Day 210: Can We See Truth of Ourselves in Others?

Now continuing from the previous post, where I left off saying that there is a way in which we can develop the ability to be able to see ourselves as who/what we really are, using our ability to see things in others.

Now, obviously the first step is the decision to want to see yourself as who you are, which comes from the realization that thinking and believing you are one way, while living another way in actuality, leads to unfortunate consequences in your world and relationships. Really, it shouldn't sit right with you that you've got one version of yourself that you see in your mind while there is the real version of you walking around in reality, interacting with your world/others, and you don't even have a clue of the consequence you are creating, because you can't even see what you're really doing, what effect you're having on your world and those around you, what the truth behind your actions is, and most importantly, the example that you're living for others to see.

I mean, this didn't sit right with me to be stuck in a delusion of who I am when the truth of me is here always, and the only way you can seem to avoid it, is by lying to yourself and coming up with all sorts of excuses and justifications of why you're apparently excused from the expectations you would hold others to, why you're apparently allowed to do and say things that you don't find acceptable for others to do.

So since we are blinded by our own excuses and justifications, our own behaviors have become so accepted to a point that we don't see clearly and directly who and what we're being, and therefore, why the fact that we can at least see these things in others, becomes so important and ultimately useful. Because, we can use what we see in others, to get to see things in ourself. How does that work?

Since we can see another's behavior without all the justifications and excuses, we can see it for what it is and the consequence it creates. This can help us to identify certain behaviors, so that we can then look for that behavior in ourself, and then even identify the excuses and justifications we used/use in order to justify/give permission to ourself to participate in the behavior.

This like any skill one is developing will not be so easy at first but would get easier with time and application as you develop the ability to see various points within yourself, and then it actually becomes quite a fun and fascinating journey of developing self awareness, and 'unlocking the puzzle' in a way, of what we have become, as this riddle of self justifications and beliefs in contradiction to reality. It becomes quite fun to when you identify a point within another, to then investigate to find out where/how the same point exists in you.

So a practical example of this would be for example where you see someone who is distracted in a moment and therefore not being very considerate of what they are doing or where they are going, and then trip right into some object that they hadn't noticed was in their path, or maybe they even ran into you because they weren't looking where they were going, and you think or say something like 'why don't they watch where they are going??'. So the point here to investigate within oneself would be where are you in moments distracted and not aware of everything in your environment and you create some sort of consequence from not being aware and paying attention?

So what is the point of doing this? What do we do with this information? Once I have identified a point within another, and then found it also within myself in some aspect/area of my living? That we will get into in the next post, where we'll look at how this tool of seeing ourselves in others, is one of the most effective tools in the process of Self Change, which can be one of the most difficult things to do, and how this is of the utmost benefit to oneself. How the key to our true potential has been here all along, we just haven't been able to see it yet because we haven't been able to see ourselves.
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Day 209: Why Can't We See Ourselves?

Throughout our lives, we never really learn to investigate ourselves, in fact, just the opposite – we learn to practically completely separate ourselves from who and what we really are. What do I mean by that? Well, we tend to form an idea about ourselves, the kind of person we are, that is based on ideas and thoughts in our mind. We have a certain perception of ourselves, that others will not always have of us. This is how we can end up being or feeling like we're 'misunderstood'. Like, 'they just don't get me', 'nobody gets me'. And that's because we have a separate version of ourselves in our mind. In our mind, exist all the justifications for why/who/how we are, all the dreams of what we 'wish we could be', all the imaginations of 'who we would be' if things had gone differently, all our self definitions of 'who I am' in relation to this or that - “I'm miserable when it rains' or 'I like this kind of music and hate that one', who I can/can't be around certain people or in certain situations. It is a whole lot of information we contain within ourselves, that isn't actually 'out here' in reality, where everyone else can see it. So, we can have a very different view of ourselves than others might have.

We never learn to investigate ourselves – this is leading to how others serve as mirrors to assist us to see ourselves as we really are, because we have been so geared to miss that, that this actually probably won't even make sense to you, until you actually witness it for yourself, which requires self investigation. You've got to really look at who you think you are, and who you are in reality – what values are you living out toward others that you wouldn't, for example excuse others form acting that way toward you, but that you've apparently justified it in your mind why in some situation/scenario you would act that way to another and so you don't even see when you are doing the same thing.

So, this is how it is that we can actually be completely oblivious to who we really are. I'm sure, we've all had those moments where we notice what someone else is doing, and we have the thought ' how can they not even see what they are doing right now??' or 'don't they even realize what they're doing??'. Like if someone makes a comment toward you and makes a certain face and you take it as they are being nasty toward you, and you are thinking 'how do they not see how nasty they are being right now?'

