Day 351 - Attached to the Memories of My Habits

There are so many points to write about and realize, and I'm just delaying the whole process because I'm stuck in an emotional relationship to my past choices and unwittingly perpetuating destructive patterns because I haven't really forgiven myself specifically.

Writing is not a habit that I can afford to stop. I have seen how much I'm progressed through writing, why stop now? I have been writing less consistently for awhile now and in general I see it is because I'm stuck in memories. My past contains memories that are familiar in respect to who I am in relation to my environment. So, my comfort zone is literally composed of memories. In this process of self expansion, I have to let go of my familiar, comfortable relationships to people/places/things to discover who I am in relation to the new and unfamiliar people/environments. And I'm now realizing that it's not just expanding my relationship to various nouns, it's also letting go of and discovering new: verbs!

Changing a habit or two can change your entire life. I am finding myself in a position where I have the tools to change all my habits from self-interest based to best for all based. This will not just change my life, but will also have a significant ripple effect. Leading by example, with the example being a consistent, principled living, with the principle being to act in the best interest of all. But I've gotten ahead of myself before, and I recognize this haste pattern, so I commit myself to slow down, and walk a physical timeline that is in alignment with this principled living. Firstly, I have to change one habit. Funny, you'd think that'd be obvious.

I am now making a decision to change one fundamental habit that will most certainly make my life easier: Giving up.

There are many, many moments for which the decision to uphold a new habit, or shut down a bad habit, must be applied. This is the area where I stumble. I understand what it would take to change myself, but I don't yet have the practice to confidently stick to the commitments I make. This plays out most severely in my relationship with nail biting. Alcohol was the first habit I stopped, but with this point my memories were already mostly seen in a negative light. Stopping consumption of donuts wasn't very difficult because it was so specific...interesting. With donuts, my starting point was to test myself, and although I have been successful, I still occasionally pursue other sweets to satisfy that sugar craving. Stopping porn was a bit more stubborn, but once I was clear in my relationship to it as intentional disillusionment and saw how it was affecting my relationships with real life women, I stopped it permanently. (For more support with stopping porn, check out Porn+Alt+Delete)

What can I learn from here? Where exactly am I stumbling? It appears that the successful implementation of a new habit depends on a few factors, some of which include specificity of the new habit, comprehensively understanding the motivations of the old habits, as well as understanding the basis of the new habits. Through writing, I commit myself to slow down and expose my existing habits and all relevant components thereof, AND I commit myself to write the specifics of the new habits, to be clear within myself of the alignment and choice to follow through with a permanent self change.

I'll expand more on changing habits in the days to come. I am currently walking through nail biting, and procrastination (still)<--note: self-judgement. And I have to walk the physical process of writing, accepting my current state, so that I may choose to stop allowing what I've been accepting. The beginning and the end, together as one, the key to self-change. Remove this self-judgement, for in a stance separation, I am disempowering myself to be able to direct myself as one and equal with all parts of me that I have been accepting and allowing.

I forgive myself for having accepted and allowed myself to judge myself through a perspective of knowing what I should be doing, while my physical participation doesn't cooperate. I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to separate myself, within myself, into and as an idealized concept/image and a real/physical. Within this, I realize that I am creating a friction and frustration from the mind perspective of the image/ego, looking at myself in the physical, in separation, and seeing inconsistency. I commit myself to take a breath and move within the realization that I am my physical body, instead of just judging myself and creating friction and then getting no where.

I commit myself to take the necessary step and do what it takes to produce real, lasting self change. Step by step, I forgive and release my inconsiderate, self(only) interested personalities and habit sets, to align my living, physical application and habits with what is best for all.

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 269 - Success and Failure pt.5

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

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

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

I commit myself to stop at no hurdle.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who am I in the critical moment?

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

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

Flickr credit

Day 230 - Digging Deeper into Nails

cc: flickr

I received a comment on my post yesterday that got me thinking about how I have yet still to really consider who I am within my nail biting. I get that the actual nail biting isn't the source of the problem, and that's part of why my initial attempt on Day 14-16 didn't hold up. I was working within a reaction toward what I could directly see as "the problem,' which was that I was allowing my nail biting. I wasn't considering the layers behind it.

The point brought up in the comment by She who yesterday was working with the self-judgement that ensues from my nail biting. Indeed this is a layer of reaction that I need to let go of an stop participating in. While I was reflecting on that, biting my thumbnail and chatting with a friend online, I made an insightful connection between that self-judgement layer and a deeper layer of self-judgement. The relationship isn't clear, but I noticed that went I sent a text message to my friend online, I would be thinking about how it comes off to him, essentially worrying how he will react to my message. "Did it make sense?" was my most prominent concern. "Was it funny/witty?" "Would he respond favorably because of what I said?" Basically any thought pertaining to the successful continuance of a "good" conversation.

So, on the more apparent reaction layer of self-judgement, I have been getting lost in it and only seeing my nail biting habit through that layer. And within this connection of that layer and the deeper layer, I see that through really applying the concept of "who I am within it," my starting point of nail biting that is of anxiety (or at least one of the more common ones) is that fear of not being able to fit it with my word choice in a conversation. Nice, this is really opening up now.

Self-judgement on the deeper level has become an automated response to particular scenarios related to uncertainty of how others react to me. This indicates and confirms how much I have defined myself outside of myself, through others. I have placed much importance on how others react to me...maybe because I have been hurt in my childhood from receiving negative feedback to my natural self-expression. Even that hurt was caused because I placed an emphasis on how others think of me...at this point I'm feeling like I'm getting ahead of myself and getting too deep too fast.

Reeling it back a little: my automated response of self-judgement is the layer behind the automated response of nail biting. So, somewhere along the way, I have decided that I can hide my worry/self-doubt behind my nail biting....maybe nail biting was my coping mechanism as a form of distraction from my internal worry about how others perceive my expression. I don't like to see how I've separated myself in this way because it's an act of self-distrust. Boom, so that could be the source of the pain. Okay going deep again, bear with me.

I didn't trust myself to be confident within my expression, and that pain point was self-inflicted. Now I'm thinking that through childhood ridicule, I projected that self-inflicted pain. Others were just exploiting the weakness that I brought onto myself to show me who I have become. This could even be how/why I began emphasizing my externalized self-definition. Self-distrust snowballs. Writing and self-forgiveness are going to be how I make sense of this nail biting habit and release the automated programs of self-judgement.

I commit myself to walking through the difficult self-honest, self-exposure required to become really intimate with myself and really know myself and really change myself. Thank you for reading.