3.7 Self-Understanding
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Video Transcript
So we’ve covered needs, and we’ve covered connecting with our needs. And hopefully, you realize the importance of this and the foundation that this is for healing inadequacy. Because, of course, one of the distinctive traits of inadequacy and the thing that prevents all healing is the disconnection from ourselves, and we lose who we authentically are. Of course, our needs are not all were disconnected from, we’re disconnected from ourselves as individuals, and to heal the sense of not being good enough. That is the core of the fetish. We need to feel good enough, just as we are. I’ve written it down here like this. See, we’re healing this feeling like we’re not good enough. The obvious way to heal this is to feel good enough. And in brackets have put just as we are, because it’s important that we don’t feel good enough if we change because then that’s conditional. Most people in this feeling good enough, just as we are, they were jumped straight to the feeling good enough. But we can’t do that if we do not have ourselves in the first place. We need to be connected to ourselves, and we need to know ourselves and accept ourselves first. And the way that we do this is to make preference choices. That means choosing options where we can have an opinion on them. Such as picking out which car we like the most in a long line of cars, or picking which house we like the most when we go past a row of houses or, or which tree we like the look of I mean, this sounds very childish and basic. But we do have to start from here, because if you can’t do this authentically, then you’re not gonna be able to do the next steps. So make simple choices in your head about what you like. Food is a very basic one. And it’s something that everyone has a favorite food, we never actually shamed for having a favorite food, because it’s widely acceptable to like different foods. But when we have toxic shame about who we are, then we learn that all the rest of us that that we perhaps might be shameful, we learn that that is shameful. And we disconnect from that. I think a good one for men to practice this on is interior design. A lot of men I know simply just ignore this. And you can decide what color walls you like or what wallpaper you like, not if you’re an interior designer, because then you probably already have very strong opinions to start with. What I would suggest is just doing a quick Google search, go on Google images, type in interior design, look up all the images, and then very simply pick which one of these you would like the most. And I’ve put a few of these images here. And when you look at these really connects with your opinion about how you feel about them, do you like this? This makes me want to be sick. But if you like this, then you should feel okay to say Hey, I like this and actually own your feelings. Because like I say, when we have shame about ourselves as people, we disconnect from our feelings. We disconnect with what we like. So this is another one that makes me want to be sick. It’s horrible. But again, if you like it, you should have the you need to be able to disagree. It needs to be able to stand up and say this is what I like. And actually connect with your individuality, your preferences, and who you are. And you can go into details when you do this. So what do you think of this sort of propeller thing? Do you like that? Not sure? Do you like a more minimal style? Or would you prefer a more? How to describe that? I can’t think of anything else apart from cluttered but some would say lived in think maybe you like this style. Maybe you like that color green. If you do good for you again, don’t feel I mean, I am saying this in quite a shaming way that if you like that color green, it’s something wrong with you. But maybe you do. And if you do, again, it’s about this shame about this feeling that it’s okay to feel how you feel them. And maybe you think these little circular things are quite cool. They’re certainly different. But again, only your feelings and make your preferences. And you can do this, like I say just by going through Google Image is, I mean, it doesn’t have to be interior design. I don’t know why I picked that. But pick something and work out your feelings towards them. So once we’ve done this, you can take this one step further, by making personal preference choices, these are choices about ourselves, that is the way we look or the way we appear, or the way we present ourselves to the world. Fashion is a good example of this. And hair styles are another one, that actually takes things one step further, because instead of just making these preferences, we’re living them, we are becoming them. And we are really being bold and sort of showing off that this is what we feel. And by doing this, it shows a complete lack of shame about who we are. And that’s what we want to get to. So do this make preferences. And then once you’ve made these preferences, you can analyze what you chose, and look at how those preferences make you appear. Did you make that choice to look good, or to fit in, or to be perfect or impress the imaginary part of your brain that tells you what you need to be in order to be good. But it goes deeper than just appearing to like something to be good, what can actually happen. And this is quite scary. But we can believe this lie ourselves. Because to have this sense of inadequacy. And to believe that we are flawed in some way would of course be very painful to reveal to others. And that’s why we try not to. Also it’s painful to reveal to ourselves. We don’t like the pain of knowing we’re inadequate. So we hide who we are from ourselves. And then we just become so disconnected. So when we make preference choices, we should then consider how that preference makes us look. Does it make us look perfect? Doesn’t make us look cool? does it tie in with our belief of what we need to do? In order to be good? Does it make us look really weird weirdness can be a defense to by hiding behind the image of being weird. We can create a justification for people to not like us. When we expect people not to like us. Because of inadequacy, all we want is to have an excuse, a justification a way to say it’s because I’m too weird. That’s why they don’t like me. But it’s fine, because I like being weird, because I value weirdness. What am I saying here? Am I saying Don’t be weird? Am I saying? Don’t be normal and fit in either? No, I’m saying this make preference choices, then look how those preferences make you look. If you were to reveal those choices to the world, do you look weird? Do you look normal? Do you look extremely masculine? Do you look like a really nice guy. If you find a pattern in this, if all your choices make you look really masculine. Or if all your choices make you look really weird. Or if all your choices make you look normal, then what’s happening is your self image is dictating your decisions. And what that really is, is not a preference that comes from how you feel. But it’s a preference that comes from the mask that you’re trying to present to the world. And it’s such a hard thing to be aware of. But everyone has this to some extent. And we have to go deeper than actually thinking about, about the logical reasons for choosing something. Because it’s very easy to say, Oh, I chose this outfit. Because well it’s a very practical outfit and that that’s very pleasing to the logical part of my brain. But we have to think how we feel. How does it make us feel? That’s the important part of self understanding.OWN YOUR OPINIONS. HAVE STRONG OPINIONS WITHOUT FEELING SHAME ABOUT THEM.
