Tag Archives: listen

Says 131 – A knight’s tale and Remembering my Dad

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a knights tale2013 Jan 05 Saturday, I was channel surfing on the TV and happened to tune into the movie “A Knight’s Tale” and although I missed the beginning, I did watch it to the end. What struck me was a scene where the knight (William) flashed back to his childhood where his father sends him off to be an apprentice and told him to watch and learn. I was emotionally moved by that comment and how the father was genuinely doing what he felt was best for his son. I began to write what I was remembering and feeling in my journal. Here is what I wrote.

Those words reminded me of my father and what he said to me when he took me to school that first day. I couldn’t speak English (only German) and I was going to an English school. My father took me aside and told me that I should listen and learn, but he also added, and be like the other kids.

Like the father in the movie, I felt that my father didn’t know what he was saying and how his words were to impact me in a negative way. I know he didn’t have unloving intent as he honestly felt that going to school was best for me and that I could do what he couldn’t do, and that if I learned and was educated, that I wouldn’t end up being a poor dirt farmer like he was. He had done all he could and now I had to move on and go to school, and that this was his way of showing me he loved me, of wanting a better life for me.
In this moment, I miss him and wished that we could have been closer. I mean on a real level and not being close at a distance. I love you dad. Thank you.

Your Son
Johnnie

Says 109 – Insight in Dance lessons.

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2012 Nov 02 I was thinking of my first day at school and how my dad told me that I would be okay if I just listened and watched and learned to be like the other kids. I couldn’t understand or speak a word of English, as all I knew was German, so I had no idea what was being said or being asked of me. It was to say the least, traumatic. So I took my dad’s words to heart and all my life, I constantly compared myself to others and if I didn’t have, or couldn’t do what they could do, I berate myself that I was not good enough, stupid, a loser, or whatever. I even went so far as to judge my parents and family as I also compared them to other families. Why not? I was part of this family that was not like the others as we lacked this and that, and my program said that this was a reflection on me. As a result, I was never happy and always trying to live up to unobtainable expectations, trying to be like others instead of being me.

The flip-side of this is that when I was being me that brought me joy and happiness, it made others unhappy, envious and hate me. So now my program said, don’t be you as it makes others unhappy, be like the others. Don’t show off your talents and strengths that others don’t have. To facilitate this hideous self-hatred program, I’d deny and sabotage my gifts and talents, and downplay my strengths so that I would be like the others and they would like and accept me. But of course, having already shown my true colors, they were always watching and reminding me not to be me. What a sick and twisted game I played on, and with myself, all the result of this one program that was instilled and imprinted in my young, innocent mind, when it was filled with fear, doubt and confusion on that first day of school.

I feel that these dance lessons are yet another step in my de-programming myself, not totally, but getting to some core root issues. While I still tried to be like the others in that, I was part of a group that was taking dance lessons; I was not trying to be like the others. What I learned was what the teacher was teaching the whole group and how I applied, what I learned was up to me. Others did what they did, and I did what I thought was right and what felt good, and if I was confused and the steps didn’t feel right then I’d get help from the teacher. My dance class last night was fun. Sure I and my partner made mistakes but we also learned and corrected them and there were moments when we were in our own little world, oblivious as to what others were or were not doing. I was being me and enjoying myself and not trying to be like the others, or comparing myself to them.