Day 337 - Competition Breeds Ego

An interesting point came up today. My relationship to competition is well developed by this point in my life. I didn't ever spend the time with metacognition, thinking about how I think, in relation to competition. Now that I am considering this point, I can certainly see how I've been competing from a starting point of self-interest, fueling my ego. Let's unpack this.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I am supporting my ego when I go into competition with another human being.

Define ego: The glorified representation of myself created in my mind. A selective self-definition. Who I am as my desires for myself. In this, my ego defense is a reaction to undesirable information about self in relation to others. I deal with this information by skipping over it, suppressing it, ignoring it, or humility. I will dig more into ego-defense in posts to come. For now, I'll just say that humility is not my initial, automated reaction to negative information about myself.

Another dynamic: Entering into competition is hardly a choice. I've automated the selection of my battles to reduce the risk of losing in an ego confrontation.

Also, when I am losing a confrontation, I will fight more recklessly to avoid the humility of defeat. This is done by standing my ground by perceptually up playing the weight of my argument, and not recognizing the other person's perspective as greater than or equal to my own, unless there really isn't a comeback that would trump the opponent's point. This is more from a conversational competition.

In a physical competition, again, I selectively participate in 'games' that I think I can win at and simply "do not like" games that I don't perceive a threshold of confidence that I will achieve victory. Now, victory isn't only defined in the context of another person, but also in relation to surpassing prior skill level. This is likely because with steps toward mastery, I will get ahead of the competition as a general entity of all possible competitors. Not to say that there isn't a dimension of physical enjoyment within the challenge of developing aptitude.

So, then there is this notion of competing with myself...verses collaborating with myself. Why am I inclined to fight with myself to better myself? I fight with others to 'better' them, I so often justify with a subtle thought based relationship that I created in my 'unknown' past. To restructure my methodology and application of self-support, I must first identify who I am now, and what I will become through change, then the rest is just a process.

In the context of self-support, I challenge myself to grow. Sounds great. Looking at the patterns and relationships in this, I see that there is a significant amount of self-judgement and/or fear of failure. When my ego battle is within myself alone, it can be very definitive. Bad = I am bad. Good = I am good. There is a feeling and emotional charge. This polarity and friction must arise out of a separation of self. How? Imagined, ideal self vs. the reality of self. Here is a key.

Success and failure emotions are created within the context of the idealized self. Furthermore, an ideal is limited by thoughts based on memories. How do I even know what I could become if I am spending all my time chasing an ideal copy of only what I've seen in my little set of past experiences?  And even furthermore, the past thoughts that have arisen out of relationships to past events and experiences have all been constructed within a starting point of self-interest. Ego.

Solution:
By participating in the throws of mind as thoughts, feelings and energy, I am accepting and allowing myself to be defined by my past successes and failures. The possibility of growth is very narrow, and at that, stinted by the fear of failure. I must realize how to collaborate with myself, until I really realize and embody the oneness and equality within and of myself, here. To not judge myself, but rather recognize the desires and fears as the primary internal motivation sources that I've so long obeyed without question. To walk with my breath. To live based on principle, not just what feels right and wrong alone because how can I trust my self-programmed reactions when they're based in such a limited context of a handful of personal experiences? I can't. A limited context = a limited response to the situation.

I commit myself to breathe through the reaction of desire and fear when faced with an ego point, a point that I would take personally. Here, I stand and stop. I do not allow myself to limit myself to the confines of personal experience based perception alone. With the principle of equality and oneness, I commit myself to giving as I would like to receive: What is BEST, of course.

Disclaimer: Walking realizations into physical application takes time and practice. Give self the space to change. Understand what a process is. Have fun with this physical challenge.

pic credit

Day 302 - I Process Competition

...is unacceptable.

