So, my father was originally a chimney sweep and my mother worked as midwife. Then my father progressed and became head of steel factory air purification system. After that he started to produce innovative products for the steel industry that already in the start of my middle school study developed in our family business. But then my father imported sign-making CNC machine from USA and due to recession in steel industry, we transformed into visual communications company. That was the breaking point since me and my brother became main production workers and my father took a role of bringing in the orders and providing all the tools and materials for the production. I as the only one skilled with computers was assigned tasks of digitalisation and vectorisation of logos, cutting them from self-adhesive foil rolls, assembling and mounting the signs and I also did the pre-press and films production for department of screen-printing that was managed by my younger brother.
The problem was that I was in the position where I had to spend most of time sitting in front of computer and using keyboard and mouse to create designs that were then used in my sign-making and also in brother's screen-printing department. The tasks that required direct involvement of my brother were only preparing the printing screens and initial phase of printing machines alignment and for printing of complete number of orders he was able to use additional hired man power. However every phase of the computer related and non computer related manufacturing process in my department was so demanding that I was the only one with sufficient knowledge and skills. And I had also the biggest responsibility since every mistake in the initial design process that was then reproduced before it was discovered meant a big time and financial cost for our company.
Additional nuisance was that my brother during his childhood develop a character of a joker and had been constantly seeking attention like by crawling silently under the table and scaring me. So while he had excessive time and wanted to play with me, my new job required a full focus and quiet environment. Then he even started to seek additional attention from my father in form of finding any mistake that I would make that day and when my father would return home from trip to clients, he would tell on me. My father then came to me and started to criticise me with anger for reported mistakes and he also could not comprehend that I only made a little progress with computer designs while he made many deals with the clients and traveled with his car hundreds of kilometres in the same time. The bottom line is that I was constantly pressured by my father and I had to do my job with less mistakes and much faster.
This progressed to the stage where I have been working from morning to evening even during weekends and I felt that whatever I do and no matter how much I try, I will never meet the expectations of my father. I was deeply disappointed that he treated me even worse than any other employee that worked in our company while I expected from him to understand and respect me more than others since I was his son and part of the family. I felt like the lowest level slave and disciplined to obey and perform as instructed by my father without seeing any way of escape. I felt into a trans-like state where I started to perceive the virtual computer reality as more real that the outer physical reality. Eventually I had to seek professional help and started to visit public psychologist. Sessions where I was able to speak out my mind without being criticised assisted me a lot and I was able to regain sufficient level of mental stability. However I still felt trapped and I knew that as long I would live in the same three-storey house where we had manufacturing facilities in the ground floor and my brother and parents would live with me in the top two floors, I would be still treated only as a production slave.
When I met my first girlfriend while I had as representative of our company visited the home business of one of our biggest client, I saw the opportunity of escape. Just couple of weeks after I met my girlfriend, we decided to move out of houses of our parents into our own flat. When I told my father that I am moving out, he made an incredible big emotional drama believing that I am by moving away telling him and all the world that he is a terrible parent. Then in the next four years, my parents firstly influenced my girlfriend and me to move twice to a new apartment closer to their house. And my father continued to pressure me and also used my girlfriend as a messenger who tried to convince me to work at my father's company for a bit longer and do yet some additional urgent jobs. All this accumulated to the point where my girlfriend decided to break up with me and move out from my apartment. This was the breaking point where I then decided to completely stop working for my father and started working as a freelancer.
Now I will look at relevant interactions and regain my footing by forgiving myself all the projected points of separation where I made others responsible for my own decisions in events as described above:
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed to work as the only computer specialist in our company while if I really wanted to could persist in educating co-workers to be equally skilled with computers as I was. I realise that decision for me to work as the only IT guy was also influenced by me and other family members to allow the most responsible work to be shared only among family members in order to keep the business in boundaries of our family line and not wanting to expand much to also include those who are not part of our bloodline. The starting point was to keep it small and manageable to fit the available space in the ground floor and not needing to build additional manufacturing facilities or even a new factory on a new location. When and as I look at the memories of the period when I was employed by my father and my mind produces thoughts like: “I suffered because I was pressed to much by my father and he is the one who has the full responsibility for that!“ to stop and breathe. I then see and realise my own participation in the events where I was equally responsible for the decision of working alone since it also fitted me best considering all the circumstances in that period of my life.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed to be mad about my younger brother who has been constantly seeking the attention by secretly scaring me while I was working with computer. I realise that I did not take time to explain to him how my new job requires me to focus and that I can not allow myself to be distracted anymore. I commit myself to when and as I am doing some task that requires full focus from me and then someone disturbs me and my mind goes like: “What the fuck, just tell this guy to go away and leave me alone!“ to stop and breathe. I then take the time to openly and in detail communicate with the guy who wanted my attention to see if it is something urgent, to explain peacefully that I am doing some job where I do not want to be disturbed and if my attention is needed to schedule a time where me and the guy would be able to get together and communicate about the desired matter.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed for the good feelings of being something more to direct my decisions about how to deal with work tasks. I realise that I had listened to many conversations where my father praised my achievements in front of our family company clients and I felt good about it. Thus I decided to work alone in order not needing to share the deserving attention with anyone else which was pure expression of my self-interest. I commit myself to when and as I contemplate the approach how to get some job done and my mind is trying to convince me into thinking like: “Best to do it only by yourself and not allow for any co-workers to mess up things!” to stop and breathe. A then rather consider all the options, including sharing the work load with others and do it in a way where best interest of the client is considered and also the interests of all other people who have necessary skills, will and time to assist in completing the job in the most professional, timely and cost-effective way.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed to give relationship with my parents the most important meaning among all the relationships in my life. I realise that while my parents were the one who provided for my survival in my early years of my childhood and thus started to consider me as part of themselves, my responsibility is also in teaching them that children are also independent beings that need to develop sovereignty and not constantly counting for their parents to save them when they get into trouble. I commit myself to when and as I have some challenge in my life and my mind goes like: “Immediately contact your parents and firstly see if they are the one who can help you!“ to stop and breathe. I then consider all the options that anyone that I know can assist me with and treat my parents equally as anyone else who can help me. And I commit to especially see for myself how I created the situation, how I can get out from it by myself and how to change in order not to get in any undesired situation again in the future.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to victimise myself during the period of being employed by my father where I felt that I worked to much and had too little time to relax myself and develop my own independent personal life. I realise that during all my career there I had in very single moment the opportunity to negotiate working hours and my free time however it was myself who became overexcited by computers and creating sign and satisfying clients. I commit myself to when and as I plan my daily tasks and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Isn't that job just so excited? Why don't you do just some more tasks and you will relax later.“ to stop and breathe. I then look at how my physical body feels and what is telling me and always consider my well-being as top priority at all my decisions. I realise that work is never done as there will always be something to do. So best to relax regularly and take good care of myself in order to avoid unnecessary consequences in form of pain, illness or injury.In relation to this blog post, I invite you to assist also yourself with awesome self-assisting tools within free online DIP Lite course and to listen to educational audio titled Under pressure from the Life Review series at Eqafe web store with hundreds of extremely supportive educational items that hold answer to any imaginable question about life and this existence.
