Day 414 - Holding Form

This is a very cool concept I've been playing with recently. In our minds, we utilize imagination to generate pictures. When we're thinking about something that we want (or don't want!), the thought can sometimes be paired with a mentally rendered picture. Furthermore, that picture and thought may come with a distinct and strong feeling; perhaps nostalgia, or dread.

With the word form, I'm talking about a fairly complex entity. The form refers to a specified, cognitive creation. As an internal form, the general or specific qualities that define this form are stable. Throughout our day, we erratically move through various forms or understandings about what is going on what what should happen next. Sometimes a form is fed to us: by parents, preachers and advertising. Any idea can really be seen as a form. An uninvented invention, is but a form until the form holder moves the form into physical existence.

Get it?

Ok, the next part is the how. How do you move form into physicality? There is no one way, and there are many specific forms requiring specific journeys into life. So, what am I saying? I'm saying that truly, the how is irrelevant. It's not worth any preemptive, cognitive burden. When the moment is here to walk the how, that creative moment is potentially a lot of fun. Downstream creative focus is one of the most enjoyable value creation activities that we can participate in. So if the "how problem" is solved, what's the missing ingredient?

The holding part. Take a form and hold it. Also take care in how you hold it. But this how is a practical and essential! It is the difference between holding the form of happily enjoying an ice cream cone after dinner, to fearfully holding the form of an attacker that's always looming in dark allies.

The "holding patterns" phenomenon warrants mention here too. A habitual perception, where the pattern is held in somewhat of a rigid way, often fear-based. It's a repetitively, internally experienced form (or fear) that the mind overlays/projects onto the external world, causing us to make physically-based decisions in a totally twisted way. This can severely limit our utmost potential in this lifetime; and you can forget about having a dynamic & creative application of supporting what is best for all. I'm sure you can think of many examples of how specific holding patterns have shaped your life, for better or for worse.

I choose principle-based holding patterns as my corrected living solution. It takes strength, which requires clarity.

So,

Get clear.
Get strong.
&
Hold forms that are best for all.



- thank you -

(if you've enjoyed this post and can relate, please leave a comment and share how you're understanding this concept. I will certainly expand on it because I didn't even get to words as forms ;)

Day 333 - Success: Imagination vs. Reality

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For as long as I can remember, I've had these strong felt imaginations of myself being successful in my future. I didn't regard others from a perspective of equality. Instead I saw how great my thoughts about myself could be, and in relation to others in my environment, I would see their flaws and how I could be better. So I was very much involved in a judgmental, observational process. Standing on the outskirts of participation, I would project myself being able to be better than all the participants. Come to realize, it's rather silly.

The participants, and I'm thinking about the popular kids in school, the most active kids in the classroom, the people that actually have a job and are growing and practically expanding themselves within it. These people have lived a path that was not as a bystander, thinking about how they could be where they are, no. They put in the time, they've invested themselves in relationships, and they've identified and taken the the appropriate, physical steps to be where they are today.

Now, here I am, walking through my whole life with an amplified sense of greatness, believing that I can do pretty much anything. Based on whatever successes I've had in the past, I've grown a confidence that I can do a good job at whatever I do. This is the point I was looking for.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can be successful with anything I do without considering or walking the practical time investment it would take to achieve a desired level of success.

I've believed myself to be my imagination version of myself. I didn't need to yet be this version of myself in reality because I was apparently waiting for the right opportunity to shine. This is the downfall. The illusion that I am waiting for some external circumstance to show me exactly how I will thrive and become successful. This is being trapped in the head. Furthermore, when I am utilizing my imagination to create my successful self, I'm not considering all the tiny little details. Maybe I hit just enough of the big points to believe that sometime in the future it is possible for me to become this version of successful.

