Conquering My Main Issue: Don’t Let Others Ruin Your Perception

I just had a very therapeutic stream of consciousness writing session, and I want to point out some of the progress I just made.

Yet again, in case someone is new to the blog, I’ll summarize my one big anger topic: Sex. Porn is wrong; objectifying women is wrong; sex and nudity in the media is disgusting... which is all true, but it affects me a little too much. It’s perfectly fine to be against it – it isn’t healthy, however, for the sight or mention of it to make me start sobbing or start screaming and breaking things.

The point people ignorantly first make is that I must be insecure. That’s incorrect. Old insecurities paired with the REAL reasons, however, do build out a full case for why I feel this way. It is an extremely complex and robust issue for me. It’s going to take a long time to uncover all the issues that support it and tackle them one by one.

I get nervous when I write on this topic, because it is extremely personal.

Here’s what I’ve determined. I’ve felt this way since the beginning of high school. I think these feelings started off as judgments I learned from my parents paired with, yes, my own insecurities. That’s how it STARTED. But it transformed into a completely untouchable fact for me as more life experiences added layer after layer to this issue. So as I began resolving those insecurities, the issue had already taken on a life of its own with more and more support from life. I need to start peeling away each layer and resolving it to get back to a healthy stance on the issue.

And that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

The other day a co-worker pointed out that I got checked out. Even now, when I am several pounds overweight. I’ve realized that I might actually be keeping weight on so that I will not be objectified by men, because it makes me nervous and uncomfortable. I don’t like being hit on or looked at. I want to look “nice” and feel good about my style and my body, but when guys cross the line into objectification… I don’t feel like a human being anymore. I feel like an object, and I hate that, and I hate them for thinking of me as a piece of meat. I hate them for seeing me as something they can use for their own satisfaction instead of respecting me as a human being. And I guess I’ve determined that those concepts are mutually exclusive – you can’t have both, it’s one or the other. There’s one problem.

That puts me in quite a pickle, doesn’t it? How is a guy supposed to like me if he isn’t attracted to me? “Easy,” my ego shoots back. “I want a guy who isn’t attracted to, well, anyone… and he gets to know me and falls in love with WHO I AM. So it won’t happen ‘at first sight’, it happens after he gets to know who I am and what I’m all about. And clearly he would feel the same way – he doesn’t want someone to just be interested in him for his looks or what he can provide, but for who he IS and the MORALS and VALUES he lives by.” Yep, and that’s how I think. Logical enough.

But the “who I am” thing is easily residual from the insecurity. You may suggest that all-of-the-above are required for someone to like you.

Here’s the thing, though. I need to accept that sex and arousal are not inherently bad. That is difficult for me to accept. But sex itself is not respectful or disrespectful; selfish or loving. It is neutral. Sex can be out of love, or it can be out of selfish hedonism. That meaning is on the people involved. I used to know that. I used to completely know that. Just because I’ve now witnessed people take on the darker, colder side of the matter doesn’t mean it has to ruin the whole concept for me. Somehow it turned into “it has to be one or the other” when that was never the case. I let the perversions of others taint how I saw sexual relationships, because they made it wrong and dirty, and people talk about it and show it EVERYWHERE, so somehow my mind declared that it is/was always dirty and perverse, which made me no longer want anything to do with it. It killed the love and joy I once associated with it. And if you want nothing to do with something, it is easy to declare it as bad and refuse to understand anything.

So that’s the immediate problem I need to work through at the moment. I vilified those feelings, because I removed love from the picture – because THEY do. “They” meaning guys I know, movies, tv, the media… everyone everywhere, as far as I can tell. But it doesn’t HAVE to be evil. It can be from love. I have to REMEMBER that. I once knew that. There was just SO much evidence that no one else felt the same way that I got depressed about it. But that’s not how it works…. There are millions of people, and their own motives and opinions can’t be known, and those that are known do not get to declare their meanings as “fact” for something that has no connotation. Sex has no connotation! It is neither good nor bad! It just IS! Just because people act on it in bad and immoral ways does not MAKE it bad. That’s where I went wrong. I let them make it bad. I let them change my whole view just based on how tv and movies and jerks I’ve known portray it.

