lauantai 29. joulukuuta 2012

Days 98-99: The Rules - part 3 - rejection


28-29122012

This post is a continuation to:

Part 3 - Rule 2: Don't start a conversation with a man (and do not ask him to dance)

[Note: all quotes from the book are loosely translated from my finnish copy.]

This rule is based on the belief that a man will initiate a conversation if he really wants you, and if he doesn't, he's just not into you. I have been a “suffering believer” as I saw this happening to me all the time (both when breaking the rule or obeying the rule) and took that as evidence that this belief is true – that men will aggressively seek out that which they “really want” and if they don't seek me out I am not wanted – that this is the nature of the male gender – but here I have not realized that I am only looking at my perception of the male gender, a generalization, an image in my mind that may or may not have anything to do with reality. As I have never really known any male as they are as human beings behind the male ego, I cannot say that I have any idea what any male actually experiences for example within the dating construct. “Men know what they want. Nobody has to ask them out for lunch.” Isn't this just believing one's perception of men as “confident” to be the entire reality? There's nothing to back up these kinds of claims and definitions.

So it is encouraged to remain passive, because initiating any kind of contact and being overtly eager would just drive the man away, and that's where one would make oneself “subject to abandonment or rejection”. You wouldn't want to get hurt for nothing, would you? “In the end he will start a conversation himself with a girl he really wants, and then he will leave you.” “How else would you ever figure out whether he noticed you first, fell for you, wants you or if he's just being polite?”

About the advice concerning dancing: it refers to not making yourself easily available so that the challenge would remain and so that the man would have a chance to be active/aggressive and initiate, “according to the order of nature”. It's like seeing the man as something primitive and yourself as something civilized giving the primitive being what it craves (challenge/hunting). If a man does not ask you to dance, he's just not interested. If no one asks you to dance the entire evening – do nothing. If there's someone interesting – avoid him. If you want to find someone – run away all the time. This is so bizarre-o I can't believe I fell for this shit. It made sense within a very narrow context, but now I see none of this is based on open and honest communication and thus cannot result in anything real – if a relationship would come about from these circumstances it would be a lie. Plus it's quite the act of self-suppression, limitation and compromise to not express what you actually experience towards others, towards yourself and your life.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify my shyness (fear), manifested as reluctance to initiate conversations or any other kind of contact, with the belief that men ought to be the ones initiating because only then will I know their interest is genuine, not realizing that this was just a convenient excuse to avoid taking the risk of getting rejected.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear getting rejected, not realizing I create the experience of rejection myself as I take the actions/words of another personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe another has authority over me to cause me the experience of rejection, not realizing I myself allow another's words and actions to affect me as I take them personally and do not consider the other's inner experience that results in these words and actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the words and actions of others have nothing to do with me personally and that they are always a result of the other's inner experience, and that within interaction with others I need to look at my inner experience as reactions, emotions, feelings and thoughts and my self-expression as words and actions and carry responsibility for them instead of blaming them on others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify my reluctance to initiate contact (fear of rejection) by believing that the interest of men could only be verified if they came to me first.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the intentions of others can be exposed through open and honest conversation/interaction which I can encourage the other to engage in by communicating openly and self-honestly myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to read “signs” from people to know what they experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to always play things “safe” by reading “signs” from the behavior of others thus always having one foot ready on an “emergency exit” so that I wouldn't have to face the uncomfortable emotional experience of “being rejected” through exposing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear and avoid exposing myself as I really am because I felt vulnerable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refuse to face the fact that I create the experience of “being rejected” and instead blame it on others by stating that others “cannot be trusted”, believing my introvertedness to be an act of self-protection from the harm that others might cause me, not realizing that as I have turned inwards and shut myself from others I have instead of minimizing harm actually caused myself more harm by not facing myself and allowing my fears to further integrate into my being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and generalize the male gender to be active, aggressive and initiatory and expect all males to act according to this belief/generalization.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create behavioral patterns around the belief that men will always act according to the belief/generalization I described above.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility to be active, aggressive and initiatory myself when necessary because of a belief/generalization that others will do that for me which I did not realize to be based on false assumptions, guesswork and imagination.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I know what the male gender is about even though I don't even know what my own gender is about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the mystery of the two genders and thus create a belief through which I generalized the other to be easy to comprehend and thus easy to control.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that this belief of the male gender has been an attempt to control that which is unknown and feared, as all beliefs are an attempt to control that which is unknown and feared.

[Here I removed some personal SF that addressed other people by name.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create the act of not contacting me into a symbol of disinterest, spiritualizing the act of not contacting me and giving it imagined meanings as I took it personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize there may be incalculable reasons for a specific person to not initiate contact with me at a specific time/moment, and that to interpret it according to my self-image of a “bullied loner” is to believe my guesswork unquestioned.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the lack of people contacting me (lack of action) to mean these people who were not there to be doing something onto me (action), not realizing that if there was no action, there simply was no action, and thus there is nothing that was done onto me as nothing was done - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the lack of signs of acceptance to mean I am not accepted - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be dependent on others to accept me instead of realizing all I actually need is self-acceptance, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to thus blame others for not being there to give me acceptance and then turn the blame onto myself as the belief that “I'm not good enough”.



I commit myself to challenge myself to “take risks” by initiating conversations/contact with people and thus face my fear of rejection and show myself this fear is not valid as I stand within and as myself within and as breath as self-honesty.

I commit myself to support and assist myself to interact through self-honesty by slowing myself down by practicing my breathing.

When and as I experience rejection, I stop, I breathe and I realize the other person is not to blame. I consider the situation from the perspective of the other to show myself things aren't as simple in reality as they are within my mind as guesswork, and that the motives of people are complicated and often secret from even themselves. I then look at my own experience of rejection and investigate its origins as whatever associations my mind drew up as memories, feelings, emotions, images and thoughts and take note of whatever points I locate.

I commit myself to stop believing the signs I read from the behavior of others as I now see, realize and understand these “signs” are nothing but guesses I make in my mind based on my life experience and that as I filter my experience through my mind I never experience what is actually here.

I commit myself to realize that beings of the male gender are in their essence no different from the female as we are all human beings and in that we are all Life.

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