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Paradigms

A paradigm is simply the way you see the world. These perceptions are important because they are the basis of your attitudes, behaviors, and relationships. If you see the world in a distorted way, you may develop unrealistic expectations, behave in ways inconsistent with happiness, and have relationships that are unfulfilling. The good news is that paradigms can be changed. Stephen Covey explains that "the more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms—examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions—thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view." (Covey, 4/5 May 1996) Difficult circumstances in life often require us to reevaluate our paradigms and sometimes create a whole new frame of reference by which we see the world and ourselves. Albert Einstein observed, "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." (Covey, 1989, p. 42) Stephen Covey says that trying to "change outward attitudes and behaviors does very little good in the long run if we fail to examine the basic paradigms from which those attitudes and behaviors flow." (Covey, 10 Jul. 1996) Therefore, it is important to look at your paradigms to determine (1) if they are correct and (2) if they are helpful. You may discover that your views are not correct—that your parents really do love you, you really can enjoy healthy, nonsexual relationships with your gender, and you really can control your sexual urges.

Scott Peck, author of The Road Less Traveled, explains that "the more clearly we see the reality of the world, the better equipped we are to deal with the world. The less clearly we see the reality of the world—the more our minds are befuddled by falsehood, misperceptions and illusions—the less able we will be to determine correct courses of action and make wise decisions." (Peck, 1978, p. 44)

The fact that you are attracted to your gender may indicate that something happened during your developmental years to skew your thinking. Your attractions are caused, in part, by your perception of the world and your instinctive efforts to become a part of something you know you need. Same-sex attraction is the story we tell ourselves to explain what we don’t understand. Our task, then, is to discover what we don’t understand and adjust our perceptions to match reality.

If you are a man attracted to men or a woman attracted to women, you may have labeled yourself "gay" or a "homosexual" and with that label, taken upon yourself the extra baggage of society’s definition of homosexuality. If so, you have likely taken on much more of a burden than you deserve. If you can find a way to divest yourself of these extraneous perceptions, you may find that your key issues are not as overwhelming as you thought. It is counterproductive to use terms such as "gay," "lesbian," or "homosexual" to describe yourself. Refer to your "same-sex attraction issues" rather than referring to yourself as "gay," "lesbian," "homosexual," or even a "recovering homosexual," or "former homosexual."

Stephen Covey explains that "paradigms are powerful because they create the lens through which we see the world. The power of a paradigm shift is the essential power of quantum change, whether that shift is instantaneous or a slow and deliberate process." (Covey, 23 Feb. 1996) Therefore, make a careful evaluation of how you see yourself. If you have convinced yourself that you are a "homosexual," then even when you make the kinds of changes described in this Web site, you may still feel like a "homosexual." See yourself in a new light. Developing healthy relationships with your gender and affirming your masculine or feminine identity will give you the evidence and confidence you need to change the perception you have about yourself.

Self-image and self-worth

Same-sex attraction has little to do with sexuality, but a lot to do with self-image (how you think about yourself) and self-worth (how you feel about yourself). Many people who struggle with same-sex attraction have good self-images; they have good jobs and get along well in life. But they have low feelings of self-worth; their gut-level feelings tell them they are not worth much. Whether you believe you can change your self image or not, you are right. Your self image establishes your personal beliefs about what you can and cannot do. Consider the following suggestions to improve your perception of yourself:

Focus on principles and values

Stephen Covey believes that "a life of integrity is the most fundamental source of personal worth." (Covey, 31 Dec. 1996) A life of integrity is one that is consistent with your personal values. Working toward being more centered on these principles and values can help you in many ways. Principle-centered people see things in terms of their personal values, and all the decisions they make are based on those values. Because of this, they act in ways that support and strengthen those values. This solid, unchanging core gives them a high degree of stability and allows them to be powerfully proactive in life. Stephen Covey explains that "intrinsic security doesn’t come from what other people think of us or how they treat us. It doesn’t come from our circumstances or our position. It comes from within. It comes from accurate paradigms and correct principles deep in our own mind and heart. It comes from inside-out congruence, from living a life of integrity in which our daily habits reflect our deepest values." (Covey, 6 Aug. 1996)

Get to know yourself

Some people have undeveloped feelings of self-worth because they do not know themselves; they have an undefined sense of self. In their attempts to be accepted by others, they may lose their unique sense of identity. In the the world today, it is easy to fit into predefined molds and not be highly self-defined.

