On Sunday after the latest blog post, I received two messages via twitter. Never mind what the messages said. What’s important is what happened next. Transamorous men AND transwomen can learn a lot from this experience (everyone can, but “everyone” is not who this site is for). Experiences like these – and more importantly, what you do with them today – create your life experience tomorrow. How you respond to them determines whether your tomorrows are far better than today, or more like today. So I’m going to spend a lot of time explaining my experience as an example of the first steps to creating joy, happiness self-love and peace, including finding a romantic partner if that’s your desire. It’s a long post, but it’s a great story.
I got these the two tweets one after the other around 4 a.m Sunday. The first thing that happened after that is I had an emotion. Then a series of other emotions in rapid succession. The first emotion was exposure. I felt exposed. It makes sense then that the series of emotions I experienced next were embarrassment, fear, self-judgement and shame. Doesn’t that make sense? After all, we’re taught that being exposed is embarrassing, right? If you think about it, when you’re exposed by someone, you have these emotional responses too. Most everyone does.
Sadness came next. I didn’t go to anger, which most people end up in. Usually, people are not aware of all the emotions that come before anger. In their experience, they go directly to anger. But that’s never the real case. There are always emotions which come before anger.
Knowing what I know, these emotions didn’t surprise me. I know how emotions work. I knew I had stories about every minute aspect of what was happening. These stories are important, my emotions told me. Up to this moment about 10 minutes had passed. I took no action in physical reality. I didn’t fire back angry or defensive tweets to these two people. I didn’t dwell on what these two tweets said. I didn’t even come up with different things I could say later. Later, I told no one about what happened. I didn’t want agreement with my interpretation – my stories – of what happened. Any acts like these would only make my stories stronger, increasing their influence on my future.
Instead, I remained aware of how I was feeling, owning my feelings as mine. No one made me feel them. They had no relevance outside my personal, subjective experience. As mine and mine alone, I used those feelings to understand the stories I had about my sexuality, how I show up in the world as me, and how I feel about how I show up in the world compared to what I’ve been conditioned to feel – and think – about how I “should” show up. This is the gift our emotions and our stories offer: they help us know our stories. Most people miss this.
I then recognized and acknowledged my stories. Only by recognizing and acknowledging them, could I create different stories that support the life I want. What are my stories? It’s not typically productive to spend a lot of time on stories you don’t want creating your life, once they’re understood. However, it might be helpful to describe them for you:
- “My sexuality is unacceptable.”
- “I should not be doing what I’m doing with The Transamorous Network”
- “My sexuality is not normal, not accepted”
- “I’m insecure about my sexuality”
- “I won’t be accepted as I am”
- “I’m lying to myself”
- “I’m trying to convince myself about something I don’t want to be true”
There they are.
Now pay attention to this: While I know these stories exist as part of my belief framework, they do not run my life. After all, I have started this network. I am comfortable exercising my sexuality with partners. Until these tweets, no one has said anything derogatory about my sexuality, or what I’m doing in expressing it in the world. Obviously I’m comfortable enough with my sexuality (and who I am) to write about all this and publish it. My life experience regularly includes experiences supporting my positive belief frameworks.
Yet, the reason I received these two tweets is because the stories I listed still exist for me. They’re not strong enough, to effect my daily life, but they have enough forward momentum to show up now. An obvious point: if the stories didn’t exist, then why would two people take time to respond the way they did to a post not even directed to them? No, it’s not because people are assholes. People, like everything else in our realities, are responding to our stories. We are the directors of the movies that are our lives.
Why you don’t want to have knee-jerk reactions
If you react knee-jerkingly to somebody calling you a name or saying something you think is derogatory to you, especially if your knee-jerk reaction is anger, which it usually is, a hidden story is running your life. That story is directly related to what that person said or did “to you”. Can you see that? If you can, then it’s not too far of a leap to see that (in the example from my life) these two people have done me a HUGE FAVOR: They helped me clarify for myself stories I have that don’t serve me, yet that still exist in my life.
This is why anger – in every case – is not only counter productive, it’s SELF destructive. It is also why every spiritual path says anger does more harm to the angry person that it does to the person one is “supposedly” angry at. Get this, and if you’ve been called “faggot” or “tranny” or “Man in a dress” or whatever, this may be hard to agree with: I created this situation so I could understand my stories. Understanding them, I can create different stories, stories supporting what I want to experience. One other nice outcome: the opportunity to share this awesome experience with you!
Anger, in every case by the way, is an emotional reaction to being exposed…or rather, your stories being exposed. Anger is what happens when you’re not in control of what’s going on “inside”. What is going on “inside” is always creating what is going on out in your physical world. It’s ironic: your life experience is doing you a favor. It is bringing you this experience as a way of making real your internal reality so you can do something about it. If you do something about it, then your external reality MUST shift consistent with what you’ve done. But instead of doing something about it, if you blame the experience (the person or situation) for how you feel then your current stories get confirmed. You create agreement with them. When you do that, you are telling the play actors in your movie that you’re happy with what they’re doing, give you more of it.