I realize now that it is a serious problem to think that I know how to be successful. It's not a bad starting point. If I were to write out my imagined path to success, I would be able to use it as a checklist and I'm sure it would need lots of revisions as I ACTUALLY start applying myself in physicality, a.k.a. walking the process.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create an experience of myself as confident, based on what I think I could do, and yet in reality, I am doing nothing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize the importance of practically aligning my writing and actions to produce a desired outcome of success.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not write about how I will achieve a goal / success.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe it is easy to reach Point B while I am sitting inert at Point A.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in my imagination only when I am considering what I can do and become in terms of financial and relationship success.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not investigate the opportunities for success that I have imagined, but to have instead only relied on my imagination when making a self-directive decision.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to react with emotions and feelings that come with my imaginations and base my decisions based on these reactions without a comprehensive investigation of the facts. Within this statement, I realize that there are many times when I do not have all the facts to be able to make the best critical decision. Because of this, I've developed a relationship with my intuition, that is really just a feeling/emotion reaction, and I've learned to trust it. It is much easier and faster to go with this pretty form of information, but can I really trust it? That's the question that will free me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to trust my 'intuition' alone without investigating the actuality of the process of successful ventures.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I've been indecisive, anxious, inert, all because I trusted the self-image movement within my imagination, waiting for the day that it would come automatically into my reality.

When and as I see myself imagining how great I will be someday, I stop I breathe. I realize that I can only create this successful version of myself with real, practical steps of education and various tiny logistics that my mind skips over. I commit myself to stop getting wrapped up in the idea of what my future self could be, and start writing about how I will get there.

When and as I see myself becoming discouraged when my imagination and reality do not line up, I stop I breathe. I realize this reaction to be a form of self-sabotage that needs to be more closely looked at when the points comes up. I commit myself to breathe through my mental experiences of self-sabotage, and to follow through with writing and SF.

I commit myself to walk my imaginations in writing to assess what is really possible and make self-directive decision.

When and as I see myself sitting stagnate in relation to my success, I stop I breathe. I realize that I've likely been fulfilling my drive for success through the imagination alone. I commit myself to place these imaginations onto paper and looking at the whole idea more realistically.

I commit myself to start living within the physical reality.

I commit myself to get my head out of the clouds. I know it feels nice and glorious up there Dan, but that's not the space where things get done. Here is where I must be to accomplish success. Step by step. First thing first.

To bring yourself to the here-space, and create value that is real, is crucial to success. Hoping and waiting to get lucky is a success path idea that I now abandon. Gambling sucks, especially with your life.

Thanks.

Day 324 - Investigating My Airport Fears

This is a continuation of Day 323 - Airport Paranoia where I briefly went over some of my backchats and imaginations that went through my head. Today, I'll expand on those.

First experience was when I got dropped off and I had to find my way to the right spot to get my boarding pass. A subtle thought keeps in: "What if something goes wrong" and that's when my mind races to see how this could be true. This process happens quite automatically because I've lived most of my life testing my fear-thoughts in my mind "so I will be able to protect myself" from experiencing the various scenarios that I conjure. When I don't participate in this process, I can simply live moment to moment, doing what needs to be done. There's no real reason that something would go wrong because I've taken the pertinent steps to success. If I hadn't, then I would have actual reason to worry, but then the appropriate action would be to take the necessary steps to get back on track.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that by trying to justify my fears is the right thing to do, so that I can avoid them,

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I can most effectively avoid problems through common sense prevention.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think "what if something still goes wrong" completely out of the context of reality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be paranoid about logistical failures within a mental worry/anxiety, instead of living in reality.

I commit myself to considering all possibilities and taking actions to prevent the worst case scenarios, and to not participate in anxiousness brought on by a self-doubt character.

When I imagine actual imagery of things going horribly wrong, I do not think that it will actually happen...but there is a part of me that brings up this type of thought. Why am I fascinated with horrible freak accidents? Because I don't believe they would actually happen, so within my beliefs I am safe. Could this be a way to reaffirm my faith in my knowledge/belief structure? I do not want it to happen, but it would be a cool scene to watch in a film: Causal passenger perspective, and then Bam! A whole other plane rips through the front of the cabin, killing many instantly...but the final moments of the passenger in the back...what is he thinking and experiencing? Why do I find this fascinating to contemplate? Intrigued by disaster. A thought comes up that pertains to not wanting to be a coward, but rather a survivor against extreme odds. Which comes back to wanting to be able to handle a worse case scenario. Interesting!

