When The Best Student Fails - Day 395

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to go into absolute self-defeat while doing the final exam due to not being capable of answering all of the questions and so accessing and becoming preoccupied by fear of failure – and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to go into fear of failure as an automatic response when coming across a question that I did not understand/did not know the correct answer to – wherein I would thus remain in that experience of fear that the first instance of not knowing the answer to a question set off, and so brought that experience with me throughout the entire exam – consequentially fearing every single upcoming question due to already having created a definition of myself as a failure caused by that first instance as the question that I saw myself being unable to answer correctly.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to go into stress and anxiety when struggling with a question due to the limited amount of time that I had – wherein I would thus self-sabotage through looking at the watch and within that go into the mind thinking ‘shit, common –fuck I am so slow’ where I essentially just created a point of total black-out as a consequence of going into the mind, judging myself and inflicting stress – which I see, realize and understand merely made it more difficult as I would within that rather make myself ineffective since I was so busy participating within another dimension within the mind instead of actually being here, with me, working with myself to figure the equation out – and so within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think and believe that judging and being hard on myself will push me into working harder and faster – not seeing or realizing that every time I accept and allow myself to participate within stress, fear and anxiety I am only making it harder for myself since I am basically attempting to fight myself into managing to work harder and faster – which results in internal conflict/friction that prevents me from focusing on the only point that is here, which is the question/equation – where I see and realize that what I would require is to actually stand with myself and so work with me instead of against me.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to split myself into two separate entities within the mind through accessing fear, stress and self-anger as a response to perceiving myself not to work hard and fast enough throughout the exam and so within that creating yet another point within me of desire to succeed – and so I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use fear of failure and desire to succeed as two separate points and dimensions of which I utilize to motivate and push myself within an exam – instead of seeing and realizing how this merely limits me from seeing what is here in self-stability and so support myself to walk through the exam moment by moment, breath by breath – because within that my starting-point is based on fear and desire rather than me, being here, walking what needs to be walked.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a perception of the final exam as the most important thing in the world, where I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my own future and so take it to an extreme through making the possibility of getting a bad grade seem way greater than what it is in practical reality – but within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed manipulation in terms of going into the mind and convincing myself that this whole semester has been worthless and useless, that all the time I have spent studying and stressing about has been for nothing due to now understanding that I will lower my final grade.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel the need to judge and blame myself as inadequate due to not nailing the final exam, wherein I would thus go into a point of grief, as though a part of me died with that final exam – which basically is what happened, because within this I see, realize and understand that I had formed a definition of myself based on always nailing the exams thus far, and while being faced with the final exam I realized that that would not be the case this time – which would then trigger such experience of grief/loss – and within that I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear receiving the grade on my final exam due to understanding that the teacher will have to ask me what the hell went wrong – and so I furthermore forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the teacher’s feedback due to having allowed myself to take the result of my performance personally and thus within that understanding that the teacher will point out that I have never performed this bad before – not seeing or realizing that, yes, the teacher will point this out and will most likely get quite surprised by the result to say the least, but that does not mean that I have  to take it personally, it does not mean that I have to blame and judge myself, as who I am, according to the feedback.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an emotional attachment to ‘bad grades’ and ‘failure’ – where I react to everything except nailing the exam in absolute despair and shame – instead of within that seeing and realizing that reacting to it in despair and shame cannot assist or support me in any way, but that I am merely feeding and empowering the point of accepting and allowing myself to define myself according to the grades even more.

I’ll continue on this point tomorrow.

Why Do We Fear Giving Up The Fear? - Day 370

This post is a continuation from:

• When Perfection Isn't Good Enough - Day 367 
• Shattering The Shackles Of Being a 'High Achiever' - Day 368 
• The Curse Of Being An Overachiever - Day 369

So, these last two days I’ve got the chance to test my application in regards to stopping the fear that emerges within me when I feel as though I am/my capacity are about to be tested. I’ve had two exams these last two days and yesterday I decided not to go into that fear, nervousness, anxiety and stress that normally just comes up within me.

Before an exam I usually go through the material one-two hours before the exam just to give myself one last brief overview. While doing that I see myself having a tendency of getting stuck – where I find myself having forgotten some of the stuff, or usually it is like one word or one letter within one word that I have mixed up or are not completely sure about, and in that the panic/fear/stress-experiences gets triggered – where I see myself taking it to an extreme and have all of a sudden within the mind decide that I DON’T KNOW ANYTHINNNNNNNG, IIIIII’M SCREEEEEEEWED!!!!!!!!!. . .

Before Thursday’s exam I sat down and walked through some of the material. Before sitting down I had already taken the decision for myself to not go into the fear, but rather just give myself an opportunity to repeat some of the ‘easier material’ instead of immediately taking on the most complicated and intricate parts. This was to give myself a chance to awaken my brain, lol. As I see that I sometimes require like a moment ‘warm up’ and that when I immediately take on the intricate stuff I am putting myself in a position where I kind of like ‘leave an open window’ for the mind. So, to prevent the stress and panic to overwhelm and take over I started with going through some things that I am confident within. I immediately saw a major difference within me – I was just calm and confident where I normally would experience the exact opposite. Though I still saw some fear and stress humming in the background but it wasn’t even close to what I normally go through before an exam with being all jittery and with my heart beating like a jungle drum and being all freaked out.

