Day 202: Personalizing Bad Grades

This blog is a continuation to:
Day 199: Exam Nightmares
Day 200: I Don't Do Bad Grades 
Day 201: Classmates or Competitors?

 I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to access fear of failure whenever I am studying within accessing the 'race'/'competition'-point, where I fear for myself and my future just thinking of the possibility of bad grades

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have connected 'the end of my future' / 'the end of the world' to 'bad grades' within an emotional attachment of fear

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created and attached an emotional attachment/layer to 'bad grades' as in 'grades just above passing' or 'failing grades' -- wherein I react to it in fear and despair instead of practically analyzing what feedback these grades give me and how I can change/adapt things to 'improve' them

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have connected 'failure' to 'bad grades' where I believe that only 'failures' do 'bad grades' and that 'bad grades' is a bad omen for 'future failures' / ensures 'future failure'

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take bad grades personal, where instead of practically looking at how I got to have bad grades, I am worried about my image and reputation, whereby now I don't only fear 'the end of the world' as my 'future being in jeopardy' but also the 'end of my image' and 'end of my reputation' -- where I believe I have to keep my bad grades hidden/ a secret so that no-one can find out that I don't match the image/reputation I try to uphold

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that this has got nothing to do about 'others' but only myself -- where I am the one investing energy and placing value in the idea of 'not having bad grades' -- where I may just as well not invest energy and value into the idea resulting in me not having issues with bad grades, and simply working through the necessary steps/procedures to correct this point -- within this I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that it is my emotional attachment / view of grades that is keeping me /hindering me from practically working through the correction of improving myself, as I am being blindsided by emotional outbursts, preventing me from seeing to the point

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be so invested in a miniscule point like grades, where my whole being will shake if I see the sight of bad grades -- but where if I later that day see the news with people being bombed I will feel nothing in comparison -- indicating to me how our value systems have become completely warped and have lost all perspective about what really matters

Related articles

• Day 201: Classmates or Competitors?
• Day 200: I Don't Do Bad Grades
• Day 344 - Kids at work.
• Day 321 - Falling behind on daily Blogging, getting up, moving forward
• Day 338 Self Interest is Ignorant to consideration. Part 3
• Father to be - Day 332 Part 6
• Facing The Sins of the Father to Be - Define Father Part 3 Day 328
• Father to be - Preparing the way Day 330 Part 4
• Day 345 - Prioritizing my Time.
• Father to be - a new way Day 331 Part 5

Day 201: Classmates or Competitors?

This blog is a continuation to:
Day 199: Exam Nightmares
Day 200: I Don't Do Bad Grades 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created the belief that I 'must have good grades'

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created the belief that I 'must have good grades' within observing my siblings having good grades and this being praised by my parents

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created the belief that 'passing' is not good enough and that one should always aim for a '100%'

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have created a fear of bad grades within having been pushed/motivated to 'always have good grades', as others indicated that 'having good grades' will give you the widest variety of options for your future and thus if I have bad grades I am putting in danger my future as I won't necessarily be able to study / follow what I want if/when bad grades limit me

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that my desire for good grades is rooted/embedded within the fear of having bad grades as fearing for my future / having limited career options

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have promised to myself that I will never allow myself to have bad grades because if I do I might end up in a miserable position in the system

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to have questioned my parents or the education system, where it became clear that even though school was a place where I could be with my friends and play during break times -- I was at the same time in a race/competition with the other children in the class, a race/competition for future status in society/the system -- where some will study hard to make sure that they will be able to further their education while others don't or simply can't with the means available and where each child does not look out or look back at one's friends or care about their situation because we all know 'someone has to do the sucky jobs one day' but 'at least it won't be me because I have good grades'

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have gone into a form of tunnel vision, where all I could see was a straight vision to my future / future position in society/the system -- where all I cared about was 'getting good grades' as this was what I understood to be my 'ticket' to a nice life in the system -- where there was no time or space to consider others who may not be doing as well as I was and thus would possibly end up in less favourable positions in society/system -- but where instead of helping/assisting them I only went further into fear as I 'cannot waste any time on them' and must 'take advantage' of their shortcomings as this puts me 'further ahead' in the race

Related articles

• Day 156: Competitive thoughts - part 2
• Conquering The Contest Of Survival - Day 388
• I Really Want You To Fail - Day 386
• The Things We Do To Feel Good About Ourselves - Day 387
• Day 338 Self Interest is Ignorant to consideration. Part 3
• Day 191: Reacting to Futility, and to WTF I've Done.

Day 200: I Don’t Do Bad Grades

I was looking at this exam point some more and two memories popped up in relation to having an emotional attachment/connection to this point.

The first one is when I received a test back for geography, and I either almost failed or failed the test – and was absolutely flabbergasted by this. I just couldn’t believe it – I couldn’t believe that this piece of paper with such a bad grade had my name on it – there MUST have been a mistake. I, Leila, DO NOT GET THESE GRADES! Lol. All around me people had the same grade or lower and they were pretty ‘cool’ about it, meaning, they just saw the grade, had a little sigh but then they were over it. I was trying to play it cool but on the inside my head I was going insane – I had never been faced with the such a low grade and I didn’t have any reference on how to cope with this, so I was just like a bouncing ball bouncing in all directions inside my head with emotions and feelings bouncing along with it, trying to find out ‘how to feel about this’ and what to ‘make of it’. My whole day after that was completely fucked, I felt completely worthless and useless and was completely depressed by the time I got home that day.