I made some other minor realizations, too, but this is obviously the outermost layer of the issue. So that is some progress, and a concept I can be working on: to remember how it felt for it to be about love. Remember how I once felt, and stop trying to jump into the minds of all the sick perverts everywhere and declaring that that’s the reality of the matter. There is no singular reality about it – it is an individual and case-by-case basis concept. I don’t need to hate everyone that thinks I’m attractive. I don’t need to be afraid of looking good or being sexy. I don’t need to be AFRAID of being objectified. I don’t need to hate sex so much.

That’s where I’m at for now.

I Told You So

As you know, I’m of the Myers-Briggs personality type INFJ, aka “The Counselor”. I love helping people with their problems, allowing them to see the situation and their own behavior more clearly, and giving them words of wisdom for the steps ahead. That really is my purpose.

However, when someone comes to me for advice on the same thing time and time again, and I give them the same advice, and they express that they know it is true, and yet they continue to do the opposite… and then they come back yet again for more advice from me… it drives me nuts!

I can’t even tell you how many people this has happened with. Huge pet peev of mine.

But I tried to look at this from a place of love today, and based on this spiritual journey I am on now, I think I can make peace with it and not be so frustrated. The reason why they keep doing the wrong thing is because they haven’t learned the lesson yet. Everyone is on their own journey, and I can relate to knowing something logically but just not yet fully absorbing the lesson in your soul. The WHOLE experience, front to back, will teach them the lesson. Getting halfway through it and then having me tell them what the lesson is will not truly teach it to them.

As I think about this, I actually have another thought. I was raised to analyze and plan and not make mistakes that are easily foreseen. I wasn’t really raised to learn by doing, which honestly I think would have been more beneficial sometimes (but who knows) – I was raised to learn by… advice and instruction, I guess. I’m trying to break out of that and trust myself to learn by doing, but that’s exactly my point here – maybe these people learn by doing and are NOT AFRAID of FAILING the way I am in these scenarios. Sure, they are afraid of failing and getting their hearts broken, but maybe not as much as I am… I won’t risk “stupid” decisions if I KNOW what it will lead to in the end. But isn’t that one of the lessons I’ve been learning? Not to try to predict the future? Not to have limiting beliefs? Not to confine myself to certain actions just because they are safe and free of betrayal, pain and rejection?

Granted, I have gone against that logic before, and that gave me an experience that jump started this entire journey for me!

So, yeah, how can I be frustrated with them? They would just rather try and suffer that pain than suffer the pain of wondering what could have been… and isn’t that really the whole point of life…? So sure, the advice I give them always turns out to be true, but going THROUGH that is way more important than just believing a wise friend, giving up and moving on.

Finding Growth Opportunities in Trigger Situations

I had another growth opportunity. There are people I know that are great people, but just very different from me. Not only are their hobbies and beliefs very far from mine, but they embody a lot of my triggers. For a while, interacting with them was the only interaction I had, and I started to feel very isolated, misunderstood and alone. Their judgments and knowledge were mostly the same (from my perspective), so I almost felt like I should know about everything they were talking about, even though I didn’t care for it. Logically I knew that wasn’t true - it wasn’t a conscious thought - but I can tell that I was still affected in that way. They tried to get me involved in their activities, but I continued to insist that it did not interest me, which they deemed as anti-social. My own opinions, hobbies and beliefs felt to be dismissed, ignored or even laughed at. I understand it was nothing personal, they were just expressing their own opinions, but I’m a sensitive person… or at least I was… so living in that reality really didn’t serve me very well.

I like the people. Aside from them rubbing me the wrong way sometimes, I do enjoy their company. But we really have limited, if any, things in common, and it is truly apparent in our interactions and how we all treat each other. I struggled with this for a long time – I still do struggle with it. Which relationships do you pursue and maintain, and which do you let go of? Is it something I could continue to work on, or are some of these relationships truly not serving me and bringing me down?

I’m not giving up on it, though. Not now. I think this is still an opportunity for me to figure out how to have casual social interactions. One thing I realized tonight is: How can I complain about people not talking about anything I care about, when I have nothing to replace it with? I’ve worked on myself plenty, and now I’m starting to try to “have a life”. I have to continue to pursue all my interests and find things to learn about such that I can then turn around and talk about them. That is, when I’m not with people who would like to talk about themselves…. which are the kinds of people I was built to communicate with. I’m an INFJ, I’m here to listen to people’s problems and help them be the best they can be… not chat about the new iPhone or PlayStation, or complain about politics! But that’s not fair, because I need hobbies and interests to talk about. And if I search and explore and can’t find anything like that, then yeah, I need to avoid those types of social interactions.

