Self Acceptence and Black and White thinking

[Bev06 GG]

Hi Ladies,
Haven't been around for a while so have been catching up with posts etc. and one thought struck me straight away. Some of you are as much a victim of absolute thinking as the very people who dont approve of or accept what you do. Black and white thinking is definitely not a helpful nor a healthy pastime. It makes people see the world as good or bad, perfect or flawed, black or white, when in truth nothing could be more further from it. Not everything fits into a box, we cannot compartmentalize everything including ourselves, we are all individuals.
Black and white thinking only serves to isolate us from anything and everyone who doesn't fit neatly into our narrow views and it prevents us from enjoying life, embracing diversity, and making new friends.
I have always known that some CDs and TS find it difficult when it comes to self acceptence and they struggle with their own identity, some even hating themselves for what they do and how they feel. I'd just like to ask those of you who are struggling what is so wrong about having an alternative lifestyle. I do realise that I could well be talking from ignorance here but that said your not going out and raping women or murdering children so how about trying to cut yourselves some slack and be a bit more forgiving. Your doing to yourselves exactly what others are doing to you so your never going to be free to enjoy your dressing and celebrate who you really are.
I bet if I told you all that I was a female cross dresser youde still all like me for who I was, so why dont you like yourselves. Course if I was your GF you might take a dimmer view but hey it wouldn't be the end of the world would it, Id still be little old me underneath all those y fronts.
Any way lecture over, sorry girls but reading some of the posts really got me thinking about how unaccepting some of you are of yourselves, and how extreme that seemed to be simply because you like women so much that you want to look like one.
Take care
Bev

[Mirani]

[kimdl93]

Bev,

Great advice. So much of the anguish in our lives is the result of negative self-image. We're here (I hope) to celebrate our lives as crossdressers or transexuals...or whatever, and to learn from each other.

thanks for the reminder.

Kim

[Renee_E]

Black and White is so easy. Either you are you are not. Life in the grey area is a challange. What shade of grey am I. This is the quest and and hurdles are the challange. We try to fit into one of 16 shades of grey only to find there are 256 shades of grey. It would be a lot easier if the world would change for us, but we must seek change in ourselves that we find the rest of the world will accept. Finding our comfort level is not easy. We are always looking for how far we can go in the society we live in and not be totally shut out or ridiculed. We are a restless group that are neither fully male or fully female, but seeking a comfortable place in between.

[sandra-leigh]

It would be a lot easier if the world would change for us, but we must seek change in ourselves that we find the rest of the world will accept.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw

[melissacd]

Bev,

I am so glad that you are back and I could not agree with you more. We must love, accept and respect who we are before we can ever expect anyone else to.

It took me a lot of years and soul searching to finally realize that I am who I am and I love and respect myself. I am just fine, I am not broken, I am just me a flawed human and yet perfectly okay in every way.

So I applaud you for reminding and encouraging all of us to be accepting and love ourselves just as we are.

Melissa Paige

[Kate Simmons]

Yeah Bev, this is more or less what I've been preaching for the last while now.

[Jonianne]

......you like women so much that you want to look like one......

.....and desire to have the spirit of one.

Breaking the black and white, all or nothing thinking was so hard for me, but once I accepted people like you in my life and allowed God's love to flow through the conduit of your (their) love and acceptance, then I knew I could be OK with myself.

Finally, I saw how utterly silly it was of me to be so self-condeming of just wanting to express my real self in a feminine way.

Bev, you are such a mother hen. Thank you.

[Katesback]

Bravo:

I always say do whatever it takes to be happy and damm the rest of the world's opinion of you.

[sherri52]

You must love oneself before you can love others.

[LisaM]

Thank you, mam, I'll take another. Thanks for the reality check, Bev.

[Terrigirl]

[QUOTE=Renee_E;2022387]Black and White is so easy. Either you are you are not. Life in the grey area is a challange. QUOTE]

Life in the grey area is very difficult for alot of men, including myself. I think it is natural for men to think in black and white, right or wrong. This has been a challenge for me all my life, that is for sure. This website, along with my wonderful wife has started to help me with my thought process. For some reason, we, or at least I, have a preconceived notion on what is normal, what is right, and what is wrong. However, the older I get and the more I know about the people around me, the more I realize that there is no "normal". On the service, most people appear to be normal, as defined by society, but the deeper I dig into people's lives, the more I understand that "normal" does not exist, nor does black and white. Life for the vast majority of people in this world is within the grey area.

