No U-turn allowed

This blog is analyzing the origins of specific points of which I am walking the consequences right now in my day to day life. A U-turn to go back in time to correct or change my decisions is no option, so I will have to investigate specific moments in my past to be able to understand and correct myself here and now. Only so I will be able to stop ever returning patterns.

Today a new fact popped up that is adding to the list of consequences that have manifested since we as a family are back in society so to say. Already for a certain time I am seeing that since we moved to Italy, or maybe better, since we decided to move to Italy we started to plant a series of ‘things’ (I can’t figure out right now what should be a proper name) that grew over the years and which we are harvesting now, without having kept track of everything we have planted. I speak in we to indicate me and my partner as we are partners in crime in this, both having thought/created and accepted and allowed.

If I look back at the motivations we had for wanting to move to Italy I see now clearly it was a wish to escape. But to escape from what? Over the years, starting somewhere in my youth, I developed a view of the world that at first was very naive since I was raised in a family that had enough wealth to live a comfortable life. Later in life I experienced more and more how the real world was working. Where at first I was frustrated by the fact I was not able to grasp how things worked because they did not seem to work as I imagined, I slowly started to see that a lot of things were fucked up and started slowly but surely to distantiate myself from the ‘real’ world, at least I tried to do so. I was not willing to accept the world I was living in and started to make plans to escape the sick society in order to create my own micro world somewhere far away from everything.

If I look back at the period that preceded our ‘escape’ to a life on the edge of society I see a series of things that have not been managed properly. Most of these things are money related, and since life is money that shouldn’t be too surprising. There are several factors playing a role here. I will try to find a beginning here in my relation to money working backwards in time.

- Still paying the consequences of the loans I had to take a few years ago

- Issues with bank accounts that have not been properly closed down resulting in bank not willing to give us a mortgage for a new house

- No income due to work opportunities that dried up and forcing me to stop being self employed and to look for a new job

- Forced to get a loan to be able to pay my taxes

- Sold our house for less money than expected

- No money from the fine the first buyer of our house had to pay after he signed but could not pay for the house

- Extra expenses for lawyers and cleaning after a non successful sale and rent of our house

- Irregular income as self-employed consultant leading to a not so clear picture of what my financial situation was

- Lost job after not having a contract renewed due to lack of money within that company

- Changed job because I was looking for new challenges (From HP to a small company)

- Changed job because I felt I was doing work below my capabilities (From Ikea to HP)

So, where did it go wrong? Maybe my motivations or starting points. Why did I decide to swap job? When I decided to leave Ikea I did not have a new job. I decided to dive into a multi level marketing business where I was supposed to sell water filters. It did take a few months and some money to understand that this was not something for me. I was not a sales person and I was not prepared to sell to my friends and family trying to convince them to get into the business too. It was in the period right after this that I met my partner. In the first months of our relationship I settled and managed to get a job at HP.

Looking back the only motivation to leave a secure job was the fact I wanted a more challenging job and did not see any opportunities. Looking deeper, and this is a pattern that will come back more often, I see that I was looking for inspiration in order to do my day to day job. In other words, based on the feeling that my job was no fun anymore and did not give me the challenges I was looking for I decided to look for something else. The fact I looked for another job is not the point here, it is the motivation that lead to the fact of leaving my job. I have not been honest with myself (and to others) about this point and the fact I left one job without having another one. Why did I lie to myself? What was so important to achieve that I decided to lie and be blind for the real facts? Was it the hope to get rich? Was it the urge to get out of a boring day to day routine? Was it the idea to be free and do whatever I liked?

At last I managed to get back to earth and stopped participating in this idea of making money with a promising story overlooking all kind of important points. And finally I popped back into my place in the matrix and started working for a new employer. Not surprisingly this whole pattern popped up again. It took a little bit more than the previous time since I was settling more and more in the matrix of life, I got married, had children and all this was ok with a day to day routine of gong to the office doing slave work, every day again the same thing.

Also here I started to feel the burden of this much too static working environment. As soon as I saw the opportunity to leave for a more challenging job I left. I choose for a small company that was still tied (read entangled) to the corporate I was working for before. The only thing I did not foresee was that the crisis already started in these years (2002) and that Corporate HP was already taking measures. This trend of reducing costs, canceling training programs (I was working as a trainer) led to the fact that a couple of years later I ran out of business (by that time I was self-employed). I could have seen that, but I was blinded by the pictures of living in a remote area in the countryside somewhere in Italy.

And here I am touching another point. Italy! Ever since I finished school and moved from Italy, where I lived most of my youth, to the Netherlands I wanted to go back to Italy. The first year in my supposed country of origin had been a hell, at least that was the way I experienced it. I had a hard time in fitting in into the Dutch society. Not because people did not allow me, I was not allowing myself to fit in. I cherished the idea of being special, I was different, the ‘Italian’ and so giving myself a identity, something I apparently thought not to have.

I carried this identity with me for a long time, actually for the whole period I was living in the Netherlands, 22 years long. When I moved to Italy in 2006 with my family I had the idea I was back in my mother country. I son discovered a lot had changed in all these years. I also discovered that it was not the same life I had back then. I had to make my own money and that was quite difficult since plan A was to work as a trainer for HP in Italy, I only overlooked the fact that due to cost reduction HP canceled more and more trainings until almost nothing. Not willing to leave the Italian Dream and see that I chose the wrong horse to bet on I adapted and managed to get part time jobs. Together with other small projects I managed to earn a modest living, but not for long.