To improve your feelings of self-worth, it may help to define yourself better. Who are you as a person? What do you like? What do you dislike? Take time to think about and write down your likes and dislikes regarding foods, television shows, movies, smells, colors, holidays, fears, memories, feelings, weaknesses, strengths, and values. This forces you to think about your preferences and make decisions. If you later decide you don’t like what you have defined, you can change your mind, but make decisions for today and define yourself. During this process of self-exploration, name your feelings and your fears—the first step in learning to understand and deal with them. Ask your therapist for advice in this process.

See the eternal perspective

If we look only at today, this month, or this year, then pain, sorrow, and failure are calamities. But if we look at our life as a whole and all eternity stretching far into the future, then things may be put in proper perspective.

You are not a mortal having a spiritual experience; you are a spiritual being having a mortal experience. Likewise, it may be helpful to think of yourself as a child of God who has a temporary problem with same-sex attraction. Don’t define yourself by your present feelings. Your identity is not found by looking backward to your past or by looking inward to your current feelings. You are a child of a loving God who knows and cares about you and has a plan for your happiness. James E. Faust said, "As we mature spiritually under the guidance of the Holy Ghost, our sense of personal worth, of belonging, and of identity increases." (Faust, 1989, p. 33)

Accept your true self

Stephen Covey wrote, "We are not our feelings. We are not our moods. We are not even our thoughts. The very fact that we can think about these things separates us from them and from the animal world. Self-awareness enables us to stand apart and examine even the way we ‘see’ ourselves—our self-paradigm, the most fundamental paradigm of effectiveness. It affects not only our attitudes and behaviors, but also how we see other people. It becomes our map of the basic nature of mankind." (Covey, 1989, pp. 66–67)

The popular advice to "accept yourself" is certainly good advice. However, it is the interpretation of "accepting yourself" that gets people into trouble. Should you accept yourself in your current condition and not try for anything more? The concept of personal growth tells us we should expect to be constantly improving and changing our conditions in life for the better. To say "I’m a homosexual and I’ll always be a homosexual" is a defeatist acceptance of a changeable aspect of your current condition. As a child of God, you have the divine ability to continue to improve your station in life, to grow, and to continue to progress. To believe anything less is to deny the power of God and His promises to us.

In quiet moments, try to get in touch with your inner self. Something inside each of us is ancient, wise, and knows our true self—it is our eternal soul. We have always existed: first as intelligences, then as spiritual beings, and now with a physical body. Your eternal soul can help you decide what you must do to live with integrity.

As one man described it, "For many years I thought I was gay. I finally realized I was not a same-sex attraction, but really a heterosexual man with a same-sex attraction problem." (Nicolosi, 1991, p. 165)

Respect yourself

Many of us devalue ourselves and feel that we don’t have much to offer. We are often our own worst critics. We put ourselves down physically and discount our personality traits. So what if you have a narrow chin, or a high forehead, or a sensitive temperament? Be grateful that you have a chin and a forehead and sensitivity.

In the darkest moments, you may feel you don’t deserve the blessings you have. As you come to understand that your developmental problems can be corrected, your outlook on life can improve. You will realize that nothing is inherently inferior about you. Having been created in the image of God, you have great potential. And when you recognize your good traits and feel better about yourself, you will be in a better position to relate positively with other men.

