Day 211: Don't Be So Ridiculous!

The other day I found an open space in my schedule of about 20-30 min and I was wondering what I could do. My body was a bit tired from the activities of the day so I was looking at doing something restful, and then decided I wanted to do some progressive muscle relaxation (where you start with your toes and tighten the muscles of your toes and then let them relax, and so go through all the muscles/limbs of your body until you end with your head). I then imagined myself doing it and became quite uncomfortable, where within me imagining myself doing it, I was 'looking at it' as if I was 'someone else' and then thought that this exercise is/looks ridiculous and suddenly I became embarrassed that I wanted to do it and then I ended up not doing it.

I then remembered how when I was a kid and wanted to do stuff to explore nature/myself as my body -- my mother would eventually notice it / find out about it and make remarks that 'I was being ridiculous' and 'shouldn't bother with these things'. They were regarded as childish phases which my mom was waiting for me to go through/transition so that I could 'get back down to Earth' and leave my fantasies behind and focus more on things like studying, reading or whatever was going to prepare me for the 'Real World', which was basically the 'Money World'. Obviously, there was no time and space to explore nature/our bodies in the world of money and was considered to 'just be a waste of time' and something that'll 'get you nowhere'. So then I would shamefully stop whatever I was doing, and be embarrassed that my mother still had to point out to me 'at this age' that I should occupy myself with other things.

Initially when I explored spirituality and in the end Desteni I always felt uncomfortable about it because it wasn't anything that was 'going to make me money' and 'get me somewhere in this world'. So I wasn't particularly open about it when I was for instance browsing through the website (if my mother would come in I would quickly close the browser) or doing Self-Forgiveness, or just sitting/lying and practicing 4 count Breathing. I felt like I was busy doing something ridiculous and should just quit it already. So now when I am faced with opportunities where I can explore my body or do things like Self Forgiveness out loud -- I feel embarrassed and ridiculous because "c'mon -- who does that??" (lol, here I now also remember all the snide remarks and comments from my friends when I would talk about things like getting in touch with yourself). For instance, at the end of one of our 'baby-talks' with Bernard and the Fetus, he said I should investigate what each vertebrae of my spine stands for, within utilizing breath. I said 'ok' -- but was thinking that I should probably not even bother, because there's no way I can do this. And the reason why I thought it was because I was judging it as 'ridiculous' and 'stupid' and there's no way I am going to waste my time on this 'fantasy stuff' and should do more productive things. So within knowing that I wasn't going to do it I already made up my mind that I wasn't going to be able to do it. And I remember the first time I practiced I was having such a hard time even getting AWARE of my spine and in a way 'finding my spine in my body', that I wanted to give up almost immediately and that 'I don't need to do this stupid shit, see it doesn't work it's just a fantasy, I'm just going to stop now and do more important things that actually matter' (though there I did just continue practicing until I fell asleep)

So even now when I want to do the spine thing or things like progressive muscle relaxation to practice being more here with and as my body -- the 'ridiculous' paranoia comes and shows its face and immediately basically be 'bullies me down' into not doing it or giving up almost immediately. So this is a point I want to look at and investigate, how things that are actually relevant are made to be 'ridiculous' and those things that don't matter have taken on Godly proportions like the money system. (Not that money doesn't matter, but that the values our current money system represents are distorted).

Related articles

• Day 364 - May I speak Please Part 2
• Day 33 - Forgive me Father for I have Sinned!
• Day 210: Blinded by the Light/Shine of Money
• Day 357 - Writing about who I am within Writing Part 2
• Day 209: Correcting instead of Sidestepping
• Day 396: Paranoia: the Home of Human Reason - Part Two
• I am Insecure, What do you think of me - Day 346
• Day 229: Can Equality only be Achieved through Inequality? | Equality and Human Rights - Part 7
• Day 225: Equality and Disinformation - Equality and Human Rights - Part 4
• Day 208: Freedom and Limitation - Two Sides fof the Same Coin

Day 110: Fear as Quick Fix Parenting Technique

 This blog is a continuation to:
Day 109: Stop Crying! Everyone's watching You!

