Day 175: Taking the first steps in a restarted photography business

Recently I decided to restart my own professional services. After contemplation of what I am able to offer to others, I narrowed down the options to photography services. I purchased basic photo equipment and started to experiment with creating animal and human portraits. For that, I used cats of my neighbors and the neighbors and their friends themselves as the models. The location was the back yard of our apartment building where I hoped that would be also able to shoot other commercial sessions since there is enough space there. Yesterday I asked the landlord if he will allow me to do photoshoots there and he granted me permission. But then one of the neighbors complained that such activity would be too much of disturbance for her. I hoped that this place will enable me to at least make some business before an additional room will become available in the building that I could equip for a photo studio. Now I will due to additional constriction have to change my plans.

I feel disappointed because I hoped that by being allowed to shoot in the backyard I will be able to start offering professional photo services knowing that I have a proper location at a hand. Especially because I planned to start earning money with portraits for which I need a more intimate location. I also planned to offer wedding photography but usually, this kind of jobs are being negotiated at least one year in advance. If I am to rent an additional room for my photo studio I need to somehow get an additional several hundred euros by the end of this month or maybe even sooner since the payments are being collected by our landlord around 22nd day of each month for one month in advance. And what also prevents me from fully engaging in the photography business is a delay at a district court due to holidays where I filed the papers to change the name and services of my private institute as the legal entity that I plan to use to charge my clients. Usually, the applications are being resolved within one week however now I have been waiting for their response for over one month and they say that only in 4 days they will restart with sending the written responses to all applicants.

Despite all these downsides, I am at this time able to sell my services and issue invoices however I would need to do jobs at different locations and to use my current educational institute to be the legal entity which is not ideal. The question here is only how to get first jobs as soon as possible in order to generate income so that I could invest it in renting the studio and then to also purchase additional photo equipment. My plan was to visit other local businesses where a lot of people mingle and to place stands with my business cards so that people would be informed about my wedding and portrait photography. And to also visit other companies in surrounding to potentially get product and business portraiture jobs. I could also shoot events and stock photos however I am not sure how fast I could generate income from these services. There is also potential to get hired from online searches however I would need to invest a lot more time in the redesign of my website and search engine optimization. The other thing that prevented me from visiting local businesses already is the current high summer temperature that reached up to 40ºC in past weeks. However, since it is expected to drop to around 25ºC in a couple of days, that will enable me to distribute the stands with my business cards a lot easier very soon.

Then I need need to decide how to price my services. Years ago when I first started with photography I have been charging quite a lot however I lived in a different area, before the period of the financial crisis and I had much better equipment. I have been for the past 6 years living in the second largest city in our country that is considered to be much poorer than our capital city where I also lived before for some time. So I will have to research what the local prices are in order to be competitive and to also see how photography business has changed in the last decade of me not doing any professional photoshoots. What I am also not sure is if it would be best for me to stay in the current city or to move somewhere else. The reason why I moved here was due to predictions that I would be much more successful with the selling of educational software that I have been a national distributor of for several years. Since I then quit the software business there is nothing much that is holding me in my current city. Also, two of my best friends have moved out of the city to a farm and I have also been thinking of joining them there soon. On the other hand, a large city could offer more photo business opportunities and I have also quite settled down here and established a lot of new friendship connections.

There are many options to earn a lot of money by doing professional photography and many are not connected to my current location at all. For example, I could do much more profitable photoshoots for the nearby Austria residents where the economic situation is much better than in our country and I live very close to the border. However, I would need to become more skilled in speaking and writing in the German language. Then there are other international jobs available like becoming a destination wedding photographer but I do not see me just ready for such kind of demanding jobs yet. And of course, as I mentioned I could do many kinds of stock photography in order to generate a residual income. So what I find the most challenging at this moment is in which direction to turn, what kind of services, to whom and in what way to offer in order to start earning money. And even if I should besides photography also be offering graphic design services as I already did before when first established my own business and to even possibly add video services for which I also have sufficient technical equipment to produce some commercial videos.

And within all this, I also wonder if I should specialize in a specific field of photography and to develop my own style and genre of photos. One reason for this is for me to be able to stand out from the crowd of other photographers and the other reason is to have a mission that would be adding more value to my work. Because for the past 15 years I have strived to make an impact in this world by participating at many different international NGO projects. So I am thinking about how to use the photography to in a way also contribute to making this world the best place for all. Many photographers are focused on beauty and artistic aspects of the photos which definitely have their own market however I am not very excited about only creating something that is attractive to the human eye just from the perspective of esthetics. What I am not also very fun of is the discomfort of my physical body that I am feeling during the process of photography especially when using the computer. Doing photoshoots is much more dynamic however sitting long hours to process and manipulate the photos can be much more painful. Thus ideally I am looking at how to earn enough money by expressing myself creatively, to have as much positive impact on this world as possible and also to feel physically enough comfortable while doing it. Now I will be correcting my subconscious believes in order to become more stable and grounded:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel resentment towards my neighbor due to believing that she made the execution of my photography services and earning money harder than necessary by not allowing me to shoot at the back yard of our apartment building. I realize that due to her past traumatic experiences she has become very sensitive to disturbances in her surrounding and that she needs to have a quiet end stress-free home environment. Thus I commit myself to understand the current state of her mind and to execute my business projects so that I will not create too big disturbances for her. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to treat our communal back yard as a place that is mostly unused and that each of us who share it can do anything that we desire there at any time. I realize that doing photoshoots with my clients there is an activity that would intrude into the lives of my neighbors too much and would disturb their inner peace. So I commit myself to when and as I plan any activity that is out of the ordinary in the space that also effects my neighbors to not only ask the landlord for permission but to also ask my neighbors if that would be something they are able and willing to tolerate.  

