Showing posts with label self-diminishment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-diminishment. Show all posts

25 October 2019

Day 179: Becoming visible again

I recently watched a movie that resonated with me on a very deep level. The title of the movie was Above the shadows and was released in 2019 (spoiler alert). The main character was a girl who had two siblings and after her mother died, she slowly became invisible. Firstly for her father, sister, and brother and then also for the rest of the people in this world. After several years of living alone, she met a fighter who was able to see her. And that was the start of her process of becoming visible again. The most surprising was her final realization that it was not others who decided to ignore her. It was she who started to push people out of her life due to her own attachment to her mother and related self-definition.




I can very relate to this invisible girls since I also for most of my life felt like not fitting in and wanted to be invisible and left alone. And I equally blamed the world for not accepting me however I am with time becoming more and more aware of how my own responses to events in my life contributed to me feeling this way. What I also wonder is to what level my early childhood experiences played a role in shaping my personality. And to what extent it was I as the core being with all my existential history and experiences in my previous life that made certain decisions for which I am directly responsible for.

We also had an online chat recently with our Desteni self-support group about at what age we are to take full responsibility for our actions. Because when we are born into this world our survival is completely dependant on our parents and caretakers and slowly with each year our physical body grows, we constantly learn and become more conscious. Until we become of age (which is 18 years in Slovenia), our parents take legal responsibility for the consequences of our actions. However from that year afterward we are the ones who are full responsibility for our actions, at least legally.

However, in reality, that transition is very graduate and legal consequences are far from being the only ones when we make a decision. Yet for most of the time, we are not taught about the consequences considering all life. What parents do is basically just instilling fear into us to not engage in activities where they would be legally punished for our doings, at least until we become of age. We are usually not taught to consider all beings as equals and to take long-term outflow of our decisions into consideration. We are encouraged only to fit into the global system created by humans, to obey laws, earn money and pay taxes.

And after we become of age the influence of our parents does not immediately stop. Even if we move away, they can call us, send us letters, visit us, tell others to influence us and so on. And especially parents persist living within us for many years in the form of all the extensive programming that they inserted into us since we came to this world. For example, since my father sees me as an extension of himself, I must be careful not to do something that will result in him being ashamed of me. His criticism towards me is being manifested as self-criticism and my criticism towards others. Such ties are very strong and it takes years of consistent effort to cut them off.

Like the main character in the movie, I was also very much attached to my mother. She was the one who listened, comfort and understood me. My father was the one who managed our family business, however, when I suffered from work exhaustion he was not able to understand me and I felt like invisible to him. He did provide for me in terms of material things however emotionally he was very distant. So I started to drift away from this world by escaping into the alternate virtual realities.

It started with watching television more. The next step was discovering porn and masturbation. Then when the father purchased the Commodore 64 computer it was the games that I indulged in. When I was in middle school, I was drawn to DOS desktop computers to extend of staying in the class hours after the curriculum ended. And when I started to use Windows computer as the main production tool for pre-press and sign making, I was pulled into the world of virtual reality to the utmost extent. So much that the physical reality started to feel just like a dream. At that time things got so serious that I asked for professional psychologic help.

When I started my own business and moved to my own apartment, I was able to start putting my life back in order. Physical separation from my parents enabled me to organize my life in a more relaxed way and to focus on personal growth. Until then I felt like I was living in a box and terribly lacked social skills. I had almost no other relationship besides between me and my father. He was like a god who conditioned me that as long I will listen to him and obey his instructions, I will get whatever I desire. However, that god was not using me for the benefit of all life but mostly for his self-gratification and appraisal. So it was also not in his interest to teach me how to become independent and how to survive in the world system. All his trick that he used to get the money, he secretively kept only for himself and was careful not to share them with me. Thus I had to learn it all by myself with trial and error and from other sources.

In the movie, the main character has also made the best use of her invisibility to become a photographer who documented cheating and similar events that individuals wanted to hide. She sold those photos to a newspaper and this is how she was able to earn the money. And I also transitioned my initial creative business from graphic and web design to photography. I found myself in the position of wanting to take good photos by being at the optimum position in the key moment and not to disturb anyone. So in a way, I also desired to be invisible and for others not even to know that I took their pictures. I just wanted to observe and document the reality. However, in many cases, others did not like to be photographed for different reasons.

At that time I also did not like others to take photos or videos of me. I did not want to even consider that someone is observing me. The main reason for that is that I have been bullied in middle school and no one ever gave me any compliment about the way I look. While I lived with my parents the only thing that was important was how good I was able to impress my father with executing practical tasks and how proud I would make him when he would show the results of my work to others. My outer appearance was never important, not even how I dressed. Fashion was the last thing that I could think about and it would make no difference if I would be completely invisible.

My father also did not care if I had a girlfriend or not and I do not remember him ever encouraging me to create a family of my own. He basically wanted me just for himself and anyone that I would be in relationship with would be his competitor for my attention. So while I desired to be in a relationship at least to experience sex, seeing myself in the role of a parent with own children was something that I am having a hard time to imagine. A man is expected to take initiative, to be the main provider for the family, to be bold and to have a firm stance. However, I have been conditioned not to have an opinion of my own but to only be in a state of constant readiness and to immediately execute orders of other people as soon as I receive them.

