Greg's Real Love Blog

“Stupid.”
“Idiot.”
“Moron.”

All our lives great shivers of fear have run up and down our spines when these terrible words have reached our ears, and we’ve gone to enormous lengths to avoid their being directed at us. It’s understandable that we would feel this way, because these words have uniformly been spat like venomous bullets, and the people who have spoken them—our parents, teachers, friends, and others—have been those whose opinions we have valued highly. The context and delivery of these words have been terrifying. We learned at an early age that when someone said, “You are so stupid,” that had quite a different connotation from someone saying “You are so tall.” We learned that being stupid was a distinctly bad thing, and when people proclaimed our stupidity, we also noticed that they were far less accepting of us—less affectionate, less warm—than when we were not stupid. The withdrawal of their acceptance was devastating.

Understandably, therefore, these words continue to carry quite a negative emotional charge for us, even as adults. We fear them. We avoid them. Regrettably, however, whatever we fear also tends to become a significant obstacle to our growth and happiness, and such is the case with these words.

Because of our fear of the word stupid, for example—not to mention idiot, moron, and others—we are very reluctant to admit that we’re stupid even when we ARE stupid. That is a huge problem, because when we can’t tell the truth about who we really are—including about our stupidity—

(1) we can’t change who we are, we can’t grow, and
(2) we can’t feel unconditionally loved.

Let’s address both of these consequences of not telling the truth, particularly as they relate to the unspeakable words we have listed.

First, when we can’t tell the truth about ourselves, we can’t change who we are.

One of the technological marvels of recent years is the various mapping programs on the Internet: Mapquest, for example, and other such programs by Google and Yahoo. As a child, I thought maps were the greatest things. I would pore over them for hours, fascinated at the tapestry of roads, rivers, cities, mountains, and so on. In my mind, I took trips on those roads, from cities on one side of the country to cities on the other side. It was great fun. Yes, I know I needed to get out more.

So as an adult it fascinates me that we can type into the computer two addresses from almost anywhere in the world, and in seconds these mapping programs will tell us exactly how to make the shortest journey between those two points: what roads to take, how to turn, how far it is between turns. The programs do have a limitation, however. If I want to get from where I am to another place, I absolutely must enter the correct address for the spot where I’m beginning my journey. If I enter an address different from my starting location, there isn’t a chance that I’ll take the right path to get where I want to go.

A similar accuracy is required for plotting the path of our personal lives. If I lie about where I am right now, I don’t stand a chance of reaching my eventual goals, because my starting point is in error. Every turn and movement thereafter is then based on a mistake, so how can I hope the journey will turn out well? We must tell the truth about our mistakes, flaws, and fears, not to humiliate ourselves but because without the truth we cannot correct or eliminate these qualities which impede our growth and happiness.

So what is the truth about us relative to the word stupid?

In ten years, will you know more than you know now? I hope so. I hope you will know a great deal more than you know now. That’s the whole idea of learning. Relative to what you will know in ten years, therefore, would you characterize yourself as smart now? Of course not. Compared to your wise condition in ten years, you’re relatively stupid now, and the only reason we resent that word is that it’s always been accompanied by a lack of acceptance—usually by bitterness and anger, in fact. If we need another example, compared to God we are massively stupid. It’s just a description of fact, not an accusation or term of belittlement. When I suggest that we admit our stupidity, I am not talking about self-deprecation. I’m not talking about making ourselves feel small. I’m talking about a simple description of how things are.

So why use this particular word? Precisely because we avoid it, precisely because as long as we don’t use it, we cannot feel unconditionally loved, which is the second consequence of not telling the truth about ourselves that we listed earlier.

All our lives we’ve had to earn the approval of others by being obedient, cooperative, clever, responsible, and so on, and we have ample evidence that if we fall below a certain standard in any of those areas, people really will withdraw their approval. Over and over, we’ve seen that when we are stupid—mostly when we behave in ways other people don’t like—people clearly don’t like us as much. They scowl, shrug their shoulders, and offer critical comments. In order to defend ourselves from those painful signs of the withdrawal of approval, therefore, we deny our mistakes, make excuses, and do whatever it takes so that people won’t think we’re stupid.

This is a huge mistake. It’s much, much more productive to simply admit our stupidity. Why? Because it’s usually true that we are stupid, and because our admission creates opportunities for people to love us without conditions—to give us Real Love. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve participated in a scenario like the following.