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel pressure in regards to my restarted photography business by believing that I need to rent an additional room in order to be able to execute specific studio photo jobs as the quickest and most reliable source of income. I realize that in any situation that I find myself in there are always many different solutions available to deal with any challenge and that I never need to feel any internal unrest about anything. Thus I commit myself to when and as I see that situation has become different than how I imagined initially, to breathe, slow myself down and see what other solutions are available as the best alternatives for me to be able to move forward.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare myself with the younger generation of photographers and to be threatened by them. I realize that I have been defining myself as a youthful person that looks in the eyes of others at least 10 years younger. That shows that I have not fully embraced the fact that I am getting older and will be very old and also look different someday. Thus I commit myself to when and as someone asks me about my age to not reply with me asking them to guess my age based on my outer appearance and then to be proud about them giving me about 10 years less than how I actually look. And also to treat other people, especially young ones as equal with the understanding that we all transition through different age periods however we can at any time find a place for anyone in this existence for all of us to collaborate and express ourselves equally.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel left out due to a past decade not working as a professional photographer. I realize that I have changed my business path many times in the past and that also in the future I might decide to do something very different if I find enough motivation for that. Thus I commit myself not to treat starting something new at any age as a defeat and having the same business for a long time s a victory but to rather treat all situations equally. What matters the most is how each of us within what we do is expanding our awareness and improving relationship towards self and others in order to practically live the principle of oneness and equality.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see myself as an outcast due to living for the past 6 years in an area of our country with a different dialect and economic situation. I realize that nationalism and local patriotism are tendencies throughout every country on this planet besides many other acts of separation like race, gender, and religious conflicts. So I commit myself to treat everyone equally regardless of their original place of birth and differences of their looks or mental states. And to also treat any attempt of others to create separation between them and me individually within understanding how any expression of hate is actually a projection of bad self-image and traumatic experiences in the past.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel depressed due to discovering how easy is now to acquire the professional knowledge for any profession and how many people are sharing behind the scenes videos that display their excellency in what they do. I realize that me feeling low is the polarity state of my behavior pattern of wanting to feel elevated due to the perception that I am someone special because I possess special knowledge and skills that almost no other has. Thus I commit myself to stop being motivated by trying to impress others for the sake of receiving positive feedbacks but to decide for a profession when I will motivate myself to express my creativity and for my inner guidance to be the main measure of how I am letting the best of me to manifest in this reality.

Here are additional related links to a free online course where also you can learn how to become aware of and change your mind patterns and to some of the other supportive audios from the website that provide answers to any existential question imaginable:

DIP Lite course
The Outsider
Why Do I Feel Left Out?
What Does it Mean to Support Yourself
Isolation

Day 174: Sneaky little thoughts creeping in

When it comes to the mind it is like weed suffocating your garden plants. Very slowly the weed is growing among the edible plants and you have to weed it out constantly before it is too late. It is a challenge to decide when the weed is still small enough not to endanger other plants and when it has grown so big that it is about time to get rid of it. The mind is in a similar way tempting us with constant small thoughts that looks very innocent and we can not measure and categorized them by their harmful impact because since are not physical. Often time it is only by the pain and illness that manifest as the consequence that we can see how damaging they actually are. And as has been explained, the existential process of amalgamation of the mind with the physical body is increasingly shortening the time between the accepted and allowed thoughts and the physical consequence.

Lately, I am being challenged especially by the consequence of the pain in my right knee and the pain in my lower back. The pain in the knee manifests very quickly, almost suddenly when and as my mind is producing specific unconscious thoughts. And the pain in my lower back has been a recurring manifestation after I take a quick nap in my bed during the day and I think about things that are worrying me while napping. Besides that, I am also experiencing like a sort of pressure or inflammation of some internal organ right below the right half of my rib cage. I am not sure if it the intestine or liver or something else. Occasionally I also feel slight pinching pain and some kind of liquid or gas movement there. I remember to have the same sort of feeling during middle school and doctors checked me with the ultrasound and found nothing unusual. So I am not sure if it is worth to spend time for the doctor's appointment and if they would again find nothing. Anyway, what I can at least do at this moment is to check my thoughts and face them and then I will see if any of these symptoms will change.

