The Truth (7/10)

This was a very insightful book. Knowing the balance between pain and pleasure is essential to living in modern day society. Where scarcity is no longer an issue. Our brains are not adapted for a world of abundance. So the forces that kept us alive for thousands of years, are now making us miserable. Consider this a primer into understanding addiction and over consumption. And steps you can take to mitigate this.

Summary and Highlights

You can’t fix most problems with rules, any more than you can with laws. They’re too inflexible.

eight basic emotions:

JOY PAIN LOVE ANGER PASSION FEAR GUILT SHAME

Every emotion belongs in one of these categories.

Lying is about controlling someone else’s reality, hoping that what they don’t know won’t hurt you.

If she finds out and breaks up with you, you’re not really in a relationship anyway. With all the lying, you’ve been in your own world the whole time.

If you’d committed to always telling her the truth in the first place, you would have thought twice before cheating on her. So start now, and maybe it’s not too late to include her in your relationship.

When things get hard for you, you start blaming the person you’re with.

None of this has anything to do with her. Just you.

If you ever want to be truly happy in this lifetime, you have to recognize that you’re using sex like a drug to fill a hole. And that hole is your self-esteem. Deep down, you feel unlovable.

Nothing’s going to change until you take deliberate and committed action to change it.

The Addiction Cycle,” with four terms—preoccupation, ritualization, acting out, and shame & despair

CELIBACY/ABSTINENCE CONTRACT

I WILL REFRAIN FROM THE FOLLOWING:

                   Masturbation

                   Implicit or explicit pornographic material

                   Flirtatious, seductive, romantic, or suggestive comments or behavior

                   Seductive attire

                   Sexually overt or covert contact with another person or myself

                   Secretive sexual fantasizing                                        Objectifying, fantasizing, or obsessing                     We don’t meet many people who truly love us, who accept us for who we are, who put us before themselves. Maybe a parent or two if we’re lucky, perhaps a couple of previous partners. So what kind of person rewards someone’s love with lies, betrayal, and pain?

A selfish person. A coldhearted person. A thoughtless person. An asshole. A liar. A cheater. A guy who thinks with his dick.

Guilt is about breaking the rules. Shame is about being broken.

If you have true intimacy with your partner, you won’t need to seek sex outside the relationship.

If you’re addicted to sex, you’re probably co-addicted to something else, like drugs or work or exercise, and this is because you’re afraid of intimacy and you’re afraid of your feelings.

Sex must never be secretive, abusive, a way to alter feelings, or empty of a committed intimate relationship.

If one big-T Trauma is a ten on the scale and a little-t trauma is a one, then ten little traumas can be just as powerful as one big Trauma.

When children experience trauma, they tend to absorb the feelings of their abusers and store them in a compartment in their psyche that we call the shame core. It contains the beliefs I am worthless, I am unlovable, I don’t deserve. Any time you feel one down—or inferior—to someone or you feel one up—or superior—those are false beliefs generated by your shame core. Because, in reality, every person in the world has equal worth and value.

To survive painful beliefs and feelings, we often mask them with anger. That way, we don’t have to feel the shame behind it.

The payoff of anger is mastery, control, or power.

So the anger makes you feel better and one up. And when you use sex to restore power or feel better about yourself in a similar way, this is what’s known as eroticized rage.

Being overcontrolled as a child sets you up to lie as an adult.

So the theory of sex addiction is that when you feel out of control or disempowered, you sneak around and act out sexually to reestablish control and regain your sense of self.

Intimacy is sharing your reality with someone else and knowing you’re safe, and them being able to share their reality with you and also be safe.

When I see another woman, for example, I just tell myself, Bright red apple, wrong orchard.

THE MALE DILEMMA

1. Sex is great. 2. Relationships are great. 3. Relationships grow over time. 4. The sex gets old over time. 5. So does she. 6. Thus the problem.