Recently, a friend of mine started her Journey To Life blog (Breathe), and I am continually impressed. The writing is thorough and honest. My problem is how I am comparing myself, and the mental processes that come from that are utter self-sabotage and in no way supportive for self or other as what's best for all. My ego has revealing itself repeatedly, and I can no longer allow myself to suppress this design of wanting to be more/better than.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare myself to another in the individual process of self-realization, self-responsibility, and self-honesty otherwise known as the Desteni I Process, with the intent to measure and weigh my effectiveness in my own process - treating it as a race.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to react when I see another human being is doing well / better than I, by wanting to "one up" and do even better myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to suppress this desire to "one up" another so that I do not even see, realize or understand my motivation surge.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not be self-motivated to give my absolute / unconditional best effort for myself within my individual process.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not see the energy play of competition.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not take responsibility for the creating a energetic game of competition in my mind.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that when I take on this orientation / perspective / relationship toward another, I am also motivated to see them do worse / fail.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be selfish, greedy and competitive, while holding the concept of what's Best for All on a pedestal instead of as a working principle to live into reality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize my personal responsibility to embody and live the principle of what is best for all.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to rather support myself within an illusion that this process is a race because I find it easier to measure my value by comparison instead of within utter self-honesty.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to abuse the spoken word to portray myself in a way that doesn't carry over into my living application.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am special, and thus react when this is threatened by reconstructing my perception and/or changing my behavior to prove myself as more/greater than.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to carry this human race baggage into my process and not realize it by judging it as 'bad' and thus suppressing it.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I suppress what I think is bad so I do not have to face it and change. It is my mind trying to preserve the familiar program. This is not who I am and I do not allow this any longer.

This, specifically being the act of hiding what I don't want to see, to remain within my predictable, reaction relationships to others and my environment. To be self-honest is to not allow exactly this mental behavior. I realize it is a process, a process I commit myself to walking to completion regardless of how fast or slowly others move in their own process. My motivation comes from myself, here, wanting what is best for all.

When and as I see myself hiding my motivations from myself and/or others, I stop I breathe. I realize that NO ONE benefits when I allow shameful motivations to run rampant within me. I commit myself to investigate these points that I fear revealing. First to myself. Walk it through in writing. Understand self's motivations. Where they come from. Breathe. Forgive. Let it go. This fear is not required to live. This fear is in fact standing in my way from effectively applying what is best for all, as shown here today.

When and as I see myself comparing my effectiveness within DIP to how others are doing from an ego stance, I stop I breathe. I realize that no matter how this pursuit ends, my starting point isn't best for all, and so my result is not best for all. I commit myself to really breathing and considering what will yield a best case scenario for all participants.

I commit myself to learn from others and apply myself more effectively in my own process. In doing this, I can encourage others to also apply themselves more effectively. The design of this is similar to competition, but the motivation is stable as self doing what's best for self and all always, and the desire to undermine, cheat, compromise another being in their individual process is nonexistent. Best for all is incredibly better than pure self-interest, and become more and more apparent as I understand and let go of my personal fears that define me and separate me from my neighbors.

I commit myself to mapping my ego. This would be a fun self-directed project to see myself. I'll publish it here, so stay tuned!

I commit myself to stop and breathe when I see my ego comparison / competition thought activation. I realize this is not me as life. This is my uncompassionate self-centered personality. Flag point it. I am here, committed to supporting myself as life as an inherent expression of what's best for all, and I will not continue to race with other humans.

Time is ticking. It's silly to waste it in an ego mind game that isn't real. This silly notion that I am special and need to constantly fight to prove it is not worth my effort. We are all special, so none is special. The question is: who is willing to put in the effort? Which means the real question is: Why don't I put in maximum effort? Much more journey to come.

Day 300 - Correcting Sleep Patterns

For as long as I can remember, I've spent the majority of my nights in a silent fight with myself. The basic idea was to postpone falling asleep as long as I can, to make full use of my time at night. Why was the nighttime special to me? It was time I had to myself.

Primarily in a family setting when this habit formed, I enjoyed social interaction during the day, but when the late evening arrived and everyone is doing their own thing, I would go into learning and work mode. It seemed the best way to use my time, and through this I developed an emphasized value on the late hours of the day. The results: Many late nights due to saving / delaying my work until the night & I utilized these late nights for self growth and understanding. It was opposite of how I perceived my peers and family to be. This inflated my ego superiority through "I am investing my free time into understanding whatever I am curious about." In college, most of my free (night) time to myself disappeared, and I doubled up on social time. This caused me to react and subtly define social time negatively as "social distraction." Now, I am for the most part free of obligated time structure, so I have full responsibility of my schedule. For the first time, I get to observe myself spending time throughout the entire day without anything to blame but me.