Before yesterday’s exam I re-instructed myself while going through the overview in where I directed myself to be here within awareness and in that made sure that I did not allow any form of fear. What was interesting was that I saw a slight concern, where I felt as though something was almost ‘wrong’ due to how calm I was. Like, I have for such an extended period of time existed within and allowed this intense fear to exist within me and take over before a big exam that when I wouldn’t go into it I felt as though something ‘was missing’ in a way. And I saw that the concern stemmed from the belief I have created in regards to thinking that I need to be stressed and anxious to ‘care’ and to be able to push myself, as though I require the fear to activate me.

Without the fear the exam didn’t feel so big and important anymore – and if I do not see the exam as a matter of life or death then I won’t actually study as intensely. And in this I realize that I have actually deliberately created this program of attaching fear to exams as an attempt to force myself into seeing it as incredibly important and from there force myself into studying as though the exams actually are a matter of life or death. In that also convincing myself within the mind that I don’t know anything, that I will fail etc. which I also see is something that makes me push myself even harder before an exam, where I study everyday as though I don’t know anything and as though it is the first time I go through the material, even though I, within me, see and realize that I have the knowledge that are required, but I deliberately manipulate myself into believing that I don’t know anything at all – that I have to re-learn everything, that I have forgotten everything.

And in that I realize that I fear giving up the fear, as I realize that if I do not manipulate myself into seeing exams as utterly important but instead see it for what it is, well, then I will see it for what it is. It’s just an exam. My self-worth is not at stake here. So, I realize that I require looking into and investigating this point of thinking and believing that if I do not continue seeing it as though my life and self-worth are at stake or determined by the results I get on exams then maybe I’ll become lazy or unmotivated or undisciplined and maybe I won’t get the highest grades – and oh my, who am I then?

To be continued.. 

Shattering The Shackles Of Being a 'High Achiever' -Day 368

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will expect me to always achieve perfect results within what I externally participate within due to thinking and believing that if others expect something specific of me, then I have to live up to that – not seeing or realizing how I have just automatically given value to and taken for granted that others expectations are something I must live up to, unquestionably – without seeing and realizing that just because I perceive it as though others  have expectations in relation to what I manage to do and what not, does not automatically mean that I have to ‘satisfy’ their belief and align myself and my living according to their expectations – that I can and have the responsibility to actually decide over my own life and living – where I must be the one that decides what I will prioritize in my life and what not. And within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear deciding over my own life in relation to actually taking self-responsibility through directing and deciding what I will prioritize – due to thinking and believing that ‘people will think less of me’ if I do not live up to the definition of being a ‘high achiever’ and ‘someone who works really hard and am self-disciplined’.

 

• And so within this I forgive myself that I have not ever, within or throughout my life, accepted and allowed myself to ask myself; what do I want to do, what do I need – and what is most important for me? – but have instead always accepted and allowed myself to push myself to attempt and try to align who I am with what I perceive others to expect of me – in where I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to completely forget about me, about who I want to be in my relationship with myself – and have instead just blindly accepted and allowed myself to prioritize and fear others expectations and definitions of me – as though others expectations/my perception of others expectations should be my map, my guide in relation to what I do and do not do.

 

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear and resist stopping my participation within a life which is constituted and shaped according to my perception of others expectations due to thinking and believing that if I do not continue pushing myself to live up to others possible expectations then I will disappoint others and be seen as someone who does not ‘live up to my own capacity’ – not seeing or realizing that; yes, sure – everyone could actually achieve perfect external results, but this is about what one decides to prioritize, and I see that I am compromising my self-support and my relationship with myself due to letting my priority, my driving-force and starting-point within life be the perception I have of what others ‘expect of me’ – where I am within this not taking self-responsibility through looking at 1.What do I require/need to be stable 2.Who do I want to be and how do I want to experience myself within my relationship with me? 3.What is needed/what do I actually require to do to for me to survive within this system? – Because within this I see, realize and understand that the strain I have manifested and placed on myself are not based on practical consideration in relation to seeing that it is needed for me to assure my survival within this world-system of money, but rather based on my fear of what others may/might think of me – where I am merely utilizing this point of ‘I have to push myself to make sure that I am stable within this system’ as an excuse and justification for why I should continue my existence within this program that I have set up for myself – where I see and realize that the program I have manifested is based on fear of not living up to others expectations/fear of not being seen as ‘good enough’ and thus the desire to be seen as perfect, as successful, as hard-working etc. – and that these two polarities of positivity and negativity, of desire and fear, are what moves and directs me – where I realize that I am holding on to and perpetuating the fear of what others may/might think of me if I do not live up to the definitions and expectations I perceive others to have of me through allowing myself to exist within desire to and towards external validation and confirmation in regards to myself as being ‘good enough’, hard-working and a 'high-achiever'.

 

• Within this I commit myself to assist and support myself through investigating this point in relation to how I have constituted and founded my life and my relationship to what I externally participate within – where I commit myself to, through my writings, self-forgiveness and commitment-statements, open up and investigate what it is that moves, directs and motivates me in relation to what I externally do, why I do it and what I would actually require to support myself within my life, my living, my relationship with me and so my survival within this system – where I commit myself to realign and reinstruct myself to stop accepting and allowing fear and desire to be what moves me within what I participate within and instead take my life in my own hands where I live self-responsibility through actually being the one who decides what is important and what is not important when considering my self-support, my relationship with me and my stability within the system - because within this I see, realize and understand that how I am currently living is not cool, is not supportive and is not something I would want to look back at later and realize that I actually could have lived in another way - but did not. Therefor I commit myself to walk through this construct and really in that give myself the opportunity to create a life for myself that I would really want, a life that I can look back at without regretting and asking myself; why didn't I live?