New All Time Low

[MJontheMend]

I think that is an awesome realization. Truly. I can't think of a better place to be, than in that zone of awareness!

Yeah, but how do you stay there? I wish I could brand this zone of awareness onto my brain permanently. I think my H really did me a favor with his recent "I hate my job." fit because it was so pure in its "selfishness" that it set me free to be equally "selfish" after my initial reaction which was a frenzied fit of fusion in the crucible as documented on this BB-LOL. I think we really burnt down the house this time and yet here we are still standing.

I could use the simplistic example of body image to explain how I came to be able to think "I love myself" during sex. Let's say I have lumpy thighs. I could think "I hate my thighs therefore I hate myself and anyone who loves me is a loser." and fall into a pit of self-loathing or I could think "I love myself therefore I love my thighs and anyone else who doesn't love them as part of me is an *sshole" and balance myself on a precarious cliff of self-delusion. Now I think "I love myself even though I have some damn unlovably lumpy thighs. Anybody who loves me must be doing it in spite of those thighs.". Therefore, if my H were to say to me "I don't want to have sex with you because you have lumpy thighs.", my response would be along the lines of "Well, I don't blame you. They are pretty lumpy. I guess I could move "work on thighs" up to number 7 from number 19 on my Lifetime To Do list, though I should inform you in all honesty that it will never make it to number 1 or even 6 because there are quite a few things that are more important to me, so you should make any decision about whether you would care to continue with me as your monogamous sexual partner based on that info. I, of course, will make my own decisions based on my own selfish preferences.".

I used the example of body image but any personal attribute you could think of would apply. We are limited in both our ability and our willingness to change who we are and part of who we are will always be fairly sucky because none of us are perfect but we have to love ourselves and we do love others despite this fact. If you ask your partner "Does this dress make me look fat?" or "Do you love me?" or "Did you like having sex with me?" or "Will you stay with me forever?" you need to realize that the answer that you get does nothing whatsoever to change the state of the world or your relative safety in it.