Self-observation on why I don’t want to work anymore. This is what I feel when I think of my job.

• Leave me alone with all this bullshit!
• Don’t force such nonsense on me!
• Stop passively or actively shame or bully me! Don’t you know better? I do. I want to be a sensible person also at my job. 
• Don’t scare me?
• Don’t knowingly manipulate me into things I don’t want to do. 
• Of course I don’t like my job anymore; It is a toxic place.
• I understand that this exercise I am doing is less about self reflection but I know that this is right. 
• The big realization for me is that I know I am right. This is the key for me here.
• I understand that some are also projections of mine but actually they are also correct. 
• I know that most workplaces are like that. But again; I don’t care. It doesn’t change that I don’t want to be in such environments. It appears that I grew out of it.

Self-reflection on why I can’t figure out what I want from my life

• What is it really I am looking for? 
• I want to feel calm and relaxed.
• And sometimes quite the opposite; I want to feel wild.
• I want to feel safe.
• I am looking for love also. And Success.
• Ah, I could go on with this list. 
• What I do see about myself now is that I am in a state of chaos.
• I want this chaos to end.
• This chaotic state depletes my energy level, and I just want to relax and calm down. 
• I have my ways of calming myself. I go into my warm, dream-like state that is so well known to me. It is like being in a cradle. 
• And this ‘cradle’ is sucking me in. It is truly comforting and nurturing.
• But when I observe myself, I see that this is not what I really want. Deep down, I feel that this alone isn’t right for me anymore. 
• I don’t want to be ‘sucked into this cradle’ anymore. I don’t just want to be one with it; It is not enough for me; My life has to be about other things too. 
• And as I am looking at this cradle, I realize I am afraid of it. 
• Actually, it is a big soup of chaotic everything. And the more I immerse myself in it, the more I lose my consciousness. 
• I realize now that my ‘cradle’ isn’t just all good. It is actually dangerous. 
• And most importantly, it wants to suck me in. It is its nature.  
• I am truly frightened to totally immerse myself in it. And I am frightened not to become my own Self. 
• It is fear that keeps me confused.
• And luckily, my open heart. 
• I cannot think of a better feeling as I am writing these lines than the vision of my open heart. It is coming from both poles.

Self-Observation on why I don’t activate my life.

• I don’t ‘activate’ my life because I am waiting for something to happen. I find that until that something happens it doesn’t make sense for me to ‘activate’ myself.  
• There is fear for sure why I don’t do things. But I understand that this exercise will go deeper than this. As I am writing I know already that it will be about meaning. 
• I had ‘activated’ my life many times and it certainly felt the right direction for a while.  
• Why don’t I ‘activate’ my life? In other words, why don’t I live the life I would like? I feel that something is blocking me from doing that. I don’t know what this block is.
• I cannot tell what I would like exactly. Is that a problem?
• I realize something that is more important, some great news. I don’t activate myself because I don’t want those things, that kind of life that I could ‘activate’ now.
• This is confusing and mystical. I want to live a different life and I still think I cannot live it because I am missing something. But I am at the understanding that this thing cannot come from outside. So I am telling myself that I shall change within but I am missing something within. Confusing because one is not a cause of the other but clearly they come to exist at the same time. How can such a thing happen? 
• I was lost before when I ‘activated’ my life based on what I want from the outside world. I don’t want that any more, I want true meaning. I understand that thankfully this means that I am in fact not lost any more. 
• Maybe I shall just go on in any way I am able right now and that’s all. Even if things are confusing. Like as I am writing this post knowing that it is confuse and not being sure if anyone ever reads it or finds it valuable. 
• It is the realization that I am confused is the most valuable for me now.

Self-Observation on why I have a problem with limits

What’s causing my problem with limits?

• I get irritated easily. This is true for most things around me. Be it people, situations, the food I eat; almost anything ‘outside’ of me.
• I have this internal image that situations are irritating and hard and are always like this.
• I know it is a cliché but I can trace this feeling back to my childhood.
• I have this feeling – an image – that I am in a situation that I don’t like and this situation wants something from me that I don’t like. But I need to stay in this situation.
• So I am just sitting in it and getting ever more irritated.
• I feel I always need to fight not to let things into my own space. 
• I just realize that the problem is mine. I mean, sure situations are hard but I find every situation hard.
• Oh…There is something behind the irritation that I kind of see now.
• It is not the irritation but the fact that it is hard to ‘live with it, hard get out of it’. I mean that now I find it is ok to be irritated by things that are in fact irritating. My problem is that I find it literally impossible to solve it for myself. And that is because I find everything so hard to ‘solve’, finish. This is the key for me.
• My problem with limits and my view that it is hard to finish, and ‘accomplish’ things are not in a cause-and-effect relationship. What I mean is that I can not separate one from the other and say that one causes the other. They are together.