Such a powerful draw to the mental projection of worse case scenarios, within a desire to survive or just get through them, but also wanting to avoid the feared failure, and ultimately death. Paranoia is charged by fear. And fear is paranoia. So then paranoia feeds paranoia. All of this mental processing happening despite the physical reality that is here. Doesn't it make sense to rather be here, ready for anything, able to move/act in an instant, than to be imagining all the bad things that could happen? Because when one of them actually happens, we likely react without common sense or worse: completely freeze up, petrified by the fear experience that we've been creating the whole time.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to protect myself by preparing myself for imagined worst case scenarios that are highly unlikely.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to occupy myself with a fear based thought-visualization because it is enticing, appealing to a system of my mind that I don't fully understand.

I commit myself to noting my violent imagination, and investigating my motivations within it to better understand myself.

I commit myself to discovering ways that I can prevent anxiety through comprehensive consideration and preemptive preparation.

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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 249 - Getting Grounded in the Physical

It just occurred to me that I haven't been as physically grounded as I could be. It's a concept that I'm familiar with, but I have not really been applying it. The concept of 'being grounded,' is not grounded. My perceptions are often not lived. My knowledge acquisition is bearing minimal fruit.

This is a very general point, but it's chill because I don't judge myself for writing to generally as I had prior to yesterday. Now, I see that this is foundational work that is completely worth my time until I am abusing the generalized topic platform to avoid going into depth. I'll see this when I am writing the same stuff for the same points (time to go deeper). The main idea: I can walk a general point specifically :)

The goal here is...to basically just get started:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to work within my head space, utilizing my mind to observe and bring perspective for the sake of knowing, not realizing that I'm blocking my physical participation while participating in my own mental world.

I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand the significance of physical participation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to place extensive trust into my mind processing to the point that I felt that my ability to comprehend was really what needed attention. I have always sought understanding for the moments when I might need to apply it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to participate in my imagination for the sake of setting up social situations where I could use knowledge and information to 'win' a conversation. In this I have defined a central driving point to be better than others through knowledge and information that only practically served me to be superior in an imagined, possible situation/conversation/argument.

In this, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be motivated to walk with Desteni so that I could realize my ego fulfillment of being 'right.'

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to devalue the physical world because I do not like what I see, and instead retreat to the confines of my mind where I was "all knowing" and protected from the things I didn't want to see in the external and internal. My knowledge and information platform has never been complete, yet I would act as if it was. For that, I forgive myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not be present with the external world, finding my internal world to be more comfortable. In this, I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize myself as a participant in the external. I had always referenced my internal first, and when I had to exert myself in the world, I was always less comfortable and full of doubt.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not see how I feared living in the physical world by creating multiple imagined scenarios where I was confident and strong in my self presentation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that my internal world is not reality despite all the evidence that the external provided all these years. I would only ever pay attention to the confirmation of my ego.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to orient my receptiveness and observations about my outer world participation when it suited my internal worldview..allowing any conflicting information produce a fleeting emotion of disappointment.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress each moment of 'failure' in the context of the external world not being in alignment with my internal, imagined self-definition that I created in separation of real world context.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that my insecurity comes from this point of not participating in the real world, at least in part. I am simply under practiced within and as real world participation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be timid or lazy about speaking my self-forgiveness aloud, not realizing the power of the spoken word that is ground, here, into the physical.
--
When and as I see myself spending an extended period of time in my head contemplating social scenarios that are my imagined potentials of what reality could be or could have been, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am here in this moment and responsible to direct myself according to what needs my attention in that moment. I commit myself to stop recklessly day dreaming about how things could be, and start using my mind beneficially to place myself in a situation and observe what comes up within me, note the reactions and attachments, speak the self-forgiveness and place myself back into that scenarios and see how I have changed and what still needs to be looked at.

