Day 4 - Pore Me

This is a continuation of my blog from Day 3, where I started the list of the physical attributes of myself that I judge as negative and which I build up in my imagination as separate from myself -- cutting off this piece of my physical body to over-analyze and fantasize about it.

The first thing on this list is my Pores - this is the first thing that my eyes will lock onto when I look at myself in the mirror.  So this morning I stood in front of the mirror and scanned my pores and wrote down the thoughts/feelings/pictures that came up.

1. A physical "sinking" feeling in my stomach.
2. Thought: "My pores are so huge and filled with dirt, it is disgusting"
3. Thought: "Everyone will look at me and think that I am not clean"
4. Picture: A nerdy teenager in a movie who has acne and everyone makes fun of him.
5. Thought: "People who are beautiful don't have acne"
6. Picture: up-close shot of Supermodel from makeup commercial, her skin is perfect
7. Thought: "No one will like me if I am not good looking"
8. Thought: "I must clean out my pores, so no one will know"
9. Picture: Ad for acne face cleaner, where kids are happy after washing their face
10. Thought: "All I have to do is squeeze the dirt out, then I will feel better"
11. Picture: Ad for acne cleaner, picture of the pore where the dirt comes out, and nothing is left"

When I was a teenager, and even up until recently, I have done this ritual pore scanning in the morning (and sometimes throughout the day) and I started picking my face until I had gotten a lot of dirt out of the larger pores.  Sometimes, this picking would become a trance-like state and last a long time, like 15-20 minutes, and I would feel really good while I was doing it, like it was satisfying to clean my face, but I was so focused on each small pore, I wasn't seeing the consequences of what I was doing to my entire face.  Afterwards, my face would be all red and puffy, and I would be so embarrassed, especially if I my roommates saw me come out of the bathroom.

I will continue with my self forgiveness on each of these points in the next blog.

Day 3 - The Hu-Man in the Mirror

As I was saying in my Day 2 blog, I drive a lot for my job, so I spend a lot of time alone.  Most of the time I've listened to music, which is like a soundtrack for the thoughts and pictures that run through my head.    Lately, I realized that all this time I'm spending alone in my car - in my head - is full of moments where I am choosing not to support myself -- I've actually convinced myself that this "car time" is really "fuck off" time - "cause I can't do process while I'm focused on driving" - LOL.

So, for the past week, instead of listening to music, I've been listening to and studying the interviews from Eqafe about Imagination.  Wow - what a cool point to hear how we use and abuse our imagination, and this is exactly what I've been doing for the past year while driving alone in my car, imagining my Self in comparison to everyone and everything I see.

I realize now what I'm doing when I'm driving throughout my world.  I am constantly comparing myself as who I believe or desire myself to be with other people I see on the street.  My eyes will latch onto someone and I will either have a conscious thought like "Wow, what are they wearing?" or I will have a weird physical reaction - especially when I see someone who I judge as better looking than me - and I feel like I can't tear my eyes away.  What a great way to get into a car accident huh?!  I really never though twice about these little "micro-judgements" I was participating in - they're harmless, right?... WRONG.  It's pretty obvious that I am constantly trying to define myself in my imagination by making these comparisons - I'm trying to figure out "who I am" - cutting out the features I don't like about myself, bolster the features that I like about myself -- and do this by tearing down other people in my mind.

Now, this all starts with the moment in the morning where I'm looking at myself in the mirror and making these small judgments about myself as my appearance.  Obviously, I've compounded these "morning mirror moments" over the many years of my life, but I reinforce this pattern every single morning.  The exercise discussed in the interviews is so cool - and I've had a major resistance to starting this exercise here on this blog over the past few days - but I realize now that I can't support myself to stop judging other people in this world until I stop judging and separating myself.

So here we go...

When I look at myself in the morning, there are many features that I don't like - that my eyes will immediately go to and focus on, and the entire rest of my face and body will fade away, and I will only see this "horrible" attribute.  Sometimes, I will go into a sort of trance, staring at these features for a long time, building up thoughts in my head of what is wrong with them.  For example;

• Pores on my Face - they are "too large", they are filled with dirt, I have scars where I have picked them clean, they make me look like a young teenager.
• Right Eye - droops lower than the other eye, makes me look asymmetrical, looks like a lazy eye in pictures.
• Chin - doesn't look defined enough, has too much fat.
• Hair - stringy, wavy, poofy, unruly, will not stay the way I want it
• Fat Rolls - Looks disgusting, like a tire I am carrying around, Embarrassing
• Fat on Sides and Legs - pocketed, looks like swiss cheese, ugly

In the next few days, I'm going to focus on each of these points and go deeper into what thoughts and pictures come up when I'm looking and judging each of these physical parts of my Self, so I can apply effective self-forgiveness and self-corrective statements -- assisting myself to stop separating myself as "body parts" and walk with my entire physical body.