Stop IMPROVING!
I had another insight this morning. I am amazed still at the phenomena that I get some insights right before getting up, in the time period of not dreaming and knowing it will be time to get up soon but not right now. The insight I got this morning is that "I am not feeling secure being myself" yet. I did not go back and read my last journal again, I felt the need to start this one without doing that. It does follow-up on the last important comment though: "Stop evaluating my feelings." My feelings of insecurity is that I am not feeling secure with being myself yet. The association I got was that the feeling is similar to the anorexia nervosa disorder where some women (and men) feel they are too fat, or not thin enough, and this is about improving myself. "I don't know enough, I'm not thin enough (fat I want to get rid of), I don't look handsome enough, WHATEVER! Even not secure enough. What made the connection is "looking into the mirror". The only one feeling not secure enough with being like I am is ME! The constantly "looking into the mirror" to evaluate how I am being perceived is actually me evaluating me an looking for ways to improve. I am so focused on the mirror I do not see beyond it. I keep wanting more knowledge instead of being satisfied and using the knowledge I already have! That's why, I presume, I keep repeating myself and finding the same solutions and ideas in wherever I search for new awareness.
The only thing keeping me from feeling secure with who I am is me. And my quest to improve. And the one who wants improvement is that split-off part of myself called the "Superlative-Ego". I am not satisfied with myself. I and my "superlative-self" are one. My "Inner Child" does not need protection, my Inner Child needs to grow up and learn how to take care of its self. There is no split. It's imaginary. The need to improve is not an external need; I refuse to continue to blame it on the "mirror". The mirror is all about me evaluating my perception of myself and how I am looking to myself. It really is that constant evaluating of my own feelings, my own feelings about myself. My shyness is NOT about others rejecting being myself, it is me rejecting myself and refusing to be satisfied with being myself, as I really am. Somewhere I picked up the habit of evaluating myself, and it doesn't matter where; what matters is that I stop evaluating myself and my feelings. And those "feelings" are "How I feel about myself"; just like the people experiencing the feeling of anorexia nervosa do, and how their "reflection" is being distorted. It is an obsession with feeling the need to be better, rather than accepting what is. It is the focus on the minutia of improving, always believing there is just one more detail to find to improve. And the feeling that "I am not good enough" is a projection onto my own imaginary mirror where the mirror is other people. The conflict is with myself. I am so self-centered, in how I am evaluating myself, I am not enjoying my life. The whole point is that I am purposely not feeling secure with being myself. and I need to stop blaming anyone else for how I am feeling and evaluating myself. If I want to stop feeling insecure I need to stop feeling that feeling myself and stop expecting to get permission from the "mirror". The whole thing is not whole at all; the whole thing is in the feeling that there is actually a split. I am spending much too much time observing myself, for areas of improvement, than I need to. as I said, I need to let go of protecting my imaginary "Inner Baby", and let it grow up. The fact is I am tired of protecting the "Inner Baby" as though it is incompetent or helpless. It is just an aspect of myself, just like my Superlative-Ego. I am "acting as though" I am split. I'm not, I'm the "whole enchilada". As Vicki said: "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly."
I want to feel secure in being myself. And only I can do that, because I control my feelings about me. Only I can teach myself to stop evaluating myself constantly, and look beyond my imaginary mirror. I don't need to IMPROVE what I have, I need to accept that what I have is enough to be myself. Stop looking for ways to improve my reflection. I am dissatisfied with myself, THAT is where the problem is, and always has been.
THAT's what I want to continue to work on assimilating today, and everyday. Feeling satisfied with who I am and being myself, without anymore improvements.
***********************************
I added a comment to yesterday's comments, where I felt bad again, and realized it was another learning opportunity, and I didn't do as good at remembering not to evaluate myself when I woke up. Now I understand the principle of repeating the lesson until it becomes a part of me. This morning is another repetition of the same theme. It is time to stop looking for an improved lesson. The lesson IS to teach myself to stop evaluating myself constantly, my feeling about myself that is, and to do that I need to repeat the same lesson until it works. I am tired of trying to learn how to ride my bicycle by getting on a different style and type of bike every damn morning! I need to be satisfied learning to ride the bike I have. I need to stop testing myself to determine if I like myself yet again.
Whew! I feel I'm beginning to believe it myself!
Ciao
I'll keep everyone posted on my progress.