We can’t just keep waiting for lightning to strike every time we need fire. We have to make fire ourselves.’ They probably thought he was crazy, rubbing rocks and sticks together. Today they’d diagnose him as obsessive-compulsive. But then he gave them fire, and all of a sudden everyone was doing it. You can’t get anywhere as a civilization without that kind of original thinking and focus. It’s people with compulsive behaviors who change the world.”

A lot of times, people in a family think it’s just one person who causes all the trouble. But a family is a system, and a sick person is the product of a sick system.

Fine stands for fucked up, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.

They say here that there are three ways of raising children. The first is functional bonding, in which the parents or primary caregivers love, nurture, affirm set healthy limits with, and take care of the needs of the child.

This creates a child who has healthy, secure self-esteem and relationships.

But then there’s neglect, when a caregiver abandons, is detached from, or doesn’t appropriately nurture the child. This can range from a parent who isn’t physically present, to a parent who is physically present but emotionally distant, to a parent who doesn’t provide adequate care or safety, to a parent lost in a work, sex, gambling, alcohol, or other addiction. If you grew up feeling unwanted by or unimportant to a parent, this is a sign that neglect likely occurred.

This creates wounded children, who are often depressed and indecisive, see themselves as flawed and less valuable than others, and feel they can’t face the world alone. In relationships, they tend to have what’s called anxious attachment. They may feel like they’re not enough for their partners.

Become so wrapped up in their relationships that they lose sight of their own needs and self-worth; and be emotionally intense, passive-aggressive, or in need of constant reassurance that they’re not being abandoned.

Here, they call this type of person a love addict.

The third type of parenting: enmeshment.

Instead of taking care of a child’s needs, the enmeshing parent tries to get his or her own needs met through the child. This can take various forms: a parent who lives through a child’s accomplishments; who makes the child a surrogate spouse, therapist, or caretaker.

Who is depressed and emotionally uses the child; who is overbearing or overcontrolling; or who is excessively emotional or anxious about a child. If you grew up feeling sorry for or smothered by a parent, this is a sign that enmeshment likely occurred.

Enmeshed children lose their sense of self. As adults, they usually avoid letting anyone get too close and suck the life out of them again. Where the abandoned are often unable to contain their feelings, the enmeshed tend to be cut off from them, and be perfectionistic and controlling of themselves and others.

Though they may pursue a relationship thinking they want connection, once they’re in the reality of one, they often put up walls, feel superior, and use other distancing techniques to avoid intimacy. This is known as avoidant attachment—or, as they put it here, love avoidance.

And most sex addicts, according to this theory, are love avoidants.

Maybe that’s the female dilemma, She marries someone who’s giving her love and romance, but over time she gets taken for granted or turned into a maid or becomes a baby factory or gets cheated on.

There’s not a single emotional need of hers that’s filled by her husband. Then he has the nerve to complain that she’s not sexual or attractive when he’s drained the life out of her.

The ninth emotion is the death emotion. It’s just feeling nothing.

Self-deprecation is still self-worship, It’s the flip side of the same coin. It’s still about self.

Remember that humor is a wall. It’s a form of denial, just the same as repression, rationalization, globalization, and minimization.

EVERYTHING THAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR BEHAVIOR AND WHY IN 1,800 WORDS OR LESS

In the beginning . . .

You were born.

And like all infants, you were completely vulnerable and dependent, with a new developing brain and no understanding of the world.

In a perfect world . . .

Your parents would be perfect. They would be dedicated full-time to taking care of your physical and psychological needs, always making the right decisions, setting the healthiest boundaries, and protecting you from all harm, while preparing you to eventually take care of your needs without them.

But in the real world . . .

No one is perfect. Neither your parents, nor the other people who play a role in your upbringing. Therefore, along the way some of your developmental needs don’t get met.

And the problem is . . .

When one of your needs doesn’t get met, however big or small, it can leave a wound.

These wounds are known as childhood trauma. Each instance or pattern of trauma can create specific core personal issues and relationship challenges—and if these are left untreated, you’re likely to pass your wounds on to the next generation. Since this trauma occurs early in life, it can affect social, emotional, behavioral, cognitive, and moral development.

