being.

I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to fear speaking honesty in a relationship through the fear of compromising my ego-image of being liked.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place emphasis on me and my self image only within dating women, where I hide my true intentions that are self-interested.

I forgive myself that I allow and accept myself to support hiding within myself and the girl by spending time on the surface level and just allowing the backchat.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to enter into the backchat of my mind that is typically fear-based, and then not speak it to preserve my self-image.

I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to leave behind my awareness of the moment when with a girl as I go into thoughts of fear, insecurity and weakness. I hide these thoughts because they would compromise positive image of my ego that I believe myself to be and wish to project to have others see. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that who I am in the physical reality as touch and the words I speak is stable, and any fears that I have under the surface are of mind and not real.

I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to support the image of myself and the other, not realizing that by supporting our egos, I am supporting the lies and suppression in a journey into the common relationship. I forgive myself for not allowing me to unconditionally support what's best for all in every moment.

I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to get share the perspective of self-honesty and running agreements when entering a relationship in fear that I will not get sex and/or hurt someone's feelings.

--


When and as I see myself leave the awareness of the physical to move into thoughts, I stop I breathe. When I'm with another, I realize that the backchat is not supporting what's best for both. I commit myself to slowing down my thoughts and speaking with self-honesty. The supportive points that I wish to share can't go unsaid, because that is the point where I am really supporting the dishonesty as movement into another self-centered relationship.

I commit myself to stop thinking about my self-image as superior and more important that supporting both equally.

I commit myself to uncovering, peeling back and revealing where I have hidden my true intentions within a relationship especially related to sex and ego.

I commit myself continue writing and sharing with others the points I find related to ego-oriented relationshiping.

I commit myself to the courage to share the 'scary' thoughts and push through the resistance to speak self-honestly, and when I am unable to do so, I commit myself to writing about the point to discover the fears in play and delete them with self-forgiveness.

I commit myself to stop worrying about how other's see me as this only supports the ego. Rather, I focus on breathing and speaking out of consideration for all and what's best for all.

I've already committed to self-honesty, so I commit myself to pursue the points where I still allow myself to be dishonest with self/other. This will take time, but this is not an excuse to support a standard relationship formation for unspoken self-interested reasons. PLAY IT SLOW DAN.

I commit myself to slowing down, and supporting myself with another within agreements to support each other as equals, as life.

photo credit: Joe Kou

Thanks and stay tuned. This relationship-agreement dynamic is probably going to get more juicy before it stabilizes as my expression of self-honesty in support of the best for both, as life. Woooo!

Related:

• Day 107 - Relationship vs. Agreement

Day 107 - Relationship vs. Agreement

I started my morning with a google search: "relationship agreement desteni"

I'm sure I've done this search before, as this point of going into a relationship with a girl always spins my mind, hardcore. Especially in the beginning of all my relationships, my mind would rev up and over think everything until contact. Once there is at least a kiss, I start opening up, but never all the way. I've never let myself be vulnerable enough to give myself fully over to a girl. I had bright plans for future success, and girls only ever slowed me down with requests and feelings. So, my normal pattern in relationship with girls is to over-think the situation within my own self-interest, and then hide those thoughts from myself and her through focusing on the feelings and psychical sensations. I would vaguely justify the secret thoughts within me because I could still get physical and mental attention...vaguely thinking that means success.

When I first found Desteni and started reading about the point of self-honesty and agreements, I was straight scared. I avoided this aspect for a few years, because I wanted to carelessly "chase women" in my final college years. So now that I'm out of college, I've been looking for girl attention through dating sites and whatnot. Well I found a girl I'm pretty attracted to, and not just physically. Well 'bad' news, I can't just go with this like I always have. Falling into a relationship has always ended badly and I've identified the reason as the internal lies & backchat. Not being honest with another starts with self-dishonesty. My relationship to being honest has been pretty solid for awhile, since the spiritual stuff before desteni, I was into enlightenment and becoming pure/honest. So, I've been having trouble relating with girls, because I'm always thrown into a whirlwind of thoughts that I don't have the courage to speak out loud, because a fear of loss or a fear of hurting her.

Now, I have been playing it more slowly, as recommended by fellow destonians, and I am seeing how patience has been working. That google search this morning lead to this article When are you Ready for 'Agreement'? and as my morning reading, I've begun to see the the practical approach to supporting another being and self, within the framework of self-honest support of self and other in walking together in agreements. Good shit.

This post is just a warm up or breaking into of this point of relationships. There's a lot going within this, so I plan to take it slow and not let anything slide by. Self-honesty till I die!

cc

To be continued...