What have I found? I haven't made the changes I want to see with any amount of consistency.

What do I want? To spend my day time effectively and start respecting my sleep cycle.

How? Through self-corrected living application of course!

Why? Because fighting sleep usually means unpleasant mornings that can put  my whole day in a slump.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I do not need to sleep very much and thus can afford to postpone sleeping.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize the connection between how/when I fall asleep and how/when I wake up.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think "I'll sleep when I die."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am special because I can get by with less sleep than others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am cool and special because I can stay up the latest and rise the earliest.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare myself to others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to value the nighttime hours more than other daytime hours.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not take ownership of and be responsible for how I spend my time in every moment, through blaming others for my daytime social preoccupation.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to tell myself that I utilize the night hours best in being the most productive then, when the reality is that I am not always productive in the nighttime.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to limit myself by maintaining a routine of mental alertness and increased work ethic only at nighttime.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to reserve only the nighttime for self-introspection and self-growth.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that it's too difficult to blog during the day because I am not forced to do it just yet. This is a subtle delay justification that I'm not very conscious of, but nonetheless, has a powerful effect. This one point of delay justification has been defining me too heavily and I will not continue to allow it to dictate how I do what when!

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not investigate my sleeping habits until now.

--

I commit myself to begin watching when/how I fall asleep and when/how my wake up commences.

When and as I see myself postponing my blog/work until nighttime because "I don't have to do it yet," I stop I breathe. I realize that I am compromising myself, my process, and so the entire process of the human race, in that one single moment of "I don't have to do it yet." I commit myself to assist and support myself to no longer utilize this excuse design of putting off work and abdicating self-responsibility in each and every moment.

When and as I see myself fighting with myself to stay awake longer, I stop I breathe. I realize that sleeping might be whats best for all, for providing myself adequate time to rest will allow me to be fully ready to walk an effective day tomorrow. I commit myself to embodying the realization of continuity between days and respecting the sleep cycle as an equal and one value of time spent. Till here no further do I hide the connection of my tomorrow from my today. No more do I allow myself to distract myself instead of going to bed.

From here forward, I will be mindful of my sleeping habits, and I commit myself to on the fly correction when and as I see myself abusing my nighttime.

picture credit

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 167 - Got to get here quick! pt.3

When and as I see myself motivating myself within comparison, I stop I breathe. I realize this has been a large contributor within how I've learned to move myself in this world system. I commit myself to investigating self-honest, self-direction that involves no energy displacement within a relationship, but instead is a movement from within a breath that is common sense and best for all.

The past 2 days I have been taking a look at my orientation toward the haste energy, looking to see where it comes from. Why did I incorporate these particular aspects of haste within my personality?

Reasons:
Fear of being worse / inadequate / not special / behind / unsuccessful
Fear of losing opportunities / experience

That's just what first comes to mind, and it already a lot to work with. So I'll begin and see where my typing fingers take me.

cc

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear being worse than others in a way where I am left in the dust, powerless.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that I am not special. But what really matters is that I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think that I need to be special to be at the top of society and have positive life experiences.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear falling behind and not being able to catch up to where I could have been if only I didn't fail or compromise myself. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exist as fear of failure and so fear taking risks.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize that I was attracted to risky behavior within myself in trying to hide that I was actually afraid to take serious risks, especially in relationships with others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear non acceptance and rejection from others, and for allowing myself to place my self-worth in the hands of others. I now realize that I have been creating my self-concept from what I see of my self in others as mirrors (their reactions to me). I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define myself based on how others react to me. I commit myself to decoding my self-definitions based in relationships to my external, and realigning the notion of self-discovery with out fear of what I may or may not be.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear missing out on life and the glorious experiences that I could obtain within fleeting moments of opportunity. This is also a big point. Feeling a tad overwhelmed again: "how can I address this giant mode of existence that I long ago defined myself in relation to? I just unpacked/discovered the possibility of self-discovery without defining myself in separation/relation toward others. These are both huge points!"