Here’s another vulnerable and yet teachable moment: I’ve been working on not being afraid of jumping into something without being completely prepared, right?  Because I always plan and prepare, and I’m trying to learn that I can trust myself to figure things out as I go along. So I decided to play this board game with this group of people. None of us have ever played it before. I sat there reading the long instructions before we began. Everyone else’s attention span was very minimal, so I decided I’d give them a short description, and I’d refer to the instructions as we went along - trying to work on my fears and trust myself that we could figure it out. It’s just a game, afterall.

Well, my fears got worked alright. To start off with, when I went into the next room to get everyone, no one even looked at me. I was yelling very loud, waving around the instructions. I yelled louder and louder. Nothing. Finally someone saw me and just sorta gave me a thumbs up, and I yelled if they wanted to play, and at that point a couple people snapped into focus. I’d forgotten how that happens with this group of people… that used to be my reality. I’d already worked on having confidence and speaking more assertively, so now I know it isn’t me. So it didn’t start off well.

When we started the game, everyone got frustrated with me, and the kept second-guessing me. I ended up just reading most of the instructions to them and correcting some things, but of course, as I said, their attention span was minimal, so they all just talked over me and chatted with each other as I did it. But one of them absorbed the information and helped out. Yeah, that was a test, alright. I started to feel how I normally do – mad, disrespected and upset. Like I didn’t want to be there. But right then I changed my attitude – this is an opportunity to learn something new. Forget about them - this is just a challenge, and I should ignore their frustration and disrespect and not let it affect me. This is definitely a game that stretches your mind. It would be good to work on things like this. Once the others knew the rules, they picked up on it much faster than I did (because they play other games like this, and I don’t). Things didn’t make sense to me because they were worded strange, but they somehow knew what it meant. I decided to use it as a learning opportunity instead of focusing on how defeated and alone I felt about the situation. There was still an undertone of misery at first, but it went away. You really can just talk yourself out of being upset sometimes…

More proof that I take every experience as a growth opportunity and to practice the lessons I have learned. It’s just a matter of how much you want to put yourself through at any given time.

Create Your Own Experiences

More and more I see the power we have within ourselves to affect our experiences. I feel like I’ve become pretty good at controlling my emotions and therefore my perceptions of what I experience. When I start to feel an unpleasant feeling, even physical pain, I’m able to influence how far that feeling goes, and just let it pass, instead.

The other day I shut my finger in a closet door. It’s one of those folding doors, and as it closed it pinched my finger. I felt the pain coming, and then just let it leave. Now that I have that experience to compare it with, I think normally I let myself get angry and my ego gets bruised when things like that happen, so it ends up feeling more “painful” when really it was my emotions and my ego making it worse than it was. That was an interesting feeling, and quite empowering.

I used to be afraid of a lot of situations. Not afraid as in “a bear is coming to get me and I’m afraid for my life”, but afraid as in, self-conscious, unsure that I can handle it, not knowing ahead of time what to expect and just being… worried, and assuming I’ll screw it up. I understand why I grew to be that way… but lately I’ve been growing my self-confidence in order to remain calm and know that I can deal with it. I don’t get embarrassed or self-conscious. I have the mentality of, “Whatever, I’ll figure it out.” I’m not perfect in ALL areas… but in a lot of areas, I almost feel “cured”. By feeling confident, I’m able to really BE confident and capable in those situations, because instead of using the energy to second-guess myself, I’m using it to solve the problem.

I’ve also noticed that I’m less self-conscious in general. I used to be wrapped up so much in being inside the minds of others. I thought for sure I was able to know what they were thinking. And sure, as an INFJ that’s good at reading people, perhaps I was. But what does it matter? I finally have been able to believe that I need to stop projecting judgments onto others, claiming that they are thinking it. It is really just me. And I was never too concerned with what people think except for certain things: If I’m by myself, if I don’t know what I’m doing, and if I look like crap.

Ever since high school, I’ve been self-conscious about looking awkward being by myself. I don’t want people to think I’m weird or pathetic (because I already think thought it). I just want to hide away and have some privacy, or I want something to look at so I don’t look like I am brooding or something. I’m getting a little better about it. Just not going there in my mind, and instead finding something around me to entertain me. Some situations are better than others for that, but I’m doing really well with it.