Rich
The only thing keeping me from feeling secure with who I am is me. And my quest to improve. And the one who wants improvement is that split-off part of myself called the "Superlative-Ego". I am not satisfied with myself. I and my "superlative-self" are one. My "Inner Child" does not need protection, my Inner Child needs to grow up and learn how to take care of its self. There is no split. It's imaginary. The need to improve is not an external need; I refuse to continue to blame it on the "mirror". The mirror is all about me evaluating my perception of myself and how I am looking to myself. It really is that constant evaluating of my own feelings, my own feelings about myself. My shyness is NOT about others rejecting being myself, it is me rejecting myself and refusing to be satisfied with being myself, as I really am. Somewhere I picked up the habit of evaluating myself, and it doesn't matter where; what matters is that I stop evaluating myself and my feelings. And those "feelings" are "How I feel about myself"; just like the people experiencing the feeling of anorexia nervosa do, and how their "reflection" is being distorted. It is an obsession with feeling the need to be better, rather than accepting what is. It is the focus on the minutia of improving, always believing there is just one more detail to find to improve. And the feeling that "I am not good enough" is a projection onto my own imaginary mirror where the mirror is other people. The conflict is with myself. I am so self-centered, in how I am evaluating myself, I am not enjoying my life. The whole point is that I am purposely not feeling secure with being myself. and I need to stop blaming anyone else for how I am feeling and evaluating myself. If I want to stop feeling insecure I need to stop feeling that feeling myself and stop expecting to get permission from the "mirror". The whole thing is not whole at all; the whole thing is in the feeling that there is actually a split. I am spending much too much time observing myself, for areas of improvement, than I need to. as I said, I need to let go of protecting my imaginary "Inner Baby", and let it grow up. The fact is I am tired of protecting the "Inner Baby" as though it is incompetent or helpless. It is just an aspect of myself, just like my Superlative-Ego. I am "acting as though" I am split. I'm not, I'm the "whole enchilada". As Vicki said: "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly."
I want to feel secure in being myself. And only I can do that, because I control my feelings about me. Only I can teach myself to stop evaluating myself constantly, and look beyond my imaginary mirror. I don't need to IMPROVE what I have, I need to accept that what I have is enough to be myself. Stop looking for ways to improve my reflection. I am dissatisfied with myself, THAT is where the problem is, and always has been.
THAT's what I want to continue to work on assimilating today, and everyday. Feeling satisfied with who I am and being myself, without anymore improvements.
***********************************
I added a comment to yesterday's comments, where I felt bad again, and realized it was another learning opportunity, and I didn't do as good at remembering not to evaluate myself when I woke up. Now I understand the principle of repeating the lesson until it becomes a part of me. This morning is another repetition of the same theme. It is time to stop looking for an improved lesson. The lesson IS to teach myself to stop evaluating myself constantly, my feeling about myself that is, and to do that I need to repeat the same lesson until it works. I am tired of trying to learn how to ride my bicycle by getting on a different style and type of bike every damn morning! I need to be satisfied learning to ride the bike I have. I need to stop testing myself to determine if I like myself yet again.
Whew! I feel I'm beginning to believe it myself!
Ciao
I'll keep everyone posted on my progress.
Rich
Replies
Hi Rich,
I loved this post. I especially liked your remarks \" I am tired of trying to learn how to ride my bicycle by getting on a different style and type of bike every damn morning! I need to be satisfied learning to ride the bike I have. I need to stop testing myself to determine if I like myself yet again.\"
What a great analogy!! I can relate. Moving ahead one step at a time.
Keep the Faith!
Shar
I saw a photo of another friend and associate on Facebook this morning and I felt envy for her apparent lack of \"shame\" for \"goofing-off\" or looking \"goofy\" or \"clowning\" (My words). It goes directly back to my \"evaluating myself\" lesson. There is some feeling attached to \"embarrassment\" I need to learn to feel that I haven\'t learned to feel yet. I guess it is feeling embarrassed for being myself, and evaluating my image. My goal is to continue to teach myself to be extremely comfortable \"within my own skin\". I\'m speculating that as I learn to stop evaluating myself, or AS I stop the habit of evaluating my identity as my feelings, I will \"let go\" of feeling \"improper\" whenever what I do is evaluated as a mistake. The whole concept of \"Shame-less\" is extremely foreign to me right now. I feel it goes back to the affect of the \"Superlative-Ego\" on my ideal image belief.
