Dropping my shield

[flowboy]

TL;DR: after much introspection, I conclude that I am preventing true intimacy to occur, because I habitually present an overly sunny version of myself.

Q: Has this happened to anyone else? Is this a real thing, does it work like this? What did you do about it? Can you fix this with conscious effort?

 

The girl I'm seeing I think is totally awesome, and I'm pretty sure she likes me a lot too. I had already decided in my mind that if I were to take 'the next step' with someone, she would be the one. Meaning, committing to a relationship.

But there's something missing. I think it is a certain level of vulnerability, knowing and loving the human sides of each other. If I ask myself: why do I want it to be a 'real' relationship, the answer is that I am longing for a deep level of intimacy, where the other person knows all your flaws and insecurities and weird corners of your mind.

Probably a big part of that is because I haven't been sharing in a truly vulnerable way. I have talked to her about my past insecurities, but presented it in a way where everything is awesome now. Yes, I used to have depression, yes I used to have ADD, yes I used to be aimless in life, but everything is awesome now, I know where I'm going and nothing is wrong.

Way to put up a shield.

I did this because I'm intimidated by her accomplishments, and don't want her to see me as 'beneath her level'.

Wow.

And she does the same thing around me, too, for example when she discusses the recent death of her friend, but she's not comfortable being sad around me.

So this pattern is mirroring itself in both of us, and if we want true intimacy, we have to break that pattern.

Because I want to be able to see through her, in her vulnerability, and hold space and hug her.

Just not in a codependent way where you need each other.

I think I'm so afraid of ending up in a codependent pattern with neediness and clinginess, that I'm throwing out the baby with the bath water and not showing my insecurities and negative emotions hardly at all. I do try, I talk about losing a friend, for example. But then I feel the compulsion to immediately end the story on a positive note and move on quickly. So as not to make her feel like I need her to comfort me.

Where is the line?

Edited November 19, 2020 by flowboy

[Leo Gura]

I sound like a broken record, but psychedelics can fix that pretty quick.

Also, you can be intimate without necessarily dredging up old traumas and things. Not sure why you're so eager to go into that. I mean, she's not your therapist. She doesn't need to know every weakness you had in the past.

It's almost like you're trying to build negative intimacy when you could just focus on building positive intimacy.

If everything is awesome now, what's the point of delving back into the past?

[flowboy]

We did set the intention to take acid together when we have time, so guess that won't hurt

[Preety_India]

Yes yes. You absolutely must drop this. 

Being vulnerable is the key to getting deeper with your intimacy in the relationship.

Let me tell you what's going on with you. It's the fear of judgement combined with insecurities that are holding you back from being vulnerable.. 

But an honest question for you. That you must answer honestly. 

Do you judge yourself for whatever happened in your life so far? 

If the answer is no, it's much easier for you to let go and work on your fears and Insecurities 

If your answer is yes, then you need to give a hard look at how you perceive yourself and work on accepting who you are for what you are before you can expect others to do the same. 

Often times when we judge others, we are also judging those same aspects within ourselves. This is not good and  judgement never resolves anything and creates incredible frustration. 

One thing I can suggest you is to sit down with your partner and completely open up each and detail of your life. First start with the more shallow little frivolous details. After a few days keep adding more information. Keep going deeper gradually. 

This way you're gradually exposing yourself. over time you will be perfectly comfortable with exposing more of yourself. 

During these sessions both you and your partner should be completely silent after each other's admissions and simply hug each other and get back to work. 

Let me know how these sessions work for both of you. 

one word of caution here. Please tell your partner beforehand that she must absolutely be non judgemental and fully appreciate your openness honesty and vulnerability and you do the same when she opens up honestly. Or else this experiment will fail and create more fears and separations. 

So make sure this condition is fulfilled. 

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Preety_India

[flowboy]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I sound like a broken record, but psychedelics can fix that pretty quick.

Also, you can be intimate without necessarily dredging up old traumas and things. Not sure why you're so eager to go into that. I mean, she's not your therapist. She doesn't need to know every weakness you had in the past.

It's almost like you're trying to build negative intimacy when you could just focus on building positive intimacy.

If everything is awesome now, what's the point of delving back into the past?

Interesting.

Why am I so eager to go into that? I'm not, really, I'm just guessing that maybe I should.

She has such an amazing list of accomplishments to her name that I feel shame and unworthiness about being a 'late bloomer'.

When I'm with my friends, I am not judging myself for my messy past (anymore), and both me and them are proud of what I have become.

When I'm with her, it's like we both talk about positive stuff, present the sunny side of everything, have sex, and eat food, and it doesn't feel as intimate as I remember things being from my past relationships. Those past relationships were full of codependence and neediness, though. So this could just be me not being used to a different kind of relationship.

