alpha100 said:
<Am I making the right choice by moving out of North America? How else should I stand up for this type of heartache?>
This sounds like something I could have posted. I had a past that I wasn't proud of either, and my social issues have plagued me from childhood into adulthood. Shame is a weight, and a make-or-breaker - I could have probably killed myself in my 20's. Like you, I was married, I proposed three months into the relationship because I thought this was my one and only chance to be married. I moved back home and took this job when I was 26, and made a whole bunch of mistakes that pretty much ruined my reputation, people thought I was incompetent. I went to school nights, to learn a new trade, so I could be in a position to leave my job and start fresh. Then when my ex became pregnant, I became afraid that my child would grow up being ashamed of me, and I would have nothing to offer him as far as life skills. Here's what I decided to do.
I coined it "personal reform." I withdrew socially - both in whatever little circles outside of work I had become involved in, and at work I withdrew. I started a notebook about what needed changing, which was everything. I needed social reforms, spiritual reforms, and physical reforms.
The social reform, I taught myself how to communicate better. I read a bunch of books (can come back to this if needed) and created a blueprint, a template of behavior I would begin to follow like a robot. I used a couple role models as well and blended their behavior and communication patterns into a system I would follow, tweaking as I went along. I constructed an emotional defense grid, a behavior and thought pattern (system) to begin following in order to protect my "thin skin." As time went on, I learned so much about myself, and believe it or not other people, that I could write a book.
I started learning to cook, and reformed my workout program that I had been following since age 13. Health is one of the resources to "feeling better" about yourself - which is part of the bedrock of inner strength and confidence. The workout program has been a big piece of self image and confidence - can come back to this as well.
Spiritual reforms - I will keep this part vague, but this section of personal reform actually is a big piece. I learned about merismos in the 80's while in the army. Merismos is the partition between soul and spirit. Soul = mind + will + emotions. The spirit is much more complex and connecting to that part of ourselves is an amazing resource. Basically I learned about power. Power is the ability to change things by force of will. The better you are at something, or the more resources you have, or a combination of the two, raises or lowers your power. Getting to a place in life where you can change something "because you can" - puts you on high ground, where you are out from under fear and frustration. Interestingly enough, by learning to use the force of will to change myself, I gained "know-how" on how to fix problems and things outside of myself. You learn problem solving skills, which I can only describe as becoming good at quickly setting up various orders of operation each time a problem....big or small appears. This was one of MANY skills I gained, that I had no idea I would gain, in this process.
The results of my "reforms" was emerging as a new man...it took ten years. I lost alot of friends and gained new estrangements. In fact, estrangement has become a common theme for me now. I walk around in the world confident, self sufficient and resourceful, but pretty much alone. However, here is my greatest piece of life learning. "When we fix the within, we fix the without." This simply means, when we fix ourselves, when we change ourselves, the world around us changes and responds to us. As we behave differently, the world behaves differently towards us. Problems unrelated to what we were working on within ourselves, fix themselves because in personal reform, your perspective changes with everything else.
I'm also betting you deal with anger and frustration? I did.....all that gets fixed as you learn how to gain control over yourself. Anger and frustration both come from feeling things are out of control, power gives you control of things. I arrived where I needed to be when I was about 42 - I'm 51 now, so in the big scheme of life, I haven't been here all that long.
Leaving north america isn't going to solve anything, just like I thought leaving my job would. Your problems will always follow you, and in my case, I stayed at my job, and redefined myself. I am recommending that to you, based on my own life learning and experience. Moving will solve nothing. In the beginning of my own reforms, I was at first worried people would think I was strange, acting strange. I learned to dismiss that feeling, and them - they'll get used to it - so I would tell myself. There will be consequences to personal reforms, right along with the rewards. Suck up the consequences, it's worth it.