It sounds like itβs too basic but no-one in this world is 100% connected to their true selves. NO ONE!
To have toxic shame is to think that you are not ok just as you are. And when our selves are shamed, we disconnect and disown ourselves. When we are repeatedly criticized or shamed, (most often by our own brains,) we learn itβs not ok to be just as we are. So to reconnect with this, we need to learn to be PROUD of who we are, our thoughts, our feelings, and as in this video, our preferences/opinions/individuality. We need to be proud of our own unique selves.
As I go through these pictures, ask yourself if you like them. A simple yes/no is enough. But try to connect with your strong, polarising opinions. Try to LOVE or HATE them. Find at least one that you HATE. And find one above all which is your absolute IDEAL.
For example, there are certain colour schemes that make me feel nauseous and I know that itβs ok to feel like that. I love minimalism and wood and hate most bright colours β but thatβs just me. Form your own opinions, and truly accept that itβs ok to have those opinions, and itβs ok to disagree with me, itβs ok to disagree with everyone else if itβs how you feel.
If youβre an interior designer you wonβt get much out of this videoβ¦ but you can pick ANYTHING to practice this on β anything that you usually donβt pay much attention too (because you probably already have a favourite food, music genre, etc)
Remember, the core of the fetish is feeling like weβre not good enough just as we are. So to protect ourselves from that, we try to become something different in order to make others like us and feel like weβre good enough. To heal this, we need to OWN ourselves just as we are. We need to own our opinions, truly accept that we donβt need to have certain opinions to make others like us, and that our deepest opinions are good enough, whatever they are. thatβs what this is about.
So, go on google images and practice making preferences. Practice makes perfect. The more you practice this, the more youβll accept yourself just as you are.
Personal preference choices are a step further because they are more closely linked to how we are perceived. Make sure you actually *like* your clothes, it sounds so stupid but so many men donβt!! Make sure you like your hairstyle! Your shoes! Your self! All too often, we present ourselves in ways that are designed purely to get others to like us. We end up not liking ourselves! Sometimes, weβre just afraid to present the parts of ourselves that are different because of a fear that weβll be rejected for being weird. Itβs easier to be accepted when youβre normal. We can disown the parts of ourselves that donβt fit in. In doing so, we reject these parts of ourselves, and this prevents total self-acceptance.
Or the opposite, we present ourselves with an excuse as to why others wonβt like us, such as weirdness or laziness. Weβll intentionally be weird to escape from the pressure of being liked, or weβll act like weβre so lazy that we just donβt care. These remove the burden of needing to be liked. Similarly, it prevents self-acceptance.
When these things happen, we canβt really have friends. It sounds stupid, and itβs definitely not easy to understand, but essentially the people in our lives arenβt friends with us, they are friends with the image of us that we present. Our true selves are hidden. Then we donβt get our social needs met, and we donβt get validation, and that makes us feel inadequate (and then we feel the need to change or to hide our true selves to be accepted, and itβs another self-reinforcing spiral.). To heal this, we need to have friends who accept us for our true selves. That directly makes us feel good enough, when we are totally accepted for everything about us. This is about owning your true self, by becoming confident and assertive with your personal preferences.
Source
Author(s) || Connor McGonigal
Website || howtostopbeingacuckold.com
Article || 3.7 Self-Understanding
Date || Between January 27th, 2018 and May 11th, 2019
tags: [“evergreen”]
contributors: ["Connor McGonigal"]