Day 178: Nature of my comfort zone

While returning to offering my personal business services I have been facing many doubts, fears, and desires. This is why I had problems even with defining what services to offer or if I should start with a broader spectrum of services or be as focused on one as possible. And even if I should restart the services that I have not been offering in the past or do something that would more fit my personality, skill set and goals. Previously I have been offering graphic and web designs, photography, and counseling services, however, I am attracted also to professions, like a private investigator, movie director, and writer. Thus I am looking at how to get the most of my experiences while being careful not to get into a situation that is too demanding for me to handle.

Recently I had a couple of talks with my ex-flatmate where I have realized how much my family environment shaped me. And how I despite years of walking the process of personal transformation there is still a root personality character directing my life. Thus I feel like I am in a hypnotic or a dreamlike state where things that I want to achieve are out of my reach. Or like I have no capacity or tools to do what I want because there is certain kind of energies that pull me down whenever I want to reach up to the surface of the lake that I have been pushed in. I can boil down the description of my current main personality into the following points:

1. I am the oldest son that has to be an example to my younger brother and I am not allowed to make any mistakes or I will be yelled at by my short-tempered father.
   
   
2. My father will provide me with everything that I need to survive so the most important objective is to keep my father happy in order to guarantee my survival.
   
   
3. I have to organize my life in such a way that I can respond to my father as soon as possible when and as he calls me and needs me to do something.
   
   
4. My creative opinion is not important because all that counts is that my design please my father despite my collaboration with him resulting in bad designs.
   
   
5. Relationships between me and others are not important because what matters is only that I am maintaining a good relationship with my father.
   
   
6. Having my girlfriend or children is not something that my father has expressed that he would like to see so it is just fine with him if I remain single.
   
   
7. My father craves to be recognized by others and to be in the center of attention thus I must not do anything that would take full attention away from him.
   
   
8. Whenever I do my own projects I am criticized and ridiculed bor that by my father so it is best to do only what my father tells me to and nothing else.
   
   
9. Stopping working for my father and doing something else is not an option since my main purpose of existence is to serve him as long as he lives.
   

So these are my believes that drive my life, sabotage my self-expression and prevent me from doing what is best for all life. A while ago I did cut all my communications and stopped working for my father however after some time I reestablished a former relationship with him. It is hard for me to work independently because I have not been taught and encouraged to take care of myself and to establish personal and business relationships with others. While I did become a sole entrepreneur in the year 2000 and have worked on many different projects with others, it still feels for me very strange and unnatural. It is hard for me to decide what to do because I live in a fear that whatever I do I will be judged and criticized by others in the same manner that my father does. Thus my mode of living is keeping a very low profile, doing as little as possible to survive and avoid any conflict.

I did manage to break out of these limitations and I am pushing myself to become a more independent individual that is not so attached to what my father wants and thinks. Also by continuing the Structural Resonance Alignment course which is part of Desteni I Process courses, I will continue to be break free from these patterns in order to be a more supportive part of life in this world. And these are some related audios form the Eqafe website that I recommend to those who also struggle with similar issues:

Bursting Your Bubble of Comfort
Comfort Zones and Dependency
Lost Myself in Relationships
The Dependence of Independency
My life of Co-Dependency

Day 177: Optimizing my apartment for business

After my flatmate has moved out two weeks ago, I started to prepare her room for my photo & design studio. It took one week for me and the landlord just to work on the repainting of the room. Then I had to decide what to do with all of the furniture that has been completely moved from the room to the back yard before the painting. It took me several days before I decided about the final placement of the closets and tables. What I knew was that I need to move the big office desk with computer and printers from my current bedroom to the new studio. However, all the rest of the furniture that has so far been in my bedroom and in the bedroom of my ex-flatmate I could place it in any of the rooms. I experimented a lot with many different compositions and moved some pieces of furniture from one to another room even three times. That was mentally and especially physically exhausting since I did most of the movements by myself and some closets were very heavy.

The final placement was such that two closets from my bedroom were moved to the studio and three of those that were in the toom of my ex-roommate were placed into my bedroom. It all looked fine however when I went to sleep, I experienced such a disturbing smell from the newly placed closets that I could not sleep. So I moved two of the closets out of the room and the smell became bearable again. The next day I was focused to remove for the smell so I spent a lot of time searching online for the solutions. I prepared the shopping list and went to the shopping mall where I purchased the necessary products for the smell removal. Then I prepared a mixture of hot water, alcoholic vinegar, baking soda, and a Lavander essential oil. With that liquid, I wiped all the sides and insides of the problematic closets. And that was also quite a physically exhausting task. I left the closets to dry overnight and the next day I placed them in their final position.