I certainly don't want her to be my therapist. But I think I should feel free to share with her what I'm thinking, even if it is about an insecurity I currently have. I just don't need her to resolve it for me. But the being free to share whatever is on our minds with no filter is important to me. Should you, in a healthy relationship? I'm in doubt now.

[Preety_India]

3 minutes ago, flowboy said:

But I think I should feel free to share with her what I'm thinking, even if it is about an insecurity I currently have.

You should absolutely share it. 

It's best to not hold it back and let it simmer inside you. Best to throw it out of your system by letting it out. 

This release will make you feel better and peaceful and finish all your doubts and worries once and for all. It will feel like a release and you'll feel very renewed. 

I'm sure you'd be absolutely happy that you removed this nagging insecurity out from your system. Otherwise it starts eating up the person from within  

Healing lies in openly venting all fears and problems and doubts and Insecurities and coming to a point of closure. 

Hope this helps. 

 

 

 

[Leo Gura]

17 minutes ago, flowboy said:

But the being free to share whatever is on our minds with no filter is important to me. Should you, in a healthy relationship?

So do it then.

Sounds like you got low self-esteem issues.

You gotta be the prize in the relationship. Not her the prize. You are falling into the classic trap of making her the prize. This is because you gotta work more on yourself, strengthen yourself until you feel like you are the coolest person in the world. Who you are as a man should be more important than any of her accomplishments.

What kind of man worries about his woman out-accomplishing him. Come on! That's a weak-ass attitude. Own your manhood. Being a man is not necessarily about who you are, but who you're destined to become. See yourself as a lion!

[flowboy]

@Preety_India Thank you for your responses. It does help. I'm still planning to feel it out a bit, just going a bit at a time. If and when it feels right, I will try your exercise and let you know how it went.

[Preety_India]

@flowboy Sure. I'm glad. Take your own time, take it slow and nothing to worry. 

 

[flowboy]

18 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

So do it then.

Sounds like you got low self-esteem issues.

You gotta be the prize in the relationship. Not her the prize. You are falling into the classic trap of making her the prize. This is because you gotta work more on yourself, strengthen yourself until you feel like you are the coolest person in the world. Who you are as a man should be more important than any of her accomplishments.

What kind of man worries about his woman out-accomplishing him. Come on! That's a weak-ass attitude. Own your manhood. Being a man is not necessarily about who you are, but who you're destined to become. See yourself as a lion!

@Leo Gura Yikes, that's a wake-up call. I assumed that all my self-esteem issues were gone. Guess not!

I'm with you. What kind of work do you suggest I do to fix this? I'm already doing with my life what I should, pursuing my vision, which is pretty detailed and I read every day. I suppose I'm proud of where I'm going but slightly ashamed of where I am.

[tsuki]

In case you're thinking that speaking about your not-so-favorable past is a no-no, let me present you with a counter-perspective. She will trigger you. You will trigger her. You will fight. She will fight. Without getting to the bottom of why you're incompatible (because all real relationships will inevitably show that), you will not know how to navigate your traumas. Compromises and conscious, loving, attention to the other's brokenness will have to be made. Acceptance of irredeemably irrational and self-destructive coping mechanisms will have to occur. And in the end, you will have to decide to help each other out and turn the blind eye to the other's (hopefully occasional) toxicity.

You will BOTH have to commit to do that. Simultaneously. Commit and coordinate that for the rest of your life in ever-changing circumstances, oftentimes out of your control.

Having the shield up won't cut it. You need the sword up and pointing outwards, with her doing the same to have your back.

Good luck!

Edited November 19, 2020 by tsuki

[Origins]

@flowboy This one is super, super simple.

You just gotta talk more. 

About everything. 

Until it becomes annoying, then you start to find out each others weak points in the relationships and through that process learn how to either navigate through them or... The relationship simply ends.

That's what I'm like. I'm straight down the line, I want to learn everything about a potential partner and I want them to learn everything about me and even if I do put up a shield to begin with I'll purposefully create conversational opportunities to test that further and further before the spine snaps back into place so to speak. 

You can't know the plane's gonna fly if you don't stress test, you can't trust the pilot you never met even if they say they've done thousands of miles, ask him directly, "why are you feeling jittery?", not in a mean way of course, just in a very understanding way, either he'll survive the stress test or he will eventually reveal to me either by micro expressions or directly that he's got a caffeine addiction that could affect his flying, he lost someone close to him recently, he just had an argument with his wife and he's worried she's going to ask for a divorce, and so on and so fourth.

We can easily set ourselves up to become disempowered and too afraid to lose someone, instead I focus more on fearing having a relationship not built on a strong foundation. That's how you get to a deep level of trust as quickly and as deeply as possible, otherwise you'll analogously speaking never even ask the girl out that you've always liked in primary school for example, instead you just say hi awkwardly when around her. We can get the same in relationships as well, the question we need to ask ourselves is "am I trying to keep this person in my life or am I trying to have a relationship that is mutually beneficial?", if its the former, its so easy for us to be more selfish as well, if its the latter we're also thinking about the other person, letting them learn about us as soon as possible about a range of different things by being really forward about various topics to talk about.