In the past years, I have been in several relationships with girls however none of them was a good match for me. I tried to direct relationships the best way I could, however, I struggled with handling their personalities and felt to be limited and diminished by them. So far I did not make much of an effort to seek and carefully select a suitable partner for myself. I met all past girlfriends by random events and for the most part, I have just let others direct the development of the relationships. I was happy with what I got and was not very ambitious or picky. I endured all unpleasant things until they became too much and then I ended the relationship. After every breakup, I felt so disappointed that for the next 5 years I completely lost any desire to be in a relationship.

Now, at the age of 46, while being single for 6 years already, I am again asking myself if I should get into a new relationship or remain single. I am also at the turning point where I have restarted to offer my own services. This is because in the last years I have worked on projects that looked promising, were in the best interest of all life, however, money-wise they have all let me down. I feel like now is just not a good time to engage in any relationship since I want to take my business and financial issues back in order. I want to fully focus only on developing my own business and do not want any distractions. I imagine that when my income would be stable and high enough, that would give me sufficient confidence. Because as extensively described in The Soul of Money series, money is the main and most deep driving force that influences every of our subconscious decision.

And even if I manage to get my business running, I wonder if I would be able to feel comfortable in an intimate relationship with someone else. Currently, I prefer to keep my life simple and as uncomplicated as possible, also in terms of the number of physical things that I possess and maintain. I want to operate within my capacity and to keep high situational awareness so that I can also take full responsibility for my decisions. My plan is to increase the quality of my services, to deepen my professionalism and to assist others in the best way possible. This is my correctional life mission in order to break free form the self-centered personality, inherited from my father and to remediate the karmic consequences of my ancestry.

So I am committed to ground myself as much as possible and to transform all my energetic addictions, also with the assistance of awesome Desteni I Process courses. While I have so far enjoyed watching one feature film per evening on top of watching several short movies and videos the same day, I reduced this to watching only one feature film per week. I stopped again watching porn during masturbation end even not using any imagination in order to practice it only as of the physical self-expression. And I even massively reduced the frequency of masturbation to not more than once per week. The recent business decision to not offer also graphic design and photography services anymore and to focus only on counseling services will also enable me to reduce the time using the computer virtual reality even more.

And in terms of movies in general, yes it is possible to learn from the stories within the films. However many are fiction and those events never happened. In the movies everything is possible, like in the imagination of our minds that is disconnected from the laws of physical word. I learned that in high-class societies they do not mess kids with reading fairytales to them. They read stories that actually happen with people who really existed. I have had doubts that if I work as a professional counselor, I will not be able to bear listening to all the problems of the people. But then I compared how much stress and drama I experience from watching war action or horror movie and concluded that I will probably be able to handle it. So what I will be doing is just swapping the fake virtual drama with real-life drama that will also enable me to see what people in this world are actually experiencing and to develop compassion more.

Basically, I am taking more charge and directive principle in my life to free myself from any kind of energetic distractions so that I can integrate into my physical body more and to be able to communicate with others confidently. And to transform myself even more, to be a better teacher by my own example about how to live and apply the principle of oneness and equality in all areas of life. I am decided to step out of the shadow of my father and to become fully visible again to everyone and everything. To exist with the full awareness that we all are part of this life and that it is impossible to hide and run away from it. Thus best for me and for others to fully embrace this fact so that we can start living together in harmony and abundance as soon as possible.

27 July 2019

Day 173: Overwhelmed by the new profession

In the last several years, I have been involved in projects that looked very promising from the perspective of positive global impact and also financially. However, all of them were not able to fulfill the promises money wise. Recently I decided that it is about time to make a radical change since the lack of money is also influencing my desire to be in a relationship and to have a family. Because how would I be able to take care of my children if I can hardly earn enough for myself. While contemplating many ways to generate a bigger income flow for me I considered that best for me would be to restart offering my own services like I did from the year 2000 to 2013. Firstly I planned to offer quite a broad list of services like graphic design, website development, photography, video editing, and psychological counseling. That was expected to bring me enough jobs to earn money very fast.




However very soon I realized that it would be harder to market such a vast array of services. And also the knowledge, equipment, and space needed to execute them in a professional manner would be more extensive. In that time I also came to understand that what my mayor pattern was in the previous career was a relatively fast change of my professional focus. I made radical cuts, changed my way and burned the bridges. By this approach, I was losing previous clients and have started building a business from scratch many times. That consumed a lot of my money and time because it takes several years before people get educated about the new services and become regular clients. So while I have been consistently waking the path of self-perfection, business-wise the professional path looked very chaotic for the outside observer. I have disregarded the stability of my business and allowed myself to be directed by new discoveries in many different fields of science. Basically, I have been spreading myself thin.

