Why I fear the lunch room - A Journey of Self-Change --- part 1

 

I’ve been living this point for a while, of feeling anxious and nervous every time I step into the lunch room at work and/or when I find myself in the presence of males specifically.

 

I’d been ‘working on’ it for a long time, never seemingly getting to a resolution within myself and it wasn’t until I was discussing it with a co-worker who had similar experiences of anxiety related to stepping into the lunch room and being around groups of people that I finally decided I’m going to get to the bottom of this and assist and support myself to change myself and transcend this issue once and for all; to prove to myself that this point does not define me.

 

I did some self-forgiveness and self-corrective statements in writing about it as a preliminary first step toward change. This assisted me with some initial realizations, understandings and a solid starting point for how to change ‘who I am’ in relation to ‘going into the lunch room’ and specifically this experience of ‘anxiety/nervousness around males’.

 

I will then see and cross-reference in real-time today, as I’m sure I’ll be needing to go into the lunch room to grab coffee or go to the bathroom, how my self-forgiveness and –commitments have supported me toward change so far and how/where I may need some tweaking and look deeper into some dimensions which may then require some follow-up writing/self-forgiveness/self-commitment.

 

Below is the self-forgiveness and self-corrective/-commitment statements I’ve written out so far.

 

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to change in my level of comfort and confidence when I step through the door to the lunch room when I am aware that there are going to be guys from the lunch room there having their break

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to allow those guys to just have their breaks and to leave them be rather than project my own fears and insecurities on them where I make their presence about myself as I go into a fear of being judged and project all sorts of fears and insecurities toward them – rather than just realizing they’re just human beings having their break during work and their lives and presence in the lunch room are about themselves not about me momentarily walking in just to go to the bathroom or grab a coffee

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to actually be quite desperate for attention and to therefore put so much emphasis on ‘what they think of me’ and ‘what I look like’ and become so reactive and nervous when walking into the lunch room – rather than being relaxed and comfortable and confident

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to be honest with myself about my desire to be noticed and recognized and paid attention to, especially from males – as some ‘compensation’ for whatever attention I felt I wasn’t getting growing up from whatever primary male figures were in my life – and to see, realize and understand that all my overwhelming nervousness and anxiety about ‘how’ I will be noticed/seen/perceived is actually more coming from this WANT to be seen/noticed/recognized/paid attention to

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand that all this ‘negative’ energy of nervousness and anxiety and fear of being seen/perceived a certain way is only coming from excessive amounts of positive energy that I’m spending on WANTING, needing and desiring to be seen/perceived/noticed/paid attention to, specifically by males --- to somehow off-set or compensate for the attention I felt deprived of growing up as I always perceived that my father simply didn’t seem to be interested in me or in spending time with me

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to support myself in this point of wanting/needing/requiring attention from males specifically, rather than participating in this point of ‘compensation’ where I am still in want/need/requirement based on not getting the attention I was looking for when I was younger, and recognizing that the attention does not need to come from ‘males’ around me for me to feel fulfilled and accepted and noticed and complete and realizing that I am not dependent on males in my environment in that way just like I wasn’t dependent on my father in that way

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to realize myself as an independent individual who does not need, require or want attention from others in order to be complete and who never really needed attention from their father even though it may have ‘felt’ like that and even though I may have perceived my father’s ‘lack’ of paying attention to me as a form of ‘neglect’ or ‘disinterest’

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be obsessed with wanting/needing attention from my father and to have built this whole personality design within myself around the feeling and perception that I didn’t get enough attention from my father growing up cause he always seemed more interested in his own hobbies and preoccupations --- instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that even though I may call him my ‘father’, and even though I have created that relationship of dependence in my mind, he is first and foremost just a person in this world who has his own demons, his own mind, his own past, which should not influence and affect me in any way just because I am his offspring and thus my self-esteem should not be defined by how much or what kind of ‘attention’ he decides to afford me

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my dad for not spending much time with me when I was little and to indirectly blame him for this want and need within me to be seen/noticed/paid attention to by males

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to indirectly blame my dad for this nervousness and awkwardness and ineptitude I experience when it comes to being around or communicating and interacting with males --- by thinking and believing that it’s because he never seemed to invest much time or effort into being with me, playing with me, talking with me about things or showing me things as he seemed to prefer spending his time and energy on his own interests --- instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that it’s more coming from a WANT and desire within me to be seen/noticed by males that I have not taken responsibility for

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want and desire to be paid attention to by males in my environment and to just get recognition for how I look, that I am pretty or beautiful or interesting or desirable – and just get that feedback

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand that the more I want these things, the more I’m removing myself away from them and am thus creating more of a feeling of ‘lack’

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand that when I was growing up, especially in my teenage years, I was also very critical and judgmental of my dad and created that barrier as I pushed him away and started to invest more time into my friends – and I felt like I was not interested in my dad at all

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand that mostly I just feel like I don’t know my dad at all and at the same time I know him very well – because he didn’t really speak much to me and he spent a lot of time away from his family but at the same time I did see who he was as a person

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to stand one and equal with my dad and to recognize why it is that he spends so much time and energy on his ‘friends’ and why it is that he chooses to spend so much time away from his family, rather than take it personally and create personality designs around my perceptions and reactions to his behavior