It’s not always overt or intentional . . .

Most commonly, people think of trauma as coming from hateful perpetrators who are knowingly and willfully abusive. But even parents who think of themselves as loving or well-meaning make mistakes, cross boundaries, or simply do their best with the limited internal resources they have. And this covert, often unrecognized abuse can, through its constant repetition, leave wounds just as deep as those created by a single malicious act.

It can be an emotional scar . . .

In your earliest years, you’re the center of the universe. Everything revolves around you. So wounds can come from caregivers who are either out of control or completely detached from their emotions around you. When Mom is always full of anxiety as she’s breast-feeding, Dad comes home in a rage every time he has a rough day at work, or Stepdad is depressed by his money problems during the rare moments he spends with you, you soak up these emotions like a sponge, often erroneously taking the blame or responsibility for them. Even if a parent falls ill and passes away, it can seem like abandonment or something you made happen if you’re too young to understand death.

It can be physical . . .

Most people understand that it’s not okay to physically harm or even spank a child. But here’s an example that’s not as obvious:

Any invasive medical procedure—even something as commonplace as a circumcision or getting stiches—may register the exact same as physical abuse if you experience it in your first few years of life. You may even start to distrust your caregivers for bringing you to an unfamiliar place and not keeping you safe.

Often it’s intellectual . . .

After the first few years of life, you start to separate from your parents. In this period, it’s their job to help you become your own person and confidently stand on your own two feet in the world. Here, a whole new set of problems can arise—especially when parents try to over-control you, habitually criticize you, or unreasonably expect you to be perfect. Other families adhere to such rigid rules that any manifestation of a child’s individuality is immediately attacked as a threat. All these can lead to esteem problems later in life.

Or it can take over your entire identity.

Within a dysfunctional family system, each child tends to play a different role that helps the family survive and detracts from its real issues. These can include the revered hero, the troublemaking scapegoat, the neglected lost child, the people-pleasing placater, and the mood-lifting mascot. Later in life, these roles (as well as birth order) can lead to corresponding personality issues, whether it’s the hero’s judgmental perfectionism, the scapegoat’s explosive anger, the lost child’s low self-esteem, the placater’s denial of personal needs, or the mascot’s impulsive irresponsibility.

But it’s not easy to see your own core issues . . .

Your oldest beliefs, behaviors, and adaptations have not justbeen reinforced by decades of habit, but are built deep into the architecture of your brain, which is busy building new neural connections at an astounding rate in early life. As the saying goes, “Cells that fire together, wire together.” So trying to see yourself with any objectivity can be like trying to touch your right elbow with your right hand.

But if you can detach from yourself a little bit, you’ll notice that the things you do and think don’t just come out of nowhere. Here are a few techniques and tools you can use to better understand the way your past can interfere with your happiness, your relationships, and your life today.

You can work backward . . .

Are you relentlessly driving yourself to succeed and beating yourself up when you fail? Maybe that’s because when you were a teenager, your parents made you feel as if your worth as a human being was dependent on your grades, touchdowns, or accomplishments.

Are you out of touch with your emotions because Stepdad always told you to toughen up when you cried? Do you feel deep down like you don’t matter because you were often ignored growing up? Are you always trying to save or care for others because you were never able to save Mom from her depression or addiction? Are you in complete denial that anything was wrong with your family because Dad acted as if he were infallible and must be unquestioningly obeyed, so criticizing him would be like blaspheming God?

Are you getting the hang of this yet?

You can excuse my language . .

Some of you have a big bag of shit you’re carrying around. And every time you encounter a situation in which you can possibly get more shit to put in the bag, you grab it and stuff it inside. You’ll even ignore all the diamonds glittering nearby, because all you can see is the shit.

This shit is known as “the stories you tell yourself".

Examples include generalizations like “I make bad decisions,” “If people saw the real me, they wouldn’t like me,” or, conversely, “No one is good enough for me.” Each of these beliefs can be formed in childhood by, respectively, fault-finding parents, abandoning parents, and parents who put you on a pedestal.

