ThunderMaverick
Master Don Juan
- Joined
- Mar 19, 2004
- Messages
- 1,946
- Reaction score
- 70
- Age
- 42
The following was not written by me. If I were a more productive man (and much more eloquent with words) I would have written something uncannily similar.
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Trust is the foundation for everything that matters. You can only be intimate to the degree that you can make yourself vulnerable to anther person. You can only make yourself vulnerable to the degree that you feel safe. And you can only feel safe to the degree that you can trust.
With my true love, Anne, my wife and beloved partner, I've learned that being totally trusting and totally trustworthy is the most liberating way to live. In trust, all degrees of freedom are present and all possibilities exist. Our recurring mantra has been: Yet again like never before. We have experiences that are familiar because we're having them with the same people, but they're completely different because many degrees of freedom are possible when you have complete trust in another person. It all comes back to the sense of intimacy that complete trust makes possible.
Intimacy is healing. The root of the word healing is to make whole. We are clean mirrors for each other. We stay on track and get back on track quickly when we hold that mirror up to the other person in a clean and non-judgmental way, so they can see themselves again as a whole person. This process becomes part of our growth and creates even more trust. We reach a certain level of trust and intimacy; then we go to the next level, where the trust and intimacy is even greater, where the joy is even greater, and that makes us want to go to the next level. Because of that commitment, I am totally trusting and totally trustworthy. Because I am trustworthy, I love myself more. The more I love myself, the more love I have to give to Anne and to others, and the more I model and embody what I teach. It becomes self-reinforcing over time.
People think they have to choose between being vulnerable and weak and being strong and well-off, but walls that protect us also isolate us. It's important to have defenses, but if they're always up, then those same defenses that are designed to protect us isolate us, and if they isolate us, they actually make us more likely to get hurt and more likely to get sick and die prematurely. Ironically, then, the very thing we think protects us harms us.
Vulnerability emerging from strength and confidence allows us to choose to let people into our life. To the degree that we do, life is so much more beautiful, joyful, meaningful, and fun.
-Dr. Dean Ornish
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I think a lot of people who start to get to know me mistake my honesty for conceit. In actuality it's me talking to you with open and complete trust --I give everyone I meet the benefit of the doubt that they will treat me with the same openness and kindness that I try to show them...it's me not hiding who I am and not playing a representation of myself, like a lot of people who have come and gone in my life have done.
I'm not going to pretend to be stronger than I think I am. I know my strengths and weaknesses and even from the start of getting to know me I drop obvious hints at that. One time I got a bit defensive with this person I met at work. Good looking guy. Actor. Nice smile. Sometimes I get guys who will think I'm trying to be an Alpha male and make attempts to emasculate me or make me look stupid in front of others (I can make myself look stupid all by myself, thank you very much!)
Anyhoo after 30 minutes of just meeting him makes a joke about me and I say "man, why do some guys always try to 'alpha' me?" He seems kinda confused and says "I'm not trying to do that. I just made that joke because of the way you talk and carry yourself."
Me being MYSELF left me totally open, and he felt comfortable enough to make a few jokes. I didn't see it at the time. I checked myself and carried on.
No matter who comes into my life for whatever reason, no matter how many friendships fail or lovers disappear I have always been myself and I will always trust you if you want me to. (Don't mistake me for a sucker. My tolerance for bullsh!t and bullsh!t people who make a living on gossip and deceit get dropped with 0 respect or return from me. Trusting someone is so precious to me that it's like killing a kitten when you break it. I fu<king LOVE kittens.) and because I was myself I found others who I have been compatible with. The friends I've made through being me are truly my friends for life.
You can't learn to love and live if you don't have trust in life or in yourself. You are going to get hurt more likely than a couple of times.Growing callous and cynical towards potential friends and lovers because of previous disappointments is counter productive and sets the frame as YOU being the one with ulterior motives, always waiting to react with insecurity at the first sign of trouble.
Wisdom comes from accepting that people are people and you're not going to get along with everyone. You can't find the people who are compatible with you if you're not yourself, and you can't be yourself if you're always paranoid. And as I said above, when you're paranoid, you're unable to let intimacy in.
