I had the hardest time figuring out how to really do the “pushups” (even though now it seems so simple), and I got a lot of direction from reading people’s experiences here on the board. Now that I have some of my own, I want to share them to help others see what the thought process
can look like AND to get insights from your unattached perspectives on my situation. I also found that putting this down on paper is clarifying things even further for me. This is a crazy long post… you’ve been warned.
Now first things first, these reflections start with my interactions with women. This isn’t a “how do I get women” process though – as has been mentioned on this board many times, women are a mirror, so problems that come up with the opposite sex are shining a light on what’s going on inside of me. I had two different recurring situations that we accompanied by stress/fear/anxiety, so those were my starting points.
1) I’d ALWAYS break eye contact with women quickly and not look back. Serious anxiety present.
Now, this has been happening even when I am 100% SURE that they’re interested… ie, they’re giving me “fuck me eyes” and I don’t even consider the idea of rejection in the PUA sense. I’d just go straight back to the poker face – ACTING indifferent - and look elsewhere, although with the anxiety I felt, I’m positive they felt it too.
Why was I hiding my desire in spite of seeing hers clearly? Why don’t I want to engage her, even though I literally talk to and engage dozens of strangers per day (sales job) without this problem?
Clue 1: I don’t want to show off my sexuality to someone who might be offended or made uncomfortable by it.
2) I’d ALWAYS find flaws (more often than not inventing them) when seeing a beautiful woman.
This has gotten totally out of control. Either women are unattractive (legit issue) or I am attracted to them and I invent something to diss them about. This flew under the radar because most women do have visible physical flaws and my ego could give me these excuses without throwing up any red flags. But I caught myself thinking these kinds of thoughts about physically stunning women, and it became obvious what I was doing.
Why do I put up barriers to accepting my attraction to her? Why can’t I say “She’s beautiful and maybe she’s cool too… Let’s find out…”?
Note that this doesn’t happen for ugly women, men, or even very attractive women that I was talking to for work reasons. Only ones that I’d potentially talk to as a sexual being.
Clue 2: When a woman TURNS ME ON, my ego has a mechanism to TURN ME OFF (and it’s totally automatic) but only if I’m in the mindset of
wanting to be a sexual being with her. Not in other contexts, even if she's sexy (ie. at work, when I still want something from her: money). Very Important distinction.
Putting the pieces together…
So, how do clues 1 and 2 fit together? After a lot of reflection, and considering MANY other situations in my life (this post is already too long hahaha) I now see that I have an obvious fear of conflict, and my fear of acting on being sexually attracted to a woman was just one small symptom of that. I felt like expressing my interest was “stepping into the ring" with them - which it actually is - and that caused stress - which is really shouldn't at all.
Now… I have “fear of conflict” on the mind, but where is this coming from? Why am I afraid of situations that are, on a logical level, zero risk, simply because they I can label them as a kind of “conflict”?
That’s where I had to go back into the memories… this has been affecting me as long as I can remember, so I had to go back to early childhood. Where did I have conflicts? How did expecting conflict cause fear and anxiety in me?
And that’s when it hit me…
It all goes back to my relationship with my father in my early childhood. He traveled Monday-Friday for work reasons, and then when he was home on the weekends, he’d take out his stress on the family. Lots of yelling, lots of overreacting to small things, lots of blowing small conflicts out of proportion and ultimately punishing me. I eventually adopted the mindset fear when he was even around.
Just the possibility of causing a conflict (even from tiny, seemly insignificant things) caused fear and I became very well behaved 24/7, in all situations, avoiding problems at ALL COSTS. That was good for my parents and teachers, but it doesn't help me as a man.
I can think of a couple of extreme examples of this conflict avoidance as a kid and those other authority figures actually reinforced my behaviors even though they should have realized they were unhealthy. Easier for them, so I get it.
So I how do I move forward?
I got a lot of inspirations from this post:
http://www.naturalfreedom.info/viewtopi ... =22&t=3315 and now I feel like I’ve taken the time to understand why my father was the way he was. All week he was basically being treated like a powerless corporate bitch (a theme that resonates back to his own childhood as well, I’ve since learned)… all so he could provide for his family. Then, when he came home stressed, feeling disrespected all week, he’d have a hair trigger and it was easy for him to see me as being totally ungrateful (which I was). That led to a cycle of anger, fear and resentment that went around and around every week for YEARS, affecting both of us.
Understanding this and truly forgiving him for being the way he was (and seeing how we mirrored each other) has lifted a weight from my shoulders. I now see that he was in an extremely difficult and un-rewarding situation for years. He was living in a series of shitty motels 5 days per week to save money so I could do fun things and get a good education, being as selfless as he could.
I just came to this revelation in the past week and when I did, I completely broke down into tears and felt the stress pour out of my mind. I know the root of my fear of conflict, and now that I can empathize with it, I can let it be. It simply is what it is.
I totally accept how he was, my role in the situation, how my fear was reinforced, and I see how these past events have resonated in my psyche throughout my adolescence and early adulthood.
As luck would have it, Father’s Day is tomorrow, so I’m going to take advantage of the opportunity to make peace with him via email and at last put this behind me - and possibly put it behind him.
Any thoughts from your perspectives?