Living up to your true potential?

[Omkazn]

Hello, my name is Yang Li and i am new to the forum.

I would like to share with this community a personal story, a story of growth that happened to me that literally changed my life and then crashed down all around me.

Currently i am a College Sophmore attending a brand new University, and this life changing moment occurred during my freshman year approximately one and half years ago. When i first went to college, i went in feeling very inadequate and underachieving. I felt very much like i had let my parents down and had failed them. I come from a very overachieving perfectionist family, as are the norm in traditional Chinese cultures. Attending the university that i did made me feel very much less than compared to my friends around me or relatives back home. Compared to them, my life is very easy and many needs that i have are easily fulfilled (money, cars, cell phones, computers). All throughout my life my parents constantly scolded me, disparaged me, berated me for my lackluster performance in school, never was my performance good enough for them. Up to the point when i went to college, i had accepted this fact and had decided that i would try a different approach, try a new system of doing things so that my grades would somehow improve. I got into college with a 3.0 average. According to most chinese, this is considered a failing grade, worthy of the greatest disdain. So i went to college, and upon my parent's suggestion, to go see a therapist, to see if he could help me achieve a better GPA. So i went in and i remember the first words out of my mouth were "How do i transfer out of here in two years to a more presitigious university?" I followed this general line of questioning until this therapist, who is called Dr.Paul basically asked me, why, what is the purpose of needing to transfer, why do you want to leave this university, you just got here. From that first session, he basically asked me to just look around, experience this new campus, and live life on a more moment to moment basis, after all he said, you will be transfering in two years, why the hurry. For some reason, i trusted this man, could be b/c he wasn't my parents, or that his attitude was loving and non-judgemental, or it could be his un-orthodoxed style, and that i had nothing to lose by following his direction. All of which were things i had never experienced in a personal interaction my entire life. I also justified it by saying to myself that i could blame him if anything went wrong, since seeing him was first suggested by my parents anyway.

The next three months is nothing short of a complete transformation. Following his advice of just living life moment by moment, i made friends like i never did before, i suddenly was aware of things i had no idea existed, I changed from a introverted, shy, low-self-esteemed judgemental boy to a extroverted, happy, alive, confident man. And the greatest part of it all was it was effortless, i did nothing that was intensive like you'd think of when you think of studying hard for a test. It was nothing like that at all. I changed from who i was to someone new effortlessly. It seemed as if my previous context of life was suddenly being expanded. It felt as if i had superimposed a new context like steve has said about life that fit more congruently with my purpose which i also discovered for the first time. I realized that I loved being with people that i hungered for their interaction and that i had a uncanny ability to almost sense feelings in others, like i knew what they felt when they felt it. It was an incredible feeling of awareness and power. Suddenly the prospect of transfering schools was ridiculous and a whole cauldron of possibilities opened up before me. Suddenly the road to success had changed b/c the definition of success itself changed, and i had discovered that change and the methods that could lead me there. I ended that first semester of college with the highest GPA i had ever gotten in my entire life of 3.7. I was shocked, my friends were shocked, my parents were for once quiet. It was a truly empowering, good feeling. you can imagine going from a person who felt constantly judged and disparaged to feeling adulation and admiration from those around him, it truly was a eye-opening experience.

But as soon as these good things were happening to me, it vanished. After my first semester of college, my counselor told me he couldn't see me anymore, he said the school only allowed a certain number of sessions, and since we had already seen that amount, it was over. At first i was not concerned, i felt high as a kite and felt as if i could handle the world so the fact that he couldn't see me didn't even register on my radar until the second semester came. The seeds of doubt creeped in slowly. It began with a broad question like "will i be the same man without Dr.Paul?" then it went to more specific doubts like "Will i still be able to maintain the same GPA?" Pretty soon these questions started to pop up incessantly until i literally was thinking about Dr.Paul not being here on a almost constant basis. These doubtful thoughts gave me a ton of anxiety and "popped" me out of living life moment by moment. My grades dropped by a hefty 0.5 GPA points and i lapsed into a huge depression which only got worse as my life deteriorated around me and so I begged him to come back and help me, but coincidently he moved out of our university and went to work somewhere else. And ever since then i've been trying, consulting therapists, 6, 7, 8 to try to reclaim that "magic" i had felt, that transformation of thought, awareness and action. But i've been since then partially successful, however nowhere near the level of potential i had lived during that first semester.

