When looking back at my experience within school I can see that it was as though it did not matter how hard I tried, it did not matter how much time I spent studying – I still just couldn’t make it, it wouldn’t ‘pay off’. After a while I started to see it as useless, I mean – why should I even try when it does not pay off. I realized that whether I would study really, really hard or wouldn’t study at all – I still got the same results. I was ashamed and disappointed at myself, because I worked so hard and put so much effort into studying but I was not good enough anyway. I drew the conclusion that if I wouldn’t study at all, if I just gave up and pretended as though I didn’t give a fuck – then at least it would be ‘my decision’ to get bad results, then it wouldn’t be an outflow of my inadequacies but rather just a conscious decision to not care.
And so now I see that this was what I actually decided to do. I had for many, many years worked so hard, pushed myself so extensively and I still got the same feedback; it’s not enough. I could not do more than what I did, I just couldn’t seem to mold myself, adjust myself and align myself with what was referred to as ‘a good student’. In the end it is not your effort, how much time you dedicate, or how hard you try that gets graded – but rather the scores you get on the exams.We had these evaluations where you sat down with your parents and the teacher and got feedback on how you were doing. It always felt like an execution. Every semester I studied as much as one could possibly do but I still got negative feedback, it was still not enough – what was I supposed to do? I see how I would immediately and unquestionably just accept what the teachers said and in that trusted their evaluation to be what determined my self-worth. I never even considered looking inside of myself and question what others said about me, or realizing that it was not even about ME per se, I mean it was not my self-worth that was being evaluated – instead I would just absorb it and define myself accordingly, where I would form the belief that I am a failure no matter how hard I try. And so after a while I decided to become what I perceived others to think of me – where I deliberately stopped trying and pretended as though I did not care anymore. I mean, it just seemed easier to take the negative feedback if I had made a deliberate decision to not work hard.
- I forgive myself that I had accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to the feedback I got from the teachers as a child – where I immediately, instantaneously and unquestionably just accepted and absorbed the teachers opinions of me and my ‘performance’ – not seeing or realizing that they were merely just commenting on and pointing out how I did externally in relation to my ‘performance’ and in that assessing whether the knowledge I possessed were aligned with the instructions that they had in relation to what a student of my age should be able to pull off, that it was not an evaluation of who I was or my self-worth – and so I forgive myself that I have, within and throughout my life, accepted and allowed myself to automatically assume and take for granted that the opinions other people have of my external performances defines who I am, and so thinking and believing that I am not good enough as who I am if other people form negative opinions of my external performances – not seeing or realizing that opinions does not determine or define who I am – therefor I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to shape and mold myself according to my perception of others opinions of my external performances – instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that after all I am the one that ultimately determines who I am, how I experience myself and who I am going to be in relation/as a response to others opinions – and so I see, realize and understand that I have the ability, the capacity and the responsibility to decide who I am going to be and what I am going to accept and allow myself to define myself by and according to – and I am therefor responsible for who I am in relation to other people’s feedback, where I see and realize that when another person makes an assessment of my performance, it is not in any way an assessment of my self-worth or self-value.
- In this I commit myself to see, realize and understand that no matter what opinion I perceive another person to form of me – I am still capable of deciding who I am going to be in relation to that, where I see, realize and understand that I have the ability, the capacity and the responsibility to decide whether I am going to absorb or question – whether I am going to let perceptions I form in regards to what another person thinks of me/my performance to decide how I am going to experience myself or not. And so therefor I commit myself to, when and as I see or perceive it as though another person forms an opinion of who I am or my external performances, start question what comes up within the mind as a response to my external situation – and within that stop the automatic pattern of just absorbing and just taking it – to instead within me say ‘wait a minute, is this really something that I would want to experience myself as?’ – and so within that I direct and decide for myself who I am – where I no more accept and allow myself to just blindly and automatically ‘take it’ – but to instead question it and realize that I am ultimately the one that decides how I am going to experience myself – so why would I want to make myself feel like shit through taking other people’s opinions personally, when I could instead actually decide to stop, to not accept or allow myself to go there in the sense of taking it personally but to instead decide, in that moment that no, I don’t want to make myself feel like shit anymore – from now on I decide.
To be continued..
No comments:
Post a Comment