Day 180: Assumption and presumption as the root of evil

Recently I have received a registered letter from a representative of a public authority, related to a legal matter that I was involved in one year ago. I considered the case closed and expected that any authority will now leave me alone so that I can focus on developing my new business plan. When reading the content of the letter I found the sentences that can easily be interpreted as someone threatening to kidnap me. And the letter could also be interpreted of me being suspected of breaking the law where if I would be found as guilty could be sentenced up to 2 years in prison. The letter thus ignited my imagination and played the most unwanted and harmful scenarios for me. Consequently, a massive amount of fear triggered within me and I was not sure how to respond. Initially, I prepared two versions of the letter in order to protect my interests and I send them to some of my closest friends, asking them for support and perspective. After their feedback, I then decided for a different, much more mild approach.

I based my writing on realizations after I watched several online videos, explaining tricks and traps of the letters, sent from government agencies. And also how languages have been deliberately corrupted so that dictionaries define the meaning of words differently than what they actually mean based on the root words that they are comprised of. An additional problem is that in common dictionaries there are many definitions of the same word. And there exist even special dictionaries that certain groups and secret societies use to explain the meaning of certain words in their own way. Like for example lawyers us the Black's Law Dictionary. So when one receives a letter in their mailbox it is up to them to read the words and to try to understand what their meaning is.

There are also rules in terms of time passed that are being taken into account when someone has sent you a letter. And also letters are legally being considered as an offer, no matter how threatening the words on the paper might sound. However, we are not taught in public schools about such rules and laws that some use in our disadvantage. We are being raised to be ignorant of our rights and only when we receive letters that tell us to comply with something that we do not agree with, we start to search for the ways of self-protection.

Generally, it is being considered that if someone is doing something and we do not object, we are giving permission to what they are doing. In a similar way, if someone sends us a letter, especially in a registered form where they have proof of delivery, they expect that we agree with the content of the letter if we do not send a registered letter back in a specific period of time. Registered letters that are sent from government officials to persons are even considered as delivered after 14 days even if they have not been collected by a living human. I wondered how is this possible since it did not make any sense to me.

That leads me to the research of legal definitions of what is the person and if I am actually a person or something different. What I discovered is that there is a world of legal fiction where something is considered as real despite not actually existing. So I wondered what I must do to be considered as a real living human and my words not to be ignored by the legal system as someone who is considered dead or lost at sea. I am now learning about how to legally claim to be living life and to thus become officially protected by the harmful attempts from legal fiction.

My most important realization is that language is the key. Thus the one who controls the language controls everything. One who explained this is in great detail was: DAVID-WYNN: MILLER and now: Mark-kishon: Christopher is continuing his work. After many years of dealing with the legal system, the copyrighted correct-sentence-structure language has been developed with a dictionary where one word has only one definition. And the grammar is such that the sentence is mathematically correct and can be understood in only one way. That language is now being implemented all over the world, also by the government in order to avoid the communication violation and fraudulent conveyance of language when creating contracts.

So I am now paying very close attention to every envelope and letter that has been inserted in my mailbox. And I am starting to recognize many of the tricks that senders are trying to pull off by not defining what language and dictionary they are using and by not being consistent in writing my full name exactly as it is displayed on my national ID card and address as displayed on my house number plate. As they say, the devil is in the details and I am becoming more and more aware of that. Legally if even one character is added, subtracted or changed in case, the identifier has changed and it is not the same anymore. So just by being totally exact one can very easily disqualify any writing and demand to be corrected or to additionally explain in terms of the meaning. Some deliberately use very little information in order for the reader to fill the blanks and create their own assumptions and assumption about what the writer wanted to say.

In order to be able to actually see and recognize the details and to be able to respond and not commit own mistakes, one firstly needs to take control of its own thoughts, emotions, and feelings. I have made significant progress about that with the assistance of the awesome Desteni I Process courses. I am applying these tools when and as I am facing challenges. Facing the legal system is the next step where I will see how effectively I am able to breathe, stay calm and stand my ground. All laws of man justify their existence as based on the laws of life, also described as natural law. If one is aware of that, they can easily remove all fictional threats. But in order to do this one must also be careful to treat others who are still hypnotized and existing in the world of fiction as one and equal. Meaning that others will have to slowly and in a peaceful way be educated about what is a fact and what is a fictional illusion.

Related audios that I recommend to listen:
Living in Assumptions
The World is what I say it is
Interpretation
Keeping Quiet
Peace and Quiet

Day 179: Becoming visible again

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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