My question to members of this board and steve and erin, is what are your insights or possible perspectives on what happened to me? What do you guys believe could be the cause of my sudden doubt, my subsequent depression. I've been exhausting myself to figure out why this happened to me, many therapists have said its because of my dependency on him, or that i have a co-dependency disorder, or that i have low self-esteem. Others have said its because of abuse suffered at the hands of my parents, or perhaps i have a narcisstic personality, the list is endless all with varying degree of truth. But i feel that what i touched upon during that first semester of college was none of these. I've read countless books on spirituality, child-abuse, self-help books. All of them have a sliver of truth and validity, but none seems to be as complete as it was the work with this first counselor. I've all about given up on this quest as i have not come any closer to my answer. It seems what i seek is not something that i can be achieved by quantity, but rather quality and so i seek some quality advice, perspectives from the smart people of this board.

[Shamou]

Hello and welcome to this board Omkazn… Hope you like it here and that you receive the answers that you seek…

Dr Maxwell Maltz tells us, “The ''self-image'' is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the behavior.”

All your life, you have seen yourself as an under-achiever… that is your self-image… that’s how you perceive yourself to be… and that’s how you will perform…

What has happened to you in the second semester is normal… you were not performing according to the self-image… so, you sabotaged yourself and reverted what you believe yourself to be, an under-achiever…

So, what you need to do, if you want to perform at your peak level is to change that self-image… and, here is how you start doing that…

1. Come to the realization that your present self-image is not accurate… it is something that was suggested to you by your parents… and you accepted that suggestion…

2. You now know that you can perform as a top achiever… so that is your true self-image…

3. Write down your identity (self-image) the way it truly is… something like this…

“I am an intelligent person. I am a top performer. I have within me what is needed to win. I have found my true self… and that is how I will perform from now on…”

4. Keep that written statement with you at all times… and read it at least three times a day…

Best of luck to you… you are a top achiever… and don’t ever forget it…

.

[Freelancer]

I would like to add to shamou's excellent advice the following;
Stop focusing on the bad things, from now on every single time you find yourself thinking about 'how bad things are' you make a conscious effort to switch that thought towards 'Damn I'm happy to be here and its only going to get better !'.

The more you think about underachieving, the therapists not helping, bad grades, lousy relationships etc. the more your situation will detiorate. Its never to late to turn around and go back to that 'in the moment' state.

[ZHereford]

Hi Yang Li!

One of the things that jumps out at me in your situation is that you don't give yourself enough credit for the positive transformation that first took place.

You think it was the therapist or something outside yourself that was responsible. The only thing the therapist did was set you on the right path by thinking positively about yourself and your surroundings.

Your "seeds of doubt" started to get the better of you until you no longer believed in yourself without Dr. Paul there to prop you up. The truth is you are capable of getting back on track.

Start reading positive books that help you understand yourself better and what you are capable of. You sound like a very intelligent person who just needs to start believing in yourself. Your parent did not encourage you to develop self-confidence so you are going to have to do it on your own.

It is so possible and you can do it. Reading and participating in these forums will help. Good luck!

[Omkazn]

Thanks for all the replies. I'd like to address some things i found interesting.

Shamou: I agree that self-image has a lot to do with my behavior, but the problem is that my doubts creeped in before i actually did anything in the second semester, it almost centered completely on the fact that my therapist left. I felt like i was abandoned, and lonely, but of course this felt incredibly irrational and unjustified, but yet the doubting thoughts kept coming and just kept peppering away at me.

