Day 421 - Dependent

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from the word independent.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to NOT see, realize and understand where and how I've fallen into relationships of dependency.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want, need and desire to be in a co-dependent relationship, where I seek to receive positive feelings from my partner.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being in a co-dependent relationship, where the strength of self-sufficiency through independence is missing.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to specifically investigate these conflicting desires to be dependent and independent.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself see, realize and understand how I've blinded myself from this construct by judging my partners as either dependent or independent, and not opening up my personal relationship to both of these words.

--

I commit myself to investigate, redefine and substantiate these words in my life.

I commit myself to investigating my memories of past relationships, and walking the specific forgiveness statements to release my energized definitions that I carry now as "baggage."

I commit myself to purify and redefine dependent and independent so that I can properly lead my life in all of my relationships to people, places and things.

When and as I see myself desiring an external force to make me feel good, I stop, I breathe. I realize the key of self-fulfillment. I commit myself to investigating how I've created the particular experiences of lack in my life, so that I may return the point to myself and give myself what I had desired from my outside world.

I commit myself to taking responsibility for my wants, needs and desires.
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I commit myself to investigating the full nature of my preexisting programming within and behind these words.

Day 420 - Ode to Pot

For some odd years of my life, I have smoked the marijuana.

For many of those years, I thought I liked the experience more than I disliked the side effects.

Within this last year, I've made the decision to cut it out of my life.

It's taken me many years, to figure out how to stand by this decision.


So many years, I've intimately identified myself within and through the experience of weed.

It had become a best friend, a security blanket, and a tool to keep feeling good.

Served to helped me procrastinate my homework, and focus on the fun stuff.

Made my sense of epiphany stronger, which many times led me into some eccentric ideas.


For better or for worse.

The sticky stuff, I found, is very accurately that: Sticky

I got stuck in the self-aggrandizement, thinking so highly of my thinking.

I deviated further from the bigger picture, while feeling I had a higher perspective.


Getting high helped me mask the reality of getting high.

Consequences happen, sooner or later, so why not come to grips with reality sooner?

I do not regret my path, nor think my dance with MJ was bad or good.

I know that who I am today, is One man ready to take the step.



For additional support, I highly recommend this link: http://wiki.destonians.com/Drugs#Marijuana

Day 419 - Back to Basics: Blame

I'll admit, I've been a little naïve, thinking that I've got more of a grasp on the concept of blame at this point. Maybe it's a side effect of increasing awareness. In becoming more aware of it, I figured I'd have a better handle on it in my life. I suppose I can say that I've been getting better and better at identifying when other people are participating in blame, but when it comes to seeing it me clearly, haha, dropped the ball there.

There's a particular energy design within blame that feels kind of good...natural even. You know what I mean. Whenever there's anything negative going on, it's relieving and satisfactory to attribute the cause to anything external, anything other than self. So, if I can walk through my whole life, blaming anything and everyone for all the bad shit in the world and in my personal experience, then I can rest easy knowing that I was never in the wrong. I can die, feeling good about myself.

Haha, really? No.

But that's the thing. Taking responsibility for my mistakes and transgressions doesn't quite feel good or natural. It's like a sinking in my gut. Face flushes red with that "I've been caught" kind of feeling. On top of the emotional energy, there's the logical conclusion that I'm flawed, incorrect, or imperfect. From my ego's vantage point, there's a cognitive dissonance that needs to be resolved. Textbook says there's two ways this can occur: change in perception or change in behavior.

A change in perception would be to blame or redirect the responsibility away from me. A change in behavior, well, that's an interesting process in this case. To get to a change in behavior means I need to fully accept that I'm to blame, that I'm responsible. That can be tough to do given the emotional disarray described above.

The key = Self-forgiveness.

With self-forgiveness, I can release that negative energy that comes up with accepting responsibility. When applied effectively, forgiveness is so incredibly powerful. The challenge is in remembering to apply it, especially when the when the desire to blame is SO tempting. The knee-jerk reaction is to push away that sinking feeling - not to take it in, and apply self-forgiveness. I mean, who has ever heard of that? (Other than us process walkers) It takes practice, preparation (writing the JTL blog), and most importantly: the decision to just do it.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to so quickly follow into the blame energy programming to protect my sensitive ego.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to find fault everywhere outside of myself, so I may avoid that sinking feeling that comes with considering self-responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify blame.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear accepting responsibility for my mistakes and transgressions.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe I can avoid consequences through blame.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to realize the inevitability of self-honesty, and thus, the inevitability of taking responsibility for my experience.

I forgive myself that I have NOT accepted and allowed myself to unconditionally consider taking responsibility for the totality of my experience here on Earth.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to creatively ascribe blame toward others, so that I may be free of guilt.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to live courage to take full responsibility for the outcomes of my creation.


When and as I see myself participating in a blame narrative in my mind, I stop, I breathe. I realize that I can use my creative capacity to rather investigate personal responsibility, and I commit myself to do that. I commit myself to finding my humility and ending the blame game.

When and as I see myself actively participating in blame within and through the words I speak, I stop, I breathe. I realize that in these moments, I am speaking from a starting point of mind energy as blame. I commit myself to self-correct in real-time; or if this proves too difficult, then I commit myself to investigate the full nature of the blame point in writing.