So what I am currently dealing with is the decision to restart my photography business after 10 years of not offering professional photography services anymore. I started my own graphic and web design business in 2000 and then completely focused only on photography from the year 2004 to 2008. After that, I sold all of my photography equipment and changed my photo studio into a counseling office. In the following years, I have also shot a lot of events however only for my personal use, with my mobile phone camera and for free. However, I did invest many hours into photos of each event to process them professionally with photo editing software composition and color-wise. That proves that photography has remained my passion but I did not earn anything by it. So I have spent a lot of my time for free instead of shooting photos for some clients and earning my living with it. Well, that was my decision since I worked on projects where I planned to earn a lot more by doing other things but sadly the promises of my financial compensation were not fulfilled by others.

Now, when I am returning to photography after a decade, I started to buy the basic gear so that I can start executing photo jobs. I managed to purchase a camera body, two zoom lenses, a flash, a stand, and some accessories which enable me to shoot many things. I had to refresh my photography knowledge and learn all the functions of the DSLR camera body. What I started to experience is the heaviness and bulkiness of the camera and lenses comparing to shooting with a smartphone. It is also a strain to look through a small optical viewfinder with just one eye. Although the professional camera body and lenses enable much more technical options for photography they are a much more demanding experience to work with. And if I add also the stand with the studio umbrella and external flash, combined with different backgrounds and data cable for tethered shooting via the notebook computer, it takes a lot more physical work to just prepare all the equipment for the shoot compared to taking snapshots with a smartphone.

Then there is a business aspect of photography. It takes around 2 to 3 years before others start to recognize your services and the orders are becoming more frequent. So I will have to spend a lot of time and money just to share the word about myself to the surrounding inhabitants. I already made the first move by designing and sending to print 3.000 pieces of business cards and have ordered 50 clear plastic business card stands that I plant to distribute among hairdressers, florists, sweet shops, makeup artists, restaurants, hotels and wedding planners in my local area. And I started to redesign my website with the sample photos of my previous projects. What I found is that I am looking with different eyes on the photos than when I shot them a decade ago so it is hard for me to decide which photos to include. Because I now have an improved artistic taste and plan to create much better photographs than before. Of course, I will, in the beginning, be limited with a lower quality of the gear compared to what I already had before, so I plan to invest most of my initial earnings into better lenses.

15 years ago when I had the need to enhance my photography skills there were very little options to acquire additional knowledge. In our country, I was able to find a secondary school for design and photography which would mean me having to physically attend classes in our capital city for 3 years. However, I was lucky to then discover a distant class of professional photography at the New York Institute of Photography. It offered me more flexibility so I picked it and was able to finish it within one year with great success. But now I am being offered new photography courses via Facebook ads on a daily basis by many online learning platforms, famous professional photographers and also there have many new physical photography schools emerged in our country. And there are so much free YouTube tutorials available where photographers are sharing their biggest professional secrets. It looks like now some photographers are earning more from sharing and teaching that from selling their photography services.

Sharing videos from behind the scenes of photoshoots is something that a lot of photographers do now. This has become a new way of advertising in order to increase the number of followers and potential clients. It is cool that we are entering an era of transparency where more and more things are being exposed. And the new type of a profession that is emerging is actually called the influencer. So many clients are not looking for someone that is the best professional at a certain job but how large their group of followers is and how great exposure they would get if hiring this influencer to do a job for them. Basically, it is the attention that has become a very sought-after product. In this era of social media with a constantly increasing quantity of information and shortened attention span, people are craving for attention. So within all these new trends of how marketing is being done lately, I am now facing a challenge of how to position myself and my professional services. And especially in what way to be different from others in order to create a competitive advantage that would result in me getting hired and being paid for my services.

In photography, we are seeing great technological changes. The biggest one is, of course, smartphone cameras becoming more and more powerful and capable. Almost everyone is on a daily basis producing photos and sharing them via their social networks. And also there are online photo banks where professionals are uploading their work for sale. The number of snapshots and photography artworks is growing exponentially and the generation of millennials is entering the workforce market with new approaches. Whoever wants to stay in business has to adapt and reinvent themselves in order not to become outdated. I have seen even the artificial intelligence software that creates photos from scratch in a matter of seconds by only giving it the input of what the elements the photo needs to be composed of. In all fields of profession, technology is taking over more and more jobs so society will have to change the support and distribution system in order to provide for the people who are not capable to adapt to effects of technological progress effectively. Regarding all these observations I will now align myself in order to remain grounded and stable enough for me to exist in this fast-changing global situation:

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to compare myself to a new generation of millennials and feeling old and outdated. I realize that while younger generations are contributing with their new ways of communication older generations will always be able to contribute with their accumulated experiences and wisdom. I commit myself to when and as my mind is producing thought like: “You are like a dinosaur and there is no use for you anymore in this world.” to stop and breathe. I commit myself to look at my strengths and find out the best ways of how I can be a useful part of this society within all the challenges that humanity is currently facing. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give up on myself and losing motivation to basically do anything and believing that there is no point in doing something. I realize that such an attitude is based on my previous desires of wanting to be more than others and then dropping this motivation which places me into a position where I need to redefine myself and discover what I would like to do in my life as pure self-expression without any kind of need and desire to be recognized and accepted by others. Within this, I commit myself to look deeper into myself in order to discover what I would like to express and than use this as the base for my self-movement and professional activities. 