The odor removal procedure has been effective and I was able to sleep in my bedroom just fine after that. I planned to in the same way process also several other closets with minor odor however I have become so physically tired that I decided to wait for a couple of days. Yesterday I also went shopping at the hardware store to buy some accessories to enhance my living experience even more. I purchased adhesive textile to stick it on the bottom of the closet so that I can slide it easier and with less possibility of scratching the floor, new handles for one of the closets that broke off, and a mesh for the windows to prevent insects from entering my apartment, and some other accessories that I need for my photo studio. So today I plan to continue with the cleaning of the closets, sticking textile pads, replacing handles and mounting of the mesh.

In the last days, I have been also thinking about how to make the room with a kitchen more appropriate as the reception room. Initially, I considered the presence of the kitchen not appropriate at all so I wanted to remove it from the view of my visitors. I went to a curtains shop and asked how much would it cost and how long would it take to make a curtain that would span from the floor up to the ceiling and cover all of my kitchens. After I found out the price and that it would take at least 3 weeks to deliver it decided that this is not something that I am going to invest into at the moment. And after I got some friends invited to look at my new studio they said that having a kitchen in the reception room is even an advantage since it makes it more homely. So I decided to leave it to be visible and will just clean it and replace the objects on the shelves so that they will be more harmonious and pleasant to the eye.

One of bigger undertakings was also a detailed cleaning and flipping of the refrigerator. The insides were very dirty, with stains of food and the walls of the freezer were encased in ice. So the first step was to remove all the food from it. And I asked my neighbor if can store the frozen food in her freezer for a while. After all the ice melted down, I removed the water and all the small movable parts from within the refrigerator. I followed with the washing of all the interior and exterior and vacuuming of the appliance at the back. Next, I placed the fridge on the floor, turned it upside down and moved the hinges and handles from one side to another. That made the opening of the doors on the fridge much more convenient for me considering its position in the kitchen. And finally, I placed it back to its place, mounted back all the cleaned shelves, turned it on and filled it with the food again.

The landlord also replaced the kitchen faucet with a new one because it leaked water slowly for many months. So far I have been tolerating this malfunction and had a piece of cloth wrapped around it so that the water did not spread around and was redirected into the sink. However, that was not a permanent solution and I am glad that the landlord finally considered my complaint and done something about it. The problem with water is also on the wall before the bathroom. The moist is somehow entering the wall and making the plaster to fall off and this has been the problem for years. The landlord also tried to replaster the wall a week ago however the top layer started to peel off already the next day. He was frustrated with the situation and said that he will fix it someday later. I guess he will have to completely replace the shower ceramic tiles which will cost him a lot.

Besides all these big tasks there are also smaller ones that I plan to do. Some of the clothes from one closet became a bit smelly due to mold and I need to was them. Then there are a lot of items in the closets that I do not need them anymore. Some are part of my wardrobe and some are office and business items that became obsolete in time and due to recent change of my business path. All the physical and mental effort contributed to by lower back pain to being increased. So I have to be careful not to overwhelm myself too much and to take enough rest. And also to plan the task so that I can execute them in small enough steps. Luckily I had some sales in a recent period that suffices for all my increased monthly expenses so I am quite satisfied with my current movement. In the following days, I plan to make my apartment more fluent and then I will only seriously start with the advertising of my new business services.

Some attention will need also the files on my computer. Usually, after I finish a design or photography project, I delete the obsolete files, rename and code them and move them in the client designated folder. I also file any related paper documents and other client-related items. Thus I make sure that my desk, my computer workspace, and my email inbox are always clean. However several weeks ago I stopped with this practice and the clutter began to accumulate, mostly in terms of my computer files. I now have thousands of files, especially photos, to review, process and store them. It will take me a lot of time and butt pain to fix this but it has to be done. I work best if I can fully focus on my new projects when I am completely done with my previous ones. So I will slow down and take it to step by step, regardless of how much time it will take.

