Following on from my previous posts.
The previous posts describe my interactions with someone at work regarding my gym attendance.
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While at the gym I saw the guy from work and I recognised a feeling of pressure within me to behave in a manner that lived up to this person’s (perceived) expectations.
This feeling then translates into a compulsion to alter my actions to look favourable to this person.
Manifesting as an urge to go to the gym and also what I do while at the gym (e.g how much weight I am lifting, rest breaks, etc).
I ask myself (ego) where this comes from:
🧿 Ego: “I don’t want them to think negatively of me.”
⚛ I: “Why does that matter?”
🧿 Ego: “I care others think of me”
⚛ I: “Why?”
🧿 Ego: “Because I want their approval”
Truth: Because I haven’t become strong in my own sense of self and others perceptions of me factor in to how I see myself.
🧿 Ego: “Because I take others perspectives as the truth”
⚛ I: “Is this true though?”
No, each person has a unique perception based on their beliefs about the world, so the way ithers see me is filtered.
Also the small snapshot they receive of me cannot possibly reflect who I am at my depth.
It may be my behaviour in that moment, but that isn’t the totality of who I am.
Side note: I started disidentifying from the thoughts i have and who I am a while ago.
As a result I am able to watch my mind and become aware of the subconscious patterns that would normally run my life.
Yes even going as far as talking with the ego 😄
I want to run through an overview of how someone’s ego might interpret the world…in this example:
▪︎ I am introduced to person as someone who goes to the gym in the morning.
▪︎ Person develops a belief that I go to the gym, assumes I go each morning
▪︎ Person develops expectations and an image of me from that.
(Prior to his arrival I had gone to gym regularly and become fatigued)
▪︎ Person sees me going 1 out of 4 days.
▪︎ This doesn’t fit the image he had in mind.
▪︎ Instead of being curios and finding out why, he leans towards assumption and determines I don’t meet his expectation (of image).
▪︎ He now has new beliefs take place based on someone who doesn’t do what they say.
▪︎ He may even have a bias that many people don’t do what they say and are weak.
▪︎ He now puts me in this category.
▪︎ His perception of me is now filtered through this new belief.
▪︎ He sees me in the gym lifting light weights and this further reaffirms his belief that I am weak.
He sees me on my phone and further reaffirms his beliefs.
○ from now on any time he sees me, he will be looking for evidence to confirm his beliefs of me.
In the process he may miss all the positive qualities about me.
His perception of me was based on a small portion of the reality available.
If he took this as who I am then his perception of me would be based on 4 days out 14 where I was taking rest days.
While he was perceiving me in a negative light, Reality was I was allowing myself to recover being my first month back at the gym since having several months off.
To him I only went 1 day out 4.
To me I only had gone to the gym 11 times in 12 days. (Cardio/weights and some morning and night – encase you realise the maths looks funny on that 😆)
Now I do want to point out that I could have avoided this whole scenario by not mentioning to the initial person that I go to the gym at 3am.
Perhaps at the time I was impressed with myself and wanted to share that excitement.
However being truly honest with my self…I wanted to impress that initial person and that resulted in the subsequent person being unimpressed…I guess that’s karma in a nutshell isn’t it?
…Bringing balance to our ego
This is what happens to many of us on a daily basis, we see the world through our subconscious beliefs and end up having far less of reality available to us, instead receiving what is filtered through our limiting beliefs.
Apologies for the poor formatting, this was posted from my phone 🤗