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 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 160: Worrying during work tasks

Not so long ago I join a international NGO that needed a logo for their new brand. Initially I became part of their internal graphic design team where each of us contributed with our logo design suggestions. After a while the organisation management got tired of waiting for us to come with a acceptable logo and decided to outsource it to one of popular international design contesting websites. Each of internal designers got payed in our cryptocurrency but of course not as much as the designer that eventually won the contest. When the head of NGO then provided us with the source file of the selected new logo, I noticed that it was not in expected vector format that can be infinitely scaled but only a bitmap file in medium resolution, usable only for website and small printed publication. I volunteered to take over the task of vectorisation since I worked in pre-press for over 10 years and converting images from pixels to vector lines is what I am very skilled at.

During the process of vectorisation I had a massive backchat about many things. Firstly I was dissatisfied with the NGO leadership that did even not educate themselves about how final logo format should be before they organised the design contest. Then I was disappointed about my logo not being selected despite of me being very professional in terms of making sure that it would be scalable, applicable and easily reproducible. I was unhappy about spending so much money on designer who was so unprofessional that he or she did not provide the logo in clean vector shape.

After I continued with inspecting the source file of the logo I noticed that the elements that were to represent a plant were so unnatural that people would notice and criticise it when the logo would be reproduced on some larger canvas. I started to wonder if I should take the initiative and do the corrections that I considered to be in the best interest of the organisation or if I should stick strictly to the original shape. Of course I could send such questions to the NGO leaders but they were very busy and had quite long response time. And many projects were stalled and could not move on before the logo was prepared so there was also a time pressure. 

What I was asking myself during the vectorisation process was if my work will be accepted, recognised and rewarded or if it will be criticised and refused. So I was quite worried about many things and I felt confused and anxious. I was also not sure about what is the procedure to become clear about the things that I wanted answer to since I was not clear about the roles in the NGO or who would be the most appropriate person to query. I wanted to do a good job however all the thinking created a depressed feeling and heaviness around my eyes.

I started to wonder why I am having so much trouble with such a relatively simple task while some individuals in the organisation seem to deal with their task very easily. Then I finally realised that I remembered how my father constantly pushed and criticised me while I was working in his family visual communications company. I was the only one using the computer to scan the logos from the flyers or business cards that clients delivered and I had to vectorise them very accurately and as fast as possible.

The next step of my responsibilities was to engage in the pre-press, do colour separation and films for the screen-printing department that my younger brother was in charge of. And if I made a single mistake, which I occasionally did, but it was discovered only after several hundred pieces of deliverables were printed, it resulted in quite some material damage and massive anger that was clearly expressed by my brother and my father. So during my design and pre-process I was in constant fear of later being emotionally attacked and blamed for damages.

Despite my brother taking over our family business about 17 years ago, me not working there anymore and moving to different part of our country, I still occasionally do some design work for my father using Skype and screen sharing. Lately we go along quite fine but occasionally he still comes with his pattern of getting inpatient and emotions of anger that trigger unpleasant feelings within me. And I am getting so much tired of living in constant expectation when he will call me next and fearing that after I do something for him he will be unsatisfied with my work.

Such experiences engrained and rooted deeply into my body to the level where they influence also myself in unpleasant way when I am working for any other client or do other work that can even not involve computers at all. So I am now going to apply the tools of writing and sounding self-forgiveness and self-commitments in order to shatter crystallised patterns that limit my self-expression and creative potentials:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be afraid about what others will think about the results of my work. I realise that despite my work is a sort of extension and a part of me, the feedback given by others is often influenced by their projections and different kind of reasoning. When and as someone criticise my work and my mind produces thoughts like: “Oh no, they do not like me as a being.” I stop and breathe. I commit myself to in such cases breathe effectively, listen to the feedback within emotional stability and see if I can improve the result of my work so that it will serve end users as best as possible in a practical way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel pressured when engaging in a creative design process since it takes quite some time and inspiration to come with a good and fresh idea and then to also manifest it in a tangible form. I realise that despite of being pressured and not allowed enough time to creatively express during the period of me being employed by my father I am now my own boss and am able to take as much time as needed for me to be completely satisfied with the result. When and as I start with creative design process and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Time is money so you must hurry or the client will have to pay you much more money than needed.” I stop and breathe. I commit myself to find clients who value high quality design and are also willing to pay fair price for it so that I can focus on being creative without any kind of unnecessary pressure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become depressed in cases when I do not know who in organisation that I collaborate with is responsible for what. I realise that the only solution for something that I am not clear about is to ask questions and get answers no matter how long it takes for me to be completely clear about whatever I need to know in order to move forward. When and as I am unclear about something and my mind is producing thoughts like: “Oh no, I will now have to spend time to write the questions and wait for the answers and thus the work will have to wait.” I stop and breathe. I commit myself to be aware that being clear about things is the most important in life and that I am diligent in making all the necessary questions and be patient at receiving the answers. And during the time while I wait for a needed answer for me to be able to move on with a project, there are always many other tasks that I can do, especially perfecting myself by writing mind constructs like in this blog post.