As a result, you can spend much of your life misinterpreting situations and thinking you’ve found more evidence to support these false conclusions formed in childhood. One way to recognize when you’re stuck in your own story is whenever you feel less than or better than others.

You can examine this chart .

Any time you overreact to something—by shutting down losing your temper, sulking, feeling hopeless, freaking out, disassociating, or any of numerous other dysfunctional behaviors—it’s typically because an old wound has been triggered. And you’re regressing to the childhood or adolescent state that corresponds to that feeling.

Note that the wounded child tends to directly internalize the messages that caretakers give; the adapted adolescent tends to react against them.

However, not everyone reacts to the same trauma in the same way . .

And children are born with different predispositions and resiliencies.

So if you remain loyal to people who abuse and mistreat you, that’s called trauma bonding.

If you only feel normal if you’re doing something extreme or high-risk, that’s trauma arousal.

If you’ve developed intense self-loathing, you’ve got trauma shame.

If you find chemical, mental, or technological ways to numb yourself and your feelings, that’s trauma blocking.

And it goes on and on. One pattern of trauma; many different possible responses to it. We’ve only scratched the surface. But at least you know the model we’re working with here

It’s not about blaming but understanding . . .

In summary, we each spend our adult lives running on a unique operating system that took some eighteen years to program and is full of distinct bugs and viruses. And when we put together all these different theories of attachment, developmental immaturity, post-traumatic stress, and internal family systems

they make up a body of knowledge that allows us to run a virus scan on ourselves and, at any point, to look at our behaviors, our thoughts, and our feelings, and figure out where they come from.

That’s the easy part. The tough part is to quarantine the virus, and to recognize the false self and restore the true self. Because it isn’t until we start developing an honest, compassionate, and

functional relationship with ourselves that we can begin to experience a healthy, loving relationship with others

And that,” Lorraine concludes, “is what chair work is all about.”

Believe, behave, become: Believe in you and Ingrid. Behave for Ingrid. Become a nuclear family

think of intimacy as into me I see and I share that with you—that’s intimacy

Intimacy problems come from a lack of self-love

Someone who fears intimacy thinks

unconsciously, If you knew who I actually was, you’d leave me.”

Your wives may think they sent you here because you’re sick and they’re normal, but I’ve never worked with a couple

where one of them had it all together and the other was a screw-up. They’ve got just as many issues as you do. Proof of this is the fact that they’re still with you.”

avoidant gives and gives, sacrificing his own needs, but it’s never enough for the love addict

So the avoidant grows resentful and seeks an outlet outside of the relationship, but at the same time feels too guilty to stop taking care of the needy person

getting

caught. And that shatters the fantasy for the love addict, who experiences her biggest nightmare: abandonment, which replicates her original wound

The pain and the fear are so intense for the love addict that she often develops her own secret life as well. Where the avoidant wants the highs, the addict typically goes for the lows. She wants benzodiazepines, alcohol, romance novels, shopping

till she drops, or anything that depresses the central nervous system. If she acts out sexually or has an emotional affair, it’s not for intensity, but to numb the pain and get away from the agonizing hurt. Soon, the relationship is no longer about love for either partner, but about escaping from reality

A healthy relationship is when two individuated adults decide to have a relationship and that becomes a third entity. They nurture the relationship and the relationship nurtures them. But they’re not overly dependent or independent

They are interdependent, which means that they take care of

the majority of their needs and wants on their own, but when they can’t, they’re not afraid to ask their partner for help.

Only when our love for someone exceeds our need for them do we have a shot at a genuine relationship together

Real intelligence is when your mind and your heart connect.

