When I was around 16, I got introduced to the
idea of throwing away
old clothes, bed sheets, kitchenware, things that we weren't using anymore (but were still perfectly useful). This was a new concept for me, because before that, when I lived in Montenegro with my
parents and my father's parents, we simply did not do that, ever. We didn't throw anything away, unless it was broken beyond repair. That must have been a
consequence of
living in a post-world
war socialist state, where capitalism and planned and perceived obsolescence were not introduced yet. Cars didn't just break down. In fact, I don't remember my parents ever taking the car to the mechanic.
Then we
moved to Slovenia, a state that was more used to capitalism due to
being closer to Western Europe, and I started being introduced to brands and validating oneself with having stuff from different brands. This transition from one state to another was hard on my
family financially, therefore we had a constant influx of
money and stuff from my rich aunt. We lived in a small apartment, and the stuff started piling up. So then one day my
mother told me that this aunt told her to simply get rid of everything we weren't using. I liked the idea because of the space shortage and I perceived it would be easier to manage a
home with less stuff in it. So for a while I was infatuated with throwing stuff away, perceived it as practical and felt
good about myself for
doing it. The aunt said not to let nostalgia get in the way, so I adopted that kind of
thinking and felt
good about it. This is how I started integrating perceived obsolescence within myself - by throwing away stuff that was still perfectly functional. Clothes I didn't exactly throw away, I always tried to donate them, but I was getting rid of them, because new (and quite unnecessary from a
physical standpoint) stuff kept coming in.
On the other hand, I was very concerned with the massive amounts of trash that humanity produces, so when the idea of recycling was introduced in my city, when they
installed separate trash bins, I latched on immediately and started recycling my (our family's) trash and believing that "hey, I cannot
change the world, but I can do my small part and behave decently in order to diminish/not contribute to the
harm that others are doing by throwing everything into the same bin or even on the streets". I was then very
worried to
hear about recycling not being effective at all, except for paper, glass and metal, due to costing more
energy (and thus money) to recycle the material (mostly packaging) then to produce new one from raw
resources. My illusion of me having a
positive influence on the environment was crumbling fast, but I still recycle in order to feel like I'm doing something
good in my endless consumerist trash producing.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to, when I was a teenager, adopt the kind of
thinking that I have to throw away everything that I am not using in order to make space for the new stuff that would be coming in, that I would be buying/getting due to fashion/trends, instead of realising and understanding that with this kind of thinking I was
accepting and allowing within myself the construct of perceived obsolescence, through which I was then wasting things/resources that were still perfectly usable, not realising and understanding that I am contributing to the rapid wasting of earth's resources, which I was otherwise quite unhappy and
worried about, but didn't realise and understand how I myself am contributing to it.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that clothes, shoes, furniture, cars, kitchenware, toys and appliances have to be periodically thrown away due to not being fashionable anymore, due to not looking good or adequate for 'our time' anymore, not realising and understanding that with this
perception I was allowing within myself the wasteful mentality that is on a global scale raping the earth for resources and is incredibly harmful to the environment.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to conform to the way of thinking of my peers, where I would perceive certain fashion products to be important to have in order to validate myself as
good enough to be accepted in the company of my peers, such as shoes and clothes of certain brands, not realising and understanding that the result of this kind of thinking, where I would constantly want to have and buy new fashionable products, would result in massive amounts of things piling up in my home, where I would eventually have to throw away things that are perfectly useful just in order to make space for the new 'fashionable' things that I would be buying/getting.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to throw away things just because they do not look fashionable anymore without any consideration of their usefulness.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel bad for having wasted things in
the past by throwing them away even though they were still useful, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for it, be
angry at myself for having been so shortsighted, instead of realising and understanding that I cannot
change the past and fix it through
feeling bad, I can only direct myself in the current moment and
commit to not waste anything of use anymore from this point on.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that I am a good person for recycling trash, and within this I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that it is enough of a contribution to improve the state of the world, and feel good about myself within the perception that I have done something good despite knowing that most of the material gathered for recycling will not be recycled due to high
energy/money costs, thus I have essentially used recycling as a
personality construct in which I would make myself
superior to others who don't recycle.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel superior, more than, good, for being a person that recycles, instead of realising and understanding that with this perception I am
comparing and
competing with other people in terms of being good or bad, not realising and understanding that I have caught myself into a
polarity construct of my
mind and am therefore ignoring
reality such as it is by thinking that I am good and that I did a good deed because I recycled, and within that I would completely ignore the
knowledge I have about recycling being less effective than the public/me have
lead ourselves to believe.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/
desire to be seen as a good person by other people AND myself because I recycle and take
care of the earth, instead of realising and understanding that I am using recycling in order to try and validate myself through
manipulating the opinions of others and myself about me into a positive
direction.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be
worried and concerned about the massive amounts of trash that humans, especially us in the so-called first world are producing, instead of realising and understanding that with this concern I am yet again trying to build/
manipulate myself and others into thinking that I am a good person, and am thinking that this feeling of concern is enough and that then I do not have to move myself practically to have an actual substantial
physical effect of diminishing the trash that humans produce.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel helpless to do anything about the amount of trash that humanity produces, and think/believe/perceive that I can only powerlessly watch how this
planet is being destroyed by trash, instead of realising and understanding that I am limiting myself with these
thoughts from actually doing something substantial about it like educating myself about trash and all the
dimensions involved and learning how to effectively diminish the impact that trash has on our planet and then
share that knowledge with others.