A factor that plays an important role in my motivation to go ‘back’ to Italy, besides the idea of leaving a rotten society to live on my own in a self (almost) supporting house with veggie garden, wood for the stove and so on, was the fact I could maintain my feeling special character. For 22 years I had been the Italian guy in the Netherlands, now I was the Dutch guy in Italy! That was feeding my specialty character with a lot of energy. I topped living this character when I was getting in more and more trouble and needed to change the situation I was living in since it was not acceptable anymore.

Having been confronted with the situation of having barely to no money to live I experienced a kind of resetting of myself. When we decided I had to go to the Netherlands to look for a job I kind of started as a new born child. This was the first time I actually did live in a country with no mask on of a special character. If ever I am recalling the old times in Italy is when talking to a colleague and old classmate of mine about the good old times (lol).

Having said this I can do a step further back. The being special character started somewhere of course. It might have started at the age of 5 when, while living in Italy as a very bond child among all other children with dark hair, I was seen as special. When strolling in the city with my mother and brother we had regularly people stopping to have a look at the blonde twins and had to touch that curious fair colored hair. My mother recalls that she had to wash our hair after each visit to the city.

Although the first years on the primary school seemed quite normal and being fully integrated into the community there were still a couple of ‘anomalies’. First the fact I am a twin and that my brother and I sat in the same class for the first three years until my parents decided it was better to split us (after having changed school from a small village school to a larger suburb school).

Later we moved as a family to another place and I and my brother were together again at the European School together with Dutch classmates on a school with lots of different nationalities. A nice feeding ground for feeling special. So, having looked back this way I see that during most of my life I have been living in my special character. Not to mention I have been always proud of the fact I never smoked of felt attracted to trends without seeing I was living a character myself with the real me hiding behind this mask.

The following self forgiveness sentences are focussing on the ‘being special’ character.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to feel special because of having a different background compared to the people I was living/dealing with.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself not to see that all those years I allowed myself to hide behind a mask of feeling special instead of not trusting that my true self was good ‘enough’ to stand in my day to day life.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to believe that I needed to be seen as special in order to achieve something in live/work.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to feel proud when people recognized the fact I was special by acknowledging I was as an Italian with wooden shoes (typical Dutch) using the best of both cultures.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to abuse the fact of not being a real Italian or Dutch person using this point as an excuse for (not) having to do specific things, thus not willing to take full responsibility for my role within society.

I commit myself to stop participating in the feeling special character as I see it is leading to deception and a false impression of comfort and safety within a non existing identity instead of just being myself in Self Honesty all the time, breath by breath.

The following self forgiveness sentences are about the fact I did not want to see the situation I maneuvered myself and my family in by moving to Italy.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to have ignored all kind of signals while pursuing my dream without realizing that my goal was not real but just an idea in my mind.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to not having taken full responsibility for the consequences of my choices related to my desire to go back to Italy and the desire to live on the edge of society.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to have delayed the decision of making a change in my life until I really had to deal with the harsh consequences instead of having seen and accepted I needed to change the way I was making a living in order to avoid nasty consequences for myself and my family.

I commit myself to stop in participating in pursuing a dream and to take full responsibility for everything I do in every moment, breath after breath.

Today a new fact popped up that is adding to the list of consequences that have manifested since we as a family are back in society so to say. Already for a certain time I am seeing that since we moved to Italy, or maybe better, since we decided to move to Italy we started to plant a series of ‘things’ (I can’t figure out right now what should be a proper name) that grew over the years and which we are harvesting now, without having kept track of everything we have planted. I speak in we to indicate me and my partner as we are partners in crime in this, both having thought/created and accepted and allowed.

If I look back at the motivations we had for wanting to move to Italy I see now clearly it was a wish to escape. But to escape from what? Over the years, starting somewhere in my youth, I developed a view of the world that at first was very naive since I was raised in a family that had enough wealth to live a comfortable life. Later in life I experienced more and more how the real world was working. Where at first I was frustrated by the fact I was not able to grasp how things worked because they did not seem to work as I imagined, I slowly started to see that a lot of things were fucked up and started slowly but surely to distantiate myself from the ‘real’ world, at least I tried to do so. I was not willing to accept the world I was living in and started to make plans to escape the sick society in order to create my own micro world somewhere far away from everything.

If I look back at the period that preceded our ‘escape’ to a life on the edge of society I see a series of things that have not been managed properly. Most of these things are money related, and since life is money that shouldn’t be too surprising. There are several factors playing a role here. I will try to find a beginning here in my relation to money working backwards in time.

- Still paying the consequences of the loans I had to take a few years ago
- Issues with bank accounts that have not been properly closed down resulting in bank not willing to give us a mortgage for a new house
- No income due to work opportunities that dried up and forcing me to stop being self employed and to look for a new job
- Forced to get a loan to be able to pay my taxes
- Sold our house for less money than expected
- No money from the fine the first buyer of our house had to pay after he signed but could not pay for the house
- Extra expenses for lawyers and cleaning after a non successful sale and rent of our house
- Irregular income as self-employed consultant leading to a not so clear picture of what my financial situation was
- Lost job after not having a contract renewed due to lack of money within that company
- Changed job because I was looking for new challenges (From HP to a small company)
- Changed job because I felt I was doing work below my capabilities (From Ikea to HP)

So, where did it go wrong? Maybe my motivations or starting points. Why did I decide to swap job? When I decided to leave Ikea I did not have a new job. I decided to dive into a multi level marketing business where I was supposed to sell water filters. It did take a few months and some money to understand that this was not something for me. I was not a sales person and I was not prepared to sell to my friends and family trying to convince them to get into the business too. It was in the period right after this that I met my partner. In the first months of our relationship I settled and managed to get a job at HP.

