Day 200: Product Brands and Conspicuous Consumption

In 6th grade I got introduced to brands and what I have learned only now to be conspicuous consumption. My schoolmates were crazy about Nike shoes and Benetton clothes, and if one had any of those, one's value would dramatically increase in the eyes of my peers. I started desiring those brands, and I even managed to get my hands on some such items. I immediately felt elevated, like my value went up, I felt so much better about myself, I felt respected and appreciated. A memory that stands out is from before I managed to get my own Nike shoes. A classmate, who sat next to me in most classes, and whom I considered to be my best classmate/friend in 6th grade, got Nike shoes, and she demonstratively threw them on the table a few times and said that they bounce a lot. In my mind she was doing that in order to show off the brand and enjoy a little more of the attention that came with Nike shoes.
Then in high-school I adopted the skater style from my best friend because the clothes were baggy and comfortable, and I wanted to hide my body, which I perceived as too overweight to clothe with regular clothes, so I started desiring Airwalk and Vans shoes, and later DC, and clothes from Blind, Billabong and Girl brands. I felt approximately cool in those clothes, but still not good, because they weren't too girly. I really wished I could wear clothes that model-like women wear, and I really longed for the experience of wearing haute-couture type clothes like Prada, Dior, Escada, Max Mara... all the brands that I saw at my rich aunt's place. That is who I wanted to be like, and now it is time to release all of those thought patterns, because brands are part of the construct of perceived separation between people in this world that make us unable to see and treat each other as equals.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that owning goods of a certain brand will increase my value in the eyes of other people, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed within myself the belief that brands define people's status and their worth.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that I am worth more if I own certain pricey items of pricey brands, such as Nike shoes, Benetton clothes, Skinny and Palmers underwear, Prada, Dior and Hugo Boss products.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to buy products of different brands that I perceived/defined as superior in order to make myself feel superior and to increase my own value and think/believe/perceive that buying certain products of brands that I have defined/perceived as superior to others will increase my value in the eyes of other people, instead of realising and understanding that I am participating within my own self-accepted mind construct of increased/decreased value due to owning products of different brands, not realising and understanding that by allowing these constructs to exist within me, I am supporting and perpetuating the illusion and abuse of separation between people, I am supporting and perpetuating classism between people and am limiting myself from seeing/not allowing myself to see and treat all people as equals.

When and as I see myself wanting to buy a certain product only because of its brand and not taking into consideration its practical use, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am participating within and fueling my mind's definitions about that certain brand, therefore I release the definitions/perceptions and all thought patterns I have about the brand with self-forgiveness and I direct myself in breath towards purchasing products that I need by considering their practical functionality.

I commit myself to stopping and removing all my preferences towards certain brands and my definitions of brands that I have defined/perceived to be superior, because I realise and understand that those/my preferences and definitions have no base in actual physical reality, but are based on my mind's polarity constructs, where I will want to use/purchase products of those brands in order to make myself feel superior, and will not take into consideration first and foremost the product's practical physical application.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel good about myself and feel superior to other people, whenever I am walking on the street wearing/carrying products such as Nike shoes, Benetton clothes, Skinny and Palmers underwear, Prada, Dior and Hugo Boss products, Apple products, anything that is pricey and recognised as a "respected, quality brand", instead of realising and understanding that with these products I am trying to increase my value and feel superior because I feel like I have low value as a person and feel inferior in other areas of my life, thus I am participating within my mind's polarity construct, where I try to compensate for my perceived inferiorities with brands in order to make myself feel superior and balance out the feeling of inferiority, not realising and understanding that I am with these thoughts and actions generating energy for my mind to exist as ego.

