Advice for self forgiveness?

[Lorandt Aszom]

This is a really long post. Sorry.

 

I was a good kid. I was always learning a new skill and I did really well in school. I was smart for my age. I found I was able to learn and improve quickly and received recognition for it. 

When I got to high school I started to fix all the things that bothered me about myself. It worked really well for a while. I was always pushing myself to be better in all areas - learning, physical health, social development, etc.

I started drumming in year 8 and like all the other skills I had decided to learn, I worked hard and consistently. I improved very quickly. I decided I needed to stick to something so I could master it rather than keep switching to another pursuit. However, I was still concerned I wouldn't be able to be one of the best as I had started at 13 which I considered late. 

In year 10 I decided if I wanted to be really good at drumming I needed to drop out and start practising all day every day. Quite a drastic decision but I was very determined and decided I had the work ethic and the drive and it was what I needed to do.

But as I dropped out, I started to doubt whether I really liked music enough or not. Whether I was a genuine musician. I didn't listen to much music when I was younger and I treated most of my listening like work to improve myself as a musician. Practice was hard work too. I realised in all my efforts to improve myself I had created this tension in me. I started to wonder if I really wanted to pursue music as a career. I spoke to all my music teachers and muso friends about it but nothing they said could settle my doubt.

Then I started to question everything. What did it mean to love something or be passionate about something? I could get good at whatever I wanted by pouring effort into it but what makes a pursuit the right one? What makes it authentic? What gives a person value - their skill level or the effort they put in?

I noticed I was driven by an obsessive need to be constantly pushing myself or I wouldn't be reaching my full potential. And so all this doubt scared me. I didn't want to stop. I thought 'time is being wasted and I don't know what to do' I tried to push through a few times and sort of went back and forth between deciding to tough it out with music (maybe I had just hit a plateau) but then wondering if perhaps I was holding onto something that wasn't meant to be. 

In the end I figured if I even have to ask if I really love music its probably not something I should dedicate my life to. So I let it go. 

This made me feel very sad. I started questioning life. What did I want? What was the point? What was I supposed to do? 

I even started to question my positive habits. I was obsessed with my health. I was so afraid of making a mistake and ruining my health and that then inhibiting me in my pursuits down the track.

Because I had all this free time my mind told me I now no longer had an excuse to not give full attention to worrying about my health. I was so careful about it, particularly my teeth. For example, I would spend sometimes an hour or two carefully cleaning my teeth and making sure I didn't get germs on my toothbrush or floss stick. I would be afraid to sit on the couch because it seemed dirty. It made me anxious when my sisters made slime with borax. Anything that threatened my health caused me a lot of stress.

It even got to the point where I would just lay in bed all day looking at the ceiling because I was afraid of accidentally doing something that could threaten my health.

My work ethic had nothing to occupy it so it latched onto preserving what I was worried about losing until I could find myself a pursuit I could dedicate my life to.

I noticed that upholding a high standard of health caused me tension. That tension and anxiety disappeared when I broke my own rules and did something unhealthy. I was afraid to but it gave me relief and mental freedom that I hadn't really felt in a long time.

I thought that perhaps my problem was that my whole system of productivity and self improvement was built on fear. 

So I let go of more habits. I stopped making sure I exercised every day. I stopped my meditation practice. I stopped eating healthy. I was afraid of losing all these things so I thought I was attached. I thought I should be detached and surrender and let go.

I figured if I kept trying to think my way out of this I'd wind up even more tense, so I began to let go as much as possible and operate more from my feelings and what felt right. I let whatever happened happen.

This then led to my avoidance of discipline as I felt it caused me tension and was feeding into my fear and attachment. I was pursuing some idealistic anxiety free way of living life.

Every time I feared I was damaging my health I'd double down and do something more unhealthy to shut the fear up.

I spent a lot of time contemplating life, myself and my mind which led to running into paradoxes, meaninglessness and experiencing a solipsistic derealisation type thing that scared the shit out of me. I was also terrified of how much sense it made that reality is infinite because it implies infinite suffering. So that also threw me for a loop.

Eventually at 18, after lots of ruining my life, I started smoking weed and playing video games all the time. I just didn't care anymore. Although I didn't want to admit it, my efforts to surrender and not act out of fear turned into seeking comfort and instant gratification.

I thought if I want to improve my health again I shouldn't feel bad about the past because it will just hinder me. This was one of the main reasons I was trying to shake my attachment to my high standards. But I did feel bad. That upset me. I would frequently argue with myself, talking to my mind as if it were a separate entity that wouldn't cooperate with me and I blamed it for the whole situation.

The only thing that made me feel ok was being reckless as it helped to break any tension I felt. It gave me a sense of freedom. I was afraid of getting caught up in being attached and obsessive again. I also just didn't want to try anymore. I was bitter and was sick of playing life's game.

