stuff in my head

I was talking to a friend the other day about how a bad experience, in a completely different environment, was affecting how he was doing something in the here and now. The orginal experience had no relevance to the current one - but had taught him that he was "No good" at things, even though he again and again proved exactly the opposite in his every day life. But in certain situations the old programming came back to haunt him, and made the "no good" become a self-fulfilling prophecy. It was embedded enough that he genuinely questioned whether the *real* him was the competent, natural good person we were observing 99% of the time, or the 1% where it wasn't quite right - and was convinced the 1% was the real him.

Now this links in with the whole theory of the Talent Police - who know you are really faking in it, and are undercover so you don't know who they are. And one day there will be a tap on the shoulder... (a different theory from a different person). But that's perhaps for another conversation.

It also ties in to a concept Mark Rashid uses, which has a biblical background "as man thinketh, so is he" or words to that effect. I guess NLP also uses this approach, but with more complex language.

Anyway, a day or so after the conversation, having quite emphatic told this guy that he needed to forget the historical rubbish and believe in himself - I twigged that in a way I am doing exactly the same, but about the whole weight issue.

There was a guy (isn't there always) who I feel hook line and sinker for when I was new to all this romance stuff. I hadn't figured that you could feel like that about someone without it being reciprocated. I believed in true love and all that. Anyway, we did briefly get together but it didn't end so well - as he basically did a disappearing act rather than tell me it was over. It was New Year and the rest of my family had headed north while I stayed at home alone - my faith in true love strong enough that I still believed that something major must be stopping him getting in contact. Eventually just before New Year I got desparate and managed to track down a friend of his, who finally got him on the phone for me. And that was that... for eight years.

Eight years later I had just come out of a two and half year relationship. I don't even remember how he got in contact - but there we were, talking on the phone again like we were friends. He came to visit, and *he* was the one who moved in into non-platonic territory. I would have been happy keeping it to friends, but once it moved into different territory, I seemed to lose all logic and rationality. If I didn't make a fool of myself, I got pretty close to it.

This is just context to try and explain why a simple phrase had such a big impact on me. This guy had the ability to turn my brain to jelly. (true to character he later did another disappearing act and I haven't heard from him since !)

The phrase in question was "stocky". Yep, he described me as *stocky*

So he may have been correct to do so. But in mulling over how someone else was being affected by their past, I realised that a lot of the rubbish in my head about weight, looks etc comes back to that - to someone I was crazy about using *that* word to describe me.

Being aware of it doesn't fix it...but it might help me deal with it better in the future.

I guess around now I should fess up to one of the possible readers of this - who I give a fair amount of grief to about the way he puts himself down. Guess what - it takes one to know one

But that is not the only past "stuff" I am dealing with right now. Having been in a relationship with a partner who for long periods of time barely touched me, not even for a friendly hug (it was the PTSD he said...), I figured there were two possibilities now I was single again - one was that I had supressed my physical needs for so long that single celibacy was just going to be more of the same, just without a warm male body next to me at night to rub salt in the wound. The alternative was that it would all come roaring back like a forest fire. It's kind of been neither one nor the other. Moments of wanting to club the nearest half-decent male over the head and drag him off to a dark cave are easier to deal with if you can distract yourself by going for a run, or tidying something up. Nothing wrong with a coping strategy that makes me healthier or improves my quality of life !

What is slightly weird is that slightly predatory urge was something I had "retired" and moved on from *before* I met my ex. It seems that in reverting back to "single me", I've reverted back to an older (or should that be younger ?) version of me than I realised. And there is a part of me that just wants to let the inner predator loose.

I feel like a caged big cat that has been put into a release programme - I don't really remember how to hunt, what to hunt, but I know I want to hunt. I can remember how it feels like remembering the taste of a favourite food, like the smell of baking bread or new mown grass - instantly evocative.

I remember watching a release programme for cats where they were having to learn how to catch live prey as they had always been fed dead meat. They were completely inept. Ever seen an older cat behaving like a kitten ? They just look stupid, but they can't help themselves.

I have quite a strong drive *not* to make a fool of myself.

This could be an interesting one to work through...