Then I have another memory, where I am about to go home, school’s almost over and I have my paper with me with all my grades which were all just *perfect*. I was really chuffed with myself and when I got my mom had tears in her eyes. These were my last grades as I graduated from high school and it was like the epitome of my ‘academic achievement’ all throughout school – from primary all the way till the end of high school. My grades had always been great, and I had managed to end it off with ‘perfect’ grades.

And then I remembered that one bad test and how I had experienced myself. And I remember my friends who had to deal with bad grades all the time and how they did seem to be ‘overthrown’ by it the way I had been, and how jealous I had been that they could just not put so much of themselves into ‘a grade’.

And I could see how stupid it was to get so emotional over a bad grade, and I could see how stupid it was to be ‘so happy’ about a good grade – but it was like I just couldn’t ‘help myself’ – it was so automatic, so ingrained, so deep.

I remember get my first grades while studying here in South Africa, and I got my list and it was so awkward and weird – because usually, I would immediately go and take the piece of paper to my mom, that’s who the paper is for. But my mom’s not around here, she’s not involved in my studies. And so I was sitting there with the paper, looking at it, and it was just so ‘freeing’ that I could hold it without having to move and having to ‘show it’ to anyone. The paper with the grades was here for me, and me alone. I could share it with other people but I didn’t have to – because that was no longer what it was about. It was just a piece of paper giving me feedback on how I’d done on my subjects, so I could look at it, take in the information , fold the piece of paper and put it away – and that was that. It was so freaking awesome lol

Related articles

• Day 199: Exam Nightmares
• Does the Education system Prepare the Children to Face the World - Day 337
• Day 342: The Psychology of the Grading System
• Stepping Beyond The Fear Of Failure - Day 376
• How Fear Controls an Overachiever - Day 373
• 364.Education is a Human Right |Equal Money

Day 199: Exam Nightmares

The beginning of this week as I started studying ‘for real’ for my exams, I had two exam nightmares in a row. In the first one I had started doing the exam and was pretty much writing down and selecting whatever as I hadn’t really studied to have a ‘good grade’ but just to pass. After a while of doing the exam I got distracted and started doing other stuff (for some reason I was doing the exam in Belgium in my parents’ house where I used to live, so I could leave the room and do other things). Then I suddenly realise that my two-hour time limit is about to run out and I run back to the exam papers to finish them, and then I realise that I wasn’t supposed to write the answers on the exam papers themselves, but on separate sheets. So I’m going ‘Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Shit, Shit, Shit’ and I quickly start copying over what I wrote. Because time is running out like really fast, I am writing at superspeed and notice that my handwriting is barely illegible. More ‘Shit, Fuck, Shit, Fuck’. As I am copying and thus re-reading my answers, I suddenly realise how many of my answers aren’t straight but just ‘circling around the question’ where I say things without really saying anything. So now I’m really freaking out because I am both running out of time and it’s becoming evident that even if I had time to write everything down – I’d probably still fail.

Then I see that there are old notebooks lying around from my brother on the same subject ( a subject I haven’t even heard about in my ‘wake life’ and so don’t even have this subject this semester), and I peak at what is in the notes and see that he has given completely different answers to some of the questions and I go ‘Oh oh’ because it’s clear that I won’t be able to pull off ‘pretending I know the material’ because I can see the answers are quite specific and its obvious looking at what I wrote that I don’t have a clue what I am talking about.

At some point time runs out and I wake up. I’m covered in sweat and freaked out.

The second dream/nightmare was very vague and wasn’t me doing an actual exam but was only about the exam schedule and preparing for the exam and gathering notes – but the main stressor was the schedule, just looking at the days and the times made me nervous. This one also played out in Belgium.

So what I found quite interesting in both these dreams is that the play-out takes place in Belgium – and not in South Africa where I am currently having exams. This reminded me that most of my exam stress and worries took place where I grew up. I can see there is a difference studying for exams, here, now, compared to how I used to study exams in Belgium. But even though there’s a difference in situation, simply because there are some symbols and variables the same –all those memories from the past get reloaded right back and come interfere with what I am doing now. It’s like the mind is going “oh oh, ‘exams’ and ‘schedule’ --- I know this one!!!” and then proudly goes and digs into the archives of the past and digs up old records containing thoughts, feelings and emotions and starts playing the record to make everything feel like ‘the good old times’.

So within the next couple of posts I want to investigate my relationship towards studying, exams and grades to remove the garbage from the past so I can study in peace lol.