Part of respecting yourself is to recognize that you are worthy of love. There is a difference between being loved and feeling loved. If you are like I was, you may need to learn to feel it. I used to worry about losing friends and missing opportunities to be with them such that I couldn’t enjoy it when I was with them. During an outing with other guys, I would worry about when the next one would be, and when it was over I would be devastated by the realization that it was over. The more rewarding and fulfilling it was, the more devastated I would be at its conclusion, afraid that I would never have a good experience like it again. For some reason, I believed that having joy now meant misery and pain later. It took time to learn to enjoy experiences as they were taking place, then cherish the memories, but look forward with confidence to the next experience. I also had to convince myself that I was in control of my life and could plan and enjoy additional fulfilling experiences. I had to learn it is okay to be happy now and there didn’t need to be a negative consequence later.

Don’t compare yourself with others

Comparing ourselves with others can be damaging to our self-image because we usually compare our worst aspect against someone else’s best. We can always find someone who is a little stronger, better-looking, or more outgoing than we are. And when we find this person, we may compare our whole selves against that one aspect and conclude that the other person is better in all respects than we are.

When we see someone laughing and having a good time in a social setting, we think their entire life is happy and carefree. Upon closer examination, we will likely discover that they have challenges and heartaches just like everyone else.

Consider the following excerpt from Spencer’s journal: "On Monday, I found myself really looking at other men around me—not lusting after them, but comparing myself to them. Although I don’t do it all the time, for a while I was really caught up in the comparison, and I was almost overwhelmed by how difficult and how depressing it is to always look at other men and compare yourself to them, and feel you are not as good as they are. I saw something in almost every man that I wished I had. I didn’t consider the good in myself, but just noticed the things in others that I wished I had, and I felt sadly inadequate. I wished I could fit in, wished I were as together, as good-looking, or as tall as they were. I was comparing and wishing, but not feeling like I measured up."

It can be healthy to try to emulate the good traits in other people, but it is demeaning and degrading to always feel inadequate. Recognize that each person is unique and that you don’t have to be like other people in every respect. We all have both good and bad traits. Recognize your good traits and work on improving the others.

Don’t judge by superficial standards

Think about how you judge others. If you judge them superficially by the kind of car they drive or the clothes they wear or the people they know, it could be that you also judge yourself by the same outward standards, rather than looking at deeper, more meaningful character traits. Not only are the superficial things less important, but they are also often out of our control and are inconstant. By these standards, we feel good about ourselves when we are dressed sharply, but feel like losers when we are not. If we judge by these external barometers, we will always consider ourselves second class. We can always find someone who at the moment is more attractive, has a better car, or has a friendship with someone we wish to associate with.

As you define what is important, you may realize that what you have been chasing after is not what you really want after all, and the pursuit of it will no longer be important to you. As I looked at my value system, I identified what I wanted to do with myself and my life. For me, the choice was to grow up and to move on to other things. I discovered that the year-round tan wasn’t as important to me. It didn’t matter as much that I wasn’t in perfect physical shape. Cars and clothes began to matter less. I looked at my long-term value system and decided that other things were more important to me.

Recognize that your worth is not tied to what you do

While it is important to do good things, your self-worth should not be tied to what you do. A friend of mine felt he was only deserving of love when he pleased his parents. He spent a good part of his life trying to live up to their expectations, and when he didn’t, he felt he was worthless. If you strike out one day, it doesn’t mean you are a bad player. It takes time to build and maintain feelings that you are inherently good and a lot of that comes from understanding your divine potential as a son of God.

Writing about his personal struggles, Randy Walters explained, "At times I pushed myself to excesses in my studies and church work so I always seemed to excel. My successes brought praise and admiration from peers and family, which I used as a temporary fix to satisfy my craving for acceptance. But inside I never met the unrealistic expectations that I set for myself." (Hyde, 1997, p. 60)

Recognize your limitations

Respect your own limitations and strengths, as well as the limitations and strengths of others. The serenity prayer reads: "God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other." (Niebuhr, p. 823) You may not be able to change some physical aspects of your life. For example, if you are small of stature, no matter how hard you work out you will probably never be a great lineman on a football team. However, most things are changeable. If you are shy, you can learn to be more outgoing. If you are nervous speaking to people, you can gain more self-assurance. If you don’t make friends easily, you can learn to be more friendly. Have the "wisdom to distinguish the one from the other" and the courage to take on the challenge.