Looking back the only motivation to leave a secure job was the fact I wanted a more challenging job and did not see any opportunities. Looking deeper, and this is a pattern that will come back more often, I see that I was looking for inspiration in order to do my day to day job. In other words, based on the feeling that my job was no fun anymore and did not give me the challenges I was looking for I decided to look for something else. The fact I looked for another job is not the point here, it is the motivation that lead to the fact of leaving my job. I have not been honest with myself (and to others) about this point and the fact I left one job without having another one. Why did I lie to myself? What was so important to achieve that I decided to lie and be blind for the real facts? Was it the hope to get rich? Was it the urge to get out of a boring day to day routine? Was it the idea to be free and do whatever I liked?

At last I managed to get back to earth and stopped participating in this idea of making money with a promising story overlooking all kind of important points. And finally I popped back into my place in the matrix and started working for a new employer. Not surprisingly this whole pattern popped up again. It took a little bit more than the previous time since I was settling more and more in the matrix of life, I got married, had children and all this was ok with a day to day routine of gong to the office doing slave work, every day again the same thing.

Also here I started to feel the burden of this much too static working environment. As soon as I saw the opportunity to leave for a more challenging job I left. I choose for a small company that was still tied (read entangled) to the corporate I was working for before. The only thing I did not foresee was that the crisis already started in these years (2002) and that Corporate HP was already taking measures. This trend of reducing costs, canceling training programs (I was working as a trainer) led to the fact that a couple of years later I ran out of business (by that time I was self-employed). I could have seen that, but I was blinded by the pictures of living in a remote area in the countryside somewhere in Italy.

And here I am touching another point. Italy! Ever since I finished school and moved from Italy, where I lived most of my youth, to the Netherlands I wanted to go back to Italy. The first year in my supposed country of origin had been a hell, at least that was the way I experienced it. I had a hard time in fitting in into the Dutch society. Not because people did not allow me, I was not allowing myself to fit in. I cherished the idea of being special, I was different, the ‘Italian’ and so giving myself a identity, something I apparently thought not to have.

I carried this identity with me for a long time, actually for the whole period I was living in the Netherlands, 22 years long. When I moved to Italy in 2006 with my family I had the idea I was back in my mother country. I son discovered a lot had changed in all these years. I also discovered that it was not the same life I had back then. I had to make my own money and that was quite difficult since plan A was to work as a trainer for HP in Italy, I only overlooked the fact that due to cost reduction HP canceled more and more trainings until almost nothing. Not willing to leave the Italian Dream and see that I chose the wrong horse to bet on I adapted and managed to get part time jobs. Together with other small projects I managed to earn a modest living, but not for long.

A factor that plays an important role in my motivation to go ‘back’ to Italy, besides the idea of leaving a rotten society to live on my own in a self (almost) supporting house with veggie garden, wood for the stove and so on, was the fact I could maintain my feeling special character. For 22 years I had been the Italian guy in the Netherlands, now I was the Dutch guy in Italy! That was feeding my specialty character with a lot of energy. I topped living this character when I was getting in more and more trouble and needed to change the situation I was living in since it was not acceptable anymore.

Having been confronted with the situation of having barely to no money to live I experienced a kind of resetting of myself. When we decided I had to go to the Netherlands to look for a job I kind of started as a new born child. This was the first time I actually did live in a country with no mask on of a special character. If ever I am recalling the old times in Italy is when talking to a colleague and old classmate of mine about the good old times (lol).

Having said this I can do a step further back. The being special character started somewhere of course. It might have started at the age of 5 when, while living in Italy as a very bond child among all other children with dark hair, I was seen as special. When strolling in the city with my mother and brother we had regularly people stopping to have a look at the blonde twins and had to touch that curious fair colored hair. My mother recalls that she had to wash our hair after each visit to the city.

Although the first years on the primary school seemed quite normal and being fully integrated into the community there were still a couple of ‘anomalies’. First the fact I am a twin and that my brother and I sat in the same class for the first three years until my parents decided it was better to split us (after having changed school from a small village school to a larger suburb school).

Later we moved as a family to another place and I and my brother were together again at the European School together with Dutch classmates on a school with lots of different nationalities. A nice feeding ground for feeling special. So, having looked back this way I see that during most of my life I have been living in my special character. Not to mention I have been always proud of the fact I never smoked of felt attracted to trends without seeing I was living a character myself with the real me hiding behind this mask.

The following self forgiveness sentences are focussing on the ‘being special’ character.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to feel special because of having a different background compared to the people I was living/dealing with.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself not to see that all those years I allowed myself to hide behind a mask of feeling special instead of not trusting that my true self was good ‘enough’ to stand in my day to day life.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to believe that I needed to be seen as special in order to achieve something in live/work.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to feel proud when people recognized the fact I was special by acknowledging I was as an Italian with wooden shoes (typical Dutch) using the best of both cultures.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to abuse the fact of not being a real Italian or Dutch person using this point as an excuse for (not) having to do specific things, thus not willing to take full responsibility for my role within society.