Zhereford: thanks for the reply, and i agree that i do not take much credit for my transformation, but i do not know why, even though i tell myself i should and that i was responsible, my FEELINGS simply do not agree.

One of the most frustrating things about this is rationally i've investigated all the possible solutions and read a ton of books and understand that what happened to me was as much my doing as it was the therapist's. But the fact that i don't feel as i should tells me that perhaps my problem is emotional.

If i were to examine the definition of abuse, i'd say i was psychologically abused as well as mildly phyiscally. My parent's would also frequently argue and bicker, so there is some dissociation involved. I'd venture to guess that what happened to me is some form of emotional response, a repressed emotion of abandonment perhaps or just a feeling that felt familar?

This is the one area i can't make sense of or investigate or read up on. My emotions are like a wall of mystery, i don't feel like i did, i feel numb, distant, detached, dissociated. I don't know how to bring back the feelings. Its as if that first therapist hit some deep, big emotional points and made a bond with me somehow, kinda like a parent and then when he left, it felt like a parent left. Something to that effect.

A big question i have that still bothers me is Is my decline a result of Past emotional programming? Or simply has to do with incompetence with other therapists in dealing with such a situation or my own lack of knowledge on dealing with such a situation?

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by Omkazn
it almost centered completely on the fact that my therapist left. I felt like i was abandoned,

This may sound odd to you… but your therapist is still present in your mind… and you can still have imaginary conversation with him… and you will be amazed at what insight you can get from that…

I have imaginary conversation with my mentors… and, it has always helped me… I call it, “communication trough universal intelligence” I believe in it… and it works for me…

.

[ZHereford]

Originally Posted by Omkazn

My emotions are like a wall of mystery, i don't feel like i did, i feel numb, distant, detached, dissociated. I don't know how to bring back the feelings. Its as if that first therapist hit some deep, big emotional points and made a bond with me somehow, kinda like a parent and then when he left, it felt like a parent left. Something to that effect.

Your feelings and emotions are numb because you do feel abandoned and let down after flying high for a while. That's normal. You associate your success at that time with the bond you had with your therapist (also normal).

You'll probably feel like this for a while longer, however, you must start taking taking charge of your life and do for yourself what your therapist did for you - eventually you would have had to so so anyway.

We all go through growing pains, physical and emotional. I remember walking around for six months feeling numb during my second semester in university. I had taken a philosophy course that totally blew my mind and it took me quite a while to come to terms with it. I questioned everything about myself and life as I understood it up to that point. It was quite an eyeopening experience.

It might take some time and effort to work through this but have faith in yourself and don't get discouraged. You have the resources to figure it out.

[Omkazn]

Thank you for the advice Zhere.

My main frustration right now is not knowing where i stand. Coming into college, i knew where i stood, i was an underachiever, my grades were soso, i had one goal, to get better in every respect, grades, self-image, everything. So when i went to my therapist, my intention was very clear, everything i knew currently had to be thrown out and replaced, i had come to that conclusion and so it was very easy for me to assimilate and manifest.

After i stopped seeing my counselor, my belief system still told me that i knew everything that i needed to know, yet my external life circumstances kept deterioting. Its as if my mind is saying, i know how to fix you, but my belief system is saying, no you don't. There is a huge incongruency to what mind is saying and how i am actually living. What i don't know and this is my huge contention of frustration is what to throw out, what do admit to. I have no idea where i stand.

Am i still the underachiever that i was 2 years ago? No i am not
Am i capable of being a top achiever? yes I can

What is it then that is keeping me down? Is it my belief that my first therapist is the only person who can help me? Could it be some unusual attachment to him that was deeper than i thought? Could i have thought of him as someone more special or different than anyone else so when he left, i felt very alone?

I feel like i know whats wrong with me and know how to fix myself, but my external life circumstances manifest something else entirely, which leads me to a quandary.