Define success

It is important to define what success means to you. Camilla Kimball understood what is important in life. She said "It is a truism that the Lord does not judge us by what we have but by what we do with what we have. The rich may be haughty, the poor envious, the powerful cruel, the weak sniveling. And those between the extremes may well be complacent and lukewarm." She then continued:

"To be rich is good, if you can be humble.

"To be learned is good if you can be wise.

"To be healthy is good if you can be useful.

"To be beautiful is good if you can be gracious.

"There is, however, nothing inherently bad in being poor, unlettered, sickly, or plain.

"To be poor is good, if you can still be generous of spirit.

"To be unschooled is good, if it motivates you to be curious.

"To be sickly is good, if it helps you to have compassion.

"To be plain is good, if it saves you from vanity." (Mouritsen, p. 18)

Be honest with yourself

Dishonesty can be a real problem for some people with same-sex attraction who at one time or another have lived a life of dishonesty. Even otherwise honest people tend to hide the truth about their attractions, fearing how others might react if they knew their dark secrets. After a while, they become so clever at hiding the truth that they often can’t even see it themselves.

Resolving same-sex attraction demands a commitment to absolute honesty. You have to admit to yourself the full extent of your problems. You can’t be open with your therapist or your support group if you aren’t first honest with yourself. Holding back will delay your progress or stop it all together. Writing in your journal can be a way to reveal things to yourself. The more you write, the clearer will be your views and perceptions. Stories you write in your journal can be powerful opportunities to teach yourself things.

Overcome defeatist attitudes

Some people have developed a condition called "learned helplessness," a perception that they are unable to solve problems or manage events in their life. (Peterson, 1993.) Such people become passive and depressed. Instead, we need to turn our challenges into power and reject the notion that we are helpless victims. We can let challenges overwhelm, defeat and depress us, or we can turn our challenges into strengths.

Don’t collect a list of life’s injustices. Everyone has problems and no one wins the game of "my problems are more difficult than yours." Rather than complain about them, take responsibility for making changes. You damage yourself by carrying grudges or chips on your shoulder. In his book Homosexuality and Hope, Gerard van den Aardweg writes about how to overcome feelings of self-pity by using "anti-complaining therapy," where he encourages you to laugh at your complaints and your self-defeating attitudes.

At times you may think that no one understands your "special situation" and that if they did, they would give you special concessions. Such feelings are self-defeating. They decrease your internal ability to help yourself and drive away other people who may be able to help you. For ideas on how to overcome self-defeating behaviors, read Eliminate Your SDBs: Self-Defeating Behaviors by Johnathan M. Chamberlain.

When faced with painful experiences, the normal reaction is to retreat and withdraw from relationships and activities. However, great personal healing can come from reaching out to others. Investing your energies in serving people can help you stay engaged in life and out of depression. Turning outward and filling the needs of people is actually one of the most healing things you can do for yourself.

Keep a positive outlook

Concentrate on your potential and not your limitations. If you focus too much on your problems and tell yourself that life is an endless series of trials and complications, you will surely feel stressed and depressed. But when you remind yourself that you are alive, you have the gospel, and everyone else has hardships just like you, then you are better able to keep things in perspective.

Be careful what you say to yourself. These automatic internal conversations with ourselves are learned responses and can be healthy or unhealthy. This self-talk is the way some people mentally review their actions. If your self-talk is negative and self-punishing, it provokes stress and decreases your feelings of self-worth. Become aware of what you say to yourself, especially when you are under stress. Negative self-talk in a traffic jam would be, "I hate this." Healthy self-talk would be, "I’m not going to let a traffic jam upset me. Now I can listen to that CD I just bought." Instead of saying "I’m rude," say "I’m trying to be kinder." Instead of giving yourself a negative message, label yourself as working toward and developing a positive quality. This can revolutionize your identity. (For further ideas, you may read the book From Stress to Strength: How to Lighten Your Load and Save Your Life, by Robert S. Eliot.)

