By Ox Drover
One of the things we hear frequently on LoveFraud and in self help books we might read is to “love yourself.” This sounds like great advice, but the thing is no one ever tells me exactly how to do this.
Some suggestions for increasing my “self love” and “self esteem” given in various books and articles are to use “positive affirmations” such as “I am wonderful,” or some other positive self talk that I should repeat over and over inside my head until I eventually start to believe it.
Even though I might say these phrases over and over, no matter how positive and “self affirming” they may sounds, somehow I never seem to truly believe them. After saying them over and over inside my head somehow there’s a little voice that repeats “Yeah, RIGHT!” in a scoffing tone.
If anyone knows my faults, it is surely me, and somehow I just have problems saying and truly believing the large statement, “I am wonderful!”
One of the things that really bothered me of late is “getting old.” I look in the mirror and see my grandmother’s face looking back. I really hate to have my photograph taken because I look at them and see this fat caricature of my youthful self looking out of the photograph. I started on a calorie control diet to lose some weight, and looked at my skin which has more than a few dark sunspots and a liberal supply of “laugh lines” (read: wrinkles). I pound on myself internally for not listening to my grandmother and staying out of the boiling sun until I became bronzed when I was young. The sunscreen I slather on now does little good now that my skin is starting to resemble the Marlboro man. How can I like myself when I look the way I do and there’s not much I can do at this late stage in the game to improve myself?
Even if I lose the excess weight, all I will accomplish is to let the “air” out of the wrinkles that the excess fat smoothes out somewhat.
So because I was feeling pretty bad about how I looked , and really, there wasn’t much at 63 years old I could do, outside of extensive plastic surgery I couldn’t afford, I decided to work on loving myself the way I look today, rather than bemoaning the fact I no longer look like I did “back then.” If I could tackle that and succeed, I could tackle anything.
One of the things I used to do was stand in front of the mirror and pull the skin on my cheeks back, like a doctor would in a face lift, smoothing out the wrinkles and the line from my nose to the corner of my mouth, imagining how I would look after a face lift. One evening doing some rare television watching I saw a former “sex goddess” movie star, now probably nearing 70, doing a guest shot on a series. She had obviously had copious plastic surgery and she looked like a caricature of her former self, almost like a melted Barbie doll. Looking at her face, and at her attempts to continue to “look young” through the marvels of modern surgery —surgery that seemed laughable, I threw back my head and I laughed.
Sure, I looked like my grandmother at my age, and I had loved that face—on her, but I was going to learn to love that face on myself. I was going to learn to love myself, starting with my body. Not the body I would have when I lost twenty pounds, or the face that I would have after I had extensive plastic surgery, but the face I have today!
How could I go about learning to love my body the way it is, the face the way it is? Well, first of all, it wasn’t going to be accomplished by standing in front of the mirror and asking, “mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of us all?” I am no longer a beautiful young girl with creamy smooth skin, but that doesn’t mean my body or my face isn’t okay.
My body is a marvelous machine, wrinkled or smooth, my skin, the body’s largest organ, does an excellent job of keeping me free from bacteria and viral attackers, of cooling and heating my inner body, and evaporating sweat! It is well designed for its purpose. It does a great job!
People have always said my eyes are so expressive, and they really are! I can shoot a look out of them that my kids used to say would turn you to a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife if I were angry! They are still expressive but much more inclined now to smile and crinkle at the corners with laughter. They still see far away very well, but I have to have reading glasses up close, but that’s okay. My eyes really work very well and I like them.
My hair is still thick and heavy, and has always been a good feature even now that some of the strands are turning silver. The silver in my hair, which I’ve never dyed, almost looks like an expensive frost job! I wear it in a style that’s becoming, not trying to look like the sex goddess gone to pot with flowing tresses down to my waist, or cropped close and permed into a “poodle do” with a bluish cast, but natural. I really do like my hair!
My legs are still shapely, well muscled and firm from decades of walking and riding horses, I really do like my legs. They work very well and generally don’t hurt, all the joints freely function, and I can still kneel or stretch. I’ve really got great legs with slim ankles.