I was hoping if I could just squash my fear, my natural desire to be healthy and learn would take over, but it never did. After a while I decided if I could just have peace of mind I wouldn't need to satisfy my ego with great success. Though, I never found lasting peace.

So I've spent four years (16-20) doing all this experimentation and self questioning trying to quell my suffering and find some sort of clarity. I wanted to be learning something this whole time and working on myself but I was so confused and it would have gone against my principle of surrendering and not trying to control anything. I guess I also felt so starved of comfort that when everything came crashing down that was all I sought. I wanted to nail down my understanding so I wouldn't waste any more time but it didn't work as there were always more questions.

I wanted to find a way out, but going back meant I would have to admit what I'd done was all wrong and I couldn't face that. I would say to my mind 'You should have helped me to stay disciplined before when I asked you, we're doing things differently now.'

I've gotten to the point now where I realised I could have the fear of cutting my own hand off and I shouldn't have to cut my hand off to 'face the fear' in order for it to go away and so that sort of forced me to admit this whole endeavour was a stupid mistake that has cost me a lot. I've started meditating again, trying to eat healthy and exercise like I used to but its painful knowing what I've lost. I have let my brain, body and many skills deteriorate and I just feel deeply angry, scared and sad about the whole situation.

I was an obsessive person. I never wanted to give up my good habits. I only did so because I thought I was causing my own anxiety by clinging to them. I thought maybe because I was highly confused, continuing my good habits would count for a lot because it was harder. However I also thought 'What if the solution is to let go and I never do because I'm too afraid of losing progress?'

So I'm back trying to improve myself again. I feel I've been robbed of all my good traits. I feel robbed of time. I couldn't get a straight answer out of myself that I could hold onto before things went south. I knew this would happen if I couldn't find inner understanding. 

Just writing this all out feels like a bit of a weight off my chest already but I guess what I'm asking for is advice on how to deal with the pain of this four year mistake that feels like its massively tainted my life. I've messed up my gums a bit from either eating unhealthy, smoking or overbrushing my teeth which is a really painful thing to process.

I used to be so confident and proud of myself and what I had achieved and now I just feel pathetic. I feel angry I couldn't just push through and find something concrete to hold onto that could have helped me keep my good habits through this mess of confusion and pain.

It just feels like all this could have been avoided. I keep beating myself up. I'm afraid I've become dumber. I'm afraid of what I've done to my health and any good feeling about any improvement I make is immediately followed by the thought that I'm so far behind where I was when I was 16 and I could have been so far ahead had I not gone down this road. 

If you read this whole thing I really appreciate it.

Any and all thoughts and comments are welcome. 

 

 

 

 

 

[Cathal]

 

Real self-forgiveness comes from truly understanding who you are, not you the 'I' but you as the witnessing essence. Not to be confused with pity, pity is what you use when you believe you can't change how you feel and cope, but forgiving yourself is simply realizing you didn't understand you were causing yourself suffering and others suffering. You see your innocence in that and the innocence of all others, even the ones who caused you the worst kinds of trauma and suffering, that your sins were errors and nothing wrong, nothing to be guilty about, not to ruminate over and 'figure it out', nothing more to it than ignorance.

All things are in emotion, the stories and imagining others to be seperate and the cause of your pain is the belief we are not causing ourself suffering and therefore you never have the power to free yourself

Whatever you have done 1 year or 10 years ago, makes no difference. You forgive yourself by not understanding that you didn't understand what was the right thing to do, you don't judge or hate yourself for not understanding. You bring sweetness into yourself with softening your heart that you have made hard through your acts of ignorance

Only when you can see everything you and others have done to you have been error and there is no blame or wrong/evil, then you may forgive and experience that freedom through compassion. Real, authentic, true compassion is the what you want.

All you are is a product of your environment, you are the product of conditioning, you have never done anything right or wrong in your life

[Lorandt Aszom]

@catcat69123

Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

I understand intellectually how, ultimately, nobody is really at fault for anything, I think I just fear the consequences of my actions.

I fear not being ahead in life. Which I guess was why I was so insistent that I didn't care anymore, so I had no standard by which I could fail.

I seem to deal with that fear by beating myself up if I've fallen behind. I think I have always had a fear of being scolded, so if I'm anticipating judgement from somebody else I beat them to the punch by judging myself.

I feel like I should have known better than anyone to not make the kind of mistakes I did. I guess after a while of questioning everything, all my principles went out the window. 

I seem to switch between trying to justify my actions and condemning them.

I guess in the end its the past and I just have to let it go, good or bad. I'm just struggling with that at the moment.

Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud. Thanks again for the reply. I'll consider trying to be more compassionate towards myself. 

 

[Ulax]

Do you feel a lot of emotions you'd rather not feel?