Snarf snarf.
-------------
Trust is the foundation for everything that matters. You can only be intimate to the degree that you can make yourself vulnerable to anther person. You can only make yourself vulnerable to the degree that you feel safe. And you can only feel safe to the degree that you can trust.
With my true love, Anne, my wife and beloved partner, I've learned that being totally trusting and totally trustworthy is the most liberating way to live. In trust, all degrees of freedom are present and all possibilities exist. Our recurring mantra has been: Yet again like never before. We have experiences that are familiar because we're having them with the same people, but they're completely different because many degrees of freedom are possible when you have complete trust in another person. It all comes back to the sense of intimacy that complete trust makes possible.
Intimacy is healing. The root of the word healing is to make whole. We are clean mirrors for each other. We stay on track and get back on track quickly when we hold that mirror up to the other person in a clean and non-judgmental way, so they can see themselves again as a whole person. This process becomes part of our growth and creates even more trust. We reach a certain level of trust and intimacy; then we go to the next level, where the trust and intimacy is even greater, where the joy is even greater, and that makes us want to go to the next level. Because of that commitment, I am totally trusting and totally trustworthy. Because I am trustworthy, I love myself more. The more I love myself, the more love I have to give to Anne and to others, and the more I model and embody what I teach. It becomes self-reinforcing over time.
People think they have to choose between being vulnerable and weak and being strong and well-off, but walls that protect us also isolate us. It's important to have defenses, but if they're always up, then those same defenses that are designed to protect us isolate us, and if they isolate us, they actually make us more likely to get hurt and more likely to get sick and die prematurely. Ironically, then, the very thing we think protects us harms us.
Vulnerability emerging from strength and confidence allows us to choose to let people into our life. To the degree that we do, life is so much more beautiful, joyful, meaningful, and fun.
-Dr. Dean Ornish
----------------------
I think a lot of people who start to get to know me mistake my honesty for conceit. In actuality it's me talking to you with open and complete trust --I give everyone I meet the benefit of the doubt that they will treat me with the same openness and kindness that I try to show them...it's me not hiding who I am and not playing a representation of myself, like a lot of people who have come and gone in my life have done.
I'm not going to pretend to be stronger than I think I am. I know my strengths and weaknesses and even from the start of getting to know me I drop obvious hints at that. One time I got a bit defensive with this person I met at work. Good looking guy. Actor. Nice smile. Sometimes I get guys who will think I'm trying to be an Alpha male and make attempts to emasculate me or make me look stupid in front of others (I can make myself look stupid all by myself, thank you very much!)
Anyhoo after 30 minutes of just meeting him makes a joke about me and I say "man, why do some guys always try to 'alpha' me?" He seems kinda confused and says "I'm not trying to do that. I just made that joke because of the way you talk and carry yourself."
Me being MYSELF left me totally open, and he felt comfortable enough to make a few jokes. I didn't see it at the time. I checked myself and carried on.
No matter who comes into my life for whatever reason, no matter how many friendships fail or lovers disappear I have always been myself and I will always trust you if you want me to. (Don't mistake me for a sucker. My tolerance for bullsh!t and bullsh!t people who make a living on gossip and deceit get dropped with 0 respect or return from me. Trusting someone is so precious to me that it's like killing a kitten when you break it. I fu<king LOVE kittens.) and because I was myself I found others who I have been compatible with. The friends I've made through being me are truly my friends for life.
You can't learn to love and live if you don't have trust in life or in yourself. You are going to get hurt more likely than a couple of times.Growing callous and cynical towards potential friends and lovers because of previous disappointments is counter productive and sets the frame as YOU being the one with ulterior motives, always waiting to react with insecurity at the first sign of trouble.
Wisdom comes from accepting that people are people and you're not going to get along with everyone. You can't find the people who are compatible with you if you're not yourself, and you can't be yourself if you're always paranoid. And as I said above, when you're paranoid, you're unable to let intimacy in.
Snarf snarf.