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that crying is weak, shameful and should not be done in public where other people can see you -- because then they will think badly of you

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my parents in whatever they say -- within the sheer blind trust that they know still world better than I do, and so are fit to instruct me in 'the ways of the world' and that I need to know things like 'crying is weak, shameful and not done in public'

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to when my mother said to stop crying 'because everyone's watching you', to have stopped and looked around and saw that at least one of the people on the street met my eyes, and went "shit, maybe she's right"

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to have seen and realised that it happens often tha tif you walk on the street and there are other people that your eyes will meet and that this does not have to mean anything in terms of "people are looking at you crying, better stop because they are thinking badly of you, you should be ashamed"

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a connection within my mind between the act of crying and 'weak', 'shameful' and 'not in public'

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get irritated each time my mother would pull the "Stop crying because everyone's watching you card", because I knew it didn't make sense but it made me feel bad and so I would stop crying / making a scene

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have associated a negativ energy charge to the point of crying, where my mother was able to use this against me to make me stop, as the moment she would point out that I am crying and should stop because everyone's watching me, I would immediately be infused with a sense of shame and weakness, and then follow my mom to our destination in defeat

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have been angry at my mother for using my emotions against me, without seeing and realising that this could only be done through my permission within allowing emotion and feelings to roam free within me with no direction

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a habit of hiding when crying or suppressing my tears, where I believe it is weak to cry in front of other people and that they will believe that I am weak and think bad things about me

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have accepted my mother's argument as valid simply because she used to concept of 'people will think badly of you' and so I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that 'people might think badly of you' is a good reason as to why one should refrain from doing something

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that doing anything where other people may think badly of you is a 'no no'

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to as my mother have used negative and positive reinforcement to get the child to behave the way I want it to behave -- where the child was crying / making a scene / throwing a tantrum and there were people on the street looking at us and what we were doing, where I wanted this to stop as soon as possible because I do not want people to think that I am a bad mother that makes a child cry, and so in fear I took refuge in using negative reinforcement and said "Stop crying! Don't you know everyone's looking at YOU" -- where I knew this would create an instant bad feeling within the child and make it stop doing what it is doing, where I used my own fear as fear of people thinking badly of me and re-directed it to the child to get it to behave how I want -- without for a moment considering how such an action and words may affect the child long term

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a world where neither parent nor child have freaking clue of WHAT IS GOING ON within the world and INSIDE ONESELF -- where the child is just groping around and trying to make sense of the world, trusting the parent -- and where the parent has by now realised that the world does not make sense and kind of sucks but behaves in a way as if it knows how things work to present an illusion of 'authority' while all the while both are equally clueless -- with no support structure in place in the world anywhere, in any way whatsoever about effective parenting

Related articles

• Day 109: Stop Crying! Everyone's watching You!
• Day 107: Showing my True Colours
• Day 205 - Me against myself in Rebirthing myself as Life.
• Day 172 - giving Courage to myself.
• Day 116: The Apple doesn't Fall Far from the Tree
• Day 201 - I need to have a Laugh.

Day 109: Stop Crying! Everyone's watching You!

I have a habit where if I feel like I am about to cry, no matter about what -- that this requires to be done in hiding and not done where other people can see it, and that it is in essence a weakness.

The most clear memory I have around this point, is where my mother would drag me to some place that I didn't want to go to as a toddler (like school), and I would cry, cry and cry because I really did not want to go. As we are walking and she is pulling/dragging me -- I am crying and trying to hold back so that she really has to pull hard to get me to move forward, while I am shifting all my weight back to resist.

As I am just sobbing very exuberantly -- as if that is all that exists in that moment -- my mom suddenly whispers but in a 'shouting' way, where the words are kind of 'held back' behind the teeth but are still very harsh -- and she goes "Stop crying!! Can't you see everyone's watching you!!". Not 'everyone's watching US' no no, everyone's watching YOU.

So then I'd go huh? And kind of 'pause' for a moment as I stand and look around to see if this is indeed the case. There's some people on the street, and sure enough, they are looking at me -- but this might just be because I am looking at them and they are just meeting my eyes.

So now I am really confused, because what, I shouldn't be crying? I am making a fool out of myself because I am crying? But I am crying because you are forcing me to go somewhere I don't want to go -- I mean, I'm pretty sure they are watching you more than they are watching me, you are the one dragging me along!

So here, the idea is created that 'crying is bad', 'crying is shameful', 'crying is weak' and 'crying is not done in public'.

Obviously there are also other dimensions involved within this memory, where I was throwing a tantrum and tried to manipulate my way out of something by crying lots -- but this was not addressed by the parent, instead the focus was placed on the action of 'crying' and that I should stop what I am doing because it's a shameful thing to do. So instead of addressing the situation common sensically, the parent went into fear because of 'what other people might think' about how the parent and child are interacting, and so the parent freaks out and impulsively wants to infuse a 'bad feeling' into the child to just make it STOP. But this then got projected unto the child, where the parent was concerned what people might think and then re-directed/projected this point unto the child, and make the child believe that people are thinking bad about the child because of the way it is acting.