That’s when you see the truth so clearly and unmistakably that you don’t have to think about it

fact, all thinking will do is lead you away from the truth and soon you’ll be back in your head, groping with a penlight in the dark again

Every word, every step, every action is irreversible. If we step in front of a moving car, if we sign a contract we haven’t read, if we betray the person we love, the best we can do is try to clean up the mess. But no matter how hard we scrub, the stain on reality will never come out. The word you just read can

never be unread

What you’re doing is sexual hoarding. When there’s a problem in your relationship, you feel shame—like something is wrong with you—and there’s an immediate reaction to that called defensive grandiosity. And that’s when

you start checking your hoard of messages.” She shifts in her chair and the blanket slides off her lap. “And that’s fueled by anger, because it drives Ingrid away and makes you feel like you have power

a book from a shelf and hands it to me. The title is Silently Seduced

The three-second rule means that as soon as you see someone and start objectifying them or fantasizing about them, you have a maximum of three seconds to focus on

something else before the thought starts to get too strong and lead you into the addiction cycle. Remember”—he wags a finger—“bright red apple, wrong orchard

You’re as faithful as you decide to be if your brain is healthy. If your brain is not healthy, then you’re as faithful as your options. And we’re going to make

your brain healthy

Facing Love Addiction by Pia Mellody

Following the advice in Silently Seduced

continuously complying with someone else’s priorities at the expense of my own is called pathological accommodation

Resentment is the anger the Avoidant feels because of thinking he or she has been victimized by the partner’s neediness or by the

partner’s ‘demands’ for connection in the relationship.

Dr. Helen Fisher

book Anatomy of Love

our ancestors unfaithfully pair-bonded just long enough to conceive and raise a child until it developed some degree of autonomy

then they moved on to raise a child with (and cheat on) someone else. She describes this as a dual reproductive strategy: serial monogamy plus clandestine adultery

we’ve developed three different primary brain systems for mating: one for sex, another for romantic love, and a third for deep attachment

after the initial intensity of a new relationship, our romance and sex drives often swing toward other people

while

our attachment drive remains connected to our primary partner

this natural ebbing of romance and sexuality can be prevented. The solution, she elaborates, is for couples to do novel and exciting

things together (to release dopamine and get the romance rush), make love regularly (to release oxytocin and sexually bond), cut themselves off from cheating opportunities, and, in general, make sure their partners are “continually thrilling” enough to keep all three drives humming

We all have six core needs: emotional, social, intellectual, physical, sexual, and spiritual.

compersion

that means if your partner has another lover, rather than being jealous, you’re happy

for her because she’s happy

the classics in the field of consensual

nonmonogamy—*The Ethical Slut, Opening Up, Sex at Dawn, Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits—*as well as a lesser-known book from a more therapeutic perspective, Love in Abundance: A Counselor’s Advice on Open Relationships, by Kathy Labriola

the four adjustments

  Turn judgment into compassion and acceptance.

               2.  Transform shame into reassurance.

               3.  Change criticism to appreciation.

               4.  Replace blame with understanding

Kamala Devi

his wife initially had no interest in polyamory. So in order to open the marriage, he encouraged her to date other people while he remained faithful. After letting her enjoy this freedom for a year or so, he gradually started dating as well

You have to make sure they all know you’re a family and nothing ever supersedes the

family. The mantra should be doing what’s best for the community, not for the individual.

Lifestyle

Lounge?”

“No.”

“It’s a website my boyfriend and I belong to. You can find someone there.”

the mistake you made with her,” Nicole jumps in, “is that you made it all about you wanting to be with other people. You should have made it instead about wanting to have sexual adventures together. This way, you can include her rather than

making it seem like a failing on her part.

the burning period, which is the length of time (usually two years) it takes couples who open up to deal with the issues an

challenges that occur as a result

the joys of theoretical nonmonogamy, which is when two people say they’re in an open relationship—but instead of actually sleeping with other people, they just get to feel free knowing they have the option to do so. There’s the jealousy test, which you pass if

you’re able to have a serious relationship with someone who’s sleeping with other people or in love with someone else

fluid bonded, which refers to partners who feel safe having unprotected sex with one another, and veto power, which means that one partner can ask another to end an outside

relationship

Only fear is restrictive. Love is expansive

documentary she recently saw called The Workshop, about a retreat in which participants get naked and have group sex t

heal their shame and find enlightenment

when one person shuts down or throws a fit, the other needs to stay in the adult ego state. If both people descend to the wounded child or adapted adolescent

that’s when all the forces of relationship drama and destruction are unleashed

Perhaps the secret to fidelity is knowing that the grass is crazier on the other side

Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.

