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.

 

.

The difference between

a dragon

and a problem

is as follows:

.

We are able to see

problems as problems

— things external,

things outside us,

things out in the world

that somehow hurt us.

.

But when we take

inappropriate

responsibility

for a problem —

convince ourselves

This is my fault —

then it becomes

a dragon.

.

Thus every dragon

is hatched from

a misunderstanding

of what’s hurting us.

.

And then, instead of

applying attention

and energy

and courage

to solving

the problem,

we invite the dragon

to chew on us.

.

And it does.

.

Often for a lifetime.

.

And the

chewing

distracts us

from ever

solving

the problem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a theory I’d like to share with you.

It’s about dragons.

Everyone has one.

Your dragon is the central problem of your life.

It creates most of the pain, fear and confusion you carry.

It also defines you, creates your identity.

You spend most of your time, energy and courage fighting this dragon.

Often without realizing it.

Often mistaking the dragon for some flaw in yourself.

But it’s not you.

It’s your dragon.

Everyone has one.

Everyone.

There is no shame in this.

In fact, recognizing your dragon is an important step toward awareness and healing.

Also a form of self-validation.

Instead of thinking of yourself as weak or inadequate or broken, you tell yourself,

This is difficult because this is my dragon.

Everyone has a dragon.

As a therapist, I know this to be true.

Dragons are what bring people into therapy.

Though they usually don’t recognize this at the time.

The first session with a new client usually introduces me to their dragon.

Sometimes it’s how they were parented.

Sometimes it’s the dysfunctional environment they survived as a child.

Sometimes it’s the aftereffects of some trauma or abuse.

Sometimes it’s an addiction.

Sometimes a chronic illness.

Sometimes a devastating relationship failure.

What all dragons have in common is that, initially, we can’t see them as dragons.

We can experience them only as flaws in our self.

There must be something wrong with me, we think, for me to feel this bad.

No.

You feel bad because you’re being chewed on by a dragon.

And the proper response is not guilt or shame or self-blame.

That only makes you weaker.

The proper response is to pick up a sword and fight back.