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel inadequate due to past experiences with my very demanding father that constantly criticized my work no matter how hard I tried. I realize that his criticism has been a projection of his own feeling of inadequacy due to his past experiences and that I need to break the chain of transferring this pattern from generation to generation. I commit myself to when and as my mind produces thoughts like: “Why even bother to try since what you will do will be no good to anyone.” to stop and breathe. I then do the job the best I can by my own inner measure of quality and understand that whatever others will say about it that will be mostly a reflection of their own mindset and their own relationship towards themselve. 

Supportive free online course and audios in regards to this post:

DIP Lite Course
Using Criticism to Your Advantage
Taking Feedback Personally
You Define Me
Bringing Creation into Reality

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

Day 172: Flatmate relationship dissected

The other day my flatmate came home after she left with her bicycle the day before in the evening. Soon after she went to her room, she started to scream the name of her boyfriend with excitement. A moment later I heard apartment doors opening and the voice of her boyfriend while I was in my own room. Then my flatmate nocked on my door and explained with loud voice through the door about how she thinks that I think about her and that I should stop that. I answered that what she imagines is far from the truth and that she should stop imagining things about me. Minutes later I wrote her an SMS text message, explaining that last day I am experiencing a lot of stress and that if she will not stop with such untrue accusations, I will ask the landlord to replace her with some more peaceful flatmate.

If I self-honestly reflected on the described event, I have concluded that the problem was: Allowing myself for the recent past events, especially the confrontation with the working inspector, keeping me in an emotional state. Not taking action to reflect on the confrontation by writing and calming myself down. Using my emotional state to play the character of a victim and responding to my flatmate with projected blame where I make her reponsible for the level of my emotional disturbace to accumulate over the limit.

If I would have been self-honest, the moment would look like this: Realizing that I am in a state of emotional disturbance due to the recent confrontation with a working inspector and taking action to assist myself by writing in order to return back the energy of stressful experience so that it would not accumulate over the limit when my flatmate decided to also speak to me about her stressful emotional state. Listening to what my flatmate had to say as one and equal and responding so that so that I and she would be supported equally.

And here are the related self-forgiveness and self-commitment statement that I wrote in order to correct myself and to assure that I will act differently in similar events in the future:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed to expect that my visit to a work inspector will have the outcome where she will acknowledge that I lacked the experience and had nothing but good intention. 

I realize that despite how I perceive my actions to be, others can see them from a different perspective and respond in a way that I did not anticipate. 

I commit myself to when and as I am meeting an official person and presenting my case and my mind is producing thoughts like: “You are a good person with the best intention so expect to others also see you like that.” to stop and breathe. I then have a meeting with them and be ready to their response regardless of what it is.  

I forgive myself that I have allowed and accepted to in the past years to influence my current flatmate by indicating that I am willing to be her boyfriend while she was in deep emotional distress and primarily wanted to speak with me to give her professional support. 

I realize that I have not been sensitive enough about what she actually needed and that now she prefers to speak to me through the closed door since speaking to me face to face is too much intense and uncomfortable for her. 

I commit myself to when and as some female contacts me and asks me for support and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Maybe she actually wants to become my girlfriend and is just shy of telling me that.” to stop and breathe. I then rather keep my distance and give as professional support as possible without having any preconceived ideas about what the female wants. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear approaching women that I find attractive due to the risk of being turned down. I realize that refusal from others is a natural process of seeking a proper life partner and also a part of doing business in general. 

I commit myself to when and as I see a girl that I like and my mind is producing thoughts like: “She is too pretty for you and you will certainly have a lot of competition if you start flirting with her so best not to bother.” to stop and breathe. I then rather gather the courage and address her regardless of what the outcome will be. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to only be open for a relationship with women who express that they are in distress and need help. I realize that this was my tendency because I have perceived such women as the one that I can approach more easily and there is less danger of them turning me down since I can present to them as someone who can effectively help them. 

I commit myself to when and as I notice a women who has problems in her life and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Get in touch with her since she needs help and because you know the tools that she can help herself with she will definitely be grateful to you and maybe become even your girlfriend in order to express her gratitude.” to stop and breathe. I then rather offer women in distress a professional help and look for a potential partner among the women who do not show the need of wanting to be saved by someone. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed past recent stressful experience with a working inspector to keep me in a strong emotional state and postponing with taking action to assist myself with writing.  

I realize that many shocking things can happen during each day and if I procrastinate with facing past events that have triggered an emotional response within me regularly, new events could accumulate too much energy and render me incapable of facing future events with state of common sense and equality.  

I commit myself to when and as I experience a stressful event and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Ah it is just a small disturbance that is not significant to write about is so just let time to pass and it will go away naturally.” to stop and breathe. I then rather write on a daily basis and face my emotional reactions regularly in order to keep a sufficient level of my energetic stability.