Steve mentioned something about subjective reality and that you manifest everything and you intend everything, just how am i intending my life to be the way it is? I want my life to be the exact way it was during that first semester of college, but i do have to admit one thing, i never thought about living great without my counselor, i never considered how living on my own would affect me.

[Shamou]

Hello again Omkazn...

Here is a book that I would highly recommend in your case... It's called "Psycho-cybernetic" by Dr Maxwell Maltz... I think that it could help you a lot...

Best of luck to you...

.

[Omkazn]

I just wish to thank all those on this board that have given me advice. I just reached a mini-epiphany about what happened to me after listening to steve's Overcoming-Fear podcast. In his podcast, he talks about two methods of overcoming fear, one is where you build your courage up in a objectified reality and the second method of transcending fear by seeing it as a cue to examine your own beliefs in a subjective reality and you are primarily motivated by curiousity than by recklessness.

I realize now that this is EXACTLY what i did during that first semester. I went from fearing getting bad grades, fearing the consequences to examining the true nature of those fears. I remember being intensely driven by CURIOUSITY and a COMPLETE TOTAL lack of fear. I was feeling completely as i'd call it "plugged" in to the world. I felt as if i was consciously aware of other people's states, feelings, everything. I felt as if i had a 6th sense into their being as if i was staring at myself. It was a surreal feeling, and i remember running little tests, experiments on people, me being the only person conscious of what i was doing. I remember feeling like a scientist examining the world. And when that therapist left, i objectified him, b/c i saw him as a separate consciousness. To me, he didn't fit in with the rest of the world. I felt as if i was a god and he was a sort of a separate godlike figure, with equal consciousness and powers. Kind of like a New, SUPER parent has abandoned me as opposed to my "old" original parent's first abandoning me. I always knew my beliefs and thoughts were the root of my problem, but fear has a way of overwhelming your intellectual systems. I suppose only now i am able to grasp the true nature of my thought system.

I realize now that my counselor was very much like Steve in the way he speaks and talks and paints a picture. Its no wonder i stumbled upon this site, and everything makes so much so much sense as if i already knew this stuff. Now i get what my therapist was talking about when he said everyone having potential, the same potential, its just whether they want believe it or not.

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by Omkazn
Now i get what my therapist was talking about when he said everyone having potential, the same potential, its just whether they want believe it or not.

Very glad you made that breakthrough so fast… and the very best of luck to you…

Keep us posted on your progress…

.

[NDavid]

Hey Omkazm,

Glad to hear of your breakthrough, I think the no fear and curiosity mindset is a great way to frame things. I'm going to approach life like this too. Thanks and best of luck to you

Regards

NDavid

[lunatichead]

Hi Man!!! I have also stumbled on this website to find answers to a similar Situation that u are in or rather were in and looking at ur progress I realize that I am doin the same mistakes that you have been through. I don't see a thearpist but its my girlfriend that I adore and cheerish. but there was a time that i thought she loved me but actually was doubly timing me. the thing is that she was friendly to another guy and i came along the way and she was very happy with me as well but never mentioned him to me. And when it came to my notice, i was already in so much love with her that i did not know wat to do, this guy troubled her and they where in an intense relation as well but she never mentioned that to me. But now sometimes i feel as if iam always a second person in her life and the way she treats me is really harsh. but i see that she loves me as well its more of an emotional feelin that i go through and all this is effecting my studies and relation at home and i have been through a similar childhood as yours not so harsh though but always noticed that my mom loved my brother more and dad my sister. I do recieve the love but the kind of respect that they recieve, its missin in me. all this has taken me to smoking and spoilin my heatlh in thoughts and depression I have not yet recovered but iam not sure wat iam going through right now.