Well, Dan, keep breathing and give yourself the time to write it out for yourself, so you can see the whole design of it all...

When and as I see myself rushing to be the best that I can be so that I do not end up being less powerful in relation to others, I stop I breathe. I realize this point is largely why I stopped studying math, for when it got more difficult and others started becoming better than me, I shut down..THIS IS IT. This is the design of relying on comparison for self-worth, self-value, self-definition. I commit myself to slowly working through all of these points related to my hasty life orientation complex.

When and as I see myself fearing loss of experience or opportunity for experience, I stop I breathe. I realize that the game of mind, What If? is only a game of mind and based in separation of self, here. I commit myself to working through the layers of this mental process. I commit myself to stop allowing my fear of loss program to compromise the effective application of myself in every moment of every breath.

When and as I see myself thinking that I am special, I stop I breathe. I realize this is a whole other massive point that will require a serious amount of space-time to walk through because I have spent a serious amount of space-time participating within and as feeling special/great/greater. I commit myself to flagpointing the moments when I go into feeling special, so that I may write and deconstruct the underlying design herein. I commit myself to not judge myself when I catch myself feeling greater than another. Simply, I take note of it, and work it out for myself in a this self-honest process of self-discovery. I am not here to ego battle any longer.

So, the basis of today is, I've been rushing to become better, from a starting point of fear of being worse/less. This energy stops here. I commit myself to the stability that is here within each moment of self-honest self-direction that requires no energy-relationship to move self.

Self-discovery is fun!

to be continued for at least 2388 more days :)

Related articles

• Day 145 - Fear of losing ______.
• Day 165 - Got to get here quick!
• Day 166 - Got to get here quick! SF

Day 166 - Got to get here quick! SF

This is a continuation of yesterday. I opened up / exposed a nice handful of working points yesterday and never really did the self-forgiveness specifically for the point related to the title, which is an anxiousness to get done with process. Instead I just anxiously hopped around, kind of dodging this point. Caught myself. What to do? What to do? Ah ha!

And begin:

I forgive myself for having accepted and and allowed myself to want to rush through and get this process of self-purification over and done with.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not realize the point of anxiety herein as an essential component of my current personality that can be dismantled and replaced with a more effective, stable expression of self in relation to completing work.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to ride the energy high of haste, not realizing that, in this, I've created a relationship in my mind toward doing work, where I've become dependent on this energy to complete work effectively. I can't even imagine what productive looks or feels like when I'm not within that mentally stimulated energy of haste...yes I can, looks stable, clean, just working without pain.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to associate work with pain, and not realize that I've been using the energy of haste to cope with that negative experience of directing myself to accomplish work/tasks.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to trying to imagine what it looks like to be productive without energy, not realizing that I am creating another relationships of separation from self-expression here. I realize that I may initially use these types of thoughts to identify who I am in relation to different parts of myself. I commit myself to patiently amalgamating all internal relationships, to eventually stand stable in my breath, here. Whatever that looks like is irrelevant. Imagining it is contrary to it.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to create a stable relationship with myself within my breathing.

I realize this point of relating to process, needs to be cleared so that I may effectively walk within and as process. This process is a one and equal expression of and with myself. Ah ha. No more judgement. More more haste. No more ego. Where I fail, I see where work is required. I am doing this for me, alone. Breathe. Do not over-spiritualize process. It is a simple self-direction. I am simply discovering how I've created myself in relation to everything that I found pertinent in my life. This takes time. Breathe.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make this process about others.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not walk this process for me, ad me alone.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to judge myself in relation to others, for comparing myself to others, for getting distracted by comparison, for feeling rushed to get here faster...

When and as I see myself in a state of comparison of self and other in relation to walking process, I stop I breathe. I realize that I must assist and support myself within my process. I commit myself to stabilizing within process for self alone.

I forgive myself that I haven't allowed myself to see how I've created a relationship with haste out of the relationship toward others and wanting to be superior.

Ok, I have found a large point (many dimensions), and plan to stick to it. See you tomorrow for the third installment of Got to get here quick!