I commit myself to stop participating in the feeling special character as I see it is leading to deception and a false impression of comfort and safety within a non existing identity instead of just being myself in Self Honesty all the time, breath by breath.

The following self forgiveness sentences are about the fact I did not want to see the situation I maneuvered myself and my family in by moving to Italy.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to have ignored all kind of signals while pursuing my dream without realizing that my goal was not real but just an idea in my mind.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to not having taken full responsibility for the consequences of my choices related to my desire to go back to Italy and the desire to live on the edge of society.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to have delayed the decision of making a change in my life until I really had to deal with the harsh consequences instead of having seen and accepted I needed to change the way I was making a living in order to avoid nasty consequences for myself and my family.

I commit myself to stop in participating in pursuing a dream and to take full responsibility for everything I do in every moment, breath after breath.

Wireless troubles

Every time I receive a mail from my landlady I think: “What will it be about this time?”. I started to investigate why I had this reaction. First the reaction itself. I kind of want to hide from something I have to deal with but I am not willing to deal with. Where is this feeling of not wanting originated? By memories of course. Although the messages sent by my landlady make sense they trigger plenty of back chat like: Why didn’t she tell me before” or ” Why is she making things so complicated”. The memories are not connected to these mails but mail in general that potentially can contain messages that I would rather not face.

Next step is to see why I have these back chats and why I see the points she communicates as threatening. The answer was quickly found. It all has to do with my not wanting to be in this situation, living in someone else’s house where I feel limited In my movements due to all kind of rules I tend to rebel against because of the by my mind suggested freedom limitation.

Instead of rebelling I should live the points and discuss those that are unpractical from a commonsensical point of view. In other words, no big deal, just a matter of communication and agreement about practical points within sharing a house.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to see mails/messages as a threat instead of breathing and take and work through the presented matters step by step.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to have backchat about situations that do not exist in reality but are creations of my mind busy working out scenario’s that are in no way connected to real life.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to resist the living situation I am in right now instead of being here, now and act within the given context in the best interest of all.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to let memories of other situations that have no appear ant connection to the actual situation let influence me in my actions.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to let situations in the actual life be a trigger for feelings based on memories of past experiences.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to use scenario’s created by my mind in order to feed my feeling of self pity of being in the situation I am in right now.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to influence my physical well being by seeking energy in mind creations instead of focussing on practically use my energy living here and now, breath by breath.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself not to realize that only the ego on the mind is seeking revenge and conflicts in order to strengthen itself, to generate and build itself as myself.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to use anything I encounter in my landlady’s house as a potential trigger to develop back chat and doom scenario’s.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to have concluded my landlady gave me a wrong password for the WiFi network just because I believed that it is predefined the unstable WiFi connection will frustrate me until I leave this home.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to feel less than another being while having to live within specific circumstances that I see as limiting my expression as myself.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to feel limited in my day to day actions only because my mind suggests that there are limitations that are in fact not real or if they are they can not be discussed in common sense.

When I see that I am tempted to back chat – I stop and I breathe – I realize that it is just my mind that is seeking to create thoughts and idea’s that will feed feelings like inferiority and unhappiness and that I direct myself out of that experience by standing up within myself with the realization that acting according to inferiority and unhappiness is not what is best for me. I see with clarity what inferiority and unhappiness have led to within this world and reality and thus I realize that I am equally responsible for the outflow/outcome of people acting according to inferiority and unhappiness. I do not accept or allow myself to continue taking part and feeding this system of abuse but instead I see and realize that stopping inferiority and unhappiness is what is best for all – I stand up for life, I stop acting according to my inferiority and unhappiness.

 

 

Back chat about strangers

Today, while travelling home, I sat on a bench in the subway and just before I sat down I figured out that the two seats were squeezed into a relatively narrow space. Not much later a person sat next to me and started playing with his mobile phone. Not considering the space was too tight for the two of us I moved forward just avoiding to be squeezed between the man and the window.

I never appreciated to touch someone while travelling, especially when this person is an unknown person. Today I saw what I was experiencing and started looking at this event asking myself why I am reacting this way when having to have physical contact with another being. Immediately I saw backchat suggesting the man was not aware or did not care about me sitting there in that narrow space, he just took his space not considering mine. Mmmm, this smells like a feeling of inferiority. Useless, both the backchat and the feeling. I did SF on both.

Not much later the man left and a young person took his place. Now the situation was the opposite. I could remain seated upright and the person next to me leaned a bit forwards. “Is he now feeling less then me because of my age?”, was the question that popped into my mind. This could only be the case if I was considering myself more than him and that was not the case. Looking at the situation as it was, without any thought, backchat or feeling/emotion I was left with the fact that two persons shared a narrow space taking into consideration the presence of the other person.

A little earlier I walked in a shopping mall searching for a specific shop where I wanted to buy something. I almost bumped into a lady and when I looked down to see where to put my feet I was surprised by my own reaction when I saw the huge butt of this lady. “Gee. that is HUGE!” “So what” I thought a second later and again caught myself having back chat about someone else. It is shocking and also quite funny when you see the massive amount of back chat you are producing during the day. And it is also great if you can see in the moment that you are having this backchat and correct it accordingly. It definitely leads to a more here and now way of living without having to suffer (or ‘enjoy’ as a polarity to suffering) from situations your mind is creating for you based on tiny facts of your daily life.