[Cathal]

@Lorandt Aszom Yes because you are still very attached to the way you were raised up and you fear all the feelings unworthiness, being a loser, being a failure and whatever - you fear being not good enough. 

Always on the edge about the approval of other people is a shit life to live, I would just say explore your relationship with you and your family with a therapist because it's likely until you truly understand that you have no control to change because you give your authority and power away to others in the form of validation seeking from them then you are stuck in this rat race in your head, you will go around in loops. You try something again, and you'll come back here again in some time

It's fundamentally understanding yourself that will bring you to that level of compassion, you cannot try to be compassionate. It happens through understanding what you are and seeing how much suffering you're causing to yourself by playing this rat race games in your mind that you were raised up to be believe is true

[Nahm]

Forgiveness Meditation.

Actuality of fear. 

Why bother.

[Lorandt Aszom]

@catcat69123 I see. That sounds like me. I'll try doing some more inner exploration. I am currently talking to a therapist but perhaps I also need to go deeper into spiritual work to attain enough self understanding that I may resolve these problems in my thinking. Thank you for taking the time.

Edited February 20, 2022 by Lorandt Aszom

[Lorandt Aszom]

@Ulax I seem to cling to my negative emotions. I feel that if I let go of my anger my mind will begin to blame me and I'll have no counter argument because I had let it go. I realise this isn't the healthiest attitude but it seems to be the way I currently operate.

My mind seems to drag me one way and then another and then blame me for making a mistake or being inconsistent. At least it used to.

I just kept thinking 'either give me a straight answer or stop blaming me'.

I guess I feel a little hopeless and a little bitter because I had everything going so well before. I could have just not stopped living that way if I could get my mind straight. I relied on rules and principles to be productive. But strong inner clarity was so elusive. I couldn't get a grip on it. So eventually I stopped trying.

[Lorandt Aszom]

@Nahm  

Thanks I'll check those links out.

[Breakingthewall]

You see your life as a career, as a page to be filled in the best possible way, a perfect resume. this is a completely wrong view that prevents you from relaxing. You live in anxiety, clinging to what should be. life is the present moment and success is being that present without obstacles. play music as a master, be the best at something, a number one... that's nothing, zero, banal, it lacks the slightest importance. it is ego, narcissism, an anxiety-generating disease that can destroy you. our society rewards this, most people think like you, only they are weaker and do not try so seriously. Do you understand what the ego is, the idea of yourself? has you trapped. past, future, achievement, fear of failure. If you want your life not to be a sterile misery you have to get out of there, stick to the present. that does not mean that you are going to stop exercising, you will do it because you like it, not because if you do not do it etc... and so on with everything. Not easy to change the angle of perception, but totally possible

[Breakingthewall]

think about one detail: when you want to be a top level drummer, what do you want? What does this mean? it means reaching the level that others consider is high level. you're selling yourself, being a whore. you have to make the battery work for you, not you for it. that is: I want to get to enjoy the drums as much as possible, give the most of myself in it every day because that is a great pleasure, pure joy, and for this I increase my technique, to put the drums at my service, because here, only I matter, and I am the one who sets the standards. thus, talent can emerge. Even the technique is not the top, you can flow, that's talent, art, in battery and every art, sport, etc. otherwise, you are putting yourself as a battery server. you will only get frustration

Edited February 20, 2022 by Breakingthewall

[Lorandt Aszom]

 @Breakingthewall  Thanks for the reply. You seem to understand my attitude towards life. I guess my question is does being good at something matter? Why? To what degree? In order for me to achieve anything, I regard improvement as something I need or want. If I didn't need or want it, I wouldn't chase it. So I create a psychological imbalance by feeling inadequate (realising I don't have what I want) which serves as a motivator until I reach my goal. Although I didn't have specific goals (even if I did, once I had achieved one I would just set another, so I saw no point in wasting time deciding how I would label my milestones), I found it much more efficient to just have a system of practice that I could just trust to bring me results.

So this attitude implies that if I want to be good at what I'm doing, I should create and follow the most efficient system possible by any means, which is what I tried to do. This makes sense if you put highest possible skill level at the top of your list of priorities. However, I get the impression that this is not the way to go about it and is a good way to get stuck doing something you may not actually want to do as you've committed to never breaking your principles no matter how much you suffer. 

So, what's the alternative? I don't put in as much effort but I then feel inadequate? Isn't better, better? If not, then why should I do anything I don't want to at all. Why should I develop self discipline? I understand that that's a black and white way of looking at it but if I should stop seeing things in this way, then what perspective should I take? If I can't know what perspective to take then what is the next step to take? There must be an answer of some sort. Even if the answer is that there isn't an answer. But if there isn't an answer and that is the answer given to my question, then how could anyone advise anyone to do anything? Much less blame or condemn them for getting it wrong. Getting something wrong implies you can get something right. So how do you do it right? There is no way to do it right - there is no answer. Back to square one.

