Appropriating, attaching the cause of an action I took, an event that occurred, or a choice that I took - I see I sometimes attach it to an attribute, a quality, a feature of an external entity. I wonder what is it like to practice to bring back these causes, to link them directly onto, features or attributes or sensations or preferences within myself instead?
As example, today a woman thanked me for making space for her to come out from her bus seat and deboard the bus. I chose not to respond with the usual "You're Welcome" or "Bitte". A second later, I found myself attributing my choice of not responding to her to the "disinterest"/"perfunctoriness" that I sensed coming from her thanks. I justified my nonresponse to something I perceived in *her*, not in me. And with a slight energy, the words that seem to describe this are "it was her fault that I didn't respond".
I notice both that I attribute this to not me, and that I found it somehow important to justify my nonresponse to myself.
...
[Update 4 days later]:
What I surmise is that a part of me is a constant guardian of keeping myself correct, against my own judgement and others'. 1. I do something. 2. I doubt the correctness of what I just did. 3. I seek an outlet to place the doubt, the remaining uncertainty or potential incorrectness of what I did onto.
That's the keyword. Outlet. I seek to let it out of myself because I do not accept it as part of myself. That potential incorrectness, that uncertainty - it must come from somewhere else, not from me, my image claims. And my dutiful guardian seeks where to put it, that thing it does not like, and places it there as soon as it can.
That outlet is leaky, I sense. It leaks a flow out of me which was not fully processed.
As example, today a woman thanked me for making space for her to come out from her bus seat and deboard the bus. I chose not to respond with the usual "You're Welcome" or "Bitte". A second later, I found myself attributing my choice of not responding to her to the "disinterest"/"perfunctoriness" that I sensed coming from her thanks. I justified my nonresponse to something I perceived in *her*, not in me. And with a slight energy, the words that seem to describe this are "it was her fault that I didn't respond".
I notice both that I attribute this to not me, and that I found it somehow important to justify my nonresponse to myself.
...
[Update 4 days later]:
What I surmise is that a part of me is a constant guardian of keeping myself correct, against my own judgement and others'. 1. I do something. 2. I doubt the correctness of what I just did. 3. I seek an outlet to place the doubt, the remaining uncertainty or potential incorrectness of what I did onto.
That's the keyword. Outlet. I seek to let it out of myself because I do not accept it as part of myself. That potential incorrectness, that uncertainty - it must come from somewhere else, not from me, my image claims. And my dutiful guardian seeks where to put it, that thing it does not like, and places it there as soon as it can.
That outlet is leaky, I sense. It leaks a flow out of me which was not fully processed.
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