Thinking back I already started this morning by making a joke based on an image a colleague was picturing while talking about the sport scar of another colleague he will buy as soon as he has enough money to afford it. We were picturing him and a well proportioned lady next to him and I couldn’t help myself by emphasizing the image by suggesting that due to the size of the lady it would be recommendable to de-activate the passengers seat airbag. This resulted into a laughter of the two colleagues that lasted several minutes. Later I realized that also making jokes about non existing pictures of persons is a kind of back chat. The fact the colleagues had to laugh was because of the ‘naughtiness’ in their minds suggested by the image created by my comment. Absolutely interesting to see events of a day in this perspective.

If you are interested in un-cluttering your thoughts and back chats, join us at Desteni.

Fear of losing my job

It is a crazy thought but I realized already a couple of occasions that I feared to loose the job I just started with! There are very subtile triggers that I can pinpoint as a couse of the thoughts leading eventually to this fear.

The first occasion I can remember is a discussion about my brand new job with my brother in law. He said that having a job is really nice but with a contract for 6 months the security is limited. He advised me to continue working on my network of business relations just in case. Although this is very common sense and I already came to the same conclusion myself it planted  a seed of fear in myself. My mind started to work out all kind of scenario’s that eventually could lead to loosing my job after these six months. Within the same context Other people gave me all kind of advices like having to make myself absolutely indispensable by planning ahead of these six months. I always did the opposite since I never believed in the effectiveness of people being indispensable for a company/organisation. In order to achieve this you need to keep things for yourself compromising effective communication and collaboration thus productivity of a team within a company.

Nevertheless the fears come in and I had a hell of a job dealing with these fears by doing SF on them each time they popped up in my mind. These fears were all fed by a much bigger underlaying fear, the fear of not being able to earn (enough) money for myself and my family. The fact that having a job should be enough to get rid of this fear you would say. But as long as the trigger or source of the specific fear is not taken away, the fear will come back, even if conditions are changed and there is apparently no reason anymore for that fear to exist.

Besides the fact fears are influencing one’s life and one’s decisions dramatically we tend to push away the fears we have. Not so long ago I was convinced not to have that many fears in my life until I started to dig into the pool of my memories and experiences to discover I had been a master in stowing away many fears. I also tried to get rid of fears by changing the situation and taking away the condition of the fear to exist. No success! The mind always manages to create new conditions for the fear to exist. The only effective way to get rid of my fears is to face them, work on the underlaying triggers and stop all related thoughts and patterns using the tools of Desteni.

Shocking discoveries

Yesterday was a very beautiful day and I decided to make a bicycle trip from my brothers house in Amsterdam to my parents in law in Zeewolde. And back of course. It was a considerable distance, 55 km one way! I started at 9:00 in the morning and an hour later I was already in the picturesque town of  Muiden. I had a nice breeze pushing me and making the ride very nice. The sun was shining and I even took my jacket off since it was becoming too hot. One hour later I had crossed the town of Almere Haven and from that point on I had to follow the dike until I reached my destination. Very nice, water on one side with the sunlight reflecting in it and endless fields on the other side and a nice push from the wind in my back.

On the other had I realized what this wind in my back meant for the trip back… A lot of kilometers against the wind. After three hours I had again a short break and started to feel my legs and butt. The last half hour was tougher than the three hours before and I knew why! Not only physical strain but also my mind telling me I was almost there! I did some sf on that of course.

I ate a nice and healthy lunch at my parents in law and prepared myself for the trip back to Amsterdam. Since I knew the wind could be a problem on the long run I considered to eventually shorten my ride a bit by aiming at Almere and taking the train for the last 30 km.

It was very fascinating to see how the mind is working in situations of physical strain. It can be tempting to go in the mind by starting to have thoughts about anything so you do not have to be conscious all the time here and now facing the reality in which your physical body is undergoing physical stress. So I checked this point constantly to make sure I was not going in the mind. I saw myself projected in the future and saying to myself that in a short while I will be at my destination, something of any help to the actual situation I was living: move the pedals of the bicycle in a seemingly endless movement.

So, instead of giving the mind the opportunity to fuck me I started observing the scenario I was crossing. I started to see there was a lot to see indeed, even when just looking a few meters ahead while pushing hard against the wind. While riding on small secondary roads across farmers land I saw onions and potatoes that apparently dropped from a trailer. But most of all I saw an endless amount of plastic bottles, cans, plastic bags and other waste. I saw the waste along the side of the highway and that I could understand since it is commonly known that really anything is thrown from a car’s window. At least this rubbish is cleaned regularly. But where did all this rubbish along this small road come from I asked myself? Since it was mostly bottles and cans I guessed it was left there by the people working on the fields. Apparently they forgot that nobody is going to clean this on a regular base.

All this was quite shocking to me. Until now I had the opinion that a country like Italy was filthy with litter and rubbish to be found anywhere in nature. I never considered a country like The Netherlands could have the same issue. It has been a little different. Not so much the amount of people just throwing stuff anywhere but less cleaning is taking place here. The typical Dutch model of a welfare state that takes care of everything is fading since it is most probably unsustainable. I had to get rid of this opinion about the difference between the two countries.