I've tried to stop thinking so much but it hasn't led me to any tangible self improvement. I think I fear getting caught up chasing the wrong thing my whole life so I just refuse to chase until I get an answer. I suppose that means I'm chasing an answer. 

I just feel like if I work for something amazing in my life I pay for it in stress. If I don't work for it I pay for it in feelings of inadequacy.

I want to feel better but will feeling better now mean feeling worse later? Is an indicator of doing the right thing feeling pleasure of feeling pain?

I also keep thinking the phrase 'If it were easy, everyone would do it.' But what exactly does creating your life to be amazing get you if you're always busy creating it and suffering for it? And if you stop improving and maintaining you begin to lose it all. 

Sorry, I don't expect you to answer all these questions, I just wanted to exhibit my thought process. 

[Breakingthewall]

I understand your mental process perfectly because I used to think the same. what happens to you is called ego. Have you read Eckart Tolle? explains it pretty well.

you see yourself as a process in time, and this is an erroneous vision, which leads you to try to make a satisfactory temporal process. what you really are is actual present, nothing more. it is difficult to see this really, but it is fundamental. As long as you consider yourself a temporary process, your life will be narrow, limited, like a tunnel. if you stick to the present you expand, you encompass everything. I guess I'm not explaining myself very well.

first: you do not have to do anything at all. or play the drums, or meet girls, or have a family, or work or anything. I know this is radical and almost impossible to put into practice, but you have to understand it on a psychological level. you are, and that's it. the rest, really, are judgments that you have absorbed from others, even if they seem your innate. If you stay lying today in a hammock on the beach looking at the sea, and you stay there for 40 years until you die doing absolutely nothing, everything is perfect. To understand this, perhaps a 10-day meditation retreat would help. once you understand this, you erase the negative tendency to act. negative in the sense of: I have to do this, because if not....and you can start to act positively. that is, you do, solely and exclusively because you want, you love what you do. selfishly. This does not mean that you become lazy, on the contrary. you act with much more energy and true talent flows from you. To see this, I spent almost a whole year meditating in a park, everywhere except home, and doing almost nothing, almost no socializing ,not watching movies, not reading... I only had one goal: to stick to the present, eliminate all that mental garbage of seeing myself from the outside. I have achieved it in part, I am still at it but I see it very clearly, and the results are obvious, huge difference. I clearly see that I was sold, that I acted like an idiot to meet the standards that had been socially programmed for me. 

the sooner you get rid of that, the better. the problem is that you can start doing this also as an egoic goal, there you have to be smart and know how to differentiate

Edited February 21, 2022 by Breakingthewall

[Lorandt Aszom]

@Breakingthewall @Breakingthewall @Breakingthewall @Breakingthewall @Nahm I don't know why I can't delete these tags but that sounds great. What you said about being positively motivated is what I was trying to discover by breaking my rules. I wanted to stop fearing the negative side. Perhaps I had the wrong approach.

It sounds too good to be true but I'll look into Eckhart Tolle. I've seen a bit of him but I never really went in too deep. 

My only concern is that this is just another form of chasing a goal with the same mindset as before. I know you said to be careful not to turn it into an egoic goal but I don't see how it could be different. Though, I'm really hoping I'm wrong.

Nevertheless I'll have a read and a listen to Eckhart Tolle, maybe something he says will click with me. 

Thank you so much for your reply. It's given me hope. 

[Theperciever]

@Lorandt Aszom TRY THISS

Day 1 Meditation Forgive Yourself // Forgive2020 Challenge - YouTube

[Breakingthewall]

10 hours ago, Lorandt Aszom said:

It sounds too good to be true but I'll look into Eckhart Tolle. I've seen a bit of him but I never really went in too deep. 

My only concern is that this is just another form of chasing a goal with the same mindset as before

Eckhart Tolle, the power of now, is a great introduction in the understanding of the mechanic of the ego .

sounds good because it is the key to the only possible real happiness, to place yourself completely in the current present and realize what you really are, but here we enter the thorny terrain of enlightenment and that is where one can become egoic, looking for enlightenment as if it were something, when it is (imo) an angle of perception. It is a subtle matter that requires insight, which I would say you have plenty of. I think the majority of those who seek this change in the angle of perception is because the way they perceive has gradually led them to more and more anxiety, until it reaches an unbearable level.

Edited February 22, 2022 by Breakingthewall

[Lorandt Aszom]

@Breakingthewall

Right. I'll pick up a copy of The Power of Now and maybe try a meditation retreat. Thanks again for taking the time to help me out. :)

[Lorandt Aszom]

@Theperciever Thanks, I'll give it a shot.