[Bev06 GG]

Actually Terri,
I think youve probably hit on something there. Men, without wanting to sound too sexist, have more difficulty with thinking out of the box than women do. Or maybe they can do it, but see it as a weakness. Not sure but if you were given the choice to come out to a male or a female, I bet a pound to a penny you'de find it easier to share your lifestyle with a woman. (obviously depends on the individual).
They did some research a few years ago and they reckoned that homophobia was more prevalent amongst men than women. How true that is I dont know, but males who do have a problem with say Gays or Lesbians, really do have a problem with it, where as females who struggle with it are OK just so long as it doesnt affect them in any way. Kind of generalising here and I know thats dangerous but in my experience that has been general.
take care
Bev

[Wen4cd]

Actually Terri,
I think youve probably hit on something there. Men, without wanting to sound too sexist, have more difficulty with thinking out of the box than women do. Or maybe they can do it, but see it as a weakness. Not sure but if you were given the choice to come out to a male or a female, I bet a pound to a penny you'de find it easier to share your lifestyle with a woman. (obviously depends on the individual).
They did some research a few years ago and they reckoned that homophobia was more prevalent amongst men than women. How true that is I dont know, but males who do have a problem with say Gays or Lesbians, really do have a problem with it, where as females who struggle with it are OK just so long as it doesnt affect them in any way. Kind of generalising here and I know thats dangerous but in my experience that has been general.
take care
Bev

Isn't this, in itself, a bit of a dualist observation, with some 'statistical' hinting thrown in to nail it into a Black & White framework of "male -v- female?"

It's kind of self-negating when you look at it, suggesting, after all the other points made, how easily dualist thought slips back in, even to someone who is aware of it, and implies how 'bad' (another dualism) it is to think that way.

It only happens every single time any two things are contrasted against each other. It may be even that without some such contrast, nothing would be perceived to exist to us. While that is, in one way, the nature of the universe, dualism has been our unique 'gift' since The Fall of Man, or the rise of sentient consciousness. The syzygy archetype is not something that we can consciously will away from our human psychological makeup by simply noting how 'wrong' it is.

The best we can consciously do is use some discernment to apply it or not apply it where it will benefit us the most, and one of the worst (lol) places to apply it is in suggesting or discering that men and women are innately built psychologically different. That's one of the first dualism's we're taught as children, and the main reason this site has come to exist in the first place.

[Stephenie S]

I agree. I think men are FAR more homophobic than women.

And therein lies the rub, does it not? The fear of being thought "GAY" terrifies the average American male. Not to say that some women are afraid of this also, my STBX among them. But we are raised in a fantastically homophobic society, aren't we?

Stephie

[kimdl93]

Its been my experience that men are more narrow minded and less accepting of any variation from the "norm" (even if they are themselves hiding something).

[Jenny Beth]

They did some research a few years ago and they reckoned that homophobia was more prevalent amongst men than women. How true that is I dont know, but males who do have a problem with say Gays or Lesbians, really do have a problem with it,
Bev

There's probably a fair bit of truth in this. Men certainly know that if you're not considered "macho" by other men then there's something wrong with you whereas women are not so quick to judge.

[Karren H]

We engineers only think in B and W... Right or wrong. 1's or 0's... Its a curse and a gift! Lol.

[sandra-leigh]

The fear of being thought "GAY" terrifies the average American male. Not to say that some women are afraid of this also, my STBX among them. But we are raised in a fantastically homophobic society, aren't we?

Eastern Ontario, Canada, late 1970's high school... other than perhaps "retard!", being called gay was about the worst slur around, worse than being openly communist or anarchist. And that was in a relatively progressive place, not a "stone them and run them out of town" bible belt. But being gay was social death, either directly or because other people (including me I'm sorry to say) didn't have the strength to associate with those deemed gay, lest we be ostracized ourselves.

I'm told current high school generations in big cities in Ontario are much more accepting now, but for the most part, the people in power now are those who grew up pressured to shun homosexuals.

[Bev06 GG]

Isn't this, in itself, a bit of a dualist observation, with some 'statistical' hinting thrown in to nail it into a Black & White framework of "male -v- female?"


.

I did say I was generalising and that it was maybe dangerous to generalise. And with the best intention in the world honey, I aint perfect and can easily slip into absolute mode too.
take care
Bev