I was trying once to help someone set up the audiovisual equipment for a seminar, and in the process I hooked up some of the cables incorrectly. The man in charge of the setup looked at what I’d done, put a big frown on his face, and said, “This is all wrong. Why did you do it this way?”

I smiled and responded, “Oh, I’m just stupid, and, regrettably, it’s not the first time today it’s leaked out. It seems to be kind of a pattern, actually. I would love to have your help.”

He immediately lost the frown and said, “No, you’re not stupid. You just didn’t know how to do it. Here, let me show you how.”

Why did his attitude change so suddenly? Because I told him the truth, which has a remarkable effect on people. When I tell you the truth, I’m making a choice not to defend myself—not to use any of the Protecting Behaviors—which is also a choice to care about you, and you can feel that. In addition, when I tell you the truth, I give you an opportunity to accept me unconditionally, and we all have an innate desire to do that. Telling the truth is a powerful catalyst.

I have spoken in many venues where people have come up after the seminar and said to me, “I really enjoyed the message of Real Love, but I’m concerned about your use of the word stupid. I think it might be better if you used it less.” My response is, “I suggest you use the word more often, until you take the sting out of it, until it doesn’t frighten you anymore. Use the word stupid until you see it simply as a non-critical description, until you can describe something you did by saying, ‘That was stupid’ in the same tone you would say, ‘It’s about four miles from your house to mine.”

Allow me to emphatically interject here that we must remember to use the word stupid only when describing ourselves, not others. On the whole, other people don’t appreciate hearing themselves described as stupid.

Accepting our relative stupidity can give us such freedom. Over the years I have discovered that I actually enjoy talking about my stupidity. When I talk openly about what I don’t know, I now have the freedom to learn and grow. Rather than avoid the admission of stupidity, I open declare my goal that every day I strive to be a little less stupid than I was the day before. Talking about my stupidity also frees me to be unconditionally loved. If you love me while I’m smart and competent, I’m trapped. Now I have to possess these qualities all the time in order to be worthy of your love. But if you love me while I’m stupid, what do I have to worry about? Now I know you love me without conditions, and that is no small thing.

Let us openly declare and embrace our flaws. To be sure, there is an initial discomfort in that approach, but the rewards are great: First, we no longer have to engage in the exhausting and fearful game of hiding our imperfections and defending them. Second, we can feel loved with our defects rather than despite them. And third, we can finally work openly on correcting our flaws, rather than secretly fearing and denying them. The truth really does set us free.

The other day I was preparing to begin the RealLove.com weekly video chat, when one member reported that he wasn’t receiving the video feed. He said he had tried all manner of manipulations to no avail, so I suggested that he hit the Refresh button on his browser, and if that didn’t work, he might reboot his computer. Then I added, “In my experience, those two actions—Refresh and reboot—will solve more than half of the problems you encounter on the Internet.”

Similar advice could be given for solving problems in our personal growth and in our relationships. Let’s look at the similarities between computers and human beings.

When you click the Refresh button on your browser, it updates whatever Internet page you’re viewing with any additional information that’s been added to that page since you last viewed it. It gives you the latest version of the page, and it also restarts any web-based programs that were on that page, like a video feed. Hitting Refresh simply allows us to move forward with the best available information.

Similarly, when we have difficulty with personal problems in our lives, it is precisely at those times that we require additional insight and knowledge to solve those problems. We need to hit our Refresh button, which would mean obtaining all the wisdom, knowledge, and love we can find from those around us. Without these additional resources, it is rarely possible for us to do anything but repeat our past mistakes.

Rebooting a computer is a matter of shutting everything down— programs, the Internet, operating systems, everything—and starting over. In the process, the memory cache is cleared, and all applications and processes are forced to reload, usually eliminating any conflicts that may have been caused by programs competing for processing power and memory.
We have opportunities every day to reboot our thoughts and feelings. After refreshing ourselves with the best available insights, knowledge, and love, we can literally reframe the way we see the world. We can clear out our stores of useless perspectives and fears and begin again with the new resources and attitudes we have acquired. Whenever we choose, we really can leave the past behind and enjoy the exhilaration of a new life.

So the next time you experience fear or anger or frustration, you might consider refreshing and rebooting. That course is far more effective than persisting in old thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Mike was one of the most critical and angry men I’ve ever known, regularly attacking people for little or no reason. He felt unloved, alone, and miserable. And then he learned to tell the truth to a group of loving men. As they unconditionally accepted him, it was like watching a flower bloom. He lost his fear and therefore lost his need to attack people. He dropped his anger because it no longer had any use. He became a happy and beautiful human being.