You see, it's easy to see it in someone else, because you're not in their mind, having the same experience as them, having had the same life as them, and everything that goes along with that which has led up to this moment where they are acting in that certain way. Now, it's quite different when you are the one acting, because you do have all your thought patterns and established patterns of behavior that you've developed over the years of your life that determine how you'll react in a certain way toward something, and so in that moment it is just going to 'make sense' why you are reacting how you are and you won't even question it. And so, that's why the other person apparently isn't noticing their own behavior either.

This is largely because as children, we're actually trained to act and behave in certain ways, you know, to 'do as your told', so we don't develop an understanding of ourselves and behavior in any way, we simply learn 'don't do this' and 'do that'. Thus, we basically learn to act in ways that will hopefully avoid a negative response, and that's about the extent of what we learn about behavior. We view our actions in terms of trying to avoid certain consequences. So our behavior becomes all about outward appearances essentially, where we're geared toward presenting ourselves to others in certain ways, and there is no focus on who we really are within ourselves, and what the starting point is behind our behaviors and actions.

It is important that we get to understand this point, so that we can start to develop a self awareness and get to understand ourselves, because the way we are living currently for the most part is very consequential, in all aspects of our lives, as we can see that the world is busy falling apart due to our negligence.

Luckily, we can utilize the function of how it is seemingly so easy to see what another is doing, to unlock the secrets to our own behavior, which is quite a fascinating, illuminating, and ultimately self-empowering process, and I will continue with that in the next post.
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Day 208: Self Forgiveness for Making Enemies


Here I am continuing from the previous post, here. I'll now walk the Self Forgiveness for how I'd accepted the justifications for war and separation from other human beings. For context, here is where I left off in the last post discussing this point:

Within all this, I eventually accepted the justifications myself, that apparently we have enemies and thus must fight them and we’re ‘protecting’ ourselves. I was so sold on the idea that apparently there were these vicious enemies out there who were big and posed some sort of real threat to us and so we just had to protect ourselves. Yet, I had no idea actually how big any of these countries were, or how developed they are, and probably most importantly why do they apparently want to attack us? I mean, for me to want to attack someone, it took a reason. I had to believe that they were a threat to me or harmed me in some way. So, wouldn’t that hold true for the supposed ‘enemies’ as well? I mean, I knew they are people, human beings, just like me. Same bodies with superficial differences, and you’ve got moms and dads and children, etc. They all need the same things as me like food, water, shelter, education. Sure we have some cultural differences, though those are usually blown out of proportion by the media, in order to highlight our apparent differences, to feed the idea and misperception that there could be human beings out there that are ‘just different’ and just want to harm us for no good reason, and so we won’t ever realize that nobody just wants to hurt others, and we’ll never investigate or question to get to the bottom of what is really going on, as such behavior is always the symptom of something out of ordinary going on.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accept any justification for having enemies, and having to 'fight our enemies' when in fact this has never been a solution but has only kept us locked in relationships of being 'enemies' toward others and fighting each other with no end in sight.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question why we would have enemies, and therefore to not ever investigate the situation to get the full story of what was going on, in order to understand the situation to be able to find actual solutions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accept the idea/perception of having 'enemies' because it was presented to me as being 'fact' and 'the way things are' and presented with all sorts of justifications that if I had but questioned I may have realized that the relationship of 'being enemies' does not just happen or exist within itself but is the result of specific reasons and causes namely our own behavior toward one another, which if we changed would then stop creating ourselves as enemies.

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to realize that if we stop living the relationships of separation we have formed toward others, that no such separation would exist, and no one would be enemies but we would all get along and coexist and work together and for once be able to explore our true potential as humanity.

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to realize that most, if not all, of our problems are the result of us living in separation toward one another, and that this would imply that we are the very solution we have been waiting for, right under our noses this whole time, since we are the cause of the problem.

I forgive myself that I haven't accepted and allowed myself to realize that any point within myself where I am living in separation of another being is the same point which is responsible for all the wars and atrocities that exist that we allow to happen to one another and that we act out on one another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that holding onto the points of separation I exist as toward others is in some way serving me, when it is in fact doing the opposite, by keeping myself, my relationships and this whole world in a state of perpetual fighting and conflict, where we can never get to know what it would be like to really live and express ourselves here, instead of being caught up in endless conflict.

When and as I see myself participating in conflict and separation within myself toward another/others, I stop and breathe, remind myself that no one is actually my enemy, and reassess the situation within the consideration of all involved equally as myself.

I realize that I am responsible for the war and conflict in the world if I allow conflict to exist in me toward others and that when I take the approach of needing to defend or protect myself from another where I am only considering what is best for me that I am immediately placing myself in a position of opposition toward them, and actually placing the other in a position of having to defend themselves against me as well, since I am only considering my own interest, and thus by such behavior we drive each other apart and into conflict.

I realize that as long as I am stuck in a position of conflict toward another, that I actually prevent myself from seeing any effective solution, because that requires to be considering all points equally, otherwise it will simply lead to more conflict.

I commit myself to identifying and clearing up any points of separation within myself so that I can see the solutions that would be lasting and which would prevent and thus end conflict.
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