Hey everyone. I'll apologize in advance for the length of this post, and any grammatical errors since I'm using voice to text.
To get this out of the way I reset last night. Moving on.
A lot of things have begun to come together for me in the last few days. I'm always surprised. Sometime like this exist in life where things that made no sense or didn't add up just suddenly start to come together to form some pretty big Revelations.
I was listening to an episode of the new man podcast yesterday and one of the biggest messages was this idea that men tend to put themselves into something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. We get uncomfortable in our relationships oh, so we find comfort in a distraction, whether it's a good one like exercise or sports or reading, or a not-so-healthy one like drinking having an affair, working too much, or pornography use. Since when you feel better when we're doing those things away from our significant other, we determined that the significant other must be the source of the problem.
In actuality, what it means for us to do that is that we're putting ourselves in the position of being a victim. our problems are really somebody else is doing, and therefore it's going to take somebody else to solve them. We're making the choice to make ourselves powerless.
another point they made, was that men tend to put everything on their significant other. We expect them, within the norms of a heterosexual relationship, to be our emotional support, to bear and bear responsibility for our children, to work, in most cases to keep the house. It's no wonder why they don't want to f*** anymore. What we should consider doing, and I believe this to be true, is to put on our significant others only the thing is that only they can fulfill in our life. The rest of it, we need to find a productive outlet for. they suggest, and again I agree with, finding a group of like-minded men to spend time with on a regular basis. A group that, in the words of brene brown, "has your back. No, I mean really has your back".
I found this to be true looking back. My friends and I would do an annual guys weekend where we spent a few days at a buddy's cabin eating, sleeping, drinking, bullshiting, and generally doing the modern version of beating drums in the woods. we've been skiing together and we've been to Vegas together. when I returned from all of those places I am happier, more confident, more balanced, and a much nicer person to be around.
Adding all of these Revelations together, along with what I heard yesterday, I came to another conclusion. There are a lot of things that I do in a day that on the surface seem to have intrinsic value, but in reality are nothing more than me wanting to distract myself from the discomfort that has been created in my relationship, and the discomfort I have with myself. essentially distract myself from the fact that I have chosen to be a victim. Listening to public radio all the way to work and back. Even when I don't really care about the story. Even when it's pledge week. Listening to podcasts on my drive, on the treadmill, etc. They might be all about self-improvement, I'm taking in the information doesn't do any good if you never actually do the work. Keeping up with the news constantly. I told myself I need to do it for my job, and while I need to have a general understanding of what's going on in the world, and in finance specifically, my email at work will tell me everything I need to know on a daily basis. Being well-read? No doubt reading is very valuable, and being well-read can provide good qualities in your life. But again when all you're doing is reading, especially when a lot of it is either self-improvement or business improvement, and you never actually take the time to absorb and do the work, all you're doing is escaping. of course, without question, drinking, porn, and smoking, all fall into this category come up but even worse they don't have any actual benefits to me.
This incredibly long-winded post is my way of saying this:
I'm starting a 30 day cleanse. there are lots of people in the world who have done the whole30 challenge around eating. My whole 30 challenge is going to be to be present in my whole life for 30 days. This means no porn, no smoking, having only one drink in a setting, not checking the news throughout the day, unblocking off my commute time for self-reflection, journaling via voice, and checking in here.
My workouts, especially my cardio where I get incredibly bored, are the one place I will allow myself to listen to a podcast.
here's to this being the first of 30 posts, and the next step on a long journey of healing.