Mike attacked people only because he was afraid. Everywhere I go, I see the control that fear has on the hearts of men, women, and children. We’re afraid of what people will think when we make mistakes. We’re afraid to look stupid. We’re afraid of being used. We’re afraid people will laugh at us or be angry at us.

All our fears come down to this: We’re afraid people won’t love us, and that determines what we think, say, and do all day. Paraphrasing Proust a bit,

"To goodness and virtue we make only promises; fear we obey."

We always respond to pain and fear. Mike reacted to his fear with anger. When he was angry, he felt less alone and helpless. Some other people react differently to fear: They lie or run or act like victims. These behaviors destroy any possibility of loving relationships and happiness.

Fear is a staggering burden. Afflicted with this condition, we can think of nothing else but the thing we’re afraid of. When we’re afraid, we can’t be happy or loving. We can’t be good husbands, wives, or parents.

The solution to fear is simple. We need only to tell the truth and be unconditionally accepted. But most of us don’t know that’s possible. That’s why we lie, attack, and so on. As people learn to tell the truth about themselves and feel unconditionally loved, their fears vanish. Without fear they see the world and the people in it more clearly than they ever thought possible.

We can all learn to have experiences like this. I’ve seen it in people of all ages, cultures, religions, and so on. We can feel loved and happy every minute of the day. That’s a condition worth aspiring to.

One day while I was in the operating room, I overheard two nurses talking. One of them said to the other, “Yesterday I was in the ladies’ room at a restaurant, and I met this interesting woman. She said . . .”

What I had just heard was so shocking that I stopped what I was doing, put my instruments down—the patient was under general anesthesia—and without thinking interrupted her by asking, “You talked to a stranger in the rest room?”

She said, “Sure” in a tone communicating that such an event wasn’t unusual at all for her.

I shook my head and said, “Do other women do that?”

“All the time,” she said.

I was more than forty years old and learning this stunning fact for the first time. “Men do not speak in rest rooms,” I said. “Ever.”

That experience made me think about how men interact with each other under many conditions, and I realized that there are unspoken, but still rigid and powerful, guidelines that govern how men relate to each other, and these guidelines speak volumes about our nature. Let me share with you some of these guidelines:

1. Men usually speak to each other only for specific and limited reason: to pass on information, for example, or to accomplish a well-defined task. They call each other to order lumber, to arrange a meeting, to negotiate the price of a product, and so on. If a man calls another man and doesn’t come to some kind of point—an item of business, a vital piece of information—within 10 seconds, the other man will say, “What can I do for you?”

2. Men gather together only to accomplish a specific task: to hold a meeting, to attend a ball game, to play softball, to put up a barb-wire fence, and so on.

3. If men are put in a position where they’re in the same room without a specific reason to speak or work together—like waiting in a doctor’s office where there is no barb-wire fence to put up—they simply do not speak. If they are absolutely trapped in close quarters, like sitting next to each other before a meeting starts, they speak only about the most superficial subjects: sports, the weather, the war in Bosnia, and so on.

It’s these general guidelines that helped shape the very specific, time-honored, and inflexible rules that govern the behavior in a men’s room.

1. This first rule determines all the others. Men go to the rest room only to perform their bodily functions. Period. During that time, the privacy of each man is inviolable.

2. Men do not speak to each other in rest rooms. Ever. It is forbidden. A men’s rest room is like a sacred tomb. Speaking would turn it into a social gathering, which would be entirely inappropriate in a place where private bodily functions are the principle goal. If a young boy accompanies his father into the rest room and starts talking to his father, that is a barely forgivable offense. The child is not killed only because of his age and his ignorance of the code. The other men in the room then look at the father and relay the unspoken message that he’d better inform his son in a hurry about The Rules. No father forgets The Look twice.

3. Men do not make eye contact with each other in the rest room. To do so would be an unconscionable violation of the privacy of another man in a sacred place. If you doubt this, station yourself outside a public men’s room and watch the men and they go in and out of this holy chamber. You will never see one pair of eyes lock with another. Sacrilege.

4. Men do not wait in line in rest rooms. In the rare circumstance where a men’s rest room is full, men may pretend to comb their hair, examine the ceiling tiles for structural integrity, repeatedly wash their hands, or leave the rest room and come back when it’s not full. But they will never stoop to actually stand in a line. To stand behind another man at a urinal or to obviously wait outside a toilet stall would be an intolerable breach of etiquette and personal privacy.