[Akagi]

Originally Posted by Omkazn

My question to members of this board and steve and erin, is what are your insights or possible perspectives on what happened to me? What do you guys believe could be the cause of my sudden doubt, my subsequent depression. I've been exhausting myself to figure out why this happened to me, many therapists have said its because of my dependency on him, or that i have a co-dependency disorder, or that i have low self-esteem. Others have said its because of abuse suffered at the hands of my parents, or perhaps i have a narcisstic personality, the list is endless all with varying degree of truth. But i feel that what i touched upon during that first semester of college was none of these. I've read countless books on spirituality, child-abuse, self-help books. All of them have a sliver of truth and validity, but none seems to be as complete as it was the work with this first counselor. I've all about given up on this quest as i have not come any closer to my answer. It seems what i seek is not something that i can be achieved by quantity, but rather quality and so i seek some quality advice, perspectives from the smart people of this board.

I think I've got a good idea of what's going on in your head based on the information you've provided.

What's going on here is that after the counselor's advice you made some changes in perspective that produced some good results. Over time though, this charge faded, and you came back, looking for another "hit", so to speak.

Your first mistake was identifying the counselor as the solution to your problems. I don't know how many people have realized, internalized, and actualized this truth, but the fact of the matter is, the counselors don't atually "give" you anything.

People go to counselors as if they are missing something essential - something vital, not knowing what it is, believing that the counselor will help them get it back. The reality of the situation is that what they are looking for lies within them the entire time - it's just a matter of bringing it out. The only thing the counselor does is talks the person into bringing it out of them. He is a salesman selling the hidden qualities a person may not even know they had to themself. It is when one comes to this understanding that they can unlock that hidden potential within them.

You don't need the counselor, but rather to understand what it is that happened which empowered you to improve upon yourself - that you realized your internal reality controlled much of your external reality. Take charge of the internal and the external should improve as well. There's an old saying that life is 10% what happens, 90% how one reacts to it. It has been my experience that the saying is pretty accurate.

People search for things like confidence, happiness, etc. outside themselves like they are some treasure to be found - like it's something external that they are lacking. That is false. The fact of the matter is, it's all internal and a matter of bringing it out. Happiness in particular. People in general have a flawed perception of happiness. Happiness to many is a new car, or an XBOX-360, money, and other material objects. The problem with this approach is that the hapiness they experience is fleeting. It goes away quickly and they're off looking for that next object that will give them that moment of happiness again. That's one approach. The other approach is to realize that it is internal. Happiness is like a personality trait. It's something people have. This is why some people can be happy in situations where others would have killed themselves long before then, and why some people can have everything they want in this world and still not be happy.

It looks like something similar happened here. You got all charged up, everything was going good, and then as was previously described, the effect was fleeting and now you're off looking for something that will get that back for you. It's something within you, so you don't need to look anywhere outside yourself.

[Shamou]

Hello and welcome aboard Akagi...

This is your first post... and you make a lot of sense... you will be a great addition to this board... hope that you like it and that we get to share, learn and grow together...

.

[Omkazn]

Hello Akagi, i would like to thank you and to tell you that you got it EXACTLy on its HEAD. What you said is absolutely correct and its something of a realization i've come to myself.

When my counselor left, i identified his leaving (an external event) as something that meant something about me, sorta like your example about getting another hit, I thought of my counselor as the drug dealer who gave me my drug. When in reality, this is not so. The difficulty lies in my thoughts, i feel as if i am submerged under a BLANKET, a DELUGE of limiting beliefs, very threatening thoughts that sort of Safeguards my ego and protects it. To uproot these thoughts SEEMS daunting and my safety FEELS threatened if i let these beliefs go. Now personally i believe many of these feelings and beliefs are just that, manufactured things I've decided are true. The fear comes from NOT knowing the other side, To use an analogy, its like i see the river and the landmass across the river, but i only see a few feet inland, and its the fear of not knowing what lies beyond and knowing that you have to MOVE your whole life across this river and set up camp in another place that is scary.

[Shamou]

Hello Omkazn...

I would like to express my sincere admiration for the courage and perseverance that you are displaying in your personal work on introspection... not an easy task as illustrated so well by that quote from the author of the book, "Man the Unknown" Alexis Carrel...