During my process of self-transformation, I discovered that the underlying pattern for such decisions in my life that I inherited from my father was the need for attention and making myself more than others. The accompanied habit was also the accumulation of things in order to impress others by showing the sheer quantity of stuff. While my father was a hoarder of ancient books and old printing equipment, I became a hoarder of knowledge and information. While he enjoyed guiding the visitors through his home paper and printing museum, I felt good by sharing the most secret and advanced knowledge about how this existence works. While there is some educational purpose of such behavior, the problem is in the hidden motivation behind such activities. Since it was all driven by fear of abandonment and not being accepted by others, it did not allow going into depth of a certain field, to root properly and to stand as an expert for the benefit of the whole society. It all resulted in becoming a jack of all trades and master of none.

I see that there is a fear of missing out associated with any specialization. There are some real dangers of the focused approach like we are able to see in our western civilization. High education created a compartmentalized mind that lost the understanding of how everything in existence is connected and interdependent. Our society definitely needs a more holistic approach to understanding life and to expand the awareness of reality. Informational technology has also influenced us by enabling to share knowledge and new discoveries faster than ever. An individual has now much more difficult time to decide what information to absorb and what to ignore. However, in order to root yourself significantly, one must pick the as narrow field of professional focus in order to be able to succeed business-wise. This is also why I have now decided to go into the depth of things. And I have additional motivation for this by my physical body. It very nicely reflects all of our mental states and it also showed me the lack of my grounding by my too cold and sweaty feet. The condition already improved in the last years as the result of my inner change however there is still a lot of room for additional enhancement.

Keywords: Slowing Down, Diving Deep, Narrowing Focus, Being Persistent

Based on this I quickly decided to reduce the number of professional services that I will be offering only to photography. Reasons for this were that it enables me a more physically dynamic work in comparison to graphic and web design that mostly require a lot of sitting behind the computer. I wanted to provide my physical body much more movement for better overall health. Thus I purchased a mid-range DSLR camera with two zoom lenses, a Speedlight, a tripod and bag with some other basic accessories. I have been working as a professional photographer for many years however in the last 10 years I only took pictures with my mobile phone for my personal albums. Now I have to refresh my knowledge of photography, learn how to master the new hardware and software tools. I noticed that now there is a lot of free educational materials available than it was when I completed my distance study at the New York Institute of Photography. I am surprised at how many professional photographers share extensive behind-the-scenes video lessons and many secrets of the trade. And by watching them I also learned how wide even the sole field of photography is.

Years ago I did some swimming sports photography, shot food and products, and I also captured over 40 weddings. At that time I had the best camera, sharpest lenses and the most powerful flashes. Wedding photography can be very lucrative however it is also very physically and mentally exhausting. It is a special event with high importance and one has to make sure that nothing goes wrong. This is why a lot of backup equipment is recommended and in many cases, there are at least 2 photographers that work as a team to cover all the angles. Then there a lot of additional retouching and processing with many options what final look of photos to creates. Currently, I am not yet very comfortable to shoot such events and have decided to invest more time in enhancing my skills and tools. The next business opportunity that I noticed was in the field of real estate photography. Because while I was browsing the flat renting ads many had not even one photo. So I started to study also how to shoot architecture and learned how professionals do it and what equipment they use.

While I have been testing my new photography equipment it felt heavy, bulky and it produced a lot of strain on my eyes. While reading the camera user manual I noticed how many functions it has. While using the photo software I became aware of all the tools and options. And while watching the online courses I saw how many different approaches are to do the same job. I started to wonder to what field of photography I am to specialize and how good should my skills and equipment be in order to start offering my professional photo services. These experiences must have accumulated to the level where I started to feel pain on my shoulders and in my lower back. Consciously I felt quite present and able to direct myself step by step to develop my photography business however I guess there have been also a lot of unconscious activities that started to crystallize in my tissue. Thus I will be now writing also some self-forgiveness to release these accumulated energies:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear that it will be harder for me to restart my photography business since a lot of photography schools have emerged in our country in the past decade and also there are a lot of online photography courses available now. I realize that this is part of evolution where the abundance of everything is being created, including education which is good news that will result in society slowly being transformed at a very deep level. I commit myself to develop my business slowly and align myself based on new discoveries and opportunities. 
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel threatened by the new generation of young photographers which many are coming from our local university of media communications. I realize that only around 10% of photography graduates end working in the field of their study and that I can benefit from collaborating with young talent and create synergy at working on photography projects. I commit myself to network with other photographers and discover where we can support each other technically and by exchanging knowledge and insights. 
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think about giving up photography after viewing online tutorials of other photographers which portray photography as something easy and when me trying to repeat their work in the physical and finding it much harder to execute as imagined. I realize that the physical experience of someone doing a task is very different than just observing others how they do tasks and that due to the amalgamation of mind the experience of own physical body is being changed significantly. I commit myself to be gentle to my body, to have patience and to slowly practice the execution of photographic tasks.

Suggested related online resources for additional support:
Free online course DIP Lite
Comparing Images and Imagination
Building Your Business
When Desires Becomes Overwhelming
The Secrets of Competition