maanantai 4. marraskuuta 2013

Day 347: Gender equality in relationships


04112013

Which one's at the top? Does it even fucking matter?


I have recently come to face some conflict in my current relationship scheme. Basically the conflict is with me and another individual on the terms and principles of a relationship: how and why can a relationship be built here between me and this other – or whether it's better for both not to try and build one. This point became impossible to dodge when the relationship got more intimate, because I did not see it wise to participate in sex with another possessed by lust. Despite me knowing that I am doing “the right thing” by actively directing the situation, addressing what's going on and thus consequently also refusing to “go with the flow” (be on autopilot), I am faced with a fear of loss and abandonment as I challenge the relationship and direct the situation to an area of uncertainty. I am now here to walk through the fears that surfaced within me to assist and support myself to further direct the situation according to what is the best for all involved instead of being directed by my fear of ending up alone.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear ending this relationship because I would then have to start over with someone else and go through all the trouble of building the foundation for a relationship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe that building the foundation of a relationship is “burdensome”, “difficult”, “stressful” and “tiresome”, not realizing that I am creating this experience by resisting all the things included in beginning a relationship (opening oneself up in self-honesty and being exposed as who I am; communicating about every aspect of the relationship).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist communicating about every aspect of a relationship openly in self-honesty because I have never learned to (I was never taught how to) do that and have to now push through the silent, non-communicative behavioral patterns I have learned instead.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent talking about every aspect of a relationship with another person because I am uncomfortable with most of the vocabulary involved as every word is Really Fucking Loaded with all kinds of emotions, feelings, images, memories, fears and expectations, which makes discharging the words by using them over and over again and thus releasing the energetic charge something that requires a lot of effort and stepping outside of my comfort zone frequently.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I don't need to re-learn and claim all of my vocabulary in one go, but that it is in fact enough that I consistently do a little and push the edges of my comfort zone a little further – and that this process of learning how to communicate is nothing to fear as I am able to support and assist myself through the small steps that I am taking.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent going through the process of “explaining myself” to another person – going through the process of familiarizing another with what my life is and has been like – not realizing that this process can be taken as an opportunity to look at self and re-assess the “big picture” of my life, and that not all of me has to be explained and specifically shown to the other, because a lot of the relevant stuff comes across without me even trying – in other words, the other is capable of picking up information just by observing me over time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent beginning new relationships “over and over again” because of the “trouble” I need to go through when getting familiar with a whole new person, and to thus fear the end of a relationship because it means my efforts have been “in vain” and that I am going to have to go through the same “trouble” again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I am wasting my time getting to know new people and not managing to create anything sustainable with them - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “ending up alone” (not having a partner and being too old to have children of my own) by wasting my time with the wrong people – not realizing that it is not necessarily the people that are “wrong for me” but my method of selecting the people I attempt to build relationships with and the way I conduct myself within these attempts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame others for being “wrong for me” and “wasting my time”, not realizing that it is ME who is wasting my time by not evaluating the situation according to self-honesty and directing it accordingly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get attached to the people I am in a relationship with and not want to end the relationship even though it seems the most reasonable choice, because I fear being alone again and not having all the support and comfort a relationship offers.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to dramatize the situation by reacting with fear and despair to the practical choice of ending the relationship, thinking “oh no, then I'd be all alone again, sitting here in my flat all alone with no one to share my life with, woe the loneliness and grimness of my life” - not realizing that this is the case only if I choose to seclude myself again and not seek for social company elsewhere.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make ending a relationship appear bigger than it actually is by telling a story of my life where I am like a character in a book whose life I have no directive control over – not realizing that my life is NOT a story and that I DO have directive control over my life, which means that no life event is actually “big” on any other level than the practical level – within which in this case, there being no children, common activities or property involved, there would be very little practical changes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I would have to again go through the process of learning to be intimate with another (physically and mentally), going through the tension, release and relaxation, not realizing that this process is in fact becoming easier each time I do it with a new person, taking me closer to the goal of being able to be comfortably intimate with any living being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that trying out a new relationship that ends up not working out is a “waste of time”, not realizing that every time this happens I learn how to be more self-honest, straightforward and efficient about this process and learn valuable things about who I am at the moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust that eventually I will be able to “scout” people efficiently enough to find someone who would be compatible with me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for “screwing up” every time a relationship doesn't work out, not realizing that I am learning through trial and error as within any learning process.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a woman is worth nothing without the ability for sex and reproduction.