While observing the road and the landscape I progressed slowly to my destination that seen the circumstances being a strong wind and painful legs that tended to go into a cramp if I pushed a little more was set to Almere so I could do the last bit by train. I continued to be challenged by the mind that was projecting myself at my brother’s place taking a nice hot shower and having a nice warm meal. At the same time I found out it was getting colder. Even in the train later I had the next challenge. Although I was sitting and relaxing I kept seeing myself having a shower and a meal until I started wondering if I had put the keys back in my bag after I used them at my parents in law’s house. Without these keys I was locked outside and would have to return to pick them up. A quick check in my bag was enough to see this was another mind fuck.

I monitored carefully the state of my body and did not push myself over the limit. Even though I still had enough strength in my legs to do another 30 km I had to consider the cramps and unnecessary muscle strain I would have regretted the next day. The result is that one day later I have no muscle pain and no extra fatigue even though I made a trip of 80 km in total. And my butt? No saddle pain either.

Trying to be invisible

Ever since I am staying at my brother in law’s place I am feeling welcome but not always at ease. I started to investigate why. There are many factors playing a role here. I’ve been offered a place to stay in the center of a city giving me more opportunities while searching for a new job. It is now already the 26th day of my staying here and I have no job yet. There is one serious job opportunity and I just had a job interview, soon to be followed by athe next round. I applied for several jobs and got just a few replies back. Though times to get a job and in my case extra challenging due to my age (45) and the effects of the economic recession. So, it is hard working and trying to spot the right opportunities.

The fact I still do not have a job and the fact time is racing makes me feel uneasy once in a while. Until when am I welcome in this house? Are they already fed up by my presence? Oh, I wished it was all over and I could live again with my family. Not that I really miss them since I speak to them every day over Skype, it is the uneasy feeling of not being able to tell how log this situation is going to last. Everybody around me ‘hopes’ I will find a job soon and tell me they will cross their fingers (hoping they would not face the same situation themselves some time in future?).

This feeling of uneasiness is mainly generated by myself because I have an ideal picture and I see I am not fitting into it. I am sometimes trying to convince myself that I am in a bad situation and that I should be ashamed of it. But it is nothing more than a consequential outflow of what I have created myself and there is no other way out of it than walking this process step by step. So I stop blaming myself and will focus on getting the most out of the situation I am actually living in, step by step, breath by breath.

Today, while traveling back from my brother’s place, I was thinking how I could delay my arrival at my brother in law’s house as much as possible in order not to be a nuisance during the weekend. This was confirming my feeling of not wanting to be there, thus not wanting to face a consequential outflow of my own actions. The solution is very simple and straight forward. I will have to discuss the length of my stay and the conditions so everybody can agree on it and no false expectations or back chats are created. I tend to postpone this point of discussion until I know the outcome of the interview, and it certainly makes sense to do so. What scares me is the idea I am not getting the job. This will mean that there is again no clarity in the length of my stay. Every day that passes is making the equation more critical since we are running out of money and it is already money that was given to us to help us in our situation.

So it is very important to keep my feet on the ground, stay focussed and direct all I can in finding any kind of job that will generate some income and help us out of this situation. Interestingly enough it is still difficult when there is a job opportunity. Am I going to accept a low wage job that just generates some money but not enough to support my family or do I wait until I have a decent job that will give me a decent income? Needless to think out scenario’s here but I am tempted to do it. If a situation like this manifests I will have to deal with it in the best way possible using my common sense.

The mind is always trying to plan ahead or better to work out all kind of possible scenario’s so it can fuck me up with my fears. It is strange not to be tempted into these scenario thinking since it feels so empty. But that is just a feeling. Better focus on being here in the moment and act as one as self in every breath. I am regularly tempted not to allow me to focus on my process and convince myself that I should put every single second in efforts that might lead to a job. Happily enough, working on my process is going to make my search for a job more effective and this blog is part of that process.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to feel less than my brother in law just because of my situation and my incapability of being clear about the length of my stay in his house.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to let my mind convince me into all kind of scenario’s instead of focussing myself in being here and now, breath by breath.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself to be distracted by thoughts about my possible future without considering real facts and so building up energies that are of any use in improving my actual situation.

I forgive myself that I accept and allow myself that I accept to become scared of the consequential outflow of my own actions instead of keeping the mind clear and walk the point effectively.

Self esteem

The main focus I have right now in my life is to find a job as quickly as possible. That is quite a task, especially if you are already 45 years old and people around you tell you there is very little interest for people my age. A couple of days ago I met someone that was able to provide me with some contacts and give me an update of how things are going in the specific business I am focussing at. He told me that in the many companies he’s seen he noticed that there is a strong reluctance in hiring people of a certain age because managers are afraid these ‘older’ people are not so influenceable and flexible as their younger counterparts. He even said companies prefer to hire younger, unexperienced people than more experienced, older people just for the sake of avoiding resistance or strong influence in case of decision making processes.

Although I know I am not very young anymore, I tend to see my age as an added value, and this story was not very nice to hear but certainly reflecting the truth. The result of this is that the normal way of applying for a job will probably not lead to success very rapidly, what I need is to be recommended by someone who trusts me to be a right candidate for a specific job. Although age discrimination is forbidden by law, the reality is just showing that if you when you apply for a job when are over 40 you will hardly even get an answer or not even a confirmation they received your message.