The whole concept refers back to feeling extremely sensitive to feelings of shame. It is based on other\'s perceptions, and their mandates for behaving, and controlling their comfort. It is a confusing of sympathetic feelings, it is a confusing of boundaries, of separating myself from other\'s feelings; and maybe that\'s part of a \"fear of separation\" and \"expulsion as rejection\" theme I, like others, have feared my whole lifetime. What it does is it allows me to reject myself and evaluate myself from another \"better\" viewpoint than maintaining an assertion of how I feel about myself when I make a mistake or \"faux pas\" or \"do something stupid\". It seems (I mean \"I feel\") that fear circles back to the urge for \"knowing-it-all\" (and remembering it all) so as not to feel ashamed for making a mistake that flaws my perfect self-image desire. So that the REAL terror is involving me evaluating myself for shameful acts. Yep! It goes back to \"not being myself\", since being myself may not be good enough. The \"may\" part and \"good enough for who?\" may be parts I will want to question. It would also explain the anxiety over \"future fears\", since \"knowing\" what will happen, and how I \"should\" act are the motivating fears for maintaining a \"perfect identity\". So now the question, again: a perfect identity and image for whom? Who does evaluating everything I do serve? I won\'t be liked because I make others feel uncomfortable by virtue of their sympathetic feelings of shame for impropriety and conformity. That projection onto others is onto my mirror, and HEY! That mirror is being created by my \"Superlative-Ego\"! My \"superlative-Ego\" is an imaginary split I create myself to evaluate myself, in order to make certain I am being competent at living my life and taking care of MYSELF. The only problem is that I only use it to take care of that small imaginary split-off person I created in myself, my \"Superlative-Ego\", and not my whole and real self. So here\'s an insight: the \"one\" doing all the evaluating is my own creation of a split-off persona of my whole integrated self, my own \"Superlative-Ego\". My \"Ideal Social Self\" is my Judge in the form of my \"Superlative-Ego\", and the \"one\" of me doing all the evaluating of myself. I created my \"superlative-ego\" to be a mean and harsh evaluator of myself! I did that! I created \"him\"! What I need is a gentler, kinder, evaluator; not some evil imaginary tyrant! I create my standards for evaluating myself! The tyrant I continually fear pleasing is not the mirror itself, or \"society and its rules; It\'s ME! Or a part on me I create as an imaginary part of myself!
So here I am again: \"stop evaluating my feelings; stop improving myself\". Teach myself to do that first and be as sensitive in awareness as I can learn to feel when I am evaluating myself. As I said before, I will be repeating this theme in many different ways until I learn how to implement it as a change in my behaviors.
Rich
By the way, today is my wife\'s and my 36th Anniversary!
I feel good about that. It\'s one of the few consistencies I have in my life. It hasn\'t been \"perfect\", but it is satisfying, and worth every minute of it. I feel blessed today to have had the experience, and continue to experience it. It has been like being married to my best friend, because it is.
I wish all my friends the same kind of happiness, as often as possible.
Referring to the above comment, one of the major feelings of inconsistency is my own self-image. I am the one who refuses to stabilize it yet. That may be part of my anxieties I refer to in that \"bike-riding\" metaphor: I don\'t know which \"Richard\" will show up so I don\'t know who I will be able to depend on. There are still too many \"Richards\" to escape to in order to avoid feeling what I am feeling. I\'m feeling this is a good awareness to continue to monitor. ;-)
Another insight is that in the \"knowing\" need; it\'s important to remember to know what I know, and when I become anxious and overwhelmed emotionally it blocks my memory and ability to \"think\", which is what I use to remember how to act logically and reasonably. Evaluating myself is how I create the fear and anxiety I try to avoid. By becoming more aware of my body, like Shar shared today, the better I get with reminding myself to stay present, and in my body, and in the reality for what I am feeling. Maybe it\'s not \"Everything\'s not about me!\", it\'s \"Everything is not about evaluating how I am feeling about how I am coping with how I look to my \"Superlative-Ego\".
\"ME\" is about my feelings. And evaluating myself is about how and what I am feeling about myself.
Another distraction I want to alert myself to is money and career; and when I let myself \"feel about that\" earlier I learned that I feel like \"helping\" people without ever expecting anything in return, i.e., \"nothing for me, thanks\". I\'m guessing I never learned to ask for something in return for what I did, or to expect anything for my efforts. It\'s all giving and no taking. It\'s an imbalance. It\'s like nothing I do is really worth anything. Yeah, like I don\'t want any attention, I don\'t like attention, it\'s nothing; therefore I\'m nothing, my needs aren\'t that important. I don\'t know (what I\'m feeling yet), it feels like I feel sad for people who are obsessed with getting all the things they want; and that\'s probably a reflection from my mirror (It could be \"envy\", for me not allowing myself to feel aggressive enough to think that well of myself that I feel I deserve getting what I want. It is a the feeling of taking care of myself and my needs; that I am blocking. There is a traumatic memory hidden in there somewhere.). I\'ll wait to see what other feelings come up with that. At this moment I am feeling resistant to going any further with examining that feeling. It\'s enough to recognize the feeling in my body. That\'s where it starts, recognizing my feelings and not evaluating them as I\'m feeling them. Being willing to explore them and not escape them as \"not me\"-isms.
More later, (if I\'m so moved),
One of the Richards
;-)
Hi Rich,
Wow, Happy Anniversary! That is really wonderful! :-) It is a tribute to both of you and to your commitment to each other.
Hugs,
Shar
Happy Anniversary to you and your wife! Awesome!