When and as I see myself wanting to feel proud of myself and/or superior to other people when walking on the street and/or socializing with other people, when I am carrying/wearing products that I have defined/perceived as "respected, quality brands", I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am participating within my mind's polarity construct of comparison and competition, where I will feel superior to others while carrying/wearing certain brands in order to compensate for the feeling of inferiority about myself as a person and about my appearance and being overweight, therefore I release the trigger point and thought pattern with self-forgiveness and I direct myself in breath towards what is best for all, and I do not allow myself to go into the superiority/inferiority polarity game within my mind about brands, because I realise and understand that with this I am only generating energy for my mind to exist as ego.

I commit myself to stopping and removing my mind polarity constructs about brands and remove from my mind the symbolism of brands with which humans/we validate ourselves, because I realise and understand that perceiving and defining some brands as more than others solely because of the brand name and not because of their use/usefulness is perpetuating the separation of perceived value that is attached to different brands, and is preventing me/people to see each other as equals.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be jealous and envious of people, whom I see having/carrying/wearing products of brands that I have recognised as "respected, quality brands" and feel inferior to them, if I do not have products of such brands, instead of realising and understanding that I am participating within my mind's polarity construct of comparison and competition, where I will feel inferior to people whom I see having those brands, and on the flip side will feel superior to other people, when/if I have products of those brands, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to own products of brands that I have recognised as "respected, quality brands" in order to make other people jealous and envious of me for having those brands so that I can make myself feel superior to them, with which I am compensating for my own perceived inferiorities and am trying to feel equal to other people whom I perceive to lack those inferiorities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to have certain products of brands that I have recognised within myself as "respected, quality brands" in order to compensate for my feeling of inferiority about my appearance and about being overweight, when I walk on the street and am socializing with people, not realising and understanding that with this kind of thinking I am participating within my mind's polarity constructs of competition and comparison, of inferiority and superiority, and am generating energy for my mind to exist as ego.

When and as I see myself being jealous/envious of people who have certain brands of cars, clothes, food, products of which I recognise the brands, and when I see myself desiring to have those brands, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that with jealousy/envy I am participating within inferiority and with the desire I am participating as the desire for superiority because I have defined those brands as something more, as something that increases people's value, therefore I release that perceived value with self-forgiveness and I direct myself in breath within the realisation that a few letters/symbols on a product does not make people superior/inferior.

I commit myself to stopping within myself the perception of brands increasing/decreasing people's value, because I realise and understand that with these perceptions I am only perpetuating the illusion and abuse of separation between people and am not allowing myself to see all people and myself as equals.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be interested in and to some degree follow fashion, look at new collections and define myself with knowledge about fashion in order to make myself feel superior to others in order to compensate for my feelings of inferiority, instead of realising and understanding that fashion industry brands with their seasonal/yearly different collections and people who participate in following them and buying them are hugely contributing to the wasting of earth's resources and garbage creation/accumulation, and are abusing this physical existence in order to keep going the separation of status and perceived different worth of human beings who own different brands.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/desire to be and fantasize about being a supermodel in the fashion industry, and be able to wear designer clothes, have lots of money and mingle with "high society", and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define/perceive models to be superior to other women due to their appearance and jobs, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel inferior to models and their appearance and jobs, not realising and understanding that with these thoughts I am participating within my mind's polarity constructs of comparison and competition, with which I generate energy for my mind to exist as ego and am limiting myself from perceiving/seeing all human beings as equal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to develop a hatred towards the fashion industry and models and designers, and judge/perceive/define models as stupid women, bimbos that have no other good attributes in their lives except for their looks, instead of realising and understanding that I am participating within these thoughts in order to make myself feel superior in order to balance out my own feeling of inferiority because I perceive that I cannot be a model and cannot wear designer clothes due to my body shape, due to being overweight, not realising and understanding that I am with these thoughts abusing myself, my physical body in order to generate energy for my mind to exist as ego by participating within my self-accepted constructs of inferiority/superiority through comparison and competition.

