I continue to burrow down through the layers of my constructed self, preparatory to beginning work on a much larger stage (as will we all).
What I saw earlier today was that I saw myself as a judge sitting in judgment on myself.
And I hadn’t quite made up my mind as to whether I’m irreparably bad and should be scrapped or in reality a good person emerging from trying circumstances.
It sounds absurd when I put it in words but that’s exactly what was happening in my internal state and has been since a very early age.
I was discussing with Kathleen the other day that I consider myself a father-hater and a father-hater does not deserve love. I’m therefore an unworthy character in my own eyes. Self-condemned. Self-judged. Self-imprisoned.
(I need to forgive myself – next – or grant myself a pardon.)
Using her technique of turnaround (1) I saw that I had judged another and on the basis of my judgment turned away from that person.
I abandoned that person and have all the right reasons for doing so. The reasons may fool others, but they don’t fool me (the guy in the mirror).
All of the skeletons in the closet are rattling their bones in these heightened energies. Rattle, rattle, rattle.
***
Let me take this process a step further because it’s good to really have these matters understood, they’re so basic.
Continuing with Kathleen’s technique of turnaround: I gave up on someone – Ding! That also rings a bell.
I’ve done it with many people. Therefore I can see and entertain the possibility in the outside world of someone giving up on me.
That someone is the judge I am, sitting in judgment of myself. I could abandon myself.
Ding!! In fact I regularly do. Aha. Next piece of the puzzle. I have a comeback and that’s to tell myself “I don’t care.” I remember many times I’d sabotage myself.
Afterwards I’d say to myself, “It would never have worked out anyways.” Like most of us, I had an answer, an excuse, a rationalization for everything. I had my story well-honed and down pat.
Granted that these are two to four-year-old responses, still they lie at the heart of my conditioning. They bent the twig and inclined the tree.
The next person may never have given up on anyone and wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what I’m talking about. They wouldn’t see the world through my filter of self-judgment and low self-esteem.
Moreover, according to the universal law of above and below, within and without, what is within us is what we create outside of us. I therefore am creating a world attractive to people who judge themselves. Ding!!!
Past this point, I can’t take the journey publicly. But I see the patterns of my own codependency. I see myself coming to relationship with a filter of not deserving love and being a bad apple (spoiled identity).
Seeing all this started with me seeing in a flash that I sit in judgment of myself.
All I did was raise the matter to awareness. I haven’t moved from this keyboard. The release was entirely an internal affair.
I have to add that people who ply the awareness path get adept at recognizing these flashes that we all have. They’re receptive to them. They watch for them. And when they come, they pay attention to them and allow them to unroll or unpack themselves.
Seeing myself as self-critical “fit.” It “resonated.” It “felt right.” The truth will set us free and this did release tension. I felt more relaxed and happier. The truth had set me free.
Or, to use Werner’s language, I put the truth in the space where the truth already existed and the upset disappeared. (If I’d put a lie in the space where the truth existed, the upset would have persisted.)
And I’m restored to the space which ultimately leads to the Self.
What caused the release was becoming aware of an important truth about myself; in my case, that I sit in judgment on myself and felt, at least in part, that I was a bad and irredeemable character.
Footnotes
(1) Developed independently of Byron Katie, by the way. I suggested using Katie’s word to describe what Kathleen was already doing.