  • This is a point that came up when I refused to have sex and faced the (suppressed) disappointment and frustration of another. I knew it to be inevitable considering the energy possession the other was in, but despite this knowledge I was not prepared to face another exerting their experience on me. I took the reaction personally as I have done in all of my previous relationships when there have been situations where my participation in sex was in some way “not good enough”. There is this very clear image in my mind of a man turning his back to me in disappointment, this gesture telling me that I'm worth nothing and a disappointment to another, and it triggers a huge experience of self-hate and despair in me. This image has probably been ingrained in me through popular culture (TV, movies, music, video games, porn, literature) as well as through all of my experiences with men where the subtle hint of disappointment has been present when sex has somehow not been what it was expected to be. The history of mankind carries this positioning of men and women with it, and it is still very much visible even in us extremely civilized and educated scandinavian(/western/european) men and women.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to support the belief that women are worth nothing without sex by judging myself to be “not worthy” when a man appears disappointed when concerning sex with me.

  • I am talking heteronormatively here even though I am open to intimacy with both sexes because this issue is linked specifically to men and masculinity; the point might be there with a masculine/dominant woman, but I wouldn't know that as I haven't come across such a situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for a confirmation that in this situation I would not be judged for not fulfilling the role of the sex puppet that I believe and perceive is expected of me, getting anxious, agitated, and nervous as that confirmation that would tell me that “I'm OK” is nowhere to be found.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my stability and sense of self-worth dependent on external validation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get frustrated when the other will not discuss the situation with me despite my attempts to do so.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that another has been in the relationship only for sex based on the “signs” I have picked up from his behavior, thus making myself feel like shit as I believe my self-judgement, not realizing that because of the gap in communication I do not actually know any of this because no such things have been directly expressed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself based on guesswork.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself at all.

  • At this point I had to pause my writing. I'd been struggling altogether just to breathe myself back to stability and pull myself through all the self-judgement, and when at this point I gave myself the kind of attention and care (words and gestures) that I would have wanted from men instead of being the target of disappointment, I broke into a kind of a purifying fit where I found intense hatred and rage towards men, as if a demon was released from within me. Shouting and crying it all out revealed a point of aggression I have never seen of myself before: a hatred and bitterness towards men and mankind – a regret that mankind has not been able to raise self-honest and stable people – a pity towards all the people who believe and perceive their desires to be the centre of the universe and act like big babies when denied what they want. I see that there is an unfair assumption in my mind about men. Because of what men have been I expect them to uphold it, and by expecting the worst out of men I support them to live out their worst.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame men for not seeing women as equals.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see myself as equal to men.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I claim my position as equal to men I will not be “worth” it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see myself to be as “worthy” as men because men can override me with force.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I claim my position as equal to men I will face bad consequences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I claim my position as equal to men, men will want to hurt me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when and as I attempt to claim my position as equal to men without fully understanding what it means for two genders to be equal, I already judge myself to be “less than” men and cause my own downfall.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not believe that all people are one and equal regardless of gender because I do not believe that who I am is enough to compete with male force.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I would need to be a man to be equal to men – that I would need force to beat force.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it's not about a competition between the genders – femininity vs. masculinity – but about balancing out the polarity that is currently overriding with the other polarity and through the merging of both finding an equilibrium of humanity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that femininity – whatever the fuck that is – is not “strong enough” to balance out the masculinity in psychosis.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not appreciate and give credit to femininity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not appreciate the femininity in me – the opposite of being “strong”, “powerful”, “fast”, “efficient”, “dominant”, “successful” and a “winner” - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing and utilizing the opposite of masculinity in me – gentleness, negotiability, care, listening, sensitivity, mercy, patience, compassion, expressiveness – because I have believed and perceived that in a world system the rules of which have been dictated by men I would “not make it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “make it” in the world because I have believed and perceived that the world system exists for my benefit and that “surviving” in the race would make my life better – not realizing that the world system where “dog eats dog” and everyone's competing with each other is not fact designed to support all life – and that “making it” in the world system is thus trivial as the world system is a lie.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that while exposing and utilizing my femininity and balancing out both polarities within me might not get me anywhere in the world system, it will get me everywhere in life itself.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret a man's gestures based on the expectation that men only appreciate sex, thus believing and perceiving everyone I have come across to have been disappointed about sex in a more or less passive-aggressive way, not realizing that in all cases I cannot actually be sure of this as disappointment was not directly expressed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect men to only appreciate sex and thus build a world-view where everything I have seen and interpreted supports this image in my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to support men to only appreciate sex by expecting them to do so, through my behavior relaying the message that “this is who you are, right?”.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate men for being fucked up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what men need to no longer be fucked up is not hatred but compassion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame men for being fucked up, not realizing that the men did not raise themselves but were raised by this world when they were young and helpless, and that the men cannot be blamed for becoming fucked up, even though it is men's responsibility to no longer uphold what they have become but to question and redirect themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not support men to outgrow the masculinity possession the world is in by expressing forgiveness, compassion and mercy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it's a really fucking difficult task to outgrow a few millennia's worth of behavioral patterns and that men need all the support they can get to do it, as well as do women.