Self-observation on why I let people betray me

• Betrayal has been around me all my life. 
• I want people to be fully trustable.
• When someone betrays me the first feeling I have is sadness. I am sad for the other person and for myself that our unity has fallen apart. 
• It is so much part of my life that it usually takes quite some time for me to understand that I feel betrayed. 
• Actually, it is not just feeling betrayed. I can very easily fall into situations where people really do betray me.
• I understand that I have a part in creating the situation. I don’t like to admit it but I have to.
• What is strange is that I justify the other person’s behavior. No, it is not strange… I realize that it is a coping mechanism.
• Why do I let people betray me?
• I want people to be fully trustable. And I want to be so close to them; And so much together with them.
• And then comes reality. 
• And I hate myself to be betrayed again.
• One of the things I do is to try to ‘make them understand’, and convince them. 
• Of what? 
• It is disgusting for me to accept that people are not always 100% trustworthy. I am not always 100% trustable.
• It is just one fact of human life.

• I put a lot of trust in people. This is natural to me. 
• When I observe myself trusting someone, it is a good feeling. I don’t want to lose it. I think it is something very valuable to me.
• When someone betrays me the first feeling I have is sadness. I am sad for the other person and for myself that our unity has fallen apart. 
• Betrayal is something very much part of the human experience.
• I need to see what part I have in creating the situation.
• I see that it has to do with me not being mentally and emotionally independent. 
• I am looking for unity at the wrong place… through connecting with someone through their ego.
• I realize I am afraid to accept that I shall be independent. 
• Though it is easy after all: Until I am dependent on another person, it is not even love and unity. Just a form of dependence.
• I trust that I can find unity even after becoming independent. Though it still feels odd. I want unity and still, I know that I have to give it up to really find it.
• I don’t trust but I know that the unity I am looking for comes after independence.  

Self-observation on why I don’t have self-confidence

• I always fall back.
• I always question myself. I become anxious. 
• I am just afraid I will screw it up.
• This has to do a lot with how I relate to people. Even if my lack of self-confidence shows up everywhere. 
• Right now I am angry. My anger has to do with someone abusing my limits. 
• Sometimes I just feel like giving up. Then it is not anger. But sadness.
• I don’t dare to confront.

• I try to convince myself that I am worthy. 
• And I am trying to convince others that I am worthy. In all kinds of ways. Sometimes I am trying by being overly kind and ‘forgiving’. Sometimes I am trying with aggression.
• Many times I just lose my consciousness when the situation gets too tense. I mean when I am trying to convince the world around me. I either overachieve or underachieve.
• I just don’t know what causes my lack of self-confidence. 
• This works! I need to find what causes it. 
• What is the real root cause?
• Am I not good enough? That is hardly the answer.
• …
• It is not because I don’t trust myself. Indeed, I don’t trust myself but it is not the cause.
• This is the real root cause: I don’t have self-confidence because I am afraid to lose my sense of safety.
• This sounds strange but it is true.
• In other words, I don’t have self-confidence because I am afraid!!!
• I am afraid of what others will say. 
• When I really think about it deeply, this is what I see in myself: When I look at myself in times of lack of self-confidence, I see that I start to question myself because I start to think about what others will think. And this is why it is the real cause.

I am tired because I am exhausted.

Most people think that there is something wrong with them. There is nothing wrong with you. You have every right to be tired in such times that we are going through.

This tiredness is here for a reason. We are going through profound changes and the tiredness comes from the inner work that we are currently doing.

It is also true that our tiredness comes from our high levels of stress. Which just plainly means that we are tired because we are not able to relax.

Nevertheless, it is not a personal fault. It is not even a fault and it is collective.

Imagine when finally you go through it. There will be a change in your energy.

We are all different (and all the same at the core) so I am not able to say what may have happened to you that you are personally clearing now, so what I can do is write down some of my own personal experiences: When I can finally relax, these are some of the things that happen with me; My body starts to shake as it is trying to let go of the spasms. My breath starts to relax and deepen. I am suddenly fine not to be ‘all-knowing’, my shame drops to a level that I hardly care. The way I look at people who are bullying or manipulating me and others changes completely: I used to either run away or fight with them. Today I just simply do not care, or usually care much less. They have no effect on me other than sometimes I feel sorry for people with such behavior.

This is a complete change because I don’t want to ‘solve’ the sources of stress anymore. I am independent. And I enjoy relaxing.