My back is a pretty good back, sometimes it has let me down a bit and ached after a hard day’s work, but I haven’t always been very good to it. I think I will try to be more accommodating to my back. I’ve worked it awfully hard all these years so I’m going to be better to it. I’ll do some stretching exercises before going out to work, and I’ll use my legs more to do the heavy lifting than misusing my back muscles. I really am fortunate to have such a great back, considering how inconsiderate I have been to it all these years. Yes, I can be proud of my back.
I remember how flat my abdomen used to be, back before I had children, and it’s not that flat now, but it really is a pretty good belly after all. It works well, it’s never let me down or made me seriously ill. Sometimes I don’t give it enough fiber and it complains to me when I mistreat it, but I think it has a right to tell me if I am not being good to it. Actually, there’s still a smattering of a waist there in spite of the fact it’s a bit over weight, but overall, I can’t complain about my abdomen. Actually, I think I like it pretty well and I don’t know anyone I would trade bellies with. Yep, my belly is A-ok.
The thing I have always been the proudest of in my entire self is my mind and my memory. Testing high on the “Bell Curve” of the intelligence test has given me a verification that “I’m smart.” Not just an opinion about my intellectual ability, but an actual objective piece of data. That always felt good. I generally made good grades in school and was at the top of my class if I even gave a modest effort to succeed in school, or in my job. That gave me a bit of pride, though I did realize that this was nothing I had done for myself or achieved for myself, but was a God-given attribute like my health and stature, it was more the result of my genetic make up than anything I did or didn’t do.
After my husband’s death in a tragic accident, to which I was a witness, I lost my mind. I lost my ability to remember things in minute detail. I panicked at realizing this, and even when my psychiatric physician and my therapist assured me that “it will get better, it won’t always be this bad,” I had great difficulty believing them. I was “not as good” as I previously was, forgetting many things, having holes in my memory for things I previously would have remembered without any effort. Finally, I complained about this so much that my therapist administered an IQ test, in which I still scored even a bit higher than I had ever scored previously. My mind is still good, and there is objective evidence of this. However, I know it doesn’t work the same as it did before the aircraft crash, before the ultimate stressor. I do have short term memory lapses, but that’s okay. I’m still me. I’m still smart, and what the heck does it really mean that my spelling has gone to hell, or that I can’t remember if I took the meat out to thaw for supper? Will the world end because of this? Does this mean I don’t have the intellect to make a rational or logical decision? Does this mean that I am “defective” and “no good” or “worthless” because I reach for a word, a simple word and can’t find it even though I can see the picture of a tree in my mind but can’t find that word? No, it doesn’t mean anything. I am still me. I still have a good mind, just different than before. I like my mind, my intellect, my ability to problem solve and even though it makes new learning more of a challenge, I still grasp large concepts, though I may no longer easily remember the name of the author. I have a good mind. I have a good intellect. I still like my brain even though it isn’t the same as before.
My “heart” both figuratively and physically, I like both of them. My physical heart has beaten well and steadily for 63 years now, and my physician has tested it and declared it a healthy heart. I depend on it to keep on beating well for more years into the future. I’ve tried to be good to it, by getting exercise and though I have mistreated it by smoking, I have decided to stop doing things that will injure my good heart, so I have stopped smoking cigarettes. I eat a “heart healthy” diet low in bad fat and other things that might damage it. I am happy with my heart.
My emotional “heart” is also something that I like. It is a compassionate heart and empathetic to others in pain. It is a generous heart, and one that will share the blessings of life that it has with others. In the past, my emotional heart has sometimes given too much to others and not enough to itself or to me, so I have talked to this heart and discussed a way that it can still be a generous and compassionate heart, but to also care for itself first. If my emotional heart gives all the blessings to someone else, it will not survive, so my emotional heart has learned to care for my body and itself first, so that I may continue to share with others. I like that about my emotional heart. My emotional heart is a good heart.