Poly works or fails on trust between metamours

A metamour is a partner’s partner

polygamous men live nine years longer, on average, than monogamous men

the Mormon prophet Brigham Young, who, like Father Yod, opened up his monogamous marriage soon after he felt a religious

calling, except that he took on an astonishing fifty-three additional spouses. And they were almost the death of him. At one point, he told his wives to leave if they weren’t happy, proclaiming, “I will go into heaven alone rather than have [you all] scratching and fighting around me.”

a book he recently read called His Needs, Her Needs by Willard F. Harley

There is nothing frenzied about debauchery, contrary to what is thought,” Albert Camus once wrote. “It is but a long sleep.

You need to try the only thing you haven’t experienced yet,” Lorraine suggests.

“What’s that?”

“Anhedonia.”

it.

“It’s the dark place of not feeling,” she elaborates. “People feel dead in the place of anhedonia. They can’t experience joy

“Because in order to return to homeostasis and have any clarity on who you are and what you need, you have to detox from the intensity of these one-up, one-down relationships

we are simply too close to ourselves to see clearly enough to get out of our own way

if you have long receptors in the brain’s reward center for the hormone vasopressin, then you’re more likely to be monogamous. If not, then you’re a born player

generally, good parenting will promote better oxytocin and vasopressin systems in the long run, and these are linked with more closely bonding individuals when

comes to romantic relationships. We haven’t published it yet, but that’s exactly what we’re looking at right now.”

The person who is too smart to love is truly an

idiot

Each of you had a mother who was unhappy and who you could not help

functional parenting is the secret to world peace

the only way to make functional parents is to heal psychological wounds with the same urgency that we heal physical wounds

are you are willing to stay in your

marriage, even at the cost of sacrificing yourself and hurting your children?”

grow up emotionally so

that when someone you love doesn’t constantly worship you or do what you want, it doesn’t cause your entire sense of self to crumble

is it possible to live your authentic life if you have inauthentic people around you?

To empty out completely, you need to let go of all the negative messages you received about yourself as a child. And you need to separate

from the lifestyle you created as a reaction to them. So if you want to take back your life, you’re going to be best served by ending contact with every female you’ve ever sexualized.”

The only way to fix a tower with a faulty base is to knock it down and rebuild it over a stronger foundation

  Change my phone number

               2.  Change my email address

               3.  Block all social networks on my computer

               4.  Don’t give my new information to anyone with tits

You can’t hold onto the vine behind you and the vine in front of you forever. At some point, you have to let go of the past to move forward.

All the things you’ve been trying to get from these relationships—freedom, understanding

fairness, acceptance—are exactly the things that you never got from your mom. So every time you load all that unfinished business onto your partner, you’re setting yourself up for another disappointment

as an adult, the only person who can give you those things is you

if you become the hero in an enmeshed family as an adult, accepting that role will occupy the space your heart has available for a relationship

draw strong boundaries with his parents, even though he feels that they need him right now

story of the Prodigal Son

A father has two sons. The older one is a good son. He does everything he should, pleases the father, and stays on the farm to take care of it. The younger one leaves the family, spends all his father’s

money on prostitutes, doesn’t stay in touch, almost starves to death, and then, finally, returns and begs to be allowed to take care of the farm with his brother again.

When the father throws a huge celebration to welcome his youngest son back home, the older

brother asks, ‘What about me?’ And do you know what the father replies

You worked on the farm because

you felt like you should; your brother came back to work on the farm out of choice. And that is the more meaningful of the two.’”

Love is something about a person, some connection with them, that makes you willing to change.”