Ain’t life grand? I think it is!
So when someone says something or does something that “angers” you, that has you feeling any negative emotion, or you have a life experience that does the same, you’ve already lost the opportunity, the powerful creative potential of that moment. Don’t worry though, you always have another chance. That’s one reason these kinds of experiences repeat: you are constantly giving yourselves second chances, third chances, fourth chances, fifth chances…on to infinity to get it done.
Back to my tweet experience: There I was face-to-face with my old stories. Next, I focused on other things for a while. I fed my cat, got something to eat. Then prepped for my spiritual practice, which I usually do every morning. I meditated, focusing my consciousness internally until I came to a deep peace. From here, I wrote a series of statements that agreed with how I wanted to feel, instead of how I felt in response to my stories the tweets triggered. Here’s what I wrote:
- I know everything is working out for me always
- I know this is a momentary nothing
- There is nothing significant happening
- I am well cared for
- Everything I’m wanting is coming into existence
- I know this is the path for me
- I am creating more reality that is in tune with what I’m wanting
- I seek the diversity (of my sexuality)
- I am always focused on by All That Is
- Even in these moments of clarity, I am in high focus
- I feel my “state” rising
- This is perfect
- Everything is moving toward my dreams
- There is a ton of people out there who just don’t know yet what I know
- I am on the leading edge of everything
- It is alright
- This is what I came here for
- Life is unfolding perfectly in accord with my desire
- I am more than ok
These statements may make no sense to you. That’s ok, they aren’t meant for sharing. I am sharing them anyway to show the step I took towards how I wanted to feel right now, over how I was feeling about the stories. Notice I wrote “the stories”, not “the tweets” or “the people who sent the tweets”. The tweets and the people are like signs pointing to my stories. The tweets didn’t upset me, my stories did. Get it? So when you’re getting upset at someone who does or says something you interpret as offensive, it’s like walking along a cliff edge on property you own, coming up to a sign you put there that says “danger, don’t get close to this cliff edge” and getting angry at the sign!
Anyway, after that exercise I felt fantastic. Feeling super positive emotions is the first tangible evidence that reality is responding to your new perspective. Through this exercise I began re-writing the life-script, including rewriting the past experience with the tweets I had that morning. Yes, it’s possible to change the past. That’s an advanced skill I’ll write in detail about in future products.
Anyhow, my morning practice had noticeable shifts on my reality experience including the now “past” experience of these tweets. As a result of this process, alternative stories became available that weren’t available before. These alternative stories about why I got these tweets are just as valid as those I made up (all stories have equal validity), but with an important difference: They have nothing to do with me or my old stories, which is a powerful distinction! Here they are:
- These people reacted from their own insecurities
- These people are struggling with realities which no longer confirm their limited beliefs/stories
- These people are scared because their beliefs about reality no longer match their experience
- These people are lashing out from their own pain
- These people’s stories are staring them in the face, but they’re failing to get the message
- These people are seeking confirmation of their stories by trying to invalidate my Truth
- What these people shared with me says far more about them than me
Along with these stories came a whole new set of emotions – powerfully positive ones! I felt compassion, empathy, understanding for these people. I also felt relief, happiness, renewed confidence and empowerment for myself. Go back up and read the first set of emotions I experienced, then read these again. Notice the energetic difference between them? Can you see how these stories coupled with the emotions I now felt are far more empowering? And yet, the stories are completely made up! Just like the stories I have which prompted the negative emotions I experienced Sunday morning!
Now you may be asking yourself “what about the old stories you have?” The answer to that is a bit complicated. I explain it in detail in both The Man’s Guide To Finding Your Transgender Partner and The Transwoman’s Guide To Finding Your Ideal Partner. I explain this entire process in a way you can begin using it and seeing results in your life immediately. I guarantee it. If you don’t, it’s not because they’re not there, it’s because you don’t see it. If that’s the case, I offer three free sessions to get you trained to see them, so you can do it for yourself ongoingly.
Back to my experience: I went on to have a lovely day Sunday. There were moments during the day when the old experience resurfaced. This is not surprising. Instead of revisiting the experiences, I reminded myself how wonderful things are going. I reminded myself that there’s a good reason I had this experience, that I would know it when I see it. I reminded myself that I had shifted the experience into a new, better-serving reality.