So this is quite a fuckup -- there's no common sense or self-insight present in parenting to this day, where the only tools used are positive reinforcement as providing the child with a 'positive feeling' such as compliments or candy and negative reinforcement by making the child 'feel bad' through for instance punishment and manipulation. This reduces children and the adults they become to what? Robots who's actions are completely predictable and based on negative and positive impulses? Isn't that the whole design of binary codes 1010100111?

We need to seriously re-evaluate our parenting methods, as we are creating little robots with no practical common sense or insight into themselves and into this world, who create dysfunctional ideas about themselves and then try to impose those same ideas unto the world around them -- leaving a world behind of disorder and failure.

To be continued

Related articles

• Day 94: Mourning as Excuse to have Pity-Party
• Day 80: What Have I Done? - Part 2
• Day 163: After Death Communication - Relationships and Love - Part 12
• Day 92: Always Expect the Worst - Part 2
• Day 98: Stress Management
• Day 167 - I need a Hero.

Day 76: Wanting to be Liked

When I was a small kid, we were spending our holiday in Spain and at some point we went to a restaurant to eat. While we were there (or previously in the car) my brother and sister taught me the word ‘fuck’ (but it was in Dutch). Well, they didn’t really *teach me*, they taught me how to pronounce it and that it was some sort of verb and other than that all I knew was that each time I said it, they would giggle and laugh a lot. So I was like cool, when I say this, they laugh so that must mean they like me.

Afterwards in the restaurant, I took salted peanuts out of the little bowls that they had on the bar, and I would go to random people saying “If you fuck me I will give you a peanut” – now remember I had NO idea what I was saying – all I knew was that my brother and sister were having a ball, so I felt encouraged to keep saying the word and go to people, thinking “yay, they like me!”.

Then when we were busy leaving the restaurant, just before we went into the car, my mom asked me what I was doing, and I showed her the peanuts in my hand like I had done previously and again said “if you fuck me I will give you a peanut” – and there my mom went into a complete shock , her face went all red, and she gave me a little tap/slap across the check saying “STOP THAT” – “DON’T SAY THAT AGAIN!!”. So now at this point, obviously, my brother and sister were having SO MUCH fun, laughing at what was going on, I was just saying to my mom “fuck me, fuck me fuck me” -- and would keep doing it just because my brother and sister were having such a laugh – without having any idea what, what I was saying meant or what it implied.


We would also watch the Simpsons at home, which was the original English version, with Dutch subtitles – though I couldn’t read yet back then and didn’t understand any English.

So we’d then be sitting in the lounge and watch the Simpsons, and I remember them sitting in the couch behind me while I was sitting closer to the tv on the wooden floor. Because I couldn’t read and couldn’t understand English yet, I was using my brother and sister as a reference for ‘what is funny’. Each time they would start laughing, I would quickly join in the laughter like “HAHAHAHAHA yea that’s funny” while I actually had no idea what was going on or why they were laughing. This was because I didn’t want to show that I didn’t knew what was going on because I looked up to my brother and sister because they could already read and understand humour. And I also wanted to make myself feel ‘a part’ of something, where I felt that ‘laughing together’ created some form of ‘bond’ or ‘connection’ because it’s something that “just happens” where different people just laugh at the same time.

Since I would always laugh with a little delay (bc I would only start laughing once I could hear them laugh) to what was happening on the tv and kind of do it in an exaggerated way to ‘cover up’ that I don’t know what’ – it must have been pretty clear to them that I was completely clueless. So then they would start playing this game where they would both start laughing at the same time during an episode, while nothing funny was happening and then obviously I would immediately go HAHAHAHAH YEA SO FUNNY!! -- and then I was busted, because I was laughing while there was nothing funny and then they would start laughing at me for having felt for their ‘bait’. There I mostly got angry and disappointed because I felt embarrassed and betrayed – like, “how could they do this to me? That is so mean! “ And then I’d become more hesitant to laugh when they were laughing because now I couldn’t be sure whether they meant it or just wanted to trick.

Then, yeeeaars later, we were staying over at one of our aunts, and we were watching the Simpsons on tv. My little nephew (or is it cousin? Not sure) was sitting close to the tv while I was sitting behind him on the couch, and as the Simpsons started, you know you have that little intro that is different each time and is supposed to be “funny” – I started to laugh REAL HARD while nothing funny was happening, and I saw my nephew/cousin quickly look back to me and then back to the tv and go HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA and do a really exaggerated laugh. I’d then started “really” laughing and then he got what I did and his faced change to being all upset/grumpy. While he was doing to exaggerated laugh, I for a moment felt good, like “gotcha” – where I was now in the position where my brother and sister had been previously, and could experience this what I perceived as ‘superiorness’ – but then as I looked at my nephew/cousin and saw how his face changed, I suddenly felt sooooo ashamed and cheated – because I had just done unto him what had been done unto me, as something I really did not enjoy. And then I couldn’t handle my own uncomfortableness and went to hide by my mom while eating stuff to distract me from my experience.