Looking over my body, mind and emotional heart piece by piece, I find that I like each individual unit just as it is. It isn’t perfect, it isn’t young any more, but it has matured with some grace and in many ways is far superior over all to the body, mind and emotional heart I had as a youngster. The packaging may be a bit wrinkled, but I wouldn’t change my body for anyone else’s, and I wouldn’t give up the maturity that I have gained with life and living.
So, I have found a way to learn to love myself, one part at a time, to enjoy living within the skin that protects me from the elements, and to savor the good parts of myself. I’m learning to love myself in a positive way rather than just chanting “affirmations” that are so vague and positive but have no real substance to my inner spirit who dwells in this mortal temple. I like my temple, I like my body, I like myself. I’m unique to me. I’m special. I’m one-of-a-kind, and I’m okay!
Sharing the Journey,
Thank you…I’m glad I’ve met you too.
I understand when you say you were more interested in optimizing potential. In social work it’s the ‘strengths perspective’. I would focus on the strengths (this is where change can happen) and the weaknesses were risk factors – but that was in work. I wasn’t able to take that into my own life…well, I would in a very imbalanced way – see the strengths and ignore or deny the weaknesses….or as I understand them now – “red flags”.
Despite being such a painful journey to get to this point…it does make people watching a lot more interesting.
You said he was so caring and catered to my every whim..that he became your dream guy…and then he set a ‘plan in motion’.
My turning point in healing came when I realized that the love bombing of the first 4 or 5 months……he was mirroring exactly what I wanted in a love relationship. So those first few wonderful months were him creating my dream by anticipating and catering to what my dream was. Yes, he because my dream lover.
I remember telling my counsellor – way before understanding the spath connection – that 95% of the relationship sucked, but that 5% was incredible…and it was the 5% that I was there for (hooked on).
So I got some insight – after reading your post above and a few others – about the love and how many of us say we’ll never love again. In my case…I still can’t trust it could be real (because that one was all lies). BUT then I think was OUR LOVE and OUR CAPACITY for love that they were mirroring back at us. It doesn’t exist in them, but it is part of us. They have to mirror it back because they don’t have it or the capacity for it. And, because they don’t and because they are spaths it is done in a calculated way. We were studied, that’s for sure.
Perhaps the cruelty begins when they realize the can’t feel it and so they try destroy us who have it.
Anyways, that gives me a good feeling – to know that I loved in such an incredible way…(because I witnessed it – it was mirrored back at me – and although that person was a liar – the love mirrored back was mine)…..and that that love can embrace myself and others ..and my child…and my pets…it is infinite.
So I guess, out of the ashes, I’ve learned that I am an authentic human being with an awesome capacity for love.
I’d guess that as your process more through your dreams that he will be in them less and less. In my experience, that’s happened. I used to have similar dreams – he’d come back and so on. I noticed that even though when I was awake the raw emotion was still there – the grief etc. I was a bit smarter and more wary in my dreams (eventually). Anyways, for myself, I call them ‘processing dreams” – I processing stuff that comes up – in a safe place. I do find it intriguing that i can remember so many of these dreams….darwinsmom?
As to the counselling, I’m pretty sure it is a therapeutic method, but I don’t remember what it might be called. I was resistant at all because it felt a bit silly – I wanted to talk! He’d have me put my feet on the floor (sitting in a chair) without legs crossed (grounding) and my hands wherever it was comfortable. Mostly at first I’d clasp them together on my lap and ‘wring’ them.
He’d have me calm myself through breathing and as I became more focussed (on what my body was feeling) he’d ask me things..where do you feel something…what does it look like…what colour is it…and so on. Generally we moved through the body because the feeling would move.
It was through this that I discovered the ‘excitement’ I thought I felt – kinda of like butterflies in my tummy – was in reality strong anxiety. For example, when I heard his motorcycle drive up. It was very clear later on after he left and it took 3 or 4 months before the ‘butterflies’ stopped when a neighbour rode by on a bike.
Yes, we stuff the emotions in and discount what we are feeling and I guess after a while we no longer can identify them.