When and as I see myself zoned out while in the company of others, I stop I breathe. I realize that I am a current participant in this shared moment. I commit myself to stop fearing that I am less than others and within that fear go into an internal contemplative reaction instead of participating in ever physical, here moment.

When and as I see myself imagining how I am or will be superior in a social scenario, I stop I breathe. I realize my responsibility to myself to expose who I am and why I am participating in this fictitious mental play out. I commit myself to continue investigating, in depth, my attachment/desire to be better/superior.

When and as I see myself "knowing it all," I stop I breathe. I realize this design as a positive feeling, and commit myself to flag point it. When the feeling arises, I commit myself to stop, breathe and direct the situation from an encompassing perspective, where I am not tailoring my speech in reaction to pride in such a way that I only confirm what I know. Blah. Not chill.

When and as I see myself physically frozen, contemplating my self-doubt/fear/inferiority, I stop I breathe. I realize myself here. I commit myself to supporting myself with my breath to be present with every word that is in my immediate environment (this will require practice, don't get discouraged. Rather immediately return to the present, and make a mental note to replay the scenario later in the day, and see how I could have acted differently according to the point that charges me).

When and as I see myself reluctant to put in the offer to speak my self forgiveness, I stop I breathe. I realize that not every situation will work for me to speak self-forgiveness, and I also realize this can easily be an excuse. I commit myself to giving myself more time to sound self-forgiveness aloud.

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Day 239 - Becoming Responsible

I am getting a sense for what it means to grow up. This is a rite of passage that all kids go through when entering adulthood. Moving back home after college has prolonged this process a bit, but the cool part is that I've been writing and blogging about my daily experience for quite some time. I started my first process journal June 2010 and started this blog about 2 years later. Now, I'm beginning to feel like a year's worth of blogs is just around the corner.

This time creep, if you will, is an interesting experience. One day I'm young, the next I'm old. You hear this from older people all the time, and it's as if there is a disconnect between reality and perception of self. There is an imagined version of self that is idealized and able.

My college lifestyle

What I am realizing over broad period of time is that I too am growing up, and with that comes a multitude of responsibility. This type of responsibility is typically learned by necessity, but there are ways to delay becoming responsible, especially when one is able to do so. In my case, I have been able to delay the onset of responsibility. Perhaps a slower transition is will lead to a better outcome... Whoa, no, hold on. This is smelling like a justification. It sure is easier to transition more slowly, and it's a heck of a lot easier to postpone responsibility when the world is not pressing on me.

College was a place far from home that I was able to get a sense of what it's like to be on my own feet. While this is true in some regards, I was not funding my own education/rent/food. I had severally underestimated what it takes to make ends meet. I was simply following the groove of my destiny, boarding to class and living like a really chill cat. I took care of my pressed responsibilities (i.e. passing grades and cleaning dishes), and the rest of the time that was afforded to me, I just had fun. That was the plan: Get a degree and enjoy my social experience. I also enjoyed my own time in being creative or going to the beach (Ya, school on the ocean)!

My point here is there are several perspectives of responsibility, and I haven't considered them all. This is changing. I easily accepted that I was responsible by the definition of getting passing grades, not even good grades. I was weaker yet in terms of eating a healthy, physically supportive diet. I got my exercise through having fun, so I didn't even consider being responsible in that area (an issue in itself: that of ignorant irresponsibility). And that leads me into the big one...being responsible for this world as a participant.

I had this imagined version of myself, where I was great and leader-like, and I was going to study communication and talk to the world. Through this idealized version of myself that was just going to happen sometime in the future, I had lost touch with reality. I almost felt like that was who I was already, and no hard work would be required to become who I already am (fascinating).