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define my dad within and as my perception of his behavior as his tendency to spend time with his friends instead of his family and to often choose to spend more time away from his family – instead of standing one and equal with him and recognizing who he is in and as that behavior without judging him for it

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand that when I was younger, I never really held this behavior against my dad, until I grew older and started to more identify with my mom’s experience and rhetoric and her mind’s reactions  in relation to my dad’s expression and then started to become more resentful and blameful of my dad for it because it’s how my mom had been experiencing herself in relation to it because it was something she didn’t really understand or relate with or stand one and equal with inside herself as she had different wants and expectations with regards to ‘being in a relationship’

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself in and as my mom’s experience and reactions to my dad’s behavior and expression specifically pertaining to ‘his family’ and to then also start to become resentful and blameful of him apparently neglecting us by ‘not being around’ and choosing his friends and his own pastimes before spending time with us --- instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that within that, I’ve given my power away to allow who my dad chooses to be or my moms reactions to it to influence or define me, rather than being stable and independent and being who I am as a living statement of myself, undefined and uninfluenced by anybody else

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to stand one and equal with my dad and realize and understand and see that his actions and what he chooses to do and how/who he chooses to be does not influence me as these are his choices and decisions which are coming from his mind, his past, his experiences which I should not judge but must rather understand

 

I forgive myself that I havent accepted and allowed myself to see, realize and understand that I have been subconsciously indirectly blaming all males I see for what I’d been blaming my father of --- holding them accountable for this feeling inside myself that they owe me ‘attention’ and ‘recognition’ because it’s what I’d apparently been denied by my dad growing up --- instead of standing one and equal with males as well as with my dad in and as the recognition of them as people who have their own lives, their own mind and past and experiences – none of which is ‘personal’ or defining of me but entirely their own choices and decisions which I should not react to or stand in judgment of but must rather understand

 

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be influenced by my moms experiences that she was projecting in relation to my dad, by identifying with my mom as I grew older – where suddenly I was not able to understand or relate to my dad’s behavior and actions or who he was  because I allowed myself to have thoughts and judgments and reactions about him --- effectively and essentially copying and taking over my mom’s ‘relationship programming’ in and of the mind as this collection of thoughts, feelings and emotions in relation to ‘my partner’ and an inability to relate to ‘the male experience/expression/behavior’

 

 

When and as I see myself walking into the lunch room or in an area where I am seeing males with my eyes and I see myself grow tense and go into this point of nervousness about ‘how do they see/perceive me’, then I stop and I breathe, and I see, realize and understand that I am actually in a positive point in my mind of WANTING, needing and desiring attention and to be noticed and seen

 

I see, realize and understand that this want to be seen/noticed/paid attention to by males is a reaction to and a compensation for this emotionally charged relationship I’ve created with my father throughout my life where I started judging him for his seemingly ‘escapist’ behavior of choosing to do things that seemed to most of the time take him away from spending time with his family, where I created the perception that I am ‘deprived’ of ‘attention from my father’

 

I see, realize and understand that must of those reactions and judgments were things that I copied from my mother as that was her experience in her relationship with my dad, wherein I separated myself from my dad by starting to react to him and take his expression, actions and behavior ‘personally’, rather than standing one and equal with him, and considering/seeing him without judgment

 

I see, realize and understand that also my understanding and how I’ve been living the word ‘attention’ has been misaligned as I’ve been defining it as this ‘positive’ thing that I can ‘get’ or want to ‘have’, as a transaction between people – while the word attention and giving/receiving attention in living action is not a positive or negative thing and has nothing to do with feelings or emotions, nor can you be ‘deprived of attention’ in an emotional sense, as to ‘pay attention’ is to merely be observant and perceptive in an unbiased and non-judgmental way so you can assist and support yourself to see what is here in and as reality

 

I see, realize and understand that it’s because I have defined ‘attention’ in and as a polarity in the mind where my ‘craving for attention’ is just a want for a positive feeling experience that I’ve connected with it, that I also experience this polarity within myself of on the one hand feeling starved for attention and feeling deprived and ‘lacking’ and on the other hand wanting, needing and desiring the FEELING that I’ve connected with ‘attention’ – and that if I were to live the word attention as a living word then I would not be hung up within these polarities of feelings and emotion, between want and lack, but I would be the one to PRACTICE and LIVE what attention really means --- which is to see and look at things without judgment or preconceived beliefs/thoughts/reactions so that I may understand and stand one and equal with that which is here

 

So I commit myself to see and perceive males without judgment or bias and to practice the word ATTENTION when I step into the lunch room, where I decide to be observant and perceptive and perceive what is here without filter in the mind, without judgment or bias --- and so to decide to live the word attention rather than access a preprogrammed polarity mind-design of wanting attention vs feeling like I am lacking attention, as I wait and expect this ‘attention’ to come from the world around me

 

I commit myself to live this decision to be ATTENTION and ATTENTIVE so that therein I am giving myself what it is I have been wanting and looking for from my environment

 

I commit myself to live the word attention as a decision to learn about and see my environment for/as what it is so that I can understand all that is HERE in and as this world so I can stand one and equal with what is here and make decisions that are best for all --- rather than be stuck in my mind perpetually perceiving the world around me through a filter of experiences of wanting and lacking attention

 

I am the living word ATTENTION

I am ATTENTIVE