Days 367-368: What would you do if you only had one day?

12-13122013

Nature showing us how to express affection. No fancy words needed!

Today I came to think of the phrase “live every day as if it was your last”. First I read a facebook post where a friend shared her realization about the unpredictability of life while supporting her friend in an emergency room: you'll never know when your loved ones will be gone forever, so you'd better tell them how you feel about them while you still can. Next, I saw a video where the average amount of a person's living days was visualized with jelly beans, and where at the end of the video only one jelly bean was left and the following question was asked: “what would you do if you had only one day? What will you do today?”

I answered that question myself and I was surprised at the things I said. (Personal stuff.) Mainly the things I thought I would do involved contacting people and enjoying my last moments doing things with them. I then asked myself: well, hold on, why should I not do these things anyway, even if I would not be dying? Couldn't I just call these people up anyway?

What I faced then was a wall of excuses. “They probably have better things to do.” “They'd think you're just wasting their time.” Most of it revolved around fear. The activities I thought of were purely recreational, and I was afraid that if I'd live my life asking people to join me in fun stuff like that I would be judged as lazy, impractical, childish, irresponsible – a foolish hippie not willing to work.

But MAN would I enjoy life where I could do fun stuff! With others!

So I'm thinking how my life would be different if I would express my feelings towards people more openly and initiate activities more frequently than now. It would certainly be a lot more social and my relations with others would be built on a foundation of self-honesty (which I think is the only way to establish solid trust in another). Why am I not doing this already?

I realize that motivational videos like the one I saw play a lot on the fear of death and loss: when the number of my days is clearly shown to me, I react with a slight panic and disregard my responsibilities just to “enjoy while I can”. What I am looking for, though, is a sustainable way of living. I need to integrate the social into my life in a balanced way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing to another how I experience him/her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my affection towards another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my gratitude towards another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my appreciation for another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing any form of positive experience I have had towards other people, because I have feared that I would then face a negative reaction from the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing myself through self-expression because I have associated self-expression with events from my childhood, where my self-expression was responded to with actions that I reacted negatively to.

[A memory from 1^st or 2^nd grade: there was a boy in my class I liked a lot. I never expressed this to him because I didn't really know what to do about the things I felt – I'd never received any sort of guidance concerning relationships. Once during class there was a moment where something we had in common (a toy) was unexpectedly exposed and we would have had a chance to bond over it; however, we didn't. I expressed my interest towards the commonality and was waiting for him to meet me half-way, whereas he sort or “retreated”, withdrew himself, not taking the opportunity and not interacting with me. I thought that this meant he did not like me at all, I felt ashamed and I never tried to talk with him again. I did not take into consideration that he may have withdrawn because of the situation (a boy and a girl bonding with each other during class would have required hell-class bravery and defiance of the social code), or because he, too, was clueless on what to do about his feelings. Because I entered the social world with no guidelines on what to do and how people actually work, I have built my fear of rejection based on possible misinterpretations like this.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I express my positive experience of another person, the other will respond in such a way that I might interpret as “judgement”, “rejection” or “resentment” - not realizing that always interpreting things like this is a very narrow viewpoint that does not take into consideration the entire reality of things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when a person responds to my self-expression by withdrawing themselves, it is not because I have done something “wrong” but because of whatever inner processes the entire situation has triggered within them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for the way another person responds to his/her environment, thus reacting to the other person with fear of losing control, helplessness and panic as my world isn't what I would want it to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my self-blame, collapsing inwards automatically with my reaction, not stopping to breathe and realize that “HOLD ON, I am taking personally something that is not mine at all”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by believing another person's withdrawal is my fault (because I am not enough), I am NOT supporting and assisting the other to see and question the mind system that made him/her withdraw in the first place, but that I am instead supporting him/her to carry on living within and as the mind system (because he/she is not enough – through my example I show that self-diminishment is acceptable).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stand my ground when and as I have expressed myself and another has withdrawn as I have not really stood within my self-expression as I have lived as self-doubt, self-denial and self-resentment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for validation for myself from outside of myself as I have not really accepted, embraced or trusted myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the behavior of others is caused by me when in fact every individual creates their own behavior by choosing and authorizing their way of moving according to external stimuli.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit myself from participating in social living because I have been afraid of rejection, justifying my seclusion by judging social activities and thus settling for my solitude.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my wish to participate in social living and make myself believe that “I don't need it” as I have been afraid of taking the “risk” of exposing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that exposing myself through self-expression – by for example communicating to another how I experience him/her – is in fact NOT a risk where I put my self-worth on line but an opportunity where I don't have to lose myself (as I am always here!) but can in fact only gain and learn new things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to fear by choosing to not express myself to another when I hesitate, when I could instead breathe, return myself HERE and remind myself that the unknown is a window of opportunity leaping through which will always benefit me in the form of new experiences to be learned from.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pass by that moment of truth, the moment of fear and resistance, with excuses and justifications, thus not gifting myself with the opportunity to grow by pushing through the fear.

I commit myself to experiment an give myself opportunities to grow out of my old habits by sharing with each person in my life how I experience them, be it in the form of feedback about their qualities or as a statement of how I feel about them. [Be this my christmas present to all!]

I commit myself to explore ways and chances of expressing gratitude.

I commit myself to support and assist myself within the paralyzing moment of fear and resistance by breathing, grounding and reminding myself that change happens one small movement at a time, one word at a time, one letter at a time, one breath a time – by bringing my focus absolutely on my breath, nothing else, and moving myself relying on my breath and physical existence, as my physical existence will not shudder even though my conceptual realities tremble, crumble, scream and explode.

I commit myself to support and assist others to walk through their process by remaining stable when and as they react instead of taking their reaction personally and counter-reacting, AND in order to do this, I commit myself to further investigate why and how I take things personally.