Here are some supportive audios that assisted me a lot in regards to this blog post:
Lower Back Pain
Can't This Go Any Faster
Internal & External Process
Space, Environment, Routine, & Self Definition
Moving Your Staff and Your Business Forward

Day 176: My difficult flatmate finally moved out

For 2 years I have been living with a female flatmate in a 50 square meters large apartment. We shared the dining room with a kitchen and a bathroom and each of us had our own living room with a bed. She initially moved in with her ex-boyfriends and before that, they both lived in a very small room within the apartment next to mine. Before they moved into our apartment building with a shared backyard and a garden I have met her a couple of times personally. It was she who initially contacted me via Facebook after finding my self-support vlogs on my YouTube channel. She was seeking support due to her emotional and mental state. So when she and her boyfriend moved into our building, I had an expectation that she will be open to my support and will begin the intensive process of self-transformation. However, she had big resistance, had intensive emotional episodes and almost never came out out of her room.

Initially, that girl had a very strong attachment to physical intimacy and was not able to fall asleep if at least one person did not sleep near her bed. In times when her boyfriend was away for a couple of days, she asked a friend or a neighbor to come sleeping in her room or she asked them if she can sleep on a floor in near their bed. I found out that that was because she was used to living with her parents in a very small apartment where she did not have her own room so she basically slept with her parents to her quite high age. Her parents were very possessive, they did not want her to ever leave them and wanted her to remain their child forever. Consequently, she did not develop proper social skills and to be able to function in this society independently. Eventually, she resisted their parents, left home and was so far in a couple of unsatisfying relationships with boys. She also told me how her parents fought a lot and were in conflict with basically all of the neighbors in the village. 

When she initially contacted me I found her very cute and did not know if she was in a relationship or not. Then when I met her in person at an event I asked her about that and she told me that she is with a boy however I should ask him about the nature of their relationship. So I did speak to that boy and he explained that they are in some sort of uncommitted relationship. Despite that, I decided not to interfere in their relationship since did not want to be responsible for a breakup. Also when they moved into our building, I respected that and supported her only with friendly conversations. However, after her boyfriend broke up with her, she asked me if I would be fine with her sleeping in my bedroom and I gave her permission. Overtime her desire for physical closeness increased and that was the stage where we had to look at the point of sexuality.

Regardless of how much she craved for the physical intimacy, she did not want to treat it as anything sexual. The reason for that was that she was terrified of getting pregnant and having a child because she considered herself as being only a child. Her level of emotional and psychological development was so low that she never had a job and lived only form social support money. She had very low self-esteem, also due to her problems with digestion and some other health problems. In the past 3 years, she made some steps forward since I supported her in getting used to sleeping alone in her bedroom and she started to go out more. A couple of months back she found herself a new boyfriend and he started to visit her in her room. When she moved out he also assisted her to pack her belongings and to move the furniture out so that the room could be repainted.

The reason for her moving out was because her basic communication pattern was only to complain about the problems in her life and this world. She also has been accusing me and all the neighbors for how she felt about herself and also committed some minor physical attacks. Usually the day after her outburst she apologized to those that she hurt, however, after some time the pattern repeated. Due to complaints, the landlord gave her a deadline for moving out. It is now a week since she moved out from the time I am writing this post and I feel massive relief since I no longer have to worry about someone attacking me on a daily basis. However, I have not been taking everything that I experienced with my ex-flatmate as one of her own faults. Sure she had her part of the responsibility and she did change quite a bit however I do understand that it takes time to change own behavior patterns.

I can say that we both learned a lot from our relationship. She learned from my own example of how to maintain a clear and orderly style of living and how to support self with writing. And I learned how deeply the traumatic experiences from childhood can be rooted and how the change in behavior takes a lot of time despite a very supportive environment. Thus despite some girl looking attractive to me visually, she can be holding past experiences that create conflicts in a life partnership. In the past, I have been attracted to girls that displayed problematic behavior and I desired to be in a relationship with them in order to fix and save them. But I have learned that such relationships are very compromising in terms of my mental state, health, and business success. So now I would rather live alone and enjoy the peace that suffering conflicts just to be in a relationship with someone.

Suggested related supportive educational audios:

Family and Friends
A Mother's Love of Guilt
The Crazy Mother
Who's Responsible for the Enslavement of Mankind
Life Review of a Dependent Personality
Releasing Trauma

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?