When and as I see myself in fear of the emotional discord arising from taking responsibility, I stop, I breathe. I realize that this discomfort is my best friend, as it signals to me that I'm on the right track for moving out of the blame game. I commit myself to embrace this discomfort, and I commit myself to release it with self-forgiveness.

When and as I see myself applying reasons, justifications and excuses to validate blame and defer personal responsibility, I stop, I breathe. I realize that taking responsibility for myself is what I ultimately want to do, and thus, why should I waste time entertaining a mind-job such as blaming external forces for my experiences..

Within and through this, I see, realize and understand that I will need to specify my process in order to more readily accept responsibility. To quickly react with blame indicates a failure of self-investigation to the nth degree. So, I commit myself to going all the way, forgiving myself when I do realize a point of blame I'd missed, and keep my eyes on the prize: 100% Self Responsibility.

Day 418 - Blogging Everyday

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being judged by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to diminish my consistency with this blog because I am afraid of not being good enough in the public eye.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create and participate within fear-based thinking when I consider writing a blog post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to NOT orient to the real reasons for which this blog exists: openly shared self-support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have the thought, "I don't need to blog today."

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that my process has evolved beyond blogging.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify NOT supporting myself through posting to my daily blog, using nearly any excuse that my mind could come up with.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to stand within excuses and justifications for why I am not participating in life to my highest potential, each day.

I forgive myself for NOT accepting and allowing myself to see me clearly, AND take corrective action to realign my living participation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to wait and require stimulus for me to get moving and make the decision to support myself with daily writing.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe in the thought "I can't do this."


--

I CAN do this.

When and as I see myself thinking "I can't do this," I stop, I breathe. I realize that my mind is now taking the wheel to steer me down a path of self-disempowerment. I commit myself to immediately stop this thought train, investigate the nature of my resistance, and move through it into an expression of "I can do this."

When and as I see myself formulating reasons, justifications and excuses, I stop, I breathe. I realize that I can be the directive decider of my living, instead of just allowing these classic mind-programs. I commit myself to waling real-time self-forgiveness on the reasons, justifications and excuses that come up in my mind for why I cannot do or be what is best for all.

When and as I see myself participating in any excuse for why I do not need to write my JTL blog, I stop, and I breathe. I realize that this blog will not write itself, and I commit myself to giving my best effort to write something everyday.

When and as I see myself resisting to write a daily post, I stop, I breathe. I realize that resistance arises from fear-based thinking, so I commit myself to exposing these fears to myself and moving through it.

I commit myself to no longer accept and allow fear to direct me away from writing this blog.

I commit myself to remember the purpose of this daily blog. When and if this isn't clear, I stop, I breathe. I commit myself to re-investigate why I started this blog until it is clear again.

I commit myself to continue opening up dimensions related to why I may not (want to) blog every day, like laziness and other flavors of self-interest, until it is clear, and I am here, everyday.

Day 417 - Damn Daniel! Back at it again...

...with the Journey to Life blogging!

In the summer of 2013, I had the great fortune of traveling to South Africa to live on the Desteni farm for a couple of months. During that time, I felt like I no longer needed to remain consistent with my daily blog because I had proven myself (to others) and made it there (feeling accepted), which reveals that my starting point in blogging wasn't fully for me. So, I let it slide and focused myself on interacting within the physically immediate relationships, despite Bernard emphasizing to me how important it is that I keep consistent with the writing, as a primary point of visibility in my process.

In retrospect, it was kind of like my social programming that I lived out in college, prioritizing the social scene over homework. I liked being judged by my immediate character rather than the permanent, anyone-can-see writings posted online. Managing the (projected) social judgments of a few personalities was kind of my forte, a skill I'd been developing since the sixth grade, when I moved from NY to CA and had the opportunity to recreate my self-perception without the baggage of my past social faux pas.

The consequences of orienting to a socially constructed self-perception, have become more and more...consequential. Building this inauthentic self-confidence, doomed to crack and crumble, was an uphill battle. Yeah, maybe I learned a few useful coping skills, like how to be "cool" in a small/dynamic social scene, but the real shit going on under the surface: low self worth, low self-esteem, fears of rejection and not being accepted by others - never went away. In fact, it only got worse, taking on new forms and intensities.

For example, my blogging tapered off because I couldn't so easily manage the perceptions of others. Posting publicly like this ultimately demands authenticity, which is totally cool because I still hardly know the authentic me! Another example: My agreement relationship demands that I reorient to my authentic self, because the facade-self only holds up for so long before breaking down.

Thus,

the Desteni "I" Process.

Which includes actively applying the tools of self-investigative writing, self-forgiveness, breathing and real-time self correction.

So, here I am, restating my starting point: I'm not interested in applying my efforts to maintain a crumbling self-conception, especially not when I'm surrounded by all the right information and support (thanks everyone). It's time to finally let it go and start getting to know who the real "I" is.

I don't have the white Vans, and I don't care. I commit myself to letting go of the importance of how others may or may not perceive me. I am cool in my own right, and I'm going to prove that to myself by giving myself the chance to really get to know me. Much to uncover in future postings.

Desteni.org | DesteniIprocess.com | EQAFE.com | wiki.destonians.com