Another issue I had/have and you may recognize as I wonder if it part of the INFP…is difficulty with emotional boundaries. Over the years, several times I have been called a ‘sensitive’ (not in the Meyers Briggs sense). I should have asked for more info back then.
My best example is I was at home on the computer and watching tv. I’d had a good day and was feeling fine. My teenage son came in and he was grumpy. He didn’t say anything but just slumped down on the couch. I slowly became aware that I was feeling bleak and depressed and panicky. ?
Thankfully, I realized that I was absorbing his emotions – he was feeling bleak and depressed and panicky, no me. Whew.
I’ve only really understood this for the last year and so am more aware when it isn’t my stuff ‘in the air’ 🙂 But I’d gone 48 years not understanding this or how it affected me and my decisions etc.
As to guilt and shame. Difficult and I struggle with both. My ex was a ‘shame-dumper’. One very compassionate woman said to me after I’d shared some guilt I was dealing with “And how is that working for you?”. In the context of what I was telling her, it was totally appropriate and helpful.
My ex would often accuse me of things I hadn’t done or said and I remember telling a friend that I thought he’d mixed me up with one of his ex’s. Oh yeah. Not near as devastating as your saying your daughters names as he raped you…but perhaps very indicative that the mask is slipping….he’s mixing up his ‘objects’.
As to getting back our dreams. Sometimes I feel he’s tainted my dreams, but I also realize that what my dream with him was was something I’d put out and he’d mirrored back. It was only one-dimensional. The was no other person in it – just the liar. So maybe, I hope in the future, my dreams will also be part of another’s dreams and be, if less ideal, then more real and growing.
I don’t know. I felt great relief when I realized it was all a lie.
It was the only thing that made any of it make sense.
Now that I finally see that was what I experienced, I can focus on learning to detect the lies and protect myself. I still feel very vulnerable.
I was messing around on google maps and brought up the address of my old home and was surprised to see my car in the driveway – then I noted that they’d updated August 2009 – the month he left – that horrid, lost month. I didn’t grieve him, but I did grieve, for a bit, those lost years and missed opportunity I had in that home.
Shelley
Shelley,
About remembering the dreams: I think you must have woken up at some point enough to have the short term memory working again, but not long enough awake for you to remember being awake. People who keep dream diaries often go to bed with the intention to wake up after a dream, write it down and then fall asleep again. But afterwards you only vaguely remember being awake, if at all. I don’t keep a journal, but when a dream is very important and needs some active processing outside of sleep, I’ll wake up for a moment. With some, I even have a stark, strong wake-up response. I’ll be having a vocal response about the dream as I wake up even. REM sleep is the closest to the awake state in sleep pattern. Non-REM sleep is much deeper, and very difficult to wake from. If you do get woken up during non-REM, you’ll feel kinda like coming from some drunken sleep.
Interesting therapy. In the meditations I did with my friends for about 7 years, we used the chakra system to ‘travel’ through whatever was going on. Whether or not, chakras exist was beside the point of its usefulness. It helped me to at least connotate emotions to sensations in my body. If I feel anger or hurt I tend to check where I sense something in my body, because it’ll help me identify whether it’s ego related (solar), basic emotion (abdomen), or my higher self (heart and above). A month or so before the discarding I did a meditation once and I was unable to go beyond the root. I was in a forest, but it was a total mess there: the forest had become a dumpster of garbage, including leaking oil vats. And I was sent back from it with the clear message in my mind “clean the mess up”. Now I think my knee injury is not a coincidence: I literally had no ability to support myself in several ways, including my knee. Months later a lot of the garbage had been cleared. At least I managed to get to the emotional level, but that was a rotting swamp with decay and death (kinda like in Lords of The Rings)… that’s when I felt such a loser, the past summer. I started to heal that part by doing several creative projects. Our basic emotions also relate to our capability to fantasise and be creative. So being actively creative was my way to get my basic emotional life liven up again. Bringing order into my life again was a tactic to heal the ego-related issues. I still need to work on that though. The physic’s studies are directly having a brain impact. I can feel my brain making shifts and fire up to comprehend the concepts. Studying kinda feels like meditation for me now. I’ll probably have to redo my last exam, because I hadn’t divulged enough of the course to do it as well as neeed to be. Actually, I needed only one week more. I kept on studying it after the exam, so that at least for my re-do (2nd chance exam) in September/August I only need to repeat it, rather than reshape my comprehension. Once I was at the right stage (thus a couple of days AFTER the exam) I started to realize this math course was at a level where I should be able to abstrahate so much into formula’s that I have the tools to formulate a law in math language by myself. I did comprehend the course for the exam, but the formulating shift was not completed yet, and I just mixed up all the symbols at the time. Now, I feel that the meaning of those symbols is less abstract for me (I’ve actually been using them in dreams the past 2 weeks). Anyhow, I know that studying is healing my brain on 3rd eye level, and therefore my judgement and my abilities to judge.
And yes, I’ve come to realize recently that as adults we seem to mistake anxiety for attraction. I think that because in our teens, when we crushed on someone, it also built an anxiety. Hence heavy attraction and anxiety got to be associated on an emotional level to us. And I suspect that when we feel anxiety about someone intuitively for no conscous reason, we’llrationalize it away as ‘attraction’.
Katydid,
Yes, it is crucial to know what we can be faulted with and not. We can’t be faulted to have loved a mask that was designed to match our needs. I’m not ashamed of the fact that I fell in love for the faked acts of caring, kindness, warmth, and a feeling of being understood (or the attempt of it). I don’t think those are impossible fantasies. Perhaps not in the ‘perfect’ degree of the mask. But I’m sure there are decent men out there, even some still single, for similar reasons that I still am.
STJ,
Lol, yup Darwin is my cat. I don’t see him as my child in a human sense… but he’s dependent of me, and I’m responsible of him, to provide and care for him. And the best way to get a cat bonded and do as you want him or her to do is by being the cat-mom (since they don’t have pack leaders). Normally the only period cats belong to a pack is when they’re in the nest and mommy is the boss. So that is what I ascribe as my role in Darwin’s life, especially because he missed out on some of his natural growing-up training when his mom disappeared after they were put out on the street and the tomcat functioned as surrogate mom by providing food for the nest. 😀
Shelley
I think part of being an INFP is our emotional sensitivity. I too can pick up on others emotions and also atmospheres. I could go into say a pub-pick up instantly an aggressive tone and leave straight away. Vica Versa if it was a good vibe. My emotional bounderies were so blurred that I could actually feel someone elses pain.
Google Highly sensitive person and you will find that INFP’s are frequently amongst this lot.
I did a counseling course one year and I found tips to help me seperate my emotional bounderies from others. This particular class was called ‘own your own shit’ by the faculty for fun.
We were put into pairs and were told to tell each other a story that was emotional but not devastating. One was to listen and guess the feelings of the speaker. Before the class we were given a long list of feelings to study. I didn’t even know that there were so many.
We were told whatever you do don’t get the feeling wrong. If in doubt leave it out. I felt so much pressure but it enabled me to really focus on what the speaker was saying. I became so engrossed in trying to capture the feeling in the other and getting it right-that I forgot my own feelings. In this training class they were being trained to detach and it worked. Of course it needs practice.
I became quite trumphant when I got adept at spotting a feeling even at home -as I practiced inwardly. It really helped me manage the difficult teenage years with my kids and I never got overwhelmed and the kids felt really understood. I could then help in practical ways-run a bath for them or ecvenjust a wee cup of tea and lend an ear.
And yes-during training I DID get some feelings wrong. I was quite amazed at how it affected the speaker. You could visibly see them slump in defeat or withdraw from you it was that powerful.
But the main thing was that it seperated my emotional reactions from theirs and it made me calm.
People watching has definately took on a new dimension. Before I would have said that my sister was an ESFP with an alcahol problem that made her violent. Now I see HPD in regards to her. She has all the traits and a lot of things make sense that I could not make sense of before.
My ex H P tainted all of my memories of him and my family life of 22 years by his big reveal when the mask came off.
I too struggle with the thoughts that these were wasted years of my life. I am 50.
I am also coming to the realisation that the whole relationship was based on calculation and studying me. Makes me shudder. He thinks he KNOWS me–he thought he had me down to a tee. And for a time it seemed that way. But I now realise that I was stronger than even he had imagined underneath my -yes -gentle nature. He touched my kids. And that was his biggest mistake.
So never underestimate your INFPness- it can perform where others may have failed. He just couldn’t control me-no matter how much he tortured me.
Thanks for the excercise-I will practice it. Every little bit helps.
Take care Shelley and keep posting-I feel I know you. Does that make sense?
Darwinsmon
My youngest is 14 and is Millies our young cat’s mum. She picked her up by the neck from the moment we got her and carried her around like that. She used to do it with her teeth in the beginning and cradling her.
I would cringe as it looked painful-but you should have heard the purrs from Millie. She was totally secure. She still does it but holds her weight whilst doing so. It looks awful-but Millie just slumps straight into a really relaxed position. She will let my daughter do anything with her. Totally fearless.
I get so much fun from my animals.
Take care fellow cat lover.
STJ
XXX
P.S.
Feel so guilty not mentioning my wee black dog. She is my best bud and keeps my feet warm at night.
STJ
xxx
Cats cannot resist the reflex behaviour when they’re being taken by the scruffs. Only the parent does that. I used it as a tactic on a passive aggressie cat staying at a friends for a couple of weeks. It hid under a cupboard all the tme but rumbling whenever someone even passed. I did use gloves and he left me a tiny puncture scar in my hand nonetheless, but I chased him from under the cupboard, grabbed him by the scruffs and counted 10, not etting go, not even when he bit me. Let him go when I reached 10. He hid in the kitchen, I’d enter and go out again avoiding eye contact. He bloomed open after that to my friend and her boys. And when next I visited he was stroaking my legs with his head. The real owner didn’t recognize him even (he’d always been like that before… no wonder: she petted him in the idea to calm him down, but in fact rewarded his passive aggressie behaviour)
The high sensitivity (and I use this term in the same way you do) has more to do with the other 3 dichotomies: intuition, feeling and perception. I think the difference between extraverts and introverts is important to realize how to deal with the easily picked up impressions. When I’m overwhelmed by picking up data, I need to distract myself and do something active (like cleaning the house). That’s when I usually have a flash in the pan insight.
darwinsmom
That’s what I do to and cleaning becomes a sort of therapy. I also get a lot done which is not my usual mode. Always joke that I wasn’t born with the clean gene.
By doing this my home is quite pleasant to sit in LOL
Might try that on our older cat. She has become very moody since Millie arrived and can sometimes lash out.
Thanks Darwinsmom
STJ
xxx
appropo of nothing (although 1,2,4,5,6 and 12 have some application here):
1. Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.
2. The last thing I want to do is hurt you. But it’s still on my list.
3. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
4. If I agreed with you we’d both be wrong.
5. We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
6. War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
7. Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
8. Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good Evening’ and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.
9. A bus station is where a bus stops. A train station is where a train stops. On my desk, I have a work station.
10. I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.
11. Whenever I fill out an application, in the part that says ‘In case of emergency, notify ………..:’ I put ‘DOCTOR.’
12. I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
13. A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.
14. I asked God for a bike, but I know God doesn’t work that way. So I stole a bike and asked for forgiveness.
15. You do not need a parachute to skydive. You only need a parachute to skydive twice.
16. You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
17. To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
18. Change is inevitable except from a vending machine.
19. Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
20. A diplomat is someone who tells you to go to hell in such a way that you look forward to the trip.
21. Hospitality is making your guests feel at home even when you wish they were.
22. I always take life with a grain of salt, …. plus a slice of lemon and a shot of tequila.
23. Words of Wisdom “The early bird may get the worm but it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.”
One,
😆
one,
Several of those were really, really funny! Tnx