"To progress again, man must remake himself. And he cannot remake himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor. In order to uncover his true visage he must shatter his own substance with heavy blows of his hammer."

Congratulation... and keep us posted on your progress...

.

[Akagi]

Originally Posted by Omkazn

The fear comes from NOT knowing the other side, To use an analogy, its like i see the river and the landmass across the river, but i only see a few feet inland, and its the fear of not knowing what lies beyond and knowing that you have to MOVE your whole life across this river and set up camp in another place that is scary.

Sounds like fear of change. I'm pretty familiar with that, as I used to have it a a bit myself until I identified the problem.

People get into habits and become comfortable with them. The problem is, life is dynamic. Life is like water. Life moves about, changes, and requires one to adapts to those changes.

People get locked into this 'comfort zone' mentality where they have been doing something a specific way for so long that to deviate from that pattern causes them stress and fear. It's why people who have been reclusive for most their lives for whatever reason(s) find it hard to blend in socially. It's a drastic change for them. It's why people let good things go to waste and have opportunities pass them by. For instance, there was a guy I know who was always in dire straits financially. One day opportunity came knocking. He had a once in a lifetime chance to make a lot of money without taking any serious risk, pay off all his debts, and retire early with a nice position that he would have been guaranteed due to having inside connections. He was so accustomed to living in this small-town area with his friends that he didn't want to leave. He let that fear hold him back, and now he's kicking himself because all his friends got out of that small town and moved on while he's still stuck there in the same state he was before. He let the fear hold him back and now he's in a worse position than he would have been if he had just confronted it.

Frank Herbert said it best in his novel "Dune":

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

One has to overcome thier fears instead of being controlled by them. Everybody experiences fear at some point in their life. I find it's best to just dive in and tackle it head-on.

The fear people anticipate in their own head is almost always worse than anything they could experience in real life, and they let that fear dictate their actions. They create this psychological pain for themselves before they've even done anything. They psyche themselve in to failure, basically. People defeat themselves from the inside with fear before they've even take their first step, and that's what causes a lot of failures.

Fear is a poison of the mind. The antidote is willpower and guts to fight through it. Fear shouldn't be something that paralyzes you. One should turn it around and use it a source of motivation. Psychoanalyze yourself. Ask yourself why you are experiencing this fear. Is it because you have fallen into to the 'safety blanket' mentality like so many others?

Another interesting quote on fear I came across in an anime series I frequent:

"That which blocks you is worthless fear.
The enemy is one, you are one.
What is there to fear?
Cast off your fear!
Look forward!
Go forward!
Never stand still.
Retreat and you will age.
Hesitate and you will die."

I took those words to heart. You can't let fear control you or you'll look back and regret it. You may not know what's on the other side of the river, but if the side you are on is unsatisfactory, then you just have to grab your balls and break on through to the other side.

It is said that problem solving is 90% problem identification 10% solution. That has rung pretty true for me. Whenever I am having internal conflicts myself; fear, uncertainty, doubt - if I can just identify the problem, the source of discontent, I can make it go away through the power of my own mind. The problem is caused by the mind, so it is logical that it would be corrected through the same means as well. So far this has worked amazingly well for me. I haven't had to see any psychiatrists or counselors to assist me yet because of it. All they're going to do is probe me and essentially try the same thing as well. Who knows ones' mind better than the person who has it?

I used to have issues with confidence a lot as a kid as well. Some time around high school, I discovered that all one has to do is act out the change they want to see in themselves and stick to it. It wasn't easy (nothing ever worth doing is) and I had to deal with a little cognitive dissonance, but I didn't like the results I was getting, so I changed things around. A shift in mentality, so to speak. First thing I did was I stopped letting other people label me and started to define myself. If you judge yourself critically, you see others judging you in exactly the same way; and when you live in a world where everyone judges you as harshly as you do to yourself, it's impossible to feel good and be confident.