When and as I see myself reacting with hate, anger, frustration, resentment towards the fashion industry, models and designers, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am participating within my mind's polarity construct with comparison and competition, where I feel inferior to the fashion industry for not having enough money to be able to afford its products, and feel inferior to models for not being able to wear the designer clothes for thin people, and am therefore balancing this perceived inferiority with superiority as hate, anger, frustration and resentment towards the fashion industry, models and designers. Therefore I release the trigger point and thought pattern with self-forgiveness and I direct myself in breath, and I do not allow myself to participate within comparison and competition with models, designers and the fashion industry.

I commit myself to stopping and removing all of my energetic reactions, thoughts, perceptions, definitions, feelings and emotions towards the fashion industry and people within it, because I realise and understand that otherwise I am limiting myself into mind polarity constructs about the subject and am not allowing myself to see things as they really are here in equality to all that is here.

Day 181: Deconstructing the Cartoon Character

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define/perceive the behaviour of characters in cartoons and comedies to be funny, cute, innocent and appropriate for me to copy it and incorporate it into my own behaviour towards and communication with other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to act and speak like cartoon and comedy characters within my desire to be perceived as funny, cute, innocent and non-threatening to others.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realise and understand that by copying and imitating cartoon/comedy characters, I am in my mind further separating myself from myself into separatecharacters for specific situations.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to enjoy expressing myself through cartoon and comedy-like characters and define and perceive such expression as pleasant, funny and cute and non-threatening, instead of realising and understanding that I have developed those characters within myself with a specific reason of being more liked by other people, because I perceived that all people like cartoon and comedy-like characters.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to express myself through cartoon and comedy-like characters with baby speak and baby and animal noises in order to alleviate a situation that I perceived as serious/heavy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use/utilize the cartoon and comedy-like characters in situations that I perceived as serious in order to be the one that calms the situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to express myself through cartoon and comedy-like characters and baby-speech and animal noises and other random noises in order to be perceived by men as funny and quirky and different from other girls.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use/utilize cartoon and comedy-like characters and baby-speech and animal and other random noises without words in order to make myself feel like a child and within that deflect my responsibility for matters that I have perceived as serious and grown up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to express myself through cartoon and comedy-like characters, through baby-speech and animal and random noises in order to escape the seriousness of being a responsible grown up.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realise that by using baby-speech, animal and random noises and cartoon and comedy-like characters I am escaping and abdicating my responsibility to become a responsible human grown-up that realises it's responsibility towards myself and all that is here.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to forever stay a child and be perceived by others as a child, even though I am grown up, in order for me to not have to take on the responsibilities of grown-ups, because I perceived/defined those responsibilities to be hard, arduous, scary and not fun.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be afraid of not having fun as a grown-up, and therefore try to stay in my childhood mode by using and expressing myself through baby-speech, cartoon and comedy-like characters and random noises.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive/define grown-ups as beings who are serious and boring and never have fun, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be afraid of becoming a boring and serious grown-up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to run away from facing myself and my own responsibility for myself and all that is here by developing and playing out cartoon and comedy-like characters with and as baby speech, animal and other random noises.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define/perceive the character Dexter from the cartoon Dexter's laboratory as a character that is appropriate for me and overlapping with my own personality, and therefore incorporate parts of this made up characters expression of funny speech and using big words into my own behaviour towards other people in my surroundings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive/define myself as a pleasant and funny person, whenever I was using the cartoon and comedy-like characters, baby speech and animal and random noises to express myself, instead of realising and understanding that I was automatically participating within my own self-accepted and self-created mind construct, where I have defined people who express themselves with cartoon and comedy-like characters, baby speech and animal and random noises as funny, pleasant, entertaining and superior to people who do not express themselves in such a way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and escape and avoid becoming a responsible and serious grown-up human being by watching cartoons and mimicking cartoon-like behaviour in real life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive/define myself as a grown-up child, and within this perceive myself as different, funny and entertaining, instead of realising and understanding that with this I am deliberately trying to