It’s always been something that I felt my partner expected or made me do. If I treat it as a choice this time as opposed to a demand, then maybe I can be the Prodigal Boyfriend

You, my friend, are on a deadline to love right now. If you want any hope of being in a relationship with Ingrid again, you’re going to have to attack your trauma with all the commitment you have and every tool there is before that wedding

Only

after you’ve learned how to be alone without loneliness will you be ready for a relationship

As you peel away the layers of the false self, you’re going to start feeling the pain inside that it’s protecting you from. So you’re going to get very raw and uncomfortable before you get better

if you can process all that old pain in an adult, healthy way this time, you won’t need your old walls and defenses anymore.”

If she doesn’t want you back and she’s the catalyst for this change, then she’s the best thing that ever happened to you

force feelings to surface so they can be examined, and to find the deeper causes for your behavior. In that respect, it’s working amazingly well. How you feel during the process is the least important part. So you can feel good to the extent that you’re doing the work to learn about yourself

and you’re willing to look at the feelings that come up. That’s the part to hold on to

I made a mistake by equating variety with freedom

leaving all my options open has kept me too busy juggling them to really live

Studies on choice even affirm that having too many options leads to less happiness and satisfaction.

You have your own internal therapist that is far wiser than any external

therapist you could consult. You just need to find that voice and listen to it.”

I put the photo in a frame and place it next to my bed. And I vow that from this day forward, that child will be protected. He will be loved. He will be accepted. He will be trusted. And all this will be given unconditionally

He will not

be taught to hate and fear. He will not be criticized for failing to live up to unrealistic expectations. He will not be used as a Kleenex or aspirin for someone else’s feelings of loneliness, fear, depression, or anxiety.

start filling him—and me

with the things I needed but never had as a child. When I have a negative thought about myself, I gently replace it with a positive truth. When I make a mistake, I forgive myself. When I’m too thin-skinned or thick-skinned, I gently guide myself back into moderate reality. And when I regress, I silently soothe

myself as if teaching a child not to be afraid of the dark.

I’m reparenting myself. It’s somewhat pathetic that at this age, I need to properly learn how to be an adult. But if the problems I have in relationships are the

result of developmental immaturities, then by nurturing these stunted parts of myself into a growth spurt, perhaps I’ll finally attain the happiness and stability that have eluded me through them all

Each day, I try to take care of the six core needs Lorraine told me about: physical, by surfing and eating healthily; emotional, by allowing myself to experience and express feelings without being either hypercontrolling or out of control with them; social, by spending time with

Adam, Calvin, Rick, and other

growth-minded friends; intellectual, by reading literature, listening to lectures, starting a film discussion group, and, most importantly, simply listening more; and, most alien of all for me, spiritual, through transcendental meditation, which a friend of Rick’s teaches me.

the destructive self and the creative self: the you that damages your life and the lives of others, and the you that brings forth the best in yourself, is connected to others, and is in harmony with the world around you.

Do you see now that the way you choose to live your life affects everything about it?

A cheat here and there is not just a cheat here and there. It’s a break in the continuum of who you are and the person you are in the world.”

WHY I CHEATED

               1.  I didn’t communicate or keep boundaries with Ingrid, so I acted out due to fear of

engulfment.

               2.  I didn’t share my sexual preferences with Ingrid or give her space to share hers, so I acted out due to unfulfilled sexual desires.

  I blamed her for “not allowing me” to fuck other people, so I acted out due to a denial of personal responsibility for my behavior

  I had feelings of worthlessness and low

self-esteem deep down, so I acted out for acceptance and validation

  I had no spirituality and a faulty intellectual paradigm, so I acted out because I believed we’re no different

from any other animal and that’s what animals do, and the consequences don’t really matter to the universe

I think you’re going to understand what I mean now when I tell you the secret to being faithful.”

Don’t trade long-term happiness for short-term pleasure.

Think of intimacy as a fire,” he continues. “The more logs you add to it, the bigger it gets. And the bigger it gets, the less you want to throw water on it.”