This blog post is part of my assignment within the advanced Structural Resonance Alignment course. I invite you to assist also yourself with awesome Desteni I Process self-perfecting courses, starting with the DIP Lite free online course. And to listen to the following related educational audios from Eqafe web store with hundreds of extremely supportive educational items that hold answers to any imaginable question about life and this existence:

The Difference Between Male and Female Emotions
Relationship Fantasies
Saviour Complex
Goat and Saviour Complexes
Why is it so Difficult to Find Love?

Day 171: Biting off more than I can chew

Recent experience in trying to build a team of people that would work for me made me wonder about my actual current capacity to lead such a professional collective. My objective is to constantly expand and improve myself so I have been pushing myself out of my comfort zone. The question here is how far out of comfort zone is too far or when the bite has been bigger than I can chew. I definitely want to improve myself and contribute to this world in the as beneficial way for all as possible. Also, I understand that it is possible to create more if working as a group. Due to this principle, I decided not to work alone on projects anymore but to build a collective within the organization that I would direct in order to produce a synergetic and multiplicable effect of my efforts. In the past years, I went through many experiences, courses, and training in order to develop my leadership skills. I read a lot of books on communication, presentation and project management. I overcame a lot of fear and insecurities, however, the level of transformation has not been yet to the extent that I wanted to.

When observing great leaders I have been admiring their ability of calm and effective response to any provocation, how self-confident they are, fearless and relentless in regards to their agendas. And those are the qualities that I also want to have. In my mind, I can imagine myself being in such positions and play out all possible scenarios. However, when facing other people in this world my emotional responses are still not such as I would like them to be. My mind is full of all sort of information and thoughts since I have been within the past 20 years researching how the global system and human mind works. While I can have good intentions and follow the principles of what is best for all there are all sorts of dangers in this world that can quickly limit the freedom of actions.

One sort of dangers originate from the human mind and are manifested in the form of thinking and behavior patterns. Thus regardless of what one says or does, the responses from other people can vary extensively and can result in a verbal or physical attack by others. And another sort of danger is in form of global legal and monetary system which is actually externalization of our minds. Combining those two systems can result in others misinterpreting your words and actions in their minds and using the legal system to take away your possessions and freedom. So in order to protect against those dangers, one must learn how to master own mind, how to direct the minds of others, to understand the legislation and know how to protect yourself against legal attacks.

Thus being effective in this world can not just be done by desire and wishful thinking. It takes a lot of study and self-introspection. Then regardless of how strongly one makes effort to learn and change, each one of us has a very different predisposition and environment that contribute to a different level of success. What I also learned within recent online group chats at our Destonians social network is that natures of our core beings are very different. There are those who prefer solitude, are more the observers and connect internally and there are those who strive for the connection with others externally. I realized that my nature is more of a being that is very comfortable working alone, doing independent research and am never bored or lonely.

Until recently I thought that I will be able to impact this world in a very limited way if I would work on projects mostly alone. Thus I tried to build a local team to multiply my effectiveness. However, I noticed that deep inside me I feel very uncomfortable about having to constantly take care of many people and provide the necessary funds for their salaries and all the projects. There are yet many fears that I need to face, skills to develop and information to integrate before I would be able to be in such a function. But even with my current capacity and skills, I do not need to compare myself with others but to just do my best with what I am and what I have. One single person can influence many others by writing a book or producing a video for example. So even the biggest introverts can contribute to making this world a better place for all to great extent.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be directed by the savior complex and wanting to change this world by controlling every single aspect of all decisions that humans make. I realize that the nature of this physical reality is division and separation where expansion of awareness of each human being is achieved through a long-term process through physical communication and manifested consequences. Thus I commit myself to when and as I think about how to change this world and my mind is producing thoughts like: “You must create an effective educational system that would produce a new generation of completely purified human begins or you will completely waste your life!” to stop and breathe. I then within the understanding that each of us is already directed by life towards equality and oneness internally rather focus on my own personal improvement and teaching by example and other means that I am able to use productively.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rush and move into a direction before I have taken necessary time to build strong fundation. I realize that a stable foundation is the most important part of any structure that guarantees for the project to stand the test of time. Thus I commit to when and as I want to create something and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Just start building since if proven that foundations are not strong enough you will be able to strengthen them later!” to stop and breathe. I then within the realization that weak foundations create a lot of damage to the structure and even result in the structure falling apart completely rather slow down and make sure for the foundations to be strong enough before I proceed to build the walls.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself as advanced intellectual and spiritual person that must not do basic jobs that I am overqualified for. Within that, I have been also looking degradingly towards people who had lower qualifications than me and defining them as not very useful to society. I realize that there is all sort of physical labor that needs to be done in order for our society to prosper and also for me to enjoy my current lifestyle. Thus I commit myself to when and as I decide what to do and my mind is producing thoughts like: “You must do only the jobs where all your skills and knowledge can be used to full potentials and also be paid very good for that!” to stop and breathe. I then rather decide to also take jobs that needed to be done for the benefit of all the society despite not requiring all the skills and knowledge that I have acquired so far.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself for not wanting to seek employment at any other organization due to believing that I will be paid much less than I deserve. And also that I will earn only a bit more than I am receiving currently as unemployed in form of social support money. I realize that despite my attempts to develop projects on my own, I am not willing to deal anymore with all the necessary decisions about setting the prices, doing financial activities, studying complex legislation and all sort of other stuff that are necessary for running a business. Thus I commit myself to when and as I consider what to do and my mind is producing thoughts like: “You are quite in some debt so the best way to solve your financial situation is to develop your own organization where the options for generating income are much greater than being employed elsewhere!” to stop and breathe. I then rather apply also for other jobs in order to provide for my basic stable income and after that generate additional income through activities in my spare time. 

