Your Natural Man Tendencies


 You probably guessed it.  In just a minute I am going to give you space again to write out your personal tendencies.  Before we go there let’s maybe give a few details on what I mean by “things.” Things may include ANYthing. Where do we turn when we are angry, sad, hurt, we feel numb or want to feel numb? In addition to the physical distractions, what are some mental or emotional distractions that you  may be turning to? I want you to see that ANYTHING can fall into the natural man.  It doesn’t have to look a specific way.  It’s how we feel about it and how it makes us feel that can help us detect it for us personally.  What is a natural man tendency for one person may not necessarily be for another person. As you read through the next few paragraphs, pay attention to what comes to your mind, even if it isn’t something I mention here.

So let’s maybe just brainstorm what a few things may be.  You may see yourself here or come up with something completely different. What about a hobby that, if we are honest with ourselves, has gotten a little too out of hand? Maybe it’s crafting or sewing. Maybe we are obsessed with fabric or paint or whatever.  When we have these strong feelings, do we turn to something like this for a "pick me up?" What about that series on netflix we just can’t live without? We find ourselves binging after a long day because we just don’t want to have to think about anything. What about our internet use or the ways we turn to social media or texting? When we feel bad inside, do we want to mindlessly scroll through news feeds, surf the internet, or chat and message?

And under things, why not people?  Can you see that we could use people to stuff up this void too?  It may be a spouse that we have elevated on some pedestal.  Although our spouse can fill us in some ways, they can’t fill up this void. We may also turn to other family members or friends. We can feel desperate to get together for the next girls night or play date for the kids so we can sit and chat.  Just like with our spouse, these relationships with people are important.  As the wife of a recovered sex addict who has had trust completely burnt to the ground, learning to build a relationship with at least one safe individual is important to healing.  Reaching out to group members or a sponsor at difficult moments is important too.  But if that is as far as our reaching goes, can you see that others can fill us temporarily, but again, they can never fill us in the way that we are seeking. As you reach to others, do you also get on your knees and reach heavenward?

And what about with our online interactions?  Do we turn to people there?  Do we reach out seeking for help, answers, or confirmation?  Do we seek for the applause and praise?  Do we feed on the rush of likes, comments, or shares?  The social media interactions can give us a false sense of connection as we feel we have a peek into all of our “friends’” lives. As important as it is to stay in touch and as fun as it is to see the pictures and what those we care about are sharing, when we are honest with ourselves, is there a deeper motive here?

As much as I love google, if we ask ourselves in truth, do we turn to it more readily than to God when we are reminded of that void? In those moments we are afraid and want answers, are we reaching out to a search engine to generate for us what we need?

What about people pleasing in general?  Do we turn to people and their opinions so we don’t have to have an opinion of our own? (Or whatever may lay underneath people pleasing for you). Again, I can’t answer any of these questions for you.  Only you can truly know for your own self.

It blew my mind when I discovered this last sub-category of things. Did you know that you can also turn to emotions? It’s kind of crazy to think about.  For me personally, if I lose my temper, it feels as if I have some tangible substance pumping through my veins.  When I feel like things are out of my control, a burst of anger can give me the false feeling that I am powerful and that I can hold it all together. In Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, Dr. Joe Dispenza says, “the body becomes addicted to guilt or any emotion in the same way that it would get addicted to drugs” (As quoted in Skinner, Treating Trauma from Sexual Betrayal, 58-59).

And speaking of ways to regain supposed control, I had moments that come up as the wife of a recovered sex addict.  In those times of intense fear---and it doesn’t matter if those fears are seemingly “valid” or “not”---I would desperately grasp for the emotional mirage of control.  Do we find ourselves getting really crazy really fast as we reach for anything we can think of to “contain” the situation?  Just like an addict coming off a high, when we find ourselves feeling emotionally uncomfortable we can get desperate to get the “feel goods” back into our system again.  We will address all of this at the root level in the mind chapter.  For now, even in our attempts to re-establish safety after betrayal, we can turn to things, people, or emotions to save us at these times.

Maybe when we feel insecure we turn to the emotional illusion of power by responding with sarcasm, criticism, or belittling others. It makes us “feel better.”  Sometimes we may turn to drama.  We feed off this emotion based on everything being bigger than life. It creates a sick excitement of everything having a horrible, drawn-out, or amplified story.  What about turning to the emotion of distraction when we feel like we can’t deal with what is before us?  Is it possible to get just as much of a “high” from hopping from one thing to the next new thing? We may turn to this in order to keep ourselves distracted enough we are prevented from looking too closely at our own lives.  What about fear? We can use fear as some twisted safety net to protect ourselves from failing or getting hurt. Or how about numbing out, or just not feeling at all?  When we feel like we have had enough, we just “check out” for a while.  We turn to things or people that will help us to just not feel anything.  Maybe it comes in the form of surfing pinterest or a netflix binge or a romance novel.

I want to be especially delicate to those who are in trauma, recognizing in the fight, flight, or freeze stance, we do not have access or full-access to our higher levels of thinking.  It is literally a neurological response that a body automatically shifts into when a person feels threatened. In these moments we do not perform at our best.  We are simply trying to survive the threat. This is the point I am trying to drive home with all of this: that we all have times like this---where each one of us is not behaving in our optimum capacity.  If you are recognizing this in yourself, then our discussion on this topic is adequate.

I don’t know the answer to these questions I just fired off at you.  You will have to answer these questions for yourself.  And just because you eat chocolate or feel like you would rather watch a movie because you feel too “out of people juice,” doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to hell!  All I am asking is that you start paying attention to yourself.  What do you observe here about yourself? What are you doing and why are you doing it?  We will go deeper in this process soon. I promise there is a point to speaking so directly and I hope you will begin to see it coming together as we proceed.

These things that we are turning to can easily blur into what you may have already written down in the fallen man tendencies.  The natural man absolutely extends into physical ways, but can you see that the physical battle over our bodies is only one place this battle is happening?  Even though it may seem to be about something our physical body craves, isn’t there a little voice or something inside of the back of your mind telling you that you shouldn’t do that or have done that? (Please tell me I’m not the only one). Can you see that if we dig a bit deeper than trying to just “white knuckle it” and muster up enough willpower or self control that we may actually get somewhere instead of going into shame from the ways we just yelled out our spouse or the unexplainable or embarrassing things we felt like we had no control over?  Hold that thought because that is where we are headed after a little more understanding under our belt. For right now, here is your space below.

My natural Man Tendencies:
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