In relation to this blog post, I invite you to assist also yourself with awesome self-perfecting tools within free online DIP Lite course and to listen to educational audio titled Worry Wart from the Life Review series at Eqafe web store with hundreds of extremely supportive educational items that hold answers to any imaginable question about life and this existence.

Day 150: The origin of excessive self-criticism

Initially this blog post was to be about how I experience myself towards men because in my previous blog I walked how I experience myself towards women. However after my Desteni I Process course buddy reviewed my previous post, she indicated that I only brushed some of the related points and suggested me to expand on those points in the following posts. So this writing will be expansion of the pattern of excessive self-criticism that is becoming more and more prevalent with increasing responsibility within my professional work. I have been in position of leading Slovenian promoter of Spurt alternative currency for almost one year now and since some predictions about when the currency will become convertible did not fulfil yet, people are pressing on me and some even accusing me of lying and walking away due to disappointment. And I definitely do not want to be labeled as a liar and loose my integrity.

I perceive myself as a good person with a sensitive heart and I experience minor hart arrhythmia several times during a day. However I am successfully able to stop it by focusing on my breath and in case when I feel that my hearth is being weakened too much due to stress and worry, I take a brake, do exercise, go out in the nature and recuperate. However I currently live a quite stressless life style and spend most of the time alone in my room where I can rest and have a peaceful retreat whenever I want. Most of the communication that I do with other people is via Facebook and if someone tents to bully me too much, I am able to simply block them and the situation is solved. I am having hard time to imagine how to handle strong personal attacks face to face. And this is especially because I know that some people are in low state of awareness and can get so emotionally possessed that they are incapable of hearing and understanding what is being said to them. So in liv events people can even physically attack and even kill you.

Cool examples of people that are masters in handling live personal attacks are politicians, especially presidents. I admired previous US president Barack Obama how he was able to handle people with directing his words and keeping his cool and the new president Donald Trump is even greater example of immunity to deepest public mocking. He even participates in TV comedy shows that targets his strange hair, orange tan, the way he speaks, his small hand and every single mistake that anyone can find in order to target him. And despite all of that, he remains centred, relaxed and focused on achieving his goals. This is definitely a level of self-confidence that also I want to achieve since I want to improve the current world system which means that I plan to become a public personality and in limelight of all sorts of media that will question everything that I do.

Now if I look what made me to become so sensitive to criticism and why I am also criticising myself a lot, let me start with my early age. One of the factors was that I was the the oldest child and they are generally expected to become a responsible example for the rest of the younger brothers and sisters. Then there is a public education system that systematically suppresses self-expression, individuality and forces you to become obedient part of society that respects authority. However what created excessive self-criticism was the projected low self-esteem of my father that escalated especially after I finished the middle school and became employee of his family graphic business.

So the first problem was that my father did not treated me as unique being with own self-expression and did consider me mostly as the product that was shaped by his own image. This is a common mistake that parent make since they ofter consider their children as a better version of themselves and want them to experience what they lacked to experience and prevent them to experience all the bad thing that they experienced when they were a child. This then creates tyranny and suppression towards their children that can be in the same way transferred from generation to generation. My father wanted me to excel in order to show my achievements to others. An when others would praise me he would feel like they are praising him personally. So in his eyes there was no difference between me and him and whatever I have done it was like he did it. Consequently also every criticism that I received was felt by him like he himself is being criticised. Thus he wanted to make sure that I never do any mistake and criticised every mistake that I made violently.