I experienced that these reality checks tend to shake me, to swing me between being confident in finding a decent jog again and not being able to earn a living. On top of this there is some pressure caused by the fact I have practically no income while I am working full time on finding a job, a situation that is causing me and my family to depend on others financially until I can take care of myself again. So, on one side I try to as less of a burden as possible for those that are facilitating my searching activities and on the other hand I need to express as a self confident person when contacting possible recruiters.

I am am getting a lot of help from old friends and family, which is very reassuring and comforting but at the end I will be the one that need to do it and take the opportunities that are given to me. I see that on this point I have changed compared to the past. I was much more picky on what people tended to offer me as nice opportunities. Now I am able to evaluate in common sense the offer and give immediate feedback in order to avoid false hope for the me and the others involved.

Another experience I had recently was while editing my resumé. I decided to insert the recommendations on the resumé I am sending around to people helping me in making connections. While inserting these recommendations I started reading them and was almost overwhelmed by a feeling of happiness, as if I was longing for these positive comments about me in a working context with others. Although I know very well what my skills are, I clearly longed for confirmation. As if I needed to boost my self esteem in order to feel good about myself and get energy from it to go on.

Thanks to the fact I am in my Desteni I Process I know this is a swing between polarities and I am definitely aware of this mechanism and managing to avoid these swings since they are not real but only happening in my mind. It seems very boring but there is no need to feed my self esteem positively in order to feel better and be able to do things I might not have done while being in a state of low self esteem and feeling powerless. Although very tempting it is in my own interest to remain stable in all ways. In being stable I will be able to be productive and ready for any situation all the time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take energy from the positive feeling I got when reading the recommendations of former colleagues and employers.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at others that have a job wondering why it is possible they have a job and I do not. This is self pity and jealousy that is not helping me, therefore I stop this and bring myself back to self, here and now.

 

Depression

Yesterday, while drinking a cup of tea, my mother in law told me a story of a friend of hers who has a daughter diagnosed with a serious form of depression. The woman is apparently very pretty looking and, while in her early thirties, is already in her third relationship. As a teenager she already showed symptoms of depression and among other therapies she was sent as au pair to Switzerland where she had a great time.

Typical of her behavior while being depressed were periods of intense fear wherein she always claimed her mother to come over to help her, resulting in the fact the mother had to travel for a couple of hours to co go her daughter’s house to find a scared daughter not willing to do anything. She also showed periods with a complete opposite behavior where she was very active, almost over active and almost uncontrollable, capable of doing very weird things.

At a certain point she had a relationship with an older man who already had children. He cared very much about her and helped her going to doctors and psychiatrists which resulted in nothing else than prescribing medication to suppress the symptoms of her behavior. This relation did not last for obvious reasons and because the two sons of this man where difficult to manage and because the woman wanted her own child.

Not long after she was into another relation, this time with a man from india who was aiming at having a child and only three months after they met she was already pregnant. Because of the woman’s behavior and the man’s attitude the relationship already became difficult during pregnancy and after the child was born the man started claiming the child and is doing whatever he can to have the woman locked away in a mental institute. Not being able to cope with the situation the man is known to have beaten the woman regularly.

While all this was going on the woman had her regular periods of fear wherein she always claimed her mother to help her and to take care of her child. Since she was living at some distance from her parents they decided to look for a home in the same town, making it easier to help her when necessary. At the moment she is in her third relationship with a nice man who obviously fell for her very good look.

While my mother in law was telling this story I talked about the fact that the woman’s behavior was quite abusive for the people around her and my mother in law had to agree on that point. She told me that after all these years both the woman and her parents accepted the idea there was nothing they could do about this situation and that it will remain this way for ever.

It is interesting to see that if there is no cure for a specific illness, and more specifically a mental illness, people tend to accept the situation and try to control it with medication. If our medical system is not able to provide a cure we simply accept there is no cure. Doing so we accept being abused by people who are stuck in the mind and are not even willing to change that situation because they are addicted to their behavior wherein they tend to claim and control the persons they live with and their family.

With proper coaching and assistance to work on self responsibility within life situation like these could be improved and even avoided. While now the whole situation is fed by fears and reluctance to changes on one side and accepting abuse just because you are dealing with your daughter or partner the whole situation could be changed if everybody started to look at themselves in self honesty and really started to take each their own responsibilities. This process is made easier using the tools and information found at Desteni. For who is specifically interested in the subject follow this link to a series of video’ son Youtube.

The fear of facing my fears

Until not long ago I was convinced that I had very few fears if not any fear at all. Well. I had to redefine the word fear for myself to find out I have fears. Interesting about this part of my process is that I found out there are many things I suppress very successfully probably all along my life. The consequences of this general suppression of emotions, feelings and memories is that I think to have lived a youth without big issues since I have not many vivid memories about it, especially negative ones. Now that I think of it, it is an inherited ‘feature’ I have. I remember that also my father tended to forget negative experiences.

By walking my process of freeing myself from the Mind this is a very important step. It took me almost half a year to continue with my assignment about fears just because I always had something more important to do. Bullshit of course, but I managed to delay it for many months until I recently stopped it and found out that is was not difficult at all to face my fears if done in self honesty.

