Letting go of past trauma that is negatively impacting my confidence

[inquisitor]

To keep it short, college was a terrible time in my life and it compounded in to me struggling career & life wise until like 30. I can’t unsee and undo what happened, so those memories, experiences, and consequences continue to haunt me and negatively affect my confidence. I’ve considered therapy, but I am pretty skeptical on that option. Anyone else can relate?

Read up on Rian Stone. I believe he agrees on faking it until you're making it.

Note that his advice works if you are truly capable of humility. Not humility to become arrogant, not humility as a bragging point, but humility because you are humble, and you are willing to learn more about anything in life, and that includes interacting with women.

 

[CornbreadFed]

Yeah... Being driven to a garrishly overpriced prep school in the family Rolls Royce each morning, while the kids on the other side of town have to rely on public school buses(Which may or may not show up)that cart them off to gang infested sh-tholes masquerading as places of erudition, is guaranteed to give just about anyone in your shoes PTSD

Every person’s reality is relative to their surroundings. Being concerned over what was happening in another different zip code made my life situation any better. People in Rolls Royces have completely different problems than people outside their tax bracket. This is why I find it cringe when people outside the wealthy try and make themselves relatable to the wealthy when they have more in common with the person living off food stamps.

From here we can still only infer, we don't know what was said at your company retreat that triggered the response you had. What I can tell you and just about almost everyone on this forum about Rich White Suburbia is this, you will never be a part of it. Even though you will never be a part of it doesn't mean you can't benefit from it. You can still get women from that crowd, make friends from that crowd, and get some of the same jobs they get but you won't fully be a part of it no matter what you do. You have to be born into it.

Even people born into it can easily not be a part of it. I was quite close to that crowd and backstabbing, gossip, and throwing someone under the bus is the name of the game. Even the people you see on the outside looking in as friends and one happy community are rarely that. The amount of times I have seen frat bros have a falling out over a girl is insane.

You just have to accept that if you haven't already and carve out your own niche.

Women wise I have accepted that I will never be the 6ft 4 white Chad dude and moved on from that. I used to only want to date the Sratty/Taylor Swift type white girl because I pedestalled the **** out of them. Yes, I managed to date them, but my dating life was full of gas lighting, inconsistency, and dry spells. After expanding my palette, I haven't really looked back at them and find it disturbing that I used to think like this. However, I did have to carve out my own niche in that world, but it does suck having to constantly play the game of thrones and dealing with certain trauma triggers that may appear occassionally.

Corporate America is just Chad's world, but women & certain men of color get the benefit of DEI & Affirmative Action to climb it. Outside that, you are basically a cog in a machine trying to survive the game of thrones. I switched to sales to increase my earning potentials, but we have these quarterly retreats where they just basically take a giant shvt on you if you aren't the company's golden children. I am not going to go to the next retreat because I have a feeling, that I might have Covid 19 or the flu during it lol.

 

[CornbreadFed]

Read up on Rian Stone. I believe he agrees on faking it until you're making it.

Note that his advice works if you are truly capable of humility. Not humility to become arrogant, not humility as a bragging point, but humility because you are humble, and you are willing to learn more about anything in life, and that includes interacting with women.

I don't believe this helps out anyone long term. Yes, this is helpful in certain situations that are one-time instances, but long term this is a failing strategy.

 

[Mike32ct]

Read up on Rian Stone. I believe he agrees on faking it until you're making it.

Note that his advice works if you are truly capable of humility. Not humility to become arrogant, not humility as a bragging point, but humility because you are humble, and you are willing to learn more about anything in life, and that includes interacting with women.

Humble people have a very hard time acting fake. It goes against their nature.

 

[inquisitor]

I don't believe this helps out anyone long term. Yes, this is helpful in certain situations that are one-time instances, but long term this is a failing strategy.

Right, it is not a sustainable strategy for long-term goals.

It worked for me in the short-term and in the beginning, and I am even more genuine now than I ever believed I could be, as I was aided by this initial step. It's a risky step for the arrogant ones as they end up drowning in their fakeness.

 

[inquisitor]

Humble people have a very hard time acting fake. It goes against their nature.

I used to be as humble as a doormat. I am humble still (and I am aware of how arrogant that might sound, but I know when I am arrogant and when I am not, and at the very least I do my best to be aware of my own tendencies) but nevertheless, going against my "nature" in these hard times opened up a world of possibilities for me. I had to confront my shadow (thanks, Jung) and accept another side of me that exists.

Now, I know better to assert myself, and I am realer than ever before.

Although, part of what made me break through this attitude (not nature, as I didn't view it as such), involved my personal struggles with an autoimmune disorder, and many failed interactions with girls in schools until the pandemic arrived.

 

[inquisitor]

I don't believe this helps out anyone long term. Yes, this is helpful in certain situations that are one-time instances, but long term this is a failing strategy.

I am not applying only this in my daily life anymore when talking to girls, by the way. (Well, in some cases in life where I have low confidence and experience in general, I work real hard on the tasks and show up for myself even though I do not feel like myself, because I am all that I have and I know I can be better.)

This is one part of an overall attitude that should work for anyone willing and accepting enough to make it work.

 

[CornbreadFed]

Right, it is not a sustainable strategy for long-term goals.

It worked for me in the short-term and in the beginning, and I am even more genuine now than I ever believed I could be, as I was aided by this initial step. It's a risky step for the arrogant ones as they end up drowning in their fakeness.

Have you heard of Imposter Syndrome?

 

[inquisitor]

Have you heard of Imposter Syndrome?

Yes, I have.

Also part of the equation that I forgot to mention is honesty. I had to be honest with myself on where I lack, and it is true that there is room for improvement everywhere, every time.

Arrogance fails because the truth is muddled. One is either confused or misaligned with their goals because the ego gets in the way.

The challenge for me was, and still is, to avoid this muddling, by being clear whether what I tell myself is true or not, or whether what I do is good or not, in a rational and grounded sense. Every day, it is still something I work on.

This is not contradictory to the "fake it 'til you make it" attitude, whereas this is just one of many tools a novice DJ better be having up his sleeve to get the results he wants. It sounds genuine when reframed as "I'm imitating the facets of my heroes that I deem helpful, and I am enacting another good version that I favor, for my own context in life, such as to build me up and become a better version of myself that in the end, has facets that are uniquely mine".