Consequences of my mistakes got especially significant weight when I started to do design and pre-press work in our family graphic company. I was the one who did the typesetting, colour separation of logos and created films for the screen-printing department that was managed by my brother. He then collected the graphic films, prepared the screen for each colour and printed any object that was necessary to print in the screen-printing technique. The objects that he printed on were sometime very cheap like transfer paper or self-adhesive foil, however some times he printed directly to T-shirts, bags, umbrellas, lighters and other promotional products. Some of those objects were very expensive and if they were be printed with a mistake in the content of the print, it resulted in a quite high cost of damaged goods that our company was responsible for. Not only that the high valuable products were ruined but it also resulted in a lot of wasted time and anger by my brother since he had to do all the time-consuming process of preparing the screens and printing machines again.

Since I was the only employee who did the pre-press in our company among also other jobs like creating signs from self-adhesive foil, I was under a lot of pressure and was pressed to work as fast as possible. I had to type on the computer fast and it is hard to be accurate and not to do any mistake under such pressure. When I would do some typing mistake, my brother went to my father to file a complaint and my father would then come to me with anger and instructing me to type slow, pressing only one key at a time order to be sure not to make any typing mistake again. That confused me quite a lot since he somehow expected me to type slow and perform fast at the same time. Obviously when my brother came to him to criticise me, he felt like himself is being criticised and then he criticised me in order for he as me not to be criticised again.

So the problem in every business process is how to handle errors and mistakes that also result in high cost of created damage. When someone writes a book, there is usually someone that was responsible for proofreading and editing of the text before printing so that there would be no mistakes in the final printed book. I wanted to implement a similar protocol in our company but the problem was selecting or providing a person that would take such responsibility. Most of the time it was me that sent the final design to the clients in order for them to check the validity of design content. However it was discovered that clients in most cases did not notice the error because their eyes saw what their mind expected to see and not what was actually there. Our company never hired any professional proofreader so it was mostly I that made the effort to check if any error existed and from time to time I did miss some and the game of blame repeated over and over again.

The reason why relationships and working conditions in our company did not improve was because my father was not honestly interested in quality. All he wanted was to be praised and his most powerful tool was a surprise tactic. He wanted to feel good by making others feel good when he would present a product that others would be excited by. So when someone would place an order he wanted to deliver the product as fast as possible and with as less complications as possible for his own sake of immediate emotional gratification. That is why he did not supported my initiative to communicate with a client during the production process and was especially not fun of clients taking the responsibility to proofread the content before the printing. What my father basically wanted is just to take the order and as soon as possible to visit the client, ring the door bell and make clients extremely excited about the finished product so he could feel good.

Eventually my father even started with his own spin-off project of original Gutenberg wooden printing press reconstruction where he would be able to be in the eyes of the public even more often and receive live compliments at cultural and historical events. Lack of his focus to management of our company business eventually lead to my decision to leave the job and establish my own business. And even now, many years after that event, I am still occasionally doing some long-distance work form my father where he is showing that he still did not learn the lesson. He still rather keeps communication with clients to minimum with hopes to surprise them as much as possible. However many times clients are far from being satisfied with him since many expect close collaboration and being asked if something about their order information is not clear enough. My father rather risks creating a big disappointment of his clients instead of making sure that none of the mistakes are made due to misunderstanding and wrong expectations.

Soon after I left our family company my brother convinced my father to take over the business which he did. Now he is also in the position of doing the pre-press job so he has the opportunity to experience the taste of his own medicine. Now he has no one to complain to for any design mistakes that he makes however we do not communicate much and I did not ask him what process he has implemented to prevent the mistakes and creation of costly damage. And I also after becoming freelance designer had to pay attention that the final product is correct. I made sure that clients reviewed the final drafts and that by signing they took full responsibility for any material cost that could manifest in the process of design reproduction. Eventually I transitioned to focus only on professional photography where there is no danger of creating a mistake in the content. I simply captured the picture of the reality as it manifested in the moment. However when I decided to do also the wedding photography, I was again challenged a lot because there were important moments in the ceremony that I was not allowed to miss and also the processing of the photos had to be very different that in documentary photography.

The question here is how much I was responsible for the mistakes that I made in my life. Because as I already became aware of in my previous posts, I played an energetic emotional polarity game with my father, similar like my father and my mother did. I wonder how many times I subconsciously made a deliberate typing mistake in order to retaliate for emotional abuse of my father and how in such cases have equally gave priority to experience emotional energy of self-pity instead of removing all energy addictions and actually creating a sustainable solution for the production problems in our company. And how much I enjoyed to be the only one who did the design and pre-press work in our company in order for only our family members to be in the key production positions instead of expanding and allowing also for other people to become employees and support the production for the mutual benefit of all workers and clients equally.