My problem before was that the bigger the fire

got, the more I wanted to throw water on it. I was so scared it would consume me

with ambivalence and fear, a living thing will die. So no one who truly loves and is loved can ever be in a cage.”

1. No matter what the situation may be, the right course of action is always compassion and love.

2. As long as at least one partner is in the adult functional at any given time, most—if not all—arguments can be avoided.

3. Recognize when you are backsliding into a childish or adolescent behavior. Then pinpoint what old story is being triggered and tell yourself the truth of the situation. Let go of the lie.

Accept what is

What if . . . Today I will expunge those two words from my vocabulary and replace them with I will

5. Instead of saying “I’m never going to cheat

again,” say, “Today, I’m not going to do that thing that makes me feel weak and shameful about myself again

the fantasy of other people is almost always better than the reality.

6. You can’t have a relationship with someone hoping they’ll change. You have to be willing to commit to them as they are, with no expectations. And if they happen to choose to

change at some point along the way, then that’s just a bonus

7. Communicate and maintain healthy

boundaries. This means finding the proper balance of filtering and protecting your self, thoughts, feelings, time, and behaviors without either closing off behind walls, or becoming overwhelmed or overwhelming

8. Ask yourself throughout the day, “What do I need to do in this moment to take care of

myself?” If you can be aware of what legitimate needs and wants you’re not attending to, and then take actions to meet them on your own—or ask your partner for help if you can’t—that is the road to happiness

No one can make you feel anything and you don’t make anyone feel a certain way. So don’t take on responsibility for your partner’s

feelings and don’t blame your partner for yours. The most caring thing to do when they’re upset is simply to ask if they want you to listen, to give advice, to give them space, or to give them loving touch

Love, honor, and affirm yourself. Whatever your decisions, actions, feelings, and thoughts throughout the day may be and whatever outcome they may lead to, if you are healthy

then they are ultimately healthy

Is it in my highest good?

And, above all, always remember to breathe and be in the moment

as psychiatrist Eric Berne puts it even more

succinctly, “Love is nature’s psychotherapy

I finally understand what the true intimacy that Joan spoke about in rehab actually is: It’s when partners stop living in the past—in their trauma history—and start

having a relationship with each other in the present moment. Love, it turns out, is not something to be learned. It’s something we already have, and we must unlearn in order to access it

I use the four adjustments to turn shame into reassurance.

Shame is about being bad for someone

reassurance is about being good to yourself

not only does it make more sense to respond with compassion instead of criticism, it’s also much easier on everyone involved. It may be the key to a longer, happier life

I always wanted more—more women, more success, more money, more space, more experience, more possessions. Not once did I stop and say, as I do now, “I have enough.

If they’re emotionally healthy adults, then there’s no dilemma that they

can’t work out together. They’re not going to even notice each other aging but just getting happier.

Many of the concepts can be found in the works of

Pia Mellody, James Hollis, Virginia Satir, John Bradshaw, Kenneth Adams, Marshall Rosenberg, Marion Solomon, Harville Hendrix, Salvador Minuchin, Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk, Robert Firestone, and others. I also recommend taking Patrick Carnes’s Post-Traumatic Stress Index test

online to understand the ways your past haunts your behavior today. (Use the original PTSI test, not the revised PTSI-R.) And you may want to email Barbara McNally (the one in Venice, CA) and urge her to publish her own book, because her teachings and wisdom were a big influence as well.

I’m currently keeping an open and expanding list of recommended websites, workshops, and practitioners at www.neilstrauss.com/thetruth

I also have a detailed reading list there, as well as information on trauma-healing workshops that offer

scholarships for those who don’t have book advances to spend.

www.neilstrauss.com/goodtimes

The best thing we can do for our relationships with
others . . . is to render our relationship to

ourselves
more conscious. This is not a narcissistic activity. In fact,
it will prove to be the most loving thing we can do for
the Other. The greatest gift to others is our

own best selves.
Thus, paradoxically, if we are to serve relationship well,
we are obliged to affirm our individual journey