I didn’t have to wait long. In my spiritual time the next day (Monday morning) I was doing some reading and received what I was expecting. A passage struck me, a passage which specifically addressed the experience I had. It spoke so directly to it, I had to write about it in my journal. Here’s what I wrote about it:
Here’s an excerpt of what I read:
And now, before you, what do you see? A woman or a man? You see a range of human being and personality that defies conventional ideas of sexuality or of consciousness — that defies all of the ideas that have been handed down to you, and that challenges you each to look for the reality of your own being…You cannot, each of you, consider the real meaning of your own sexuality unless you understand … Follow through, in your own minds, with your memories. Try to be honest with yourselves as to those early experiences in which you forced yourselves to behave differently than you were, because adults told you that you must …
The rest of this passage was so profoundly spot on for me, I couldn’t help smiling to myself for the work I had done. What began as what I could have interpreted as a negative response to my post, turned out to actually be a perfectly coordinated series of events leading to my own further development with the skills and the art that is what The Transamorous Network is all about. The whole experience was perfectly orchestrated and a perfect example to share!
What people say about you is meaningless
Now, consider this: What are the stories that had these two people respond to my post in the way they did? What is it about those two people that would have them be anything but loving and compassionate? If what I’m writing here is right (and it is), then certainly those two people who sent those tweets have their own stories, stories that were exposed as they read my post. Instead of using a process such as the one I’m sharing with you, they both had their knee-jerk reactions (sending the tweets) thereby missing an opportunity for their “growth” and “development” through introspection.
These two people deserve my compassion. They don’t have a clue about what’s going on. They are in reaction mode, reacting to their physical world as if it is real and separate from who they are. It’s the same thing most people on the planet are doing. But you don’t have to live your life that way.
This is why what people say about you, even what they do to you, is meaningless as far as you’re concerned. It only becomes meaningful when you create a story about it. If that is accurate (and it is), then why on earth would you create a negative story or a story inconsistent with the life experience you’re wanting to see/experience?
Don’t bother answering. I’ll answer for you…
Because you don’t know what you’re beginning to know by reading this blog. If you’re hiding your transamory, you’re hiding a big part of who you are because you fear what your movie – the movie you’re the director of – is going to say about you. If you’re a transwoman and you’re angry because someone “clocked” you, you’ve missed the entire point of being “read”. You’re reacting to “external” situations, situations you’re creating instead of “responding” in a way that acknowledges your control over the situation and produces tomorrows you want to experience.
There is no meaning until you assign it. You assign meaning through your stories. Emotions tell you if your stories match what you’re wanting to see in your reality. If you’re not sensitive enough to “read” your emotions, don’t worry; your movie (your life) will give you experiences to clarify not only your emotions, but your stories as well. If you’re feeling negative about what’s happening, you have a story about what’s happening that is not consistent with what you know deep inside you. What you know deep inside you is you create your own reality. But you’re creating it unconsciously, and getting a lot of what you don’t want in your movie. Want to create realities you want? You have to change your stories.
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As I said above most people, when they have these kinds of experiences, aren’t aware of their internal reality. So they have knee-jerk reactions. I write about all of this, including knee-jerk reactions, in great detail both in The Man’s Guide To Finding Your Transgender Partner and The Transwoman’s Guide To Finding Your Ideal Partner. Knee-jerk reactions get human beings in trouble. They come automatically and lightening quick, faster than our conscious awareness can catch without practice. Remember, the process begins when we experience insecurity, often expressed as a complex of emotions. These emotions are typically embarrassment, shame, fear, sadness and such. It is never instantly anger. Anger comes last.
And before we know it, we are angry. We’re angry because we have stories about those primary emotions. But we don’t consciously recognize the primary emotional responses. We skip right to anger. That’s because the primary emotions, we’re told, communicate weakness (they actually don’t, but that’s what we’ve been told to believe). They are emotions, we’re told, other people shouldn’t make us feel (but no one can make you feel anything. Your interpretations do that. Interpretations are, of course, stories). We’re told they are shameful emotions (but there’s no such thing as a “shameful” emotion). Society, friends, family, churches, business colleagues, the media, movies all tell us we should never feel these emotions (Why?). They’re bad emotions, we’re told (All emotions serve a constructive purpose).
And it is literally “before we know it” that we find ourselves in anger. Next thing we know it, we’re taking action based on anger. We say something, write something, or do something else making the situation worse, not better. At the most subtle levels, levels where our life experience comes from, our acts create conditions for a similar experience. Different people may be involved, but the situation will basically be the same. The more intensely we focus on these experiences, the more intense the reaction. The more we talk about them, get agreement from others about them, the more powerfully we create the next experience.
You know what’s really cool though?
It’s this: With practice and in a short time you can transform this dynamic. The dynamic is going to happen whether you want it to or not, whether you believe in it or not. The cool thing about it though is you can use it to your advantage. Over time, you can create a brand new life. A life consistent with your every desire.
With practice it’s possible to reduce unconscious knee-jerk reactions. Believe me, it’s worth it. The better you get at it, the better your life gets. In a short time, life turns out exactly as I describe it: full of joy, fulfillment, confirmation, affirmation. More than that, you discover everything you’re wanting in life happening.
Don’t you want a life which matches your deliberate intention? Don’t you want a life full of joy and happiness?