So one thing that I see as important is to remove all energy addictions and to actually perform based on the principles of what is best for all. And then to also understand that mistakes will happen from time to time since one is able in every moment to have control only about limited things in this existence. So forgiveness and especially self-forgiveness are necessary to be applied as often as possible. A fine example of such forgiveness has been demonstrated in the short Public Statement video by Dave Schmidt where he apologised for his assumptions and stepping over the limit. And I also want to develop more humility and ability to repent and to feel real shame for all actions where I acted based on self-interest and was directed by energy of the mind instead of principle of what is best for all. Because I also in quite large extend copied the pattern of my father where I wanted the attention from other people. The difference is only that I did not use physical products in oder to impress others but used high and very advanced knowledge and information to achieve the same result.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my father for being addicted to good feelings of being praised. I realised that I also developed similar pattern and thus I have no right to judge him. I commit myself to when and as I think about my father with thoughts like: “He is such an emotional manipulator and I am so much better than him!” to stop and breathe. I then rather focus on my own weaknesses and make sure that I remove them as many as possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to punish my father by playing the game of self-victimisation, self-pity and giving up on myself. I realise that staying in such polarity role is only sabotaging myself since it limits my potentials and prevents my self-expression. I commit myself to when and as I interact with my father and my thought go like: “You are welcome to demand from me anything that you want but I will show you how much you have hurt me and how much I still suffer!“ to stop and breathe. I then communicate with him without any resentment, create mutual agreement and work for him equally as for any other being. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my father for not providing a system of proofreading while I was working for him. I realise that even when I have worked as a freelancer I did not collaborate with any professional proofreader and have made my clients responsible for any costs that might occur by reproduction of design with error. I commit myself to when and as I look at how my father managed our business and my mind goes: “He was so irresponsible for not providing a professional proofreading system!“ to stop and breathe. I then rather focus on my current work and make sure to provide a better system for my clients in order to prevent as many mistakes as possible. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allow myself to fear presenting myself in the public due to danger of being criticised. I realise that this fear does not originate in others behaving irresponsible but is result of my addiction to self-victimisation and projecting blame towards others. I commit myself to when and as someone criticises me and my mind goes: “Oh now, this world is so unjust and I am such a poor innocent victim!“ to stop and breathe. I then listen to words of criticism and admit that I was wrong if some mistake that I make has been exposed or I stand my ground and defend my integrity if I recognise the criticism as nothing but lies. 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear admitting that I made a mistake and to fear apologising myself. I realise that we all constantly learn by trial end error and that making mistakes is part of being alive. I commit myself that to when and as I make a mistake and my mind produces thoughts like: “Quickly hide what you have done and save face in order for your track record not to have any black spots!” to stop and breathe. I rather apologise for my mistakes, learn from them and not allow others to continue bullying me by repeatedly reminding me about all the mistakes that I made in the past.

In relation to this blog post, I invite you to assist also yourself with awesome self-perfecting tools within free online DIP Lite course and to listen to educational audio titled Respect, Integrity, Trust and Honour from The Metaphysical Secrets of Imagination series at Eqafe web store with hundreds of extremely supportive educational items that hold answers to any imaginable question about life and this existence.

Day 146: Self-criticism of my belly

Several years ago when I used to do a lot of mountain biking, my friend and I took a trip with our mountain bikes to the nearby Stol (Chair) mountain. During the downhill we stopped in the forest for a short rest and I asked him if he can take a picture from the side with me posing on my bike. After I downloaded the picture and looked at it on my computer my belly took most of my attention since it was like protruding forward and it did not looked attractive to me like I imagined it would. My goal was to give an elegant pose but I was ashamed of my posture the way it looked on the picture . So I did not post this photo on social media because I thought that others would criticise me.