In relation to this blog post, I invite you to assist also yourself with awesome self-perfecting tools within the DIP Lite free online course and to listen to the following related educational audios from Eqafe web store with hundreds of extremely supportive educational items that hold answers to any imaginable question about life and this existence:

Workplace Dynamics
Developing Communication and Expanding Relationships
Leadership
Self Leadership
Leadership and Energy
How to Unburden Yourself from Responsibility
Taking Your Emotions out of Your Business
Overcoming the Burdens of Leadership
What is Leadership to You?
What is Blocking the Leader Within You?
The Birth of a Leader Begins with Self
Leadership: Control Versus Guiding
Leadership: Being Able to Work With Everyone

Day 170: Wanting to control what others think about me

Recently I and other members of Desteni group for self-perfection had a chat about the word control. This made me reflect also about what and how I want to control in my life. What I realized was a pattern, inherited from my father about wanting to present myself as an immaculate, spotless and good person. The consequences of such a tendency are constantly doing things from the starting point of wanting to positively impress others and fearing any criticism. Related behavior is also working mostly alone and only in a small environment where it is possible to directly control objects and co-workers. The root cause of such personality is low self-esteem, bad self-image, constant self-criticism and not realizing that we are able to control only so much in our lives. And also identifying self mostly with our picture representation and not with who we are in our secret minds. This results also in masking ourselves in different ways, like grooming and dressing in order to produce a visual image that others would admire.

Lately, I have watched a lot of documentary TV shows about law enforcement and customs officers where they have identified activities of breaking the law. They then hunted down and punished the people who were responsible for unlawful acts. That reminded me to also some of my past experiences of attending the court hearings, getting a ticket for driving over the speed limit and parking where it was not permitted. And what I noticed from documentaries was how records of past misconducts were kept about every individual and how it influenced the actions of law-enforcement officers. However incriminating records can be produced also in many other ways. Basically, now everyone can create a post on social media, write a blog, publish a newspaper article and thus write something bad about an individual and thus influence the public image of anyone. And of course, I also do not want to be someone who is targeted by some derogatory information, especially if it is not true.

What I noticed about myself through the experience of first hypnotic regression to my past life, was that I felt being crucified without doing anything wrong. However, the second regression exposed that I am someone who is in case of self-protection also able to kill without mercy. So I am basically now walking the process of identifying what actions that others have sentenced me was I actually responsible for by breaking the laws of life. And for which actions I have been sentenced wrongly by others breaking the laws of life and then projected their own crimes onto me. Here is where I have to be very careful about my self-honesty. Because one thing is being accused of breaking the law, created by men in form of national legislation however one can despite not breaking any man-made law be a criminal in the eyes of life. Since every single time, we do not consider others as one and equal and act from the starting point of self-interest, we are guilty of a crime against other living beings.

My recent experience was also something where I have been challenged by the law of men and the law of life. From the perspective of the law of life, I wanted to attract and employ people who would resonate with me on a very deep level. My public call for applications included some unusual questions and someone made a complaint that I had broken the law of man. This resulted in the start of the inspection process that took a lot of my time, created additional costs and delayed the employment process. During the hearing, I had to present the evidence about my actions and to explain myself. Within this experience, I learned how careful I had to be about using words since they would be then interpreted by another person who has the power to decide if I broke any law of men and also if I am to be punished by only a warning or also by having to pay money. Also, any record of being convicted could prevent me and my organization to apply for public grants and participate in other similar development opportunities.