I always get mad at people when I realize they don’t know what they are doing. Blame it on how I grew up, I guess, but it gets me really agitated. I try so hard to not be that way myself. Plan ahead, do your homework, and come prepared. Don’t just fly by the seat of your pants and be completely ignorant to what you are trying to achieve and how to do it. So of course, I project those judgments onto others, and I have a fear that I can’t do something because I haven’t done the same – and so I won’t do it. I’ve gotten a little better at this. Mainly because I’m able to trust myself. I’m very smart – I can analyze the situation and figure out what to do. It’s just that I was raised to plan thoroughly before embarking on something, and my parents would always give me step by step instructions and tips, and I’d always do SOMETHING wrong that they’d correct. But I have to shake that off, and I’ve done a good job of that. I’m using the phrase “Be prepared” inappropriately – I’m using it as an excuse to not live my life, because I’m scared. That just will not do anymore, and I’m taking the necessary steps to fix it.

Then, of course, there is how I look. So many layers to that one – but let me stick to just a couple. Confidence is everything. Looking good, I now realize, is less about what you naturally actually look like, and more about how you take care of yourself. Be nice to yourself. Don’t punish yourself. Love yourself as you are. Don’t get mad at yourself for not fitting into a certain pair of jeans – and don’t try to squeeze into them and then be mad at yourself all day for being fat. Find clothes that FIT and that FLATTER your shape, whatever it is. It took me a long time to realize that I can look great by wearing clothes that work with my body, instead of trying to wear things everyone else looks good in and looking bad in it. Furthermore, though, it doesn’t even matter about what you wear, either. It’s the confidence. The joy. It radiates from you and makes you beautiful. Again, I have to get out of the heads of others and just exist in my own perception – which is strong and confident. When you feel confident, and see obstacles as a fun challenge, everything else pans out. You no longer live in fear and shame. I’m doing quite better in that, as well.

I find that I use so many tricks like this throughout the day, and am so comfortable with them, that I forget to write about them here. This is huge progress that I need to make sure I document so I can track it. I’m by no means perfect at it, but there has been so much success that I need to celebrate it!

It’s all about balance. Even if a concept you stand behind is good, pure and correct, don’t forget the balance. Anything in excess turns unhealthy. So just be careful. When people, or your parents, or your friends, or whoever give you advice that you know is correct, just know that there is still a balance between whatever it is and the opposite of it. I say that because I have had issues with it. Sure, you need to plan before you go do something. That is a very good thing to do. But don’t be so adamant about it that you are SCARED to do ANYTHING if you haven’t planned it out first. Sure, you need to do a million chores and take care of a million responsibilities each week. But don’t let that guilt you out of having a life and finding joy. You see? There is always a balance. I’ve taken it too far, in many ways, including those. I guess you could say I lived a repressed life, self-inflicted. And I feel so ashamed to allow myself joy, leisure, risk and adventure when there is so much to be done. So many obligations. But guess what? IT WILL BE OKAY! The world will not end!!!! I’m finally starting to step out of that life-style. Tip-toe by tip-toe. And it feels amazing. It feels like I am actually ALIVE. I feel like I have so much CONTROL and POSSIBILITY in my life, when really, before, life had control over me.

Take the control back. Create the life of your dreams!

Initial Progress on my Biggest Issue

In case you’re new to this blog, this particular post needs a slight back story. The one thing that gets me the most upset and angry in the entire world is porn and sex & nudity in tv and movies. Nothing upsets me more. Nothing. I see red and I’m just not even responsible for my reactions to anything anymore. I get a physical reaction of anger, sadness, my chest hurts, I slump over and feel violated, my heart races, my eyes well-up, I can’t watch, and it just physically tortures the crap out of me. Aside from the emotional and physical reactions, I am completely and totally morally against that crap. Nudity is not appropriate to be displayed everywhere, and definitely not sex. For one, sex is a PRIVATE and intimate thing for a couple, not something you WATCH. Second, all this crap completely objectifies women. Third, it is desensitizing everyone to this stuff, and making men even more indulgent and wanting and expecting that kind of stuff instantly, because they can so easily get to it in the blink of an eye. There is no decency anymore…

This has caused many issues for me, not only in my own well-being, but clearly in relationships and even friendships. Don’t even bring this stuff up or I will completely lose it and tell you what a horrible disgusting hedonistic scumbag you are.