So what I found interesting about these memories is how clear it is as a child what you are doing, where you know you are doing something deliberately for the sake of the ‘feel good’ experience as ‘validation’, where in this case I was looking at ‘laughter’ as a point of personal validation as if that meant people liked me. Where I was willing to do whatever to make people like me – and then also how within perceiving myself as ‘not being liked’ – go into the nastiness/spitefulness of making another feel the same way.

Some interesting stuff to work with here – Self Forgiveness and Self Corrective Statements to Follow

Related articles

• Day 59: What are you Laughing at?
• Day 17: Betrayal - Anger and Me - Part 2
• Day 67: You can HEAR me?!
• Day 13 - Fear of Failure - Anxiety and Me - Part 3
• Day 57: Sound of Laughter

Day 54: Reading Sounds

This blog is a continuation to:
Day 51: Shocking Sounds
Day 52: Prelude – Don’t take anything for Granted
Day 53: I Am Robot

When I was young there was quite a bit of conflict in our house.

I’d be sitting in my room which was all the way in the attic and be busy doing stuff. Then I’d hear the front door open and hear the ‘loud bang’ of the door being closed. I’d start cringing inside myself because I ‘d know my dad was home. For the rest of the evening I would sit in my room and be on edge and listen carefully to the sounds in the house so I could be ‘prepared’ if any conflict were to arise. If nothing happened for that evening, I’d be edgy but after a while kind of forget about it. Some nights however, there would be loud noises coming from downstairs, where I could discern my parents arguing, but mostly my dad being very loud. My heart would start beating very fast and loud and I’d become all anxious because usually this meant that I / we (the kids) were in trouble. I’d either go and lock myself up in the toilet (because I reasoned that no-one can come and confront you / lash out on you if you’re on the toilet lol) or I would go and lie in bed with the sheets covering me completely, hoping I would fall asleep and just ‘block it out’. Other days I’d quietly open the door of the room and go sit on the stairs to see if I could hear what they were being loud about and ‘assess the damage’ so to speak. What I’d be looking out for most of the time was the movement of the sound through the house. I felt pretty bad when my dad was pissed off at us and taking it out to my mom while they were downstairs in the living room/kitchen/lounge – it was bad, but I could handle it, because at least then my dad was not ‘in my face’. The worst was when I would hear him go into the corridor. Then, things could go into two different directions: A) He was coming for us or B) he was going to the computer room which was one level below our room (me and my sister shared rooms at that point).

My dad is quite heavy and his steps on the stairs are very noticeable. The moment the door would open downstairs I’d get the hell away from the stairs and cower in my room. I would keep my breath in and carefully listen to the sounds on the stairs – doof, doof, doof – and then there was that one deciding moment where he would reach the level below us by the computer room, which was always the moment of suspense: was he gonna go into the pc room and play pc games – or was the sound going to continue indicating he was coming for us? He used also be a very heavy breather so you could also just hear his breath coming closer and closer.

When he’d go into the pc room I’d be soooo relieved – and if I heard the sounds continue/get closer/louder I’d practically pee my pants, wait for him to get to our room – he’d lash out and I’d just be petrified (and peeing my pants) and just wait out his episode. I never said anything and would just sit there and try hold my tears because I did not want to trigger anything which could escalate the situation.

So what’s interesting within this specific memory point is the dominant role ‘sound’ plays – where my entire beingness was tuned in and focussed towards sound only, and would assess the situation according to what sounds were in the house , the direction/movement of the sound and how loud/close it was. There was the door opening and closing, there was the screaming downstairs, there was the sound of the steps on the stairs, there was the breathing, there was the creaking of the pc-room door, there was the crescendo in sound as he’d be moving closer, …

Within that, my reactions and how I would experience myself were completely linked to all the various sounds, and as the sounds changed/progressed my experience would change/progress. So this is quite cool for me to see how I create this relationship with sound as ‘screaming’ – where I now become edgy/anxious whenever I hear the parrots scream – based on memories from probably over 10 years ago and the connections/relationships I formed then and there to particular sounds – which are now, all these years later still controlling and directing me.

Self-Forgiveness and Self-Corrective Statements to Follow

Related articles

• The Sound within the Energy-Body of a Child - Part 2: DAY 105
• Day 51: Shocking Sounds
• The Science of Thought - Introduction: DAY 149
• Mind-Energy Filters in Children - Part 1: DAY 106