During this process that took several weeks, I after long time noticed how the energy of fear wanted to take a grip of me again. I felt in form of pressure in my head and a foggy mind and when I attended one public event it also accumulated to the point of me experiencing small vertigo. That was an indication that I need to look at this point as soon as possible and to take back the power that my mind has been challenging. So I am now going to look at some points where I abdicated self-responsibility in regards to laws of life and correct myself in order to become a more supportive part of this existence:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear any confrontation with representatives of the law of men, believing that receiving an invitation to get inspected is already an indication that I failed. I realize that the legal system is not only inspecting those who act suspiciously but is also randomly checking out individuals who perfectly comply with all laws of men. I commit myself to when and as I receive an invitation from representatives of the law of men and my mind is producing thoughts like: “You are now in deep shit and this is just the initial phase of being convicted for some crime!” to stop and breathe. I then respond to the invitation within the realization that employees of the public system also just do their job and have yet to gather evidence and prove that I broke any low of men.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to engage in an activity before I have in detail read and understood every law that is related to that activity. I realize that by not understanding the law completely I can without awareness break a law and thus enabling others to prosecute me in a lawful way. I commit myself to when and as I engage in a particular activity and my mind is producing thoughts like: “There are so many laws out there that it is impossible to know them all so best to just do your best and check only those laws that others have indicated that you broke them!” to stop and breathe. I then slow down, take time to understand all the necessary laws since at least here in Slovenia legislation is not so complex as in some other countries.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself not to be careful enough within my communication with others despite my inner voice of life telling me that others might understand the nature of my writing very different than what I actually wanted to express. I commit myself to when and as I am communicating with others and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Just quickly write your thoughts and if someone will understand them differently, it will be completely their fault!” to stop and breath. I then rather slow down, become one and equal with those who will read my writing and use such words where the possibility of misinterpretation is diminished to the minimum level that I am able to achieve.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear to make mistakes, especially in cases where others are point them out. I realize that I am not perfect and that making mistakes will continue to be part of my life since it is a natural part of learning. I commit myself to when and as someone has pointed out some of my mistakes and my mind is producing thoughts like: “You should be ashamed of yourself since other have discovered that you are a bad person!” to stop and breathe. I then rather thank them for showing them my imperfections within the understanding that others can play a role of a mirror and thus assist me in speeding up the process of self-realization. But above all, I commit myself to primarily listen to the voice of life within me that is pointing out my mistakes in the most gentle and the least consequential way possible.

In relation to this blog post, I invite you to assist also yourself with awesome self-perfecting tools within the DIP Lite free online course and to listen to the following related educational audios from Eqafe web store with hundreds of extremely supportive educational items that hold answers to any imaginable question about life and this existence:

Who am I as Control
What Is Inner Control
Consequences of Inner Control

The Unpredictability of Life

My Life as a Bossy Perfectionistic Control-Freak
Your Clothes Control Your Life
Everything Must Be Just So
Freedom within Control
Leadership: Control Versus Guiding
Controlling Your Life or Allowing Direction to Unfold

Day 169: A true origin of my sadness exposed

It has been around 20 years since I started the journey of self-discovery and over 8 years since I have been walking the process of self-perfection by writing blogs and recording vlogs. However, during this process, I have not felt the increase in my awareness in relation to what I have accepted and allowed to become. Meaning during the process I did look at the past events where I have abdicated my self-responsibility and committed to correct myself. However, I have until recently not felt such shame as I am feeling now. Also in past decades, I felt some sort of undefined sadness that has been noticeable from my facial expression in form of dark baggy eyes. Until recently I assumed that the sadness was about all the traumatic events that I have experienced in my past. However, I see now that what I am actually sad about is what I have allowed and accepted in my life. As far I can remember, I have defined myself as a good person that does not want to harm anybody and that all that happened to me had nothing to do with who I am. I claimed that I am an innocent victim and punished by life for no reason. Boy oh boy was I wrong!

I see my childhood as quite pleasant, with memories of just a couple of unpleasant events. Now the problem with the memories is how we tend to remember mostly bad things and disregard all the good stuff. And it was exactly the same with me. All the abundance, safety, and love that my parent provided I just took for granted. That is what made me turn into a spoiled brat. I understand that my over-protective environment played a role in that but boy it took a long time for me to understand how much spoiled I have become. I and my brother lived for many years in a safe family bubble where were provided by our father with the latest gadgetry. Computers and television then contributed for me to sink into an even more deceptive bubble of virtual reality where I have played god and attacked other from. All the images, especially porn, created layers of energetic addictions. Thus whenever I faced challenges, instead of facing and understanding them, I took refuge in the alternative worlds of emotional and orgasmic experiences. That took me in such separation of life that I am just slowly becoming aware of the real depth of my demise.

Now that I am experiencing some kind of quantum leap in my awareness, I am having a great challenge in deciding what to do. I do not want to be the self-centered spoiled kid anymore, however, I see that such tendencies are still a part of me and it will still take time for me to transform my behavior patterns and energetic addictions. I feel like a heavy train that has been driving towards the cliff with full speed. I have become aware of the cliff and have hit the brakes, however, it will take the train some time to stop completely due to inertia.

I see for example how a photography at first glance is an innocent art that started to become my passion already at my young age. However, one perspective using photography is to manifest points of separation. When looking through the viewfinder, a photographer positions himself on 'the other side of the lens' where all that matters is a framed composition of visual elements in a moment. A photographer does not need to care about what events lead to the current state of reality and what will be the outflow of events in the future. The trapped moment of time is then observed over and over again in form of a photo and in many cases, a deep emotional bond is created to that picture. A photo is an attempt to stop the time and create an experience of eternity. Generally when taking a photo one does not ask or needs to ask for a permission to take a snapshot. So it is also much like stealing something from someone. And also within such stealing, one is being very careful to compose all the shapes and colors with the starting point to entice as strong emotional reaction from the observers of the photo as possible. Sure photography can also function as evidence of past events however generally it functions as an attempt to control something or to gain something.