In a way, I had reduced the definition of responsibility to "making the right choices." I wasn't very aware of this definition. I had always just made a decision and followed through, and doing hard work can simply be that. What I was doing though, was only choosing to expose myself to easy paths. Some verb-age from my fathers mouth "...path of least resistance," was said in a positive way, and so I adapted this into my program.

So here's the interesting end thought:

Above, I made the statement "I was simply following the groove of my destiny," and I meant it as kind of a natural unfolding of life. What I had long believed my destiny to be was to be someone really significant and change the world to be a better place. I have a vivid memory from 7th grade history of wanting to be written about in the history books. The problem was that I didn't think I had to work very hard to get to such a position, and later on, as I became exposed to 2012 readings and new age spiritualism, I saw a nice fit in being able to become the "great, enlightened world saver" I was destined to be with no real effort. All I had to do was meditate with mantras and cast violet light across the neighborhood (yes, I did that).

Now, I find myself in the shoes of a Destonian, as a member of Desteni. I am no longer within my simple destiny groove. The transition from destiny to desteni was similar to the derailing of a train. Had I spent several thousand more dollars on reaching higher consciousness, my train may have been moving too fast, too confidently to consider that I was wrong in any way. Fortunately, I had an open enough mind to conduct a thorough investigation.

And what did I find?

An overlap. I was on board with oneness, but I couldn't wrap my head around equality. I had wanted to make the world a better place by becoming better (than others) myself. That fit nicely with the "best for all" principle. One of the most mind boggling perspectives of oneness and equality that Desteni presents is becoming responsible for the entire world. I perceived that was what I wanted, not what I already was. That was the real source of the initial shock. Actually hearing the message of becoming responsible.

I am leaning what is means to be responsible in a practical, create myself through effort kind of way. This is not exclusive to Desteni, but the Destonians aren't kidding around. Desteni I Process is a fast track to removing the mental limitation and excuses for not being responsible for self and this world as a whole. All things considered, greed and self-improvement just don't make the cut. Aligning the expression of self as life, to support what is best for all life, through a process of self-perfection...is becoming responsible.

Investigate for yourself where you stand in this world.

Day 238 - "I can't do it" in my Imagination

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I went rock climbing today for the first time in a long time, and I conveniently got a bit closer to my "I can't do it" character. There was one particular spot that I was stuck at, and my forearms were starting to turn to fire. And to reach the point of 'giving up' I had imagined the possibilities and nothing seemed to work. I couldn't make the reach. I 'gave up.'

Thankfully, my belay buddy caught me and wouldn't let me down. I was throwing a mini fit while I contemplated a second attempt with what little strength I had left. Thanks to her stubbornness, I got the chance to hang out, 40 feet above the ground, and cool off. Eventually I found the needed foot hold that I had missed while frantically imagining the possibilities that all led to failure, and I was able to finish the climb.

This imagination dimension is just one piece of this puzzle that I utilize to persuade myself that "I can't do it." I will continue to write about the other character dimensions in upcoming posts. This character is as good as any for getting acquainted with these dimensions that are behavioral blueprints of the mind in a way. I will soon make a post that overviews these character dimensions that are essentially the foundational components of each personality we have created.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to imagine the possible scenarios/options that do not work and lead to failure, instead of taking a breath and really examining all possibilities that are here.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to operate and based my decisions from an imagined version of reality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can imagine opportunities and the play outs of each scenario better from within my mind than I could if I was just operating within and from the physical reality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not trust myself to figure out what is here in a moment and so rely on my superior observational powers of imagined reality play outs.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give up and retreat away from a goal when the going gets tough.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to accumulate imagined failure to motivate myself to become the "I can't do it" character/personality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I was operating from a panicked, energy state of mind when I was going through imagined possibility.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to disregard the physical and focus all my attention on a limited rendition of reality.
--
When and as I see myself imagining "all" the possibilities, I stop I breathe. I realize that I may missing opportunities I haven't uploaded into my mental video player. I commit myself to flag pointing the "I can't do it" character and backtracking to see how I have convinced myself that "I can't do it."