I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realise that my concern and feeling of
powerlessness in relation to trash on this planet is only an outflow of
laziness and my unwillingness to move myself and find ways to be effective in the diminishing of trash.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think/believe/perceive that as long as I recycle, that I am good, not realising and understanding that I am simply following some accepted belief imposed on society that recycling is good, and am therefore only automatically
reacting to the problem of trash and am following some bogus
solution that others have come up with, thus I am not being self-directive about solutions to actually diminish the trash around us and its impact on our world.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be horrified by the massive amount of trash that is polluting our oceans, and then define/perceive humanity as horrible beings that don't
give a shit about their environment, without actually realising and understanding that I am having just as much of an effect and contribution to the trash in our oceans and everywhere else as other human beings, thus I am essentially being horrified at myself, but am not
seeing that in my
separation from other human beings, which I manifest by making myself superior to them in my perception that I am ok because I recycle.
When and as I see myself becoming horrified by the massive amounts of trash on earth, I stop and I
breathe. I realise and understand that I am in that moment separating myself from myself, humanity and all that is
here with the perception that I am not a part of humanity that does the polluting, thus I am participating within my mind's polarity construct, where I make myself superior to humanity because I perceive that I would never have allowed something like that if I were in
charge, not realising and understanding that no one is really in charge and we are all allowing this collectively. Therefore I release the trigger point and
thought pattern behind being horrified and I direct myself in
breath towards finding practical solutions of diminishing and clearing the trash.
I
commit myself to
stopping and removing all of my participation through my mind in the feelings of horror and
limitation in relation to trash on earth, because I realise and understand that when I clear myself of
energetic reactions towards the subject, I can effectively move myself and direct myself in
clarity towards finding solutions that would contribute to the diminishing and clearing of trash on our planet.
blaming producers for packaging stupidly
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to project blame,
anger, frustration and
resentment towards producers of goods that spend a lot of material on packaging, instead of realising and understanding that I am with this again making myself feel superior to them, and am not having any real substantial effect on or solution for diminishing the amount of trash that is being produced by way of packaging.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive/define plastic shell packaging that most small electronic devices and accessories come in as wasteful and unnecessary, and have a negative emotional
reaction towards it such as
anger at the company that makes the product and
decides to package it this way, instead of investigating the
reason for this, which is probably the company wanting the consumer to think that the product has not been tampered with in any way before purchase.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to simply accept and allow a world where we do not
trust each other to not screw each other over in terms of not tampering with a product before purchase, thus making the need for plastic shell packaging a necessity that wastes a lot of earth's resources and is harming it by polluting it after the product has been purchased, instead of realising and understanding that by accepting this
behaviour as a fact of
life, I am contributing to earth's slow demise and am personally
responsible for it.
I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to simply accept and allow a world where
trust between human beings is almost non-existent, and when it does exist, it exists based on money and the power and safety that money represents in this world, not realising and understanding that trust as
self-expression not based in money/safety/power is established as
self-trust to always do what is best for all, and that I accepted the lack of trust because I was lacking the
self-trust to always do what is best for all within the realisation that I am not separate from anything that is
here, but am co-existing as an equal part of this
physical reality and am therefore responsible for it in its entirety.