Related articles

• Does the Education system Prepare the Children to Face the World - Day 337
• Day 338: Later, Later
• How Fear Controls an Overachiever - Day 373
• Day 318 - Reactive Character, Road to success Part 4
• How To Stop Feeling Like Crap - Day 375
• Why Do We Fear Giving Up The Fear? - Day 370

Day 48: Studying and Fear - Part 2

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to when one of my friends/classmates regurgitated our textbook information of the exam we were about to do - have gone into fear when I realised that I cannot do this - I can't reproduce all the information perfectly/by heart - and within that lost all trust within myself within doing the exam - because I believed that I need to be able to repeat the textbook information perfectly

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to when one of my friends/classmates regurgitated our textbook information of the exam we were about to do - have observed the behaviour / reactions of my other classmates, where they were all panicking because they couldn't repeat the textbook information the same way she did - and where I looked at myself not panicking and then thinking I should panic because everyone else is panicking, I should also panic because just like them I don't know all this information by heart

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take on the fear of others within believing that if everyone responds to fear within a certain situation - that this situation requires to be responded to with fear - where it is 'normal' to go into fear - instead of assessing the information within common sense practicality for myself

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that fear is real and that since everyone participates in fear, that it is something which is 'good' for us to participate in - without ever questioning the nature of fear as self-limitation where fear can never be good for oneself because even if one is in a danger situation, within accessing fear one's only placing more strain on oneself which leaves one less aware of the environment and more susceptible to the danger

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if you are able to repeat information perfectly without looking at the information on paper - that this means that you 'know' the material and that you'll be able to pass the exam

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that if you are able to repeat information perfectly without looking at the information on paper - that this means that you are able to sequence words/information just like they are on the paper without looking - but this does not imply any form of understanding - where one could for instance have learnt all the information of a textbook by heart but then fail the exam because one is not able to place the information with the corresponding questions - because the actual nature/essence of the material has not been understood as what the text is about, where one only focused on the 'picture presentation' of the material as the sequence of words without having any form of comprehension

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to trust myself unconditionally within that moment of seeing everyone panic in the face of the girl being able to repeat everything perfectly - where I knew that my study method worked because I had done it over and over again and always worked out - where I trusted myself in being able to answer the exam questions based on my understanding of the material / underlying dynamics/mechanics of what we had learnt and thus from within that point of comprehension be able to produce a perfectly adequate answer to any question pertaining the material

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to within that moment of seeing the girl being perfectly able to repeat the information and seeing everyone else panic - have lost complete trust in myself and my studying ability because I hadn't considered learning everything by heart because it just seemed like too much of a fuss - but now that I saw her doing it I felt like I had made the wrong decision and that my 'laziness' had gotten the best of me or something - within the belief that if you don't suffer during studying (which I felt 'learning by heart' was) - that something's wrong and that you're not doing it right / cheating the studying process and within that I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to see and realise that studying does not have to equal suffering

When and as I see myself reacting within fear to someone being able to regurgitate information from a textbook perfectly -- I stop and I breathe -- I see and realise that I am entering a point of distrust within myself as self-doubt, even though my experience has shown that I can study and pass exams without memorizing information verbatim. Within that I commit myself to stop my fear and re-establish my self-trust

When and as I see myself observing others' behaviour in relation to an event -- and feeling compelled to adopt the same behaviour within the belief that 'if everyone's doing it, it must be the right/suitable thing to do within this particular situaiton' -- I stop and I Breathe -- I see and realise that the observation that 'if everyone is doing it, it must be right' - is not valid, as I have seen for myself that the world works in reverse -- and thus I commit myself to within moments where I want to 'follow the crowd' stop, check what is going on -- what behaviour I am trying to follow and flag it to work on within Self Forgiveness and Self Corrective Statements

When and as I see myself reacting within fear to a situation when I see everyone else also doing it -- I stop and I breathe -- I see and realise that fear does not assist and support me so I stop myself and trust myself to not participate within fear, even when everyone else is doing this. I commit myself to look at the event and the fear it triggered and release myself from the connection/relationship of the event and the fear connected to it

I commit myself to show that fear is not normal nor 'supportive' in anyway whatsoever and is in fact a behavioural disorder we've all accepted and allowed within ourselves -- and just because everyone is doing it does not mean it's "okay"

When and as I see myself access the belief that 'if one is able to memorize information and spill it out perfectly one knows the material' in relation to studying -- I stop and I breathe -- I see and realise that it is just that = a belief -- and does not have any practical relation to reality. I commit myself to show that our current educational system does not care about the effective integration of information within teaching as it teaches children to memorize information and are satisfied if they can regurgitate this without testing for actual understanding -- where all our current educational system cares about is performance goals, and where thus accordingly children will only care about 'goals' as 'grades' where they will do what it takes to get high grades without where students will memorise information and then spill it out during exams/tests and right after forget all about it -- revealing how ineffective our education system as become

I commit myself to trust myself within studying and to take the time to take in the information within understanding

When and as I see myself access the belief that 'if you're not suffering while studying, you're doing it wrong' -- I stop and I breathe -- I see and realise that this is just an idea/belief I created and imposed on myself. And within that I commit myself to show that one does not have to 'suffer' while suffering and that it is possible to simply integrate the information within self-trust and access it when needed

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