After that I have for many times occasionally observed my belly in the mirror and wondered how I usually look from the side to the other people. I wanted my belly to be nice and attractive, especially to girls, of course. In many movies there are scenes where girls admire six-pacs of the guys and how it is suppose to be sexy. However I recently also stumbled on one article that explains how most of the women like men with the bigger bellies however I am not sure if they explained why. There is also a character of Santa Claus that has a big belly and is associated with a kind personality. And my father also has a big belly and he used to joke that a responsible lord has to keep his tools under the roof. There was also one viral video that showed a guy with big round protruding belly who hit it with his palm fast and it turned into a six-pacs. This obviously demonstrated that also bodybuilders are able to relax the belly muscles so that it looks protruded and round and when they decide to expose their six-pacs, they have to make an effort to activate their belly muscles. I also wondered if my spine has deformed in a more obvious S shape since I have been sleeping on my belly from my early childhood. Despite of all this worries about how my belly could look in the eyes of others, I never gave it much attention like becoming obsessed with going to gym or wanting to have a six-pacs to impress girls. However it does somehow persist in my subconscious mind and it influences my self-image.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I have to have a six-pacs in order to become attractive and get girls. I realise that I had several girls and none of them complained about my belly. And as some research explained, some girls prefer big bellies oven plain ones or even six-pacs. I commit myself to when and as I observe a photo of me where my belly is protruding and my mind produces thoughts like: “Look at that big ugly belly! You should be ashamed of it and if you will do nothing about it, you will not be able to attract any girls.” to stop and breathe. I then continue to observe the photo of me and not allowing any emotional reaction to take over.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare my belly to bellies of other people, especially those who are actors in the movies and models in the fashion magazines. I realise that movies and magazines tend to promote a certain ideal of beauty and physical perfection and ignore the fact that humans come in various and very different shapes and sizes. I commit myself to when and as I observe myself on the photo or in the video and my mind goes: “What a geek, your body looks so strange that it would be better to hide yourself from the public in order not to create a disgust in the eyes of other!“ to stop and breathe. I then continue to observe pictures of me within energetic stability and awareness that it is natural to be different from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to imagine that my posture is bad and that my spine is crooked without even visiting a doctor or chiropractor in order to confirm the extend of how much if at all the shape of my spine is off from the optimum and if there are any concerns and needs to be adjusted. I realise that if my posture would be so much off I would received at least one comment from my friends about that so I should be just fine. I commit myself to when and as I think about the shape of my spine and my mind is producing an imagination how my spine is crooked to stop and breathe. I then refocus to something more important in my life or decide to schedule an appointment with s specialist to provide me with a real facts about the condition of my spine.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that a physical image of my body is so much important due to promotion of visual ideals in the public media. I realise that in any relationship physical image plays a very small role comparing to the whole spectrum and dimensions of interactions and collaboration that two life partners perform during the whole day alone and together. I commit myself to when and as I go in my mind and start to use my imagination to compare my physical body to any body of actor or a model, to stop and breathe. I then rather do some practical work with full acceptance of the way how my physical body witch I am temporarily incarnated in my current human experience looks like and with awareness that it is just one current dimension of who I am as eternal living being. 

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 audios titled Self Image and Imagination from the Metaphysical Secrets of Imagination series at Eqafe web store with hundreds of extremely supportive educational items that hold answers to any imaginable question about life and this existence.

Day 77: My envy towards my close friends

Days from 74 to 76 are in my Slovenian blog

Today I noticed a post of my friend, more specifically, the business FaceBook page of my friend's product that he is being developing and marketing for past couple of years. When I noticed the post of the new model of the product, where he associated the natural resources of our country with his product, I became judgmental towards him.

My friend gave me once a sample of his product and I have been using it for a while. His product advertised as natural and environmentally friendly, however some of his components are not such. For example the product of his that I was using had a component that in time became more and more smelly and thus I stopped using it. Then I also do not like some other versions of his product where he also uses some artificial and oil-based material that smells.

And the last time that I met him in person was where I wanted to present his some new business opportunity and he then reacted with warning that he will not talk with me again if I do it again since I surely must know that he is very busy and focused only on development of his product. At that time when he threatened me, I somehow felt angry since he did not shared my point of view, but at the same time I also admired him for his dedication and focus on his product.

I want to be successful at my projects and after reading some books about people who were very successful, I found out that all were very emotional and end expressed their dissatisfaction when events would not turn out as expected outward very violently. However they would not project this energy onto others, but then focused on the potentials and engaged them. I on the other hand see myself as not very emotional or at least not outward expressive, but introversive character. I thus am afraid that I do not possess proper qualities to fulfill my projects properly.