Our minds are constantly reminding us about the kind of person we think we are. No matter where we are or what we’re doing, our mind is always there to call up everything that’s wrong with us. This could be triggered by looking in the mirror, interacting with other people, or thinking about a particular problem. Regardless of what triggers these thoughts, they can all be boiled down to feelings. Feelings play a big part when we paint a picture in our minds of who we are. Intelligent people can feel stupid. Thin people can feel fat. Young people can feel old. Talented people can feel like losers. It came to me as an epiphany: my confidence was based on how I saw the world around me.

Confidence is an excellent weapon in cutting down one's fears and hesitations. I've noticed that a lot of people are natural actors. Not the type that plays in hollywood movies, but rather ones that put on a front in their social interactions. They put on a front to seem more confident than they are, stronger than they are, smarter than they are, more successful than they are.

The thing about acting is, when you're dealing with intangible traits that can't be quantified like confidence, if you pretend that you have it long enough and pull off the act well enough, you'll quickly realize that the only difference between feigned confidence and actual confidence is the way you perceive it in your own mind. Nobody else can tell if you're acting or not, so why not let them go on believing whatever makes you look best? That feigned confidence will eventually be perceived as real confidence, and thus become it since the only qualifier is how you see it in your own mind. And confidence is crucial in addressing issues with fear.

Whether you think you can or you can't, you're probably right.

Edit: I noticed that Shamou posted a most excellent quote that illustrates the concept I'm trying to convey:

"To progress again, man must remake himself. And he cannot remake himself without suffering. For he is both the marble and the sculptor. In order to uncover his true visage he must shatter his own substance with heavy blows of his hammer."

You must carve off that which holds you back. Discard those useless fear-containing chunks of marble surrounding yourself and get down to the true essence that is the inner core.

[Omkazn]

I want to give everyone a small update, i wish to say that i am beginning to feel the edge of my consciousness, i am beginning to be able to start noticing my beliefs and the feelings that arise and notice how i react. I feel the "surge", yesterday, me and my friends had a conversation about leadership and we got into this very very intense discussion about beliefs and contexts, it was absolutely surreal, its as if the more i am honest to the world and myself, the more honest and warmth is given back to me, so i'd just like to extend the world a hand of gratitude, and appreciation that i hear you and i am coming.

[Omkazn]

Hello forum, i wish to post a question/statement.

I was wondering if anyone in this forum has noticed a peculiar truth in our society and that is the traditional roles of women and men. I have noticed that many men including myself base our self-esteem on performance and being the breadwinner, successful, etc. And any mention of performance and or achievement can have a man on edge or feel as if his worth is on the line. This is different with women, women are expected to be very nurturing and loving and more emotionally expressive and suppose to be more fearful and anxious in general. The worst thing about these types of social conditioning is that people react and feel fear and or a lack of confidence not when their actual competence or behavior is in question but b/c of what they are expected to react to such questions or a need to defend themselves in order to fit what is expected of their gender. I've also noticed that the most successful and happiest people are those who seemingly have both "male" and "female" traits. I've noticed that i am a little fearful/intimidated by women who are successful and make lots of money and have successful careers and are still very womanly in behavior and appearance. And such women command lots of presence both within their own sex as well as the opposite sex. She appears to be both a champion of her fellow women and an equal to her male counterparts.

For men, its much rarer to see both "female" and "male" qualities. Most men are very success oriented and base much of their happiness and confidence in their ability to achieve and be important. This role and social conditioning is both confining and rigid, doesn't allow the flexibility and completeness necessary to fully experience life. For a brief period in my life, i would say i experienced this fusion of values and abilities. I was very warm and relational as well as emotionally intuitive, typically "feminine" qualities as well as rational, competitive, aggressive and sometimes stoic, more "male" qualities. I was able to fuse these two sort of roles and use them whenever i thought it was appropriate. But ever since my counselor left and my confidence has been shot, I've been having difficulty getting it back. I am curious as to whether other people have had similar experiences or have any idea what i am talking about.