escape my responsibility towards myself and all that is here as a grown-up human being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to entertain people in my vicinity with cartoon and comedy-like characters, baby speech and animal and random noises, so that I would be perceived by them as entertaining and a desirable person to hang out with, instead of realising and understanding that I am compromising myself and losing myself in a sea of characters in order to please others or not be perceived as threatening by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hide from myself and others what I am truly feeling in a moment and cover it up and silence it with trying to be funny through cartoon and comedy-like characters, baby speech and animal and random noises, instead of realising and understanding that I am suppressing what I am experiencing and I am not facing it, therefore allowing it to become a more complex set of suppressedemotions/feelings within my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use/utilize cartoon and comedy-like characters, baby speech and animal and random noises as a mechanism to avoid having to talk about myself and my own situations and life experiences, which I have defined as bad/negative/tragic/sad, and with this behaviour hide those situations and life-experiences and accompanying emotions and feelings from my peers/surroundings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel bad/sad/inferior/negative about myself, my family and the fact that my parents were alcoholics and didn't have enough money/were poor, whenever theconversation with my peers lead to talking about our situations at home, and try to deflect and cover-up my situation at home by expressing myself through humour, because I thought/believed that if I make my peers laugh, they will not want to find out about my situation at home, and will not tease me about it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel ashamed and degraded/inferior/less than/negative/humiliated because my parents were alcoholics and that we didn't have enough money/were poor, and to be afraid that my integrity among my peers and my family's safety and my own safety within it will be compromised if my peers/schoolmates and teachers found out about it, therefore I started behaving like a person that has fun, that is funny and laughs a lot in order to hide and suppress those fears and prevent anyone from finding out the truth, because then the social workers might come and break up my family.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to as a child be afraid of social workers breaking up my family, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive/define social workers as bad/negative/scary.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use/utilize cartoon and comedy-like characters, baby speech and animal and random noises in order to convey a message that I perceived as serious/boring in a funny way, so that I would not be perceived as serious/boring and not feel like I am in danger of falling out of favour with the person that I am conveying the message to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to at all costs avoid having to act and behave in a serious way, because I have equated and defined seriousness with/as being boring, instead of realising and understanding that within acting in such a way I am abdicating my responsibility towards myself, others and all that is here.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define/perceive people whom I perceive to be acting in a serious manner without humoristic additions as boring and uninteresting, instead of realising and understanding that with these definitions I am giving myself permission to never have to take on serious responsibility for myself and all that is here.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use/utilize cartoon and comedy-like characters, baby speech and animal and random noises in order to "better" myself as a "person" within my perception that I do not look as appealing as other girls, therefore I upgraded my personality to one that I perceived as fun and entertaining in order to compensate for my perceived lack in my appearance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use/utilize cartoon and comedy-like characters, baby speech and animal and random noises in order to be more liked by men and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that my chances for finding/keeping a partner increase with my usage of funny elements in my expression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be afraid of being perceived as both ugly and boring by my surroundings and especially men, if I do not use funny elements within my expression.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to make people in my vicinity, and especially men, laugh, so that I would be perceived by them as desirable to hang out with and have conversations with.

When and as I see myself acting within cartoon and comedy-like characters, baby speech and animal and random noises, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am participating within my minds construct of wanting to be perceived as a funny and entertaining person in order to manipulate others into liking me and/or deflect something that I perceive as serious/bad/negative, and compromising my true expression in equality, therefore I release the trigger point and thought pattern with self-forgiveness and direct myself in breath towards communicating without energetic reactions what I had set out to convey.

I commit myself to observing myself and stopping and removing all my cartoon and comedy-like characters, and the need to express myself through baby speech, animal and random noises, because I realise and understand that with such communication I as humanity as all have been avoiding, deflecting and abdicating our actual responsibility for ourselves and all that is here. I also realise and understand that comedy and funny behaviour is used in order to cover up and ignore pain and suffering by giving it a comical twist, therefore I commit myself to releasing the comical mechanism/way of thinking within myself and uncovering and exposing it to other human beings as well, so that we may all look at the reality of the situation we are in and deal with it appropriately by implementing a system within ourselves that is best for All.