At times parenthood means sleepless nights, irregular sleep patterns, and being pushed to the brink of exhaustion. You'll feel tired cause you are tired and really need to take it easy. But there are other times when we feel tired, feel like we have no energy and feel like we just want to slouch around... for no apparent reason. This post is about that.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to linger and indulge in this experience of not wanting to do anything, of feeling like I am too tired to do anything, of just “wanting to do nothing”.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to deceive myself and others with the statement ‘I am so tired’ – when as soon as I speak the words and I hear myself say them, I actually know deep-down that I am not truly physically tired, but that I am finding myself in an energy-based simulation of actual tiredness, an experience that I created myself, that I then use as a reason, excuse and justification to just… do nothing.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to see how bizarre it is that I make myself believe that I am tired when I am not truly tired, and to actually be okay with feeling this way, not really trying all that hard to get out of this experience and see what I can DO today, what I can EXPLORE, what I can LEARN, what I can CREATE.
I forgive myself for having accepted and allowed myself to create a general attitude of boredom, indifference and apathy towards life.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to think and believe that it is easier to just not care about life and to not really participate in it, than to do things, try things, put myself out there, only to get disappointed and hurt in the process – instead of realizing that I still determine who I am within hardship, adversity, mistakes, chaos, trouble and I can decide to learn and grow from it instead of reacting in disappointment and defeat.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to make hardship, adversity, mistakes, chaos and trouble out to be more than me, like some HUGE THING that I can do nothing about, in so doing, separating myself from the very point that firstly, I created, and secondly, is here for me to take responsibility for, learn from and correct in my living expression.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that by changing my starting point, my approach and my attitude towards challenges, adversity, hardship, chaos, mistakes, trouble, etc – they become gifts, each one an opportunity for learning, expanding, growing and creating, the solutions that I find, design and live each time becoming a part of me that I take with me for the rest of my life.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that being incapacitated is not limited to being under the influence of alcohol or drugs, where I am now no longer able to respond, act or move myself in a particular way (and where I can now no longer be trusted to do certain things!!) – I can equally be incapacitated by my internal experiences, where a state of mind or an emotion or feeling reaction in a moment hampers and/or disables my capacity to do what is best for myself and others in any given moment.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to look for who or what is to blame for my experience of total and utter apathy, looking for something or someone else to blame for incapacitating me and so rendering me unable to effectively support myself and others.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that there is nothing or no-one else to blame for who I am, and that I have in fact created this experience of apathy, listlessness, indifference and carelessness all by myself, for myself.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that on some level, I choose to be incapacitated so that I can always blame my experience of apathy, listlessness, indifference and carelessness for why I am not effectively supporting and creating myself, or supporting my child – where I can then even blame other people in my backchat with the statement – ‘well you shouldn’t have trusted me to take care of our/my child when I was obviously not feeling well’.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to slip on my Zombie-suit whenever I think or feel that a change or challenge may be about to present itself on the horizon of my life – effectively using the experience of apathy, listlessness, indifference and carelessness as a protection and defence mechanism, because if I don’t care, if I don’t feel, if I don’t experience, then nothing can apparently ‘touch me’ and I apparently cannot get hurt – all the while not realizing, seeing and understanding how my very Zombie-mode incapacitates me, hampers me, diminishes me, and so in fact hurts me as well as the people in my life.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to act and pretend as though my experiences and my mood are a great mystery to me, as though I am just a victim in the throes of my inner storms that I have seemingly no power or ability to influence or change – conveniently allowing myself to indulge in emotional and mental states of diminishment whenever it suits my self-interest.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be selfish by simply indulging and participating in emotional and mental states when they present themselves in me, automatically accepting them as ‘who and how I am right now’ even though I am in a position of being responsible to myself and my child – and even as I see and feel how much harder it is to actually take effective care of my child, to even then just complain about the state of mind/state of being I am in and complain about how hard this is for me, but take zero responsibility and do absolutely nothing to move myself out of it – in a way abandoning my child to entertain him/herself, “because I am incapacitated”.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that the energetic state of my Zombie-mode is essentially fear in a different form.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear life.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear to be responsible for myself and my child.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear my own possible future emotional reactions towards a possible/potential/theoretical issue, problem, challenge in the future.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to divert all of my energy (and so capacity) into creating and hiding in this energetic state so that I may be shielded ‘from life’ – but actually, in reality, be shielded from my own reactions to what life may bring, and so, actually, be shielded from myself.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have repeated this pattern of hiding in apathy over and over in my life, to the point where I have come to believe that it is acceptable to go through life like a zombie, no matter for how long or how short a period in time – when in reality, for that time, I was simply not present, not here, not living.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to blame life for ‘making me this way’ – not realizing that I am too afraid to actually really live, and haven’t really lived for a very long time, whereas if I look at how my child moves herself in her body through space and time: with eagerness, curiosity, courage, zest, delight, intensity, openness, perseverance and joy – I KNOW that I can be so much more, can express so much more, can live so much more.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to slip on my Zombie-suit whenever there is nothing to entertain my mind and all that I have to do is to be here in my physical body, be present, breathe, feel my body.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I need mental challenges and stimulation and that it is the lack of said stimulation that leads me to being and feeling like a Zombie, because I am apparently bored out of my skull – when in reality, I resist being present in my physical body, I resist simply being here.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to associate my body to fear of getting physically hurt.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to define my relationship with my body according to memories of physically getting hurt and therefore, instead of learning to be more in my body, more aware of my body, I instead started to resist my body and try to escape it by more and more focusing on entertaining my thoughts, emotions and feelings.
I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to create a relationship with my body based on how my body looks and how well my body has ‘served me’ in helping me attain and fulfill all my desires and points of self-interest – never actually getting to know my body for what and ‘who’ my body is as a physical manifestation and expression of life.
I forgive myself for not accepting and allowing myself to realize that my apprehension and fear of and towards life is mirrored in my relationship with my body.
The word I choose to live instead: ZEST
To be continued.