Now I’ve managed to come over this point, that apparently was not only linked to my assignment but to many other issues, I start to see a lot of things more clearly. One of those is my frustration about the fact others always seem to have so many memories about the past. The same applied to the fact they were feeling strong emotions in many cases were I in comparable cases did not recall any emotion or feeling worth to remember. As if a physical obstruction has been taken away full memories of events and the connected emotions and feelings are coming back. It is fascinating to see how everything interconnects. The fact I was blocked on the assignment had to do with a much larger point I had to face and it took me several months to come to the point of seeing it. I’ve made a new step in cleaning up the mess I made in my life until now.

Coming back to fears, my main fear is related to money, a lack of money that every time comes to a climax and settles again for a while but never seems to get away. It is all a consequence of decisions made in the past that were not made in  a self honest way. Not being honest with myself caused me to accept and allow situations with a specific consequential outflow, the consequences I am living through now. The nice thing is that I have been the one accepting and allowing al of this and I am also the one that can stop it.

Facing my fears is facing myself, learning to know myself and forgiving myself for what I have accepted and allowed in my life. I feared facing my fears but I had to come to the conclusion that there is nothing scary about it. It is part of the process I am walking and it is giving me several topics I can use to write about in a process of writing it out in order to get insight and take my responsibilities on that point.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself not to face my fears preventing myself of doing a necessary step in my process of freeing myself.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to find excuses and motivations in order not to go on with my assignment and therefore delaying the process of taking self responsibility.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to ignore my memories, my feelings and my emotions and therefore convincing myself that I did not have memories which enabled me to live without the burden of these memories.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to suppress my feelings and emotions just by considering them as unnecessary and a nuisance and threatening the apparent harmony of the situation/moment.

I forgive myself that I accepted and allowed myself to suppress my memories by convincing myself I had none so I was free from having to take responsibility for my actions in the past and my created experiences in the future, sabotaging the process of taking self responsibility.

 

My daughter’s messy room

Every time I walk into my daughter’s A. room I have feelings of disgust. Besides a narrow strip that is leading to her bed the whole floor is filled with a wide variety of objects like pencils, dolls, doll dresses, Playmobile, Lego, and tons of dust since the room has not been cleaned for months.

We helped A. to clean the mess on a couple of occasions but she never managed to keep it tidy. Here I have frustration popping in. Frustration because I see there is an issue pending with no apparent solution. Frustration because every time A. makes a progress in the way she is dealing with her life there is no change to the situation in her room.

We’ve been avoiding to put pressure on the issue in the previous months because of A’s middel school exams. Now summer holidays have started several weeks ago and the situation is still the same. We have had the whole story with D. and connected to it we’ve established A. had lived in fear and depression for a while. Now she’s working on the outflow of this experience but nothing leads to changes in her room. I was left speechless when asked about cleaning up her room A. answered with no hesitation that it was not something she planned to do during summer holidays.

When tonight again I entered her room to collect a cup to put in the dishwasher I was confronted with this messy room. I made a comment on something that was still dropped (to my opinion) on the floor and A. said she will take care of it later. “later” is for me the same as never, since she uses this word just to make me happy and make me leave.

I am possessed, obsessed by this room. I need to work on this and let it go. The physical situation in the room is not my problem, the reactions I have are indeed. I really need to work this out because I feel that a part is reflecting my own shit. On the other hand I know that A. is dealing with big time resistances and only when she has dealt with those she will be able to clean up the mess. Imposing or forcing A. into action might lead to a clean room, but it will return to a mess in no time if the source of the problem is not adressed.

Quite complex to separate the emotions from the facts. Besides feelings I also see my ego that tells me it is not fair A. can go on with this behavior without consequences. If in a specific situation the outcome is she was wrong in saying or doing something a simple “sorry” is all she gives before going on with her life as if nothing happened. Big time ego here that is suggesting revenge, punishment to make sure A. understands that she is not allowed to do that. A. needs to be more aware of the consequences of her actions but it is not up to me to judge what the consequences should be. They will be there anyway.

I am very allergic to the mess in A’s room and any kind of mess she leaves for days, weeks, months just laying somewhere in or around the house. You can ask A. repeatedly to collect the stuff and bring it to her room with no result for many times. A curious thing is again the frustration connected to the fact I can justify why I am not doing certain things, too busy with other more important stuff while A. is either watching a movie, sleeping in until late, making a drawing, playing with a girlfriend, doing nothing.

The toughest part of this is that it is a mirror to myself. I too have a lot of mess to clean up, not physically so visible as in A’s case but my resistances are equally tough. Meanwhile I am struggling with the question to what extent we can accept A’s behavior in the context of our small family community like leaving her stuff for days, weeks and sometimes months somewhere in the house with no apparent goal or motivation. Stripping as properly as I can this question from any feeling or ego related matter I still see a couple of points we need to agree on within our family context.

So, wrapping this up, I need to work on finding the starting point of all this shit so I can clean up my own mess. From the practical side I am going to propose an agreement between all of us about how we should deal with our stuff in the house and in our own rooms/studio’s, within the context of our small community. Meanwhile, the most effective thing I can do is being an example. This morning I started to clean up one of the tables in our garage! Immediately started to develop a feeling of hope this will influence A. immediately and motivate her into action… I have a lot of self forgiving to do here!