tiistai 23. heinäkuuta 2013

Days 276-277: Self-suppression


22-23072013



I have mastered the suppression of my own emotions to such an extent that I become blind to them. There's been something bottling up in me for a while now, and when this experience was triggered in me today once more I realized that there is something way wrong, that I am headed towards a falling point like a car directed towards the edge of a cliff. I realized that I need to stop and face myself, because I knew that if I kept on going I would end up bringing about my own destruction. The problem was, I had no idea what I was experiencing.

I knew I had to be alone to reach the required level of self-intimacy, so I shut myself in the guestroom I'm sleeping in, turned the lights off, wrapped myself in blankets and hugged a hot water bottle. Here I started to ask myself questions. The problem was, my answers would always digress. I would start blaming others and forgetting that I too had responsibility to carry; I would see clues and hints were there weren't any; I would go through different scenarios in my mind as if they were already happening and forget that all of them were possible only through my interpretation of my perception – which is not the equivalent of truth. After following these traces in my mind for a while I realized that I was on the wrong track, that I was making no progress but only making things worse. So I returned to the most prominent experience I had had and started putting it into words. What exactly did I experience? What was my reaction? What was the trigger? Why did I experience this? And underneath this I found the core fear, the worst-case scenario I had been fearful to voice, and when I put it into words and found a way to express it I broke into tears because I was finally in touch with myself again, I was being honest with myself, I knew who I was. But it required a tool of expression, language, and the mental tools to get through the layers of shit I had been piling up.

When I was sitting there crying wrapped in blankets, wearing oversized garments and holding a hot water bottle I thought that I must look like a child and I felt ashamed. I was ashamed for feeling the things I felt. I thought that I should be more than that. I was comparing myself to other people whom I perceived to be much more “adult” than myself because apparently they don't get insecure like this and their lives are all fine and stable. I thought that my problems are like children's problems, ridiculous and immature. And so I realized that a key element in my emotion suppression is shame: for some reason I have learned that emotions/feelings should not be shared, maybe because they should not exist in the first place, maybe because expressing them leaves me vulnerable. I noticed this exact pattern with positive feelings just a couple of days ago when a child I had gotten to know was expressing his affection towards me and I hesitated in responding even though I wanted to. I thought of it as an expression of weakness. Luckily the child did not see it that way, and in his actions I saw that it was in fact a strength, because him expressing his feelings was an act of self-honesty. I intend to learn of his example.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel ashamed of my emotions and feelings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel ashamed of my inner experiences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my feelings, emotions and other inner experiences because I have wanted to hide them and not admit that they exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pretend that my emotions and feelings don't exist when I suppress them - and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my own deception.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see emotions and feelings as a weakness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that experiencing feelings/emotions reduces my worth – makes me a less of a person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though emotions and feelings are a sign of mind patterns I have not transcended yet, they are an inevitable part of the process and cannot be bypassed no matter how much I would like to “be there already” - which may or may not be a state of transcendence that is ever achievable in this life (I won't know until I die).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe emotions/feelings to be a sign of weakness instead of realizing that they are a manifestation of who I am within that moment, and that to express who I am is to live as self-honesty.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to emotions/feelings with fear as I remember the mind pattern [emotion/feeling = negative] - and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to respond to my reaction by suppressing these emotions/feelings because I fear that letting them out would only have negative consequences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that expressing myself will result in negative consequences for me.

--

I know that this has begun somewhere early in my childhood. I have been an introvert child for as long as anyone can remember: I have asked my parents and siblings about this, and according to them I have always “kept to myself”, which everyone thought to be normal because of the belief that some people “just are born” introverts and some extroverts. I realize that this is a pattern I have picked up from my parents, different aspects from both of them, and integrated their issues into a manifestation of insecurity. I have lived as the crystallization of my parents' issues.

--

[Here I did detailed SF on my parents in private, which I will continue with and expand on.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize nor understand that every action of self-suppression that I commit supports this pattern of suppressing my emotions/feelings, and that thus in order to overcome the issue with emotional expression I need to tackle every single moment of self-suppression – which means that the process ahead is going to be demanding and thus require my full attention. (No half-assing!)



I commit myself to from now onwards focus on the point of self-suppression in my writings and lived process in order to map out and comprehend how it manifests in different ways and different situations.

I commit myself to for now focus on the point of self-suppression – which directly affects all of my social relations - as my biggest challenge at the moment is to get the social aspect of my life into a balanced state where I could actually utilize relations with others to support and assist me instead of using them to abuse myself and others.

I commit myself to open up the father and mother insecurity patterns with self-forgiveness in private and to share in public whatever I can, if anything at all.

When and as I see myself reacting to an emotion / a feeling with fear and suppression – with the physical sensation as if I am closing the mouth of a bottle (head area) and pushing the emotional energy down towards my solar plexus – I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am rejecting myself and refusing to look at who I am, and that the emotion/feeling that was trying to surface was an expression of who I truly am within that moment. I realize I am doing this out of FEAR. I remind myself that emotions/feelings are in fact not a negative thing and that it is better for me to express them so that I am at least honest with myself. I realize that the expression of emotions/feelings can be utilized for self-reflection as when I express myself I have a chance to observe myself and learn of myself. I realize that whatever emotion/feeling I express I am able to forgive myself and that I should thus not be afraid to express any emotion/feeling. I stabilize myself in breath and I utilize breath to release the tension and suppression from my physical body. I look at myself in self-honesty by asking questions in order to figure out what emotion/feeling/experience I was suppressing and why I was afraid to express it. I structure my experience into self-forgiveness statements either in speech or writing and continue with it until the experience dissolves.

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