But above all these personal perceptions, now I know that there is a profound change happening. Not just in me but in all of us. This is the most important knowledge that I recently got. I invite you to fear not. And know that this transition that is something very positive after all.

I know. I have the knowledge.

I don’t believe or try to believe. I don’t need the outside world to justify it.

I know it.

Self-observation on why God doesn’t help me

• I need God to help me; I feel miserable.
• Why doesn’t God help me? It doesn’t make sense. I am in need.
• Ah ok. I look at God as someone whose job is to help me. Then my relationship with God, and the way I look at God may be all wrong. 
• I made God into an entity whose sole job is to help me out. A savior. 
• I also think of God as someone outside of me. Someone, something separate from me.
• I understand these and still I feel miserable and I am close to giving up.
• I feel that I have to make the first step. Not God. But I cannot say why. And it doesn’t make sense to me that I have to take the first step. As I am in need.
• Oh, I think I know: God is in me. I am essentially a part of God. If I make the first step, God will respond. Hmm; This is good but it doesn’t help. 
• Maybe this helps. My ego is playing this trick that it makes me feel that I don’t have enough.
• Why does my ego do it? Ah, ok; This is the ego’s trick to make the right for its existence. If there wasn’t a problem, my ego would not have a reason to exist. 
• I mean my ego is making me unsatisfied and this way I identify with my ego. And what my ego wins ultimately is existence.
• My ego has to keep me unsatisfied and miserable. Otherwise, it would become obvious that it doesn’t really exist after all. 
• Meditation helps when I can just observe my thoughts ‘from the outside’ and keep in mind that they are just thoughts. Not me.

• I understand why I find that God doesn’t help. But I still feel miserable. Something still needs to change in my understanding. 
• I still find that things are unfair. And I am in need. And I don’t really have motivation. 
• I still have this mental construct that I am missing something and someone or something needs to give it to me. This is how I look at God…with this need…
• No wonder I do not find God, cannot believe in her. God isn’t this. 
• Who has to do the first step? God or me?
• This question only makes sense with my ego’s logic. 
• Of course I have to do the first step! There isn’t actually such a thing as ‘first one’ or ‘second one’ to move. This is an error caused by my perception.  
• I take the first step as soon as I understand that there is no need for anyone or anything to save me. I am not in need actually. 

I decided not to come up with an intro to this post and go into some clever definitions and orientation. The concept is ambiguous in my view, and ‘correctness and cleverness’ will not bring value to the reader. Subjectivity may. (Going so far with it that I do give my own personal definition of an outlier at the end).

Do these resonate with you?

I am trying to give some reasoning so that you can decide whether you agree or not.

• “I feel (or used to feel) sickened by the unconscious and vicious way we, humans, live. I do not want to take sides, but I feel morally sickened. I wish we lived differently. Starkly differently.”
  • Outliers actively get away from the current systems governing our lives.
• “I like thinking in systems. I enjoy understanding things on a system level.”
  • Outliers are actively working on figuring things out. And so they are abstract thinkers.
• “I am looked at as a weirdo or as a ‘not-so-important’ person at work, in my family of origin, and at other social circles.”
  • This is also one of those ‘suspicious’ ones. Weirdos and ‘not-so-important’ persons do not belong that strongly to groups, or they belong uncommonly. But this is also true for many other people; for instance, for people who have relationship trauma.
• “I don’t necessarily look for the company of other outliers.”
  • I think it may be because a lot of outliers are at the stage of separation and independence in their personal development.
• “I do not have many close friends.”
  • Outliers can be brutally honest with themselves, and this is also true for how they define friendship.
• “Outliers don’t stand out for things. They are always in the background.“
  • Untrue. They choose much more carefully what they stand out for. And I am not implying that this is always a good thing.
• “I chose to be an outlier.”
  • Then you are not an outlier. One doesn’t choose to be an outlier.
  • You may have some traumas, challenging life situations, you may be deeply interested in self-development, or other areas that aspire to change the status quo, but that in itself doesn’t make you an outlier.
• “It appears to me that I have chosen this path some time back.“
  • My personal experience about outliers I was lucky to meet: When they look at their life so far, they find they were just as unconscious for a while as anyone else. At the most, a bit more self-aware than average. And then something changed. Gradually for some, suddenly for others.

How others look at outliers

• Trained eyes recognize outliers.
• Untrained eyes see surface-level attributes. In other words, outliers are many times put into cliches that don’t tell much.
• Many people are afraid of outliers. An average response is ridicule; a harsher one is an attack.
• Most organizations can’t tolerate outliers.

My personal definition of who an outlier is

An outlier is a person who is consciously seeking individuation.