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.

198: The Fear and Pride in Perfectionism

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to submit my work in a less than what I perceive to be perfect form due to fear that if I do not submit my work in a perfect form, that someone will find a mistake in my translation and have me fired for it.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be/become obsessed with submitting perfect translations to the point of not allowing myself to have any free time for myself in the day, but spend almost all of my time on work.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be afraid that a viewer might notice a mistake in my translation and write to my superiors and have me fired for it, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be afraid of losing my livelihood, my financial self-support in case I got fired, instead of realising and understanding that I am through this fear abdicating my absolute self-responsibility to keep myself financially stable and fluent to support myself within the system with any kind of job I can get.
When and as I see myself becoming overly worried and perfectionistic about my work, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am being overly perfectionistic because I'm afraid to make a mistake and I am fearing the possibility of being fired due to a mistake or mistakes, thus I am afraid of losing my source of income. I also realise and understand and trust myself that I can provide for myself another source of income in case I lose my job, and I realise and understand that I fear losing this job because I perceive it as glamorous and respected, therefore I release the trigger point and thought pattern of the perfectionism with self-forgiveness and I direct myself in breath and do not allow myself to be overly perfectionistic to the point of wasting my own time with unimportant details.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define/perceive my job as a translator to be a respected and glamorous job, instead of realising and understanding that I am participating within my mind's polarity construct, where I will make myself feel superior to other people for being a translator and am causing separation within myself and my world by defining/perceiving some jobs to be better/more than and others as worse/less than.
I commit myself to stopping and removing my wasteful and time-consuming perfectionism, because I realise and understand that otherwise I will be limiting myself only to my job and being good at work and I will not be allowing myself to expand in other areas of my life.
I commit myself to allowing myself to not worry and be perfectionistic about my job, so that I may expand myself in and explore and enjoy self-expression in other areas of my life that I am currently neglecting/ignoring due to being overly perfectionistic about my job.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be overly perfectionistic about my work to the extent of compromising my time, my life, my self-expression in physical movement, my process, in order to do a perfect job so that I may get feedback from others, especially my former boss, that I am doing a good job, so that I could feel proud of myself and the work that I have done, instead of realising and understanding that with this kind of behaviour and thinking I am limiting myself into a mind polarity construct, where I will feel pride as superiority to others/my peers for having done a good job, and on the flip side I will fear making a mistake and consequentially feel shame for not having done a good job, not realising and understanding that I am simply generating energy with these thoughts for my mind to survive as ego.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel pride as superiority over others, whenever I perceive that I have done a good job with my work, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be overly perfectionistic about my job and the work that I do in order to be able to feel that pride as superiority over others, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to be perceived as a good translator so that I could be proud of that aspect of myself.
When and as I see myself being overly perfectionistic about my job and the work that I do, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am participating within my mind's polarity construct, where I will feel pride for doing a good job, and on the flip side I will feel fear of not doing a good job and therefore feeling shame, thus I am generating energy for my mind to survive as ego. Therefore I release the trigger point and though pattern with self-forgiveness and direct myself in breath towards doing the necessary adequate work, and I do not allow myself to go into desire to be proud of my work, as I realise and understand that with that I am only supporting my ego and am not being productive at all.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be/become overly perfectionistic about my job and the work that I do due to fear of being scolded by my superiors for not doing a good job and due to fear of being fired by my superiors for not doing a good job. Within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to work from a starting point of fear due to allowing the memory of my boss yelling at me for making mistakes to linger around in me and generate the need for perfectionism so that I would avoid being yelled at if I make a mistake.

Day 183: Blaming parents for not completing my education

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like I've never amounted to anything and within this feel inferior to other human beings, whom I perceive have done something with their lives in terms of education and survival in the system - getting what I perceive to be a good job.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that the goal in life is/should be getting the highest form of education, excel at it, get a job, excel at it, and within this I forgive myself that I have allowed myself to feel inferior/negative/less than because I perceived that I was unable to complete my schooling and get what I'd perceive to be an ideal job.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel inferior in the presence of people who have finished their schooling, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define/perceive myself and others who have not reached/completed the highest form of education as inferior to those that have completed it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a fear of not finishing my schooling/university within myself when I was a child, when I read in a paper article that a woman didn't/couldn't finish university and left before she graduated. Within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare myself to that woman, and fear that I too will not be able to finish my schooling, not realising and understanding that that is when I started creating my own reality of not graduating from university.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive/define myself as a student who is not capable of concentrating enough in order to learn the information presented at school, instead of realising and understanding that with this perception/definition I was creating an excuse for myself, because I didn't want to or had the drive to study and better myself amidst the emotional turmoil I subdued to because of living with alcoholic parents.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define/perceive my childhood experience with my parents as hard and a turmoil, and use it as an excuse to not have to take responsibility for myself in the system in terms of educating myself effectively on how to survive in the system.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to simply not care what happens to me in terms of education and survival within the system and justify this not caring with having too many problems at home to be able to focus on my education and learning how to survive in the system.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame the fact that my parents were alcoholics for me not studying, not wanting to study, not feeling like studying and not caring what happens to me in the future if I do not study, instead of realising and understanding that with this blame I am abdicating my self-responsibility and shifting it onto my parents, not realising and understanding that I was haring myself in the process.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my parents for the way I experienced myself as a child, instead of realising and understanding that I created my own inner experience and I myself allowed myself to feel like a victim and feel powerless as a child.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to as a child feel powerless and like a victim, instead of breathing here and not allowing myself to go into self-victimisation.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realise as a child that I am the sole creator of my inner experience and that only I am responsible for what I create within my mind based on the input from outside of myself.

When and as I see myself wanting to blame my parents and their drinking of alcohol and irresponsible behaviour for the experiences I have created within myself and my reality in life, I stop and I breathe. I realise and understand that I am participating within abdication of absolute self-responsibility within my mind, therefore I release the trigger point and thought pattern with self-forgiveness and direct myself in breath without blaming my parents, and I take absolute responsibility for the situation I am in.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define/perceive my parents as irresponsible and neglectful because they drank alcohol, and within this feel superior to them, instead of realising and understanding that with this I am justifying/causing separation between myself and my parents.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from my parents by defining and perceiving them as bad, neglectful and irresponsible parents, instead of realising and understanding that I am with this blaming my parents and with that abdicating my self-responsibility for the way I experience myself in this world.

I commit myself to stopping and removing all my thought patterns about blaming my parents for the way I turned out, because I realise and understand that what I am is a result of what I have accepted and allowed to exist within my own mind.