5. If there are multiple urinals in the rest room, men must use alternating urinals unless absolutely unavoidable. Let’s imagine, for example, that I come into the rest room and there are four urinals on the wall. If another man is using the second one from the left, I may use the fourth, but never the first or third, which would place me next to the man standing. The same rule applies to multiple toilet stalls.

6. If you have no toilet paper in your stall, that’s just tough. You’re out of luck. The fates have abandoned you to your dismal end. Next time you’ll check before you sit down, won’t you? A man does not speak to get the help of another man to save him in such a humiliating situation. He simply handles it an as dignified a fashion as possible—the possibilities of which are never to be spoken.

7. After relieving oneself, if there is no soap at the sink—as there usually isn’t in a public rest room—a man must pretend to wash the bacteria from his hands with plain water. Otherwise, everyone will assume that he was raised in a barn with the pigs. There is some flexibility with this one rule, because many men WERE raised in a barn and are proud of their porcine heritage.

8. Under no circumstances whatever may a man standing at a urinal look down and to the side. The proper position is always to stand still while looking straight ahead at the wall. Graffiti is sometimes provided for reading material.

There are no penalties for violation of these rules—commandments, really—because violation is simply inconceivable. Boys are taught these rules from an early age, and they don’t even realize they’re learning them. Keep in mind that I was over forty years of age before I even realized that I wasn’t speaking in men’s rooms. Recently I was walking into a men’s room at a theater, and right behind me was a boy, about age fourteen, who in turn was followed by his younger brother, maybe four years old. They were talking as they approached the men’s room, but the moment the four-year-old’s foot touched the threshold of the inner sanctum, his older brother put his finger to his lips and said, “Shhhhh.” In that moment, if I had asked the older boy why he was shushing his younger brother, I guarantee you that he would not have known the answer. He would simply have known to his core that in that sacred place there should be no talking.

A man’s time in a rest room is no laughing matter. Many men will not use a public rest room at all. Or they walk into a restroom to be sure no one else is there before they will use it.

I share all this partly because it reveals so much about the nature of men. Most men are not even consciously aware of the rules, but they keep them anyway. Virtually no women are aware of this code of conduct, and it has a bearing on their understanding the behavior of men everywhere they go.

There’s a point to all this. Women often blame their husbands for the lack of intimacy in their relationship. They get angry because their husbands aren’t more communicative, warm, and sensitive. But we see just from this tiny glimpse into the lives of men in rest rooms that men have learned from the time they were very little boys that the more they communicate, the more they open themselves up for criticism, ridicule, and pain.

As I describe typical male behaviors—rest room behavior being just one example—men all nod their heads in agreement, remembering these moments very well. Women shake their heads and think I’m talking about another species. Actually, men and women are NOT so very different. They both have the same central need to be unconditionally loved. However, they do tend to react differently to the absence of Real Love. Women were taught to please other people and to earn their praise, one form of Imitation Love. Men were taught above all to avoid criticism and being laughed at. They protect themselves to maintain their sense of power and to ensure safety, which are other forms of Imitation Love.

Watch a group of second-grade boys during recess, and you can see that they’ve already learned the traits that will make them men and that will make them unhappy the rest of their lives. Girls will hold hands as they skip along. Boys never touch each other except to hit each other or to interact in some form of athletic activity. Girls will encourage each other during a game and help someone who lags behind. Boys will laugh at and make fun of almost anyone who isn’t proficient at a task or sport. They choose the poor athletes last for their teams. They make fun of a boy who has anything at all different about him: an unusual last name, a speech impediment or accent, hair that’s different, glasses, a body that’s too short or fat, being too smart or too dumb, and so on.

So boys learn to stay as inconspicuous as possible. It’s more important to avoid ridicule than it is to earn praise, although praise is still a desirable thing.

The point is that most men live in fear. We’re afraid because we don’t feel loved and we’re afraid we never will be. We’re afraid people will see our flaws and will never care for us. THAT is why men usually fail to be intimate with their wives and others, not to intentionally deprive anyone of love.

We can learn to change all that. We can learn to tell the truth about ourselves and find those who will unconditionally accept and love us. And with sufficient Real Love fear vanishes, along with our Getting and Protecting Behaviors. What’s left is genuine happiness, and that’s worth every effort we make to find it.