When and as I see myself imagining failure, I stop I breathe. I realize that I have diminished what is physically here into/as a mental representation of what I think might happen. I commit myself to the realization that I am not considering reality when I am imagining. I know this will take awhile before I am comfortably living self-trust within each and every here-moment as the breath and to be able to make this my starting point of every decision. I commit myself to familiarizing myself with the character dimensions / mind blueprints so that I am able to see the activation sequence more readily. This way I will be more able and prepared to STOP the personality before it possesses me.

When and as I see myself thinking "I can't do it" because I have imagined all the possibilities and reached a conclusion of failure, I stop I breathe. I realize that if failure is inevitable from a starting point assessment based within the physical reality, I would then make a common sense decision. I realize that if failure seems likely based on a starting point of mental processing, I need to take a breath and get back to what is really here. I commit myself to stop thinking that I know it all, because from this mental 'knowing' I realize I do not know what I do not know. I breathe. I keep coming back to reality. I stop the characters when and as I see them. It could be an instant stop. It could take a month of writing. I am no longer concerned with being able to always be able to stop the character from the get-go because I realize that some of these personalities are deeply ingrained into my physical-flesh.

No more panicked judgments of reality. Slow down Dan.

Day 62 - Praise and Humiliation

This is a continuation from yesterday. I just took an extended moment to think about how I've dealt with praise throughout my life. Sometimes it sinks right in, other times, not so much. To me it makes sense that praise is the polar opposite of humility. My ego likes likes praise and dislikes humiliation. But there is something more going on here. I dodge and deny praise. Here, a few points come up:

1. The thought of others praising me in the future. It's motivating. Also, when I reflect back on praise, it is quite comfortable, satisfying. It's a reassurance of self-worth, where the building blocks are other people...it's pretty messed up. So, my point here is that praise from others in my own mind in a past or future context, is what feels good.
2. Maybe this praise rejection is an attempt to balance out my ego relative to those around me. My ego wants to be the biggest in the room, but overkill isn't the goal either. So, when praise is sought and rewarded, it sinks into ego. When praise creates a large power imbalance, it's uncomfortable and awkward, probably because I still want to have friends/allies.
3. When thinking about my childhood, and growing up next to my younger brother, I realize that my ego was at war with his. He started getting praise, I started getting jealous. My ego could not handle being 2nd best, so I took preemptive countermeasures to put him down and be superior in front of the audience in my head. Ego is strange.

To speak more on humiliation: It's an awkward feeling that arises when I realize I'm wrong. It's also when others tell me that I am not on top...this is f r i g h t e n i n g. A few more points are coming up that speak to this:

1. The thought of being humiliated by others in the past has shaped sizable fears that pushed my personality toward the opposite. It charges my mind to think of how to avoid future humiliation. So, again, it is in the domain of my mind (future and past) when the praise-humiliation polarity has it's power over me. 
2. In the moment of self-realized humility, it is actually a positive feeling of growth. So my ego likes when it is able to turn itself down, but when others do it...Being humiliated by others is a terrible feeling of nonacceptance. What's interesting here, is that awkward feeling of others praising me, is equal to the awkwardness of others humiliating me...and for the same reason: I want friends around me to be validated by.
3. Humiliating others, to bring myself up is so dumb. Why did I do that so extensively? Ego wants to win. Perceiving the world through the ego, as most of us do, requires comparison, and a personal investment in one's self image in front of the audience in my head.

My ego needs to be close to other egos to survive. I can only create an image of myself in relation to others. To tirelessly pursue a higher and higher ego status in my own self-judgement...it's much more clear now that this is not what I want to be doing. The only reason I did it to begin with is FEAR. I worked myself up to believe that I'm inFEARior to others and so am less powerful, and so less free. Wow, there's a lot going on there.

Before I get heavily into my ego, I will continue tomorrow with Self-forgiveness and corrective action statements related to praise and humiliation.

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