So now you know the back story, a little bit. I think I got my point across.

As I began my spiritual journey and read The Untethered Soul, the book explained why certain things can really upset you and how you can see it everywhere and freak out about it when it doesn’t seem to bother anyone else – in fact, no one else even notices. I never understood why no one else, even those who were against it, seemed to be as bothered as I was. Now I get it. I was letting it control my life. There is such a wonderful example in the book that I won’t even try to explain, but it gets the point across beautifully. The stuff hurts me, so I’ve decided to just reject it, but then I have to spend my whole life protecting myself from it, when really I should just be trying to figure out why it bothers me so much. There are VALID REASONS to be against it, because it truly is disgusting. But it affects me a little too much. So I started trying to tackle those issues, and I felt like I’d made a little progress but it hadn’t really been tested. I figure I need to get the rest of my life and my issues tackled fairly well before I start going for the BIG issue – and I felt like I’ve been doing a great job, so I figured it might be time.

Usually, when I plan to see a movie, I check the rating to make sure there will be no nudity or sex. Today I went to see a movie without checking the rating – on purpose. It’s like Russian roulette with my fears/emotions. I wanted to test out how my spiritual journey and realizations has affected my ability to stomach the content in movies. I realized I may have upped the stakes by going to the movie WITH someone, since that somewhat changes the dynamic – I should probably make sure I can handle that stuff by myself before I add the awkwardness of being around other people. But whatever, I realized that too late.

So what happened?

Well the movie had a full shot of, essentially, a bed full of naked women. One in particular that was the focal point of the shot, and she was seen in her entirety. And the shot lasted more than was comfortable (well, duh, the whole shot was uncomfortable, but hopefully you know what I mean?).

I guess I’ll try to dissect what went through my mind. I guess it went something like this:

Oh geez, here it is. Okay, it’s just a body… the only reason it bothers me is because of extra meaning I put on it. Okay, this shot is lasting too long, I feel awkward, diverting my eyes… okay the shot still isn’t going away… it’s okay, it’s just a body… Just a body. Not a big deal. Just let the image pass without getting blocked in my mind by all my painful emotions. It’s just an image, it isn’t going to hurt me or do anything. No one else notices it in this way, it’s just me because I give it extra meaning. It’s okay. This image doesn’t affect me or my life. Just let it pass.

Having read The Untethered Soul, I now know that others don’t see those images the same way I do, and the reason it bothers me is because I let it get blocked instead of letting the situation just pass through me like other things you see around you – maybe someone getting up from the movie to go to the bathroom. You just let that pass through you, and yet this image sticks and wreaks havoc on my mind. So when I saw the image, I hated it and it made me uncomfortable, BUT I did not have that upset physical reaction to it. Really, I almost felt that feeling START… but then, as it says in The Untethered Soul, when that moment happens, you can let it take over, or you can just fall behind it and let it pass. I let it pass!!!

I was lucky enough that nothing was HAPPENING in that scene, so this was a good test and progress indicator at a low level. I was happy to know that, emotionally, I was able to let it go and enjoy the rest of the movie – something I’ve NEVER been able to do before. Usually, from that point forward, I’m upset, angry, sad, heart racing, mad at whoever I’m with, mad at the people who made the movie, mad at the world for thinking crap like that is okay to display everywhere… but this time, I let it go. I didn’t let it ruin my mood. DO YOU KNOW HOW HUGE THAT IS!?!?

That just goes to show that people can change and you can work through your issues. That’s some PROOF right there. I’m not “fixed”, whatever that means, and I don’t even want to be, because I’m never going to be okay with that stuff. But I’m successfully making progress working through whatever issues pop up when I see that stuff. I’m making progress such that it isn’t affecting me as much as it once was. That is FANTASTIC. I don’t have to be AFRAID of it being in movies anymore. Okay, well let’s not get ahead of ourselves… there is worse than what I saw today…

It’ll be interesting to see what progress I make when it comes to this stuff and relationships…….. stay tuned to find out, I guess ;)

Are there any big issues that you have? Is it affecting you more than it should? Can you be brave and start trying to conquer those fears, even if you are RIGHT for being against something? Can you separate out what is YOU and what is a legitimate argument against it?