I Don't Know How to Do Hard Things

I realized yesterday that I don't know how to do hard things. Really. This isn't a metaphor or anything. I'm not saying that I'm unable to do hard things, just that I don't know HOW to do them.

    

    This started when I was molested at 7 years old. My body AND my brain shut down. They didn't understand how to compute the data off what just happened and so programmed me to get physically tired and mentally in a fog. This made me unable to correctly judge what I was seeing feeling and hearing and let me guide myself into la la land to avoid pain, guilt, shock, trauma, uncomfortableness.

    Was me shutting down all my body's and mind's fault? To an extent yes. I have always had a good imagination and I've always been very creative, but I've also learned how to handle things by my parents.

    My dad was and is an addict. I would learn nothing from handling hard situations from him. He would isolate into history books or he would attack people or things he could control i.e. kids, wife, punching walls, break things. Is he fully to blame? No. And where did he learn his behavior? From his parents.

    My mom didn't know how to handle hard situations either. When ever she was faced with something hard, she isolated inside herself by not talking and living in her own head. She wasn't good with emotions. She didn't know how. And when she did speak when she was in a hard situation, it was full of passive aggressiveness. Is she fully to blame? No. She too learned her behavior from her parents.

    If it sounds like I'm trying to pass the blame, I'm not. At age 8 I was baptized and held accountable for my own actions. I do believe that just like an alcoholic still has a choice and still has some judgment, his perception is not clear. Looking through a glass darkly. Lust addicts are the same way. So is being raised by the foolish traditions of your fathers.

   Yesterday I confronted shame all day long. I'd start in on the "I'm bad" talk, realize I was doing it, change to the "I did something bad" go for a few minutes with a more positive attitude, and then the "I'm bad" phrase would slip back in almost unnoticed.

    It got me thinking about how I try to keep up the appearance of knowing and doing the right thing. For example, ever since I found out that one of my negative core beliefs was that I am not good enough, I'd try to act like it didn't affect me anymore. When my wife would ask if I was feeling like my negative core belief was true, I'd say no because I felt like I knew it wasn't true so I didn't have to worry about it anymore.

    This is a lie. I was thinking yesterday on how it would be impossible for me to assume that my negative core belief would change just with the understanding of it. I've been telling myself and believing that I wasn't good enough for almost 30 years. One day of realizing I've got it wrong doesn't change 20+ years of programming.

   Why do I fight with guilt and shame? Because I don't know how to do hard things. Working with guilt is hard. Maybe for the godly man it isn't, but for the addict is the plague. I've never dealt with it and taken it in and let it help me. I've always run from it.

     And that goes for everything hard. I'd daydream my way through, or fantasize, or lust, or look at porn, or act out. So really, since I learned how to evade hard things as a child, I'm running into hard things now and trying to get through them without the "drugs" to keep me from feeling how hard they are. What's more is its like using my underdeveloped child's mind to work through these hard things because I never developed how to.

       So, I don't know how to do hard things, (which is probably all important things) but at least I'm present enough to know that I don't know how to do them.

        One thing I've realized, affirmations help. Seriously. I've been telling myself I'm bad for so long, it's not going to change by itself. I need to tell myself good things as much as possible to at least negate the bad things I've told myself. It actually helps!