Stage 2, Day 27. Everything's going steady, nothing to report. I've been doing 45 minutes to 2 hours of pstec every day and that added to everything else I'm doing means that I'm basically doing something all the time. Neediness is definitely low, but its not like I want to separate myself like with AM. Its just that the "value" of girls has dropped quite a bit. I've been searching for a more interesting job and I sent the first application out today. I'm also considering a job in a bigger city, but it seems even more challenging getting a job there when doing what I'm doing. I'm also going to start drinking my tea in cafes more, just so I'll be around people more and so I'll have a reoccurring reason to go outside into the cold.
Anyhow, it's been a while since I've had a proper realization.. ;) But something came to me today after a 2-hour pstec session on going out during the day, so I'm going full theoretical for the rest of this post.
Alan Watts mentions that we know ourselves through others, i.e. through the contrast of what we are not. Perhaps my biggest trouble with women has always been that I avoid failure. I have forced myself to fail a lot in the past, but that hasn't made it go away permanently. It sort of grows back. Especially in a daytime environment, I'm not worried about what the girl would think of me, or her rejecting me. What usually prevents me from going up is the other people that are around, specifically that someone there might recognize me (now or later after this) and that those people might SEE me getting rejected and think less of me, talk about me to other people, and so on. Now, this makes me think about how I, myself, relate to seeing other people fail at this. And I'm actually quite judgemental. I mean I don't feel the need to put them down or anything, but its that knee-jerk emotional reaction of "ugh, I'm not like that, I'm much better!" and tensing myself up a bit. Its just because of this "trying to act cool" thing that I've been doing for years.
So back to Watts, my hypothesis is that we see other people being, or acting like, something that we don't like to be, or act like like, ourselves and thus we define ourselves as "not that" and pile some emotional weight on that decision just to make sure it sticks. Of course avoidance like that seldom works, for example one might see a guy go up to a girl and being very nervous, starting to stutter, ask really needy questions with a rising pitch etc., resulting in him getting shot down and presumably feeling miserable. Witnessing that, one would probably try to make himself "not that" and start trying to act very confident and disinterested, while all the time searching for any external signs that somebody might think he actually is "like that". That's "trying to be cool" = confident on the outside, needy on the inside. Or a slightly different example, somebody you know seems really sleazy or overtly sexual and disrespectful towards women, so you might end up being overly nice and very careful to avoid offending anyone by "advertising" your sexuality. Kind of like how a woman might see another woman being really thrashy and sl_tty, and then hiding her sexuality altogether to not be "like that".
So how this helps me, is that I'm going to be psteccing on any strong reactions I have to behavior I've seen from other men around women, like being shy, sleazy, just being really needy in some way, being very nervous, being an asshole, trying to be very loud, being shot down, etc. I'm hoping that if I begin to completely accept everything about others "failing" like that, then it should deal with my avoidance of failure. I think I'm only expecting to be judged by others right now, because that's what I do myself. Logically I don't care what they think, but its an emotional issue. And yes, I've left out projecting your qualities onto others on purpose, but I think it all adds up to something like "learn to accept others and you'll learn accept yourself".
And that be all, good night!
Anyhow, it's been a while since I've had a proper realization.. ;) But something came to me today after a 2-hour pstec session on going out during the day, so I'm going full theoretical for the rest of this post.
Alan Watts mentions that we know ourselves through others, i.e. through the contrast of what we are not. Perhaps my biggest trouble with women has always been that I avoid failure. I have forced myself to fail a lot in the past, but that hasn't made it go away permanently. It sort of grows back. Especially in a daytime environment, I'm not worried about what the girl would think of me, or her rejecting me. What usually prevents me from going up is the other people that are around, specifically that someone there might recognize me (now or later after this) and that those people might SEE me getting rejected and think less of me, talk about me to other people, and so on. Now, this makes me think about how I, myself, relate to seeing other people fail at this. And I'm actually quite judgemental. I mean I don't feel the need to put them down or anything, but its that knee-jerk emotional reaction of "ugh, I'm not like that, I'm much better!" and tensing myself up a bit. Its just because of this "trying to act cool" thing that I've been doing for years.
So back to Watts, my hypothesis is that we see other people being, or acting like, something that we don't like to be, or act like like, ourselves and thus we define ourselves as "not that" and pile some emotional weight on that decision just to make sure it sticks. Of course avoidance like that seldom works, for example one might see a guy go up to a girl and being very nervous, starting to stutter, ask really needy questions with a rising pitch etc., resulting in him getting shot down and presumably feeling miserable. Witnessing that, one would probably try to make himself "not that" and start trying to act very confident and disinterested, while all the time searching for any external signs that somebody might think he actually is "like that". That's "trying to be cool" = confident on the outside, needy on the inside. Or a slightly different example, somebody you know seems really sleazy or overtly sexual and disrespectful towards women, so you might end up being overly nice and very careful to avoid offending anyone by "advertising" your sexuality. Kind of like how a woman might see another woman being really thrashy and sl_tty, and then hiding her sexuality altogether to not be "like that".
So how this helps me, is that I'm going to be psteccing on any strong reactions I have to behavior I've seen from other men around women, like being shy, sleazy, just being really needy in some way, being very nervous, being an asshole, trying to be very loud, being shot down, etc. I'm hoping that if I begin to completely accept everything about others "failing" like that, then it should deal with my avoidance of failure. I think I'm only expecting to be judged by others right now, because that's what I do myself. Logically I don't care what they think, but its an emotional issue. And yes, I've left out projecting your qualities onto others on purpose, but I think it all adds up to something like "learn to accept others and you'll learn accept yourself".
And that be all, good night!
Thoughts, opinions and beliefs subject to change without prior notice.