That's how I approach things, my personality is very direct, I get it that its different for other people and if I were in a relationship with someone that was different to that tendency this would be perfectly fine, like maybe they're super sensitive perhaps even neurotic about various things and this would be okay I'd even be highly supportive where I could (because if I'm interested in her it means she's high quality and worth the investment), my goal would be to just discover enough truth signals that I know I can feel comfortable around her and she can feel comfortable around me.

Communication forces a person to be either more towards their authenticity or inauthenticity and the more sincere conversational opportunities you engage in the more you both will be forced to discover the truth of that and either build your relationship and therefore dropping the shield and opening up to something greater between you, creating further distance between you both or a bit of both. It takes a lot of emotional intelligence to workout just how much you want to be going with something like that, my advice is to make sure you know why you're in the relationship and what you want to build long term and how you think you both can be a part of creating that together for the benefit of both of you.

Peace out and all the best 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Origins

[Preety_India]

15 minutes ago, flowboy said:

@Leo Gura Yikes, that's a wake-up call. I assumed that all my self-esteem issues were gone. Guess not!

I'm with you. What kind of work do you suggest I do to fix this? I'm already doing with my life what I should, pursuing my vision, which is pretty detailed and I read every day. I suppose I'm proud of where I'm going but slightly ashamed of where I am.

Simple. See yourself as a lion. You should be more than proud of her accomplishments. After all you got yourself a wonderful partner, as much as she is admired, people will admire you as well for loving a woman like her. 

Always use your fears and negative emotions as a driver to motivate yourself to dream big, achieve big. It's completely okay if you feel ashamed but don't live with it, let it inspire you to move forward and make good of your opportunities. You can always look back at how far you have come. 

Remember what you are now is not your final version. Youre a work in progress. Cherish that. 

Cherish all your little baby steps every day and be nothing less than proud of yourself. 

Right now the only person holding you back from feeling great about yourself is you. So take yourself out of your own way and dream big. Don't let your thoughts control you. You take charge and tell yourself that you are more worthy than you think. 

 

[flowboy]

@Origins  Thank you for taking the time to write that. I found it inspiring and clarifying.

[flowboy]

1 hour ago, tsuki said:

In case you're thinking that speaking about your not-so-favorable past is a no-no, let me present you with a counter-perspective. She will trigger you. You will trigger her. You will fight. She will fight. Without getting to the bottom of why you're incompatible (because all real relationships will inevitably show that), you will not know how to navigate your traumas. Compromises and conscious, loving, attention to the other's brokenness will have to be made. Acceptance of irredeemably irrational and self-destructive coping mechanisms will have to occur. And in the end, you will have to decide to help each other out and turn the blind eye to the other's (hopefully occasional) toxicity.

You will BOTH have to commit to do that. Simultaneously. Commit and coordinate that for the rest of your life in ever-changing circumstances, oftentimes out of your control.

Having the shield up won't cut it. You need the sword up and pointing outwards, with her doing the same to have your back.

Good luck!

Beautiful. Lots to contemplate there. Thank you.

[Origins]

@flowboy No problem at all I'm a fast typer anyhow glad to say something that helps!

Best!

[flowboy]

For the people interested in how it played out:

 

I invited her over. I started basically right away to explain to her that I felt we had been showing each other only the sunny side of everything, only allowing the other to see the successes, but not the struggles. And that there was a whole part of my life that I sometimes feel ashamed about, especially around people who seemingly haven't had such problems (like her). And that I'm working on loving everything about me, also my history, but that I'm not there yet. And that I don't want to hide that and be fake anymore, because I want to build a connection where we know each other deeply.

Then she interrupted me to say that she was planning to have the exact same talk with me that day.

Turns out, we both had been assuming that the other wanted only to date and talk superficially. I saw some behaviors in her that made me think: maybe she's just in it to have sex with a hot guy and entertain herself. She thought the same about me.

But actually we just had been mirroring each other all this time! And really, we both want to build a deep connection with one person.

It was unreal how much in sync we were.

Then we shared openly about our lives. Turns out she had very similar struggles as I did: being almost burnt out, brain not working properly at a job she used to be great at, feeling like a fraud, pretending to work whilst secretly being unable to be productive, feeling guilt and doubt whether we "still got it". Exactly the stuff I have been bitching about on my journal!

I felt my heart opening and am so much more excited to be near her, now that she's a human.

Thank you guys for your advice.

[loub]

Glad to hear it worked out. Throughout the thread I just kept thinking of this song, perhaps it speaks to you its the best Depeche Mode song that they didn't even make