Keep a balanced perspective

Since you are more than your same-sex attractions, don’t give undo attention to them. Richard G. Scott noted, "Sadness, disappointment, and severe challenge are events in life, not life itself. I do not minimize how hard some of these events are. They can extend over a long period of time, but they should not be allowed to become the confining center of everything you do." (Scott, 1996, p. 24) Some people become so obsessed with their problems that their obsession is a bigger problem than their attractions. If you hold a basketball close to your face, it blocks out the rest of the world and all you can see is the ball. Similarly, if you focus too much on the problems caused by your attractions, keeping them foremost in your view, you may fail to see other good things about your life. You need to hold these problems back from your face far enough to see a panoramic view of the rest of the world so you can keep things in proper perspective. Working on these issues at the exclusion of other things in your life can create an imbalance and cause additional problems. There may be other unrelated things you can benefit from working on. You may need to take a break and spend time on a relaxing hobby or activity to reduce stress and keep life in perspective.

Be assertive

To be successful in life, you need to know how and when to be assertive. Being assertive means that you honor your desires, needs, and values. It does not mean that you throw your weight around or that you are demanding with inappropriate aggressive behavior. Assertiveness is the ability to be aggressive while being keenly aware of your behavior and its appropriate limits. Nathaniel Branden, a clinical psychologist and founder of the Branden Institute for Self-Esteem (Box 2609, Beverly Hills, CA 90213), warns that "if you are aware of your needs and values but fail to express them, each act of suppression chips away at your self-esteem, thus eroding your sense of who you really are." (Branden, 1995, pp. 1-2) He says that self-assertiveness is linked to self-respect. "When you stand up for what you think and feel . . . when you clearly voice your opinions and reactions . . . when you openly reveal who you are—you treat yourself as worthy of respect and as someone who matters." (Branden, 1995, pp. 1-2)

Being assertive may be difficult for you if you were taught that the needs of other people are more important than your own needs. You may want to please others so much that you suppress your own wants and needs—even to the point that you lose touch with your own wants and needs. You may also feel that if you express them, you may be rejected. Don’t be timid in expressing how you feel. You have a right to your opinions. Although people may disagree with you, it does not mean they reject you because your opinions or needs differ from theirs.

It may be helpful to be assertive toward your fears. Run toward your fears. Rather than working around your fears, you may need to choose a path through your fears. It is easier to act yourself into new ways of thinking than to think yourself into new ways of acting.

If you feel you need to work on being more assertive, read The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Branden.

Develop a sense of humor

While many of our problems are not a laughing matter, we need to find humor in life’s situations. A mature adult is able to laugh at his mistakes. Humor can be an effective method of easing tension and breaking out of ruts to see a new perspective. Watch for the fine line between taking a situation lightly and finding humor in the situation. Don’t dismiss your mistakes as unimportant, but don’t take things so seriously that life becomes drudgery. Read Gerard van den Aardweg’s book Homosexuality and Hope for ideas on how to use humor as a therapeutic technique.

Be happy

I used to feel that I couldn’t be happy until I resolved all the same-sex attraction issues in my life. Then one day I realized that working on challenges like these is the essence of life. Our whole purpose for being on this earth is to have experiences and learn and grow from them. If we decide we won’t be happy until we have mastered all our challenges, we will never be happy.

Many people respond to life as though unhappiness is caused externally. Have you ever caught yourself saying things like the following? "Everything will be fine when I graduate." "If I could only get married, all my troubles would be over." "Things would be better if my wife just wouldn’t spend so much money." "If my boss would get off my case, I could enjoy my job." It is easy to blame unhappiness on something or someone else. But happiness and unhappiness are generated from within. Certainly, there is unhappiness in life and you have likely experienced your fair share and then some. But there is also a time to say "enough" and get on with your life. Happiness is an elusive goal. It doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather in recognizing and appreciating what we do have. Consider the following steps on the pathway to happiness: