To protect me from you.

See, I know what you think of me.

Or at least, I think I know.

It feels like I know.

And it feels like you think

what I think of myself.

And what I think

is kind of awful.

I don’t like myself much.

So I assume you must secretly

not like me too.

And that sooner or later

your not-liking will surface,

and your criticisms

and judgement will hurt.

And that scares me.

So since I don’t want

to wait helplessly

for that hurt to happen,

I bring it on myself.

I judge myself before

you can.

And that hurts too,

but somehow less,

because now I’m not helpless.

I’m actively beating myself up.

And now you can’t surprise me

with your judgment or rejection,

since I’ve already judged

and rejected myself.

I admit, though,

I do wonder sometimes

if I’m wrong about you.

If you don’t see me

the way I see myself.

If maybe you’d be more

understanding,

or forgiving,

or compassionate

towards me than I am.

I wonder.

Maybe someday I’ll risk it.

Risk asking you what you really think.

Not today, though.

Today it still feels much too dangerous.

There, see?

What a coward I am.

(1) Attach great importance to your mistakes, failures and limitations.

(2) Conclude that they mean something is wrong with you.

(3) Feel guilty and/or ashamed of yourself.

(4) Decide that the way to feel less guilty and/or ashamed is to make no mistakes, avoid failure, and erase your limitations.

(5) Fail repeatedly at step 4.

(6) Punish yourself for step 5.

(7) Imagine that other people see you as you do.

(8) Assume that this puts you at risk for being criticized, judged, rejected and/or abandoned.

(9) Decide that it would be better to punish yourself for your flaws than be punished.

(10) Return to step 1 and repeat the cycle.

NEXT:

[3] Why I’m so hard on myself

NEXT:

[2] How to be hard on yourself

Because No is dangerous.

Because you want me to say Yes.

And I’m not sure what happens

if I don’t say what you want me to say.

I can’t believe you’d be okay with it.

I know you’ll be disappointed.

You might even be angry.

Or hate me.

Or reject me right there and then.

And it won’t matter if you tell me

No would be perfectly fine.

I’d still worry about punishment later.

Because when I was a kid

punishment always came later.

You disappointed people at your peril.

And I hated peril.

I hated feeling nervous and scared,

and like I lived on thin ice that could

easily give way.

So I learned Yes early.

So many Yesses since then I can’t count them.

But I’m sick and tired of Yesses.

So sick and tired I don’t even care

if the ice starts to crack,

and I fall into the cold water

of your disapproval.

Because I’m thinking,

fuck it,

time to learn how to swim.

Remember that

(1) saying No may disappoint someone,

and

(2) disappointing someone is dangerous,

because

(3) disappointment can lead to disagreement,

and

(4) disagreement can lead to conflict,

and

(5) conflict can lead to rejection or abandonment,

and

(6) you can’t tolerate rejection or abandonment,

because

(7) you need acceptance and approval from others

in order to

(8) accept and approve of yourself.

NEXT:

[3] Why I can’t say No

NEXT:

[2] How not to say No.

Available on Amazon:

Most men don’t feel like men at all. Secretly,

we feel like boys.

.

Drawing on more than thirty years of work

as a psychotherapist, Steve Hauptman explores

four emotional wounds that shape men’s lives:

the loss of connection with the feminine,

the loss of fathers and male community,

the suppression of emotional life, and the

sacrifice of personal freedom to conventional

ideas of manhood.

.

These wounds affect not only men. They shape

our relationships with women, our relationships

with other men, how we parent our children,

and the ways we understand ourselves.

.

Illustrated with a series of haunting original images,

The Four Wounds of Men is a brief, personal essay

about how men are wounded, how those wounds

are passed on—and what it might mean to

begin healing them.

.

This is not a program for becoming

a better man.

It is an invitation to understand the men

we already are.

.

Available here.

.

Can you help me?

.

I ask myself so many questions

I can’t decide which one

to write about next.

.

I also wonder which ones

you ask yourself.

.

Questions like

(a) Why can’t I say No?

(b) Why am I so hard on myself?

(c) Why do I need everyone to like me?

(d) Why do I feel stuck?

(e) Why do I feel guilty when I rest?

.

Which do you think I should write about?

.

Tell me in the comments.

.

Or, even better, tell me what question(s)

you’d like me to add.

.

Your answer will help me decide

what to worry about next.

.

Thanks.

Because it’s not safe to relax.

Or rather, because it wasn’t  safe to relax.

You know, back then.

Back when I was deciding whether the world

was safe or dangerous.

And whether you could trust the people around you

or not.

I had enough experiences of dangerous and not

to decide that I needed to stay alert.

And defended.

And tense.

And over time that just became my default position.

On some level, I stay tense all the time.

You wouldn’t notice.

I don’t even notice.

This just feels normal to me.

I only notice it when I try not to do it.

When I try to relax my mind and muscles

so I can rest.

And find it’s impossible.

And what’s really annoying

is watching others do what I can’t do.

Relax, play and laugh.

Especially when they say,

“Come on! Join us! Relax!”

And I can’t.

I try to smile and pretend,

but I can’t.

And inside I feel achingly sad,

because part of me knows

that another part is dreaming,

trapped in back then,

struggling to push past outdated fears

and find my way into

here and now. 

(1) Live in your head.

(2) Dwell on the past.

(3) Worry about the future.

(4) Pay more attention to what’s happening around you than what’s happening inside you.

(5) Imagine what others think about you.

(6) Punish yourself for mistakes.

(7) Hold grudges.

(8) Keep your feelings inside.

(9) Don’t take time off.

(10) Escape discomfort with screens.

(11) Fight the flow of events.

NEXT:

[3] Why I can’t relax

Next:

[2] How not to relax

(1) Define nice as “inoffensive to others,” and everything else as not nice.

(2) Believe you should always be nice.

(3) Go overboard doing nice things for other people.

(4) Never reject or express anger at anyone, no matter how badly they hurt you.

(5) Acknowledge negative feelings about yourself while suppressing negative feelings towards others.

(6) When problems arise in your relationship, assume you’re to blame.

(7) Convince yourself that if you stop being nice you will be ignored, rejected or somehow punished.

(8) Confuse guilt (the belief that you’re done something wrong) with anxiety (fear of another’s judgment or rejection).

(9) Use niceness to disguise what you really think and feel.

(10) Apologize automatically and unnecessarily.

Because at the time it felt safer.

Because what was done was done by people with power.

And I was powerless.

I could not fight back or escape.

I could not even protest.

If I tried to do any of those things, I’d get hurt.

So, for safety’s sake. I retreated.

I retreated inside myself.

I swallowed all my hurt.

My fear.

My anger.

And turned those feelings against myself.

Which, I’ve since learned, is what happens to

feelings you swallow.

They turn into poison.

And eat away at you.

They ate away at me by saying,

This is your fault.

You brought this on yourself.

The people hurting you say it’s your fault,

so it must be true.

So you better agree with them.

Accept their explanation.

If you do, maybe

they’ll hurt you less.

Guilt and shame felt safer than outrage.

So I put them on like armor.

And kept the outrage pushed down.

I see it differently now.

I see I had no choice.

I see the lies I told myself

so that I could survive.

And I am learning to forgive myself

for believing them.

The dragon’s mother is pain.

It’s pain — a hurtful event or situation — that incubates and drops the dragon egg.

The pain may be acute (a single experience, like an assault) or chronic (like living in a dysfunctional family).

The egg’s shell is a misreading of what caused the pain.

It’s this fundamental misreading (usually along the lines of This is my fault) that hatches the baby dragon.

The baby dragon itself is a mistaken conclusion, a lie we believe.

And that lie grows into an adult dragon big enough (though often invisible) to dominate your emotional life.

It does this by chewing on you (this is your fault, this is your fault) and littering your life with dragon shit.

The most common forms of dragon shit are guilt, shame, embarrassment, anxiety, and feelings of inadequacy.

So when you’re feeling shitty, look around for your dragon.