  • I do realize that the situation has not been created and upheld simply by men but also by women: compliance may have been a survival mechanism, but it has still contributed to the problem at hand.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not support women to outgrow the masculinity possession the world is in, as there are plenty of women in addition to myself who have tried to “make it” by becoming men (neglecting the feminine).

  • I need to hang out with women more.

--

Okay. How to bring this back to the original point? The moment where I go into self-doubt and fear of abandonment.


I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take the reaction of another personally as I have believed and perceived that I am the cause of the reaction, not realizing that who I am simply triggers an existing pattern in the other, which is something the other has created and not me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to learn to take this “disappointment in sex” reaction personally because I have had very few situations where the other would have been completely OK with sex not happening the way it's “supposed to”, therefore never getting the model of how the situation could be directed differently – never seeing, realizing and understanding how the disappointment would not be blamed fully on me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that another will blame his negative experience (disappointment) on me and that I would thus be unfairly judged.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that sex has been the “deal breaker” in all of my relationships, not realizing that there have been many other factors contributing to the relationship not being sustainable, most notably my complete inability to communicate and direct myself - points which have just been most exposed within sex.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret the words and gestures of another to mean that he did not understand his experience of disappointment to have been caused by himself, not realizing that I cannot know this until it has been directly expressed, no matter how educated a guess I can make based on body language and tonality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to (within my mind) demand for a reply from the other because I have been frustrated and nervous and wanted to clear things out to have certainty and stability – not realizing that the other might need time to process on his own what has been said so far, and that my sense of stability is in no way dependent on the other, even though certainty of “what is going on” is dependent on him communicating with me.

--

I commit myself to not wait around for a reply from X and to thus stagnate in uncertainty, but to instead direct myself in every breath of my living to utilize and enjoy my life the best I can.

I commit myself to write about whatever points of fear, uncertainty and instability I may come across while breathing and moving myself out of this state of self-judgement into self-support.

I commit myself to support and assist X in whatever ways I can to become the best he can be.

I commit myself to slow down and express myself as clearly as possible to support and assist X to understand what I am trying to discuss, as a lot of the vocabulary and concepts that I use are new to him.

I commit myself to be patient with myself within the process of learning to build functioning relationships.

I commit myself to utilize the company of the women in my life to look for and investigate the femininity in them.

I commit myself to support myself to embrace femininity by spending time with feminine women – the exact kind of women I usually resent.

I commit myself to grow myself into a being that is a living example of humanity: femininity and masculinity combined.

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