A camera has played a role of the protective shield also in my life for many years. I have been hiding behind the lens and also behind a TV and computer screen for too long. For so long that I have lost the interest in doing much of the physical work. Because using computer things move much faster and the physical reality takes much more time to manifest. This is why I have also become impatient and restless, constantly needing some pictures, sounds, and information to fill my mind and keep me entertained. For physical labor, I defined myself as someone who is overqualified and would waste my potentials if I engage in some kind of job that does not require a lot of intellectual skills. Consequently, I am keeping myself trapped in computer-related jobs that create a strain on my physical body due to long periods of keeping myself in a sitting position. Sadly it is also the money that influences my business decisions since most of the highest paid jobs are now also related to using computers. On the other hand, the information age is also connecting us again, thought externally, but is enabling us a reflection of what is going on in our minds and serves as a beneficial projection of our internal reality. So the key is to make the best of all this mess and to figure out how to create a future where we would not be enslaved and separate anymore by our own creation.

What I am also dealing with here is a chicken and egg situation. I am quite satisfied with being single and do not have a need to be in a relationship with someone to be happy. So I am asking myself if this is something that is the true nature of my being or a consequence of my upbringing. I see how much I am like my father and have wondered how much of what I am are personalities that I have copied from him as a child. Or it could be just that my father and I have similar nature of our beingnesses that both like to work alone and would not change much regardless of the environment. Well, all that I can do is to continue my process of identifying the points of separation within me and to move towards creating the future based on the principle of what is best for all. It is up to me to challenge and expand myself but to be at the same time careful not to overwhelm myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed my life to be directed mostly by the energies of good emotions and bad feelings instead of directing myself as life as one and equal. I commit myself to stop all the energy addictions and to direct myself based on the principle of what is best for all. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see other being only as their picture manifestation. And then also comparing them to ideals of perfection and judging any visual imperfection instead of treating them as one and equal as who I am as life. I realize that everything that I am able to observe with my human physical eyes is much more than I am able to see and understand that we are all an equal part of this existence. Thus I commit myself to when and as I am looking at someone and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Look at this and that imperfection on their face and their body and how they dress!” to stop and breathe. I then place myself into the body of the person that I observe and understand how my life would be if I would be in their body and to have their life experience. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to observe women mostly from the perspective of how a sexual experience with them would be. I realize that I have been conditioned by years of watching porn where I have started to associate the appearance of a woman with experience of orgasm. Thus I commit myself to when and as I want to experience a physical orgasm and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Look at some woman or a picture of a woman or imagine a woman during masturbation since you will experience the energy of orgasm quicker!” to stop and breathe. I commit myself to practice masturbation only as an act of my physical body self-expression within the realization that I do not need to imagine anything let alone having to include any other body to experience an orgasm. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to when and as I interact with others for my actions to have the starting point of wanting to impress others in order for them to admire me and then to feel good about myself. I realize how self-centered my interactions with others have been since I mostly wanted to impress others using advance knowledge and information and also other skills that I have gathered. Thus I commit myself to when and as I interact with other and my mind is producing thought like: “Just think what great information will you tell them in order to impress them and prove that you know more than they do!” to stop and breathe. I then communicate with others from the starting point of equality, share the information that is relevant to them or ask them questions in order to find out how they feel and if there is anything that I can assist them with. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself as a perfectionist and to become angry about myself every single time when I notice some imperfection about myself. I realize that tendency towards the perfection is a projection of not accepting myself as who I am as my physical body, mind and the being that all have its limitations and do change over time. Thus I commit myself to when and as I see something about myself and my mind is producing thoughts like: “You should have done or looked like this instead of that!” to stop and breathe. I then within the realization that everything is changing and that nothing will ever fit the complete criteria of someone's imagination do my best to strive towards my goals but also fully accept how I am and how I perform at this very moment. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare myself and compete with others where I wanted to prove that I know much more than others and can do things better than others for the sake of feeling good. I realize that self-perfection is supportive however we all have different preconditions, different environments, different bodies, different minds, different beings and can not perfect self by comparing ourselves to others. Thus I commit myself to when and as I observe others and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Look at this guy or girl and what they have achieved!” to stop and breathe. I then consider only my original and current state of everything that I currently am an have achieved and continue to perfect self in relation only to my own life path. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to when and as I observe others how they struggle and experience discomfort and pain to feel good about myself. I realize that any energetic movement within myself when observing others how they suffer is a manifestation of pure evil and separation. Thus I commit myself to when and as I see others in a problematic situation and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Look how funny they are when they suffer!” to stop and breathe. I then immediately place myself in the position of the individual that I observe and understand that I could equally be in the same position as they are. I then also see what I can do to diminish the suffering that others endure since we are all in this together.

In relation to this blog post, I invite you to assist also yourself with awesome self-perfecting tools within the DIP Lite free online course and to listen to the following related educational audios from Eqafe web store with hundreds of extremely supportive educational items that hold answers to any imaginable question about life and this existence:

How to Transcend Shame and Transform It to Integrity
Shame, Shame, Shame
Wall of Shame
Shame & Self Forgiveness