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So um so after yesterday's crying video I was uh gosh I was going going back and forth after I had uploaded that like should I have done that um and you know it's it's the truth it's what's going on with with me and uh and again it's okay um and there's still that voice in the back of my head of like God what are people going to think and you know and for me all of the crying that I have been doing in like in mourning the loss of the relationship um it's been welcome like it's been something I wouldn't say new but um getting in touch with my feelings and and really what's true for me is a welcome thing these days for me so crying is actually beautiful as far as I'm concerned uh cuz I want to nurture that in me more and more cuz I' had been like I taught myself ...
... for most of my life to just totally squelch my emotions you know like nope they're not right they're not okay don't you know don't cry especially as a guy you're crying as a man like that's totally not manly and all of all of that [ __ ] so so crying for me is cathartic it's um it's moving something it's it's accepting where I am and and and it's and it's honoring specifically crying yesterday was like honoring the relationship that that I had that is now over and it's uh like grieving is actually a way of loving I'm starting to realize in myself it's like to really cry whether it's the loss of a relationship or the loss of a loved one crying is a way of saying I'm going to miss you so that just touched me so it reminds me of the quote um by Benjamin dis RI something like that is never never ...
... apologize for showing feeling because then you apologize for truth and now what's coming to my mind is the um is the tendency to uh to project like the the second that I put up the the crying video and this is definitely not not to shame anyone who's giving me this kind of feedback and support and love in the slightest but I I do notice a tendency in um whatever feedback uh people give me or whatever kind of support people give me around um the relationship ending uh is is filled with projections of well what does it mean for them to break up what has it meant to them in the past like what have breakups meant to them and uh how have they felt for them and and I get that the care is there and I get that the love and support is there and the kind of feedback that's given to me is um and stuff like you know well she she didn't deserve you anyway or um or oh my gosh I'm so sorry you you must be so distraught right now you must be so sad I'm so sorry that must ...
... be horrible for you and there's something about that kind of feedback that doesn't feel doesn't feel good because in a way there hasn't been that question of well how is that for you like how is the breakup for you and it's reminding myself of all the times that I project onto other people my own experience and like oh yeah you're you know you're having a a rough day at work well that must mean that you hate your boss or you know you had an argument with your boss well that must mean that your boss is is a bad person um because I've had a bad boss in the past and yeah [ __ ] bosses you know they suck without even really getting to know like what that other person is actually going through and really having the bandwidth to listen and really uh understand and then support from that place um and again this is this is not to uh shame the people who are giving me support in you know the wrong way or something like that it's just something that I'm noticing in myself an ATT tendency that I'm noticing in myself ...
... so any sort of support is is totally oh thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart it feels really good um and there is a part of myself that's shaming myself of like oh you're being picky and you know pointing this out but again this is this is reminding me of all the all the times that I can do that to others and project my own experience onto others without really getting to know their experience first and supporting them from that place um and to tie this all into herpes um because after all this is a herpes support site and this is a shamelessness site um is that projection happens all over the place like projection is is can actually be a good thing um it it's a way that we can kind of um you know be efficient with the way that we think and like oh that that's happened to me before it's probably similar to what I've gone through and but where it can get uh dicey is if we just assume that it's a real big assumption that my experience of this thing is the same as your experience ...
... of this thing so I see it all the time with herpes um maybe it does show up with people who don't have herpes to people who do have herpes like projecting all the stigma onto them or maybe like projecting like wow you must be a [ __ ] or you must have slept around or you you you must be dirty you probably don't have any sort of uh any sort of morals whatsoever like whatever whatever it is that's just totally not true um or maybe maybe some of those are true but maybe the person's not even seeing if they are they're just assuming um but for the most part they're not true let me put that out there um so it may happen that way with with people who don't have herpes to people who do but the vast majority of times that I see it is people who do have herpes who specifically those people who just got herpes and they don't even give themselves a chance to really like experience what it is like to have herpes like what is it like for you specifically to have herpes it's a very different experience ...
... than what it's like for me to have herpes so don't project onto herpes what it's going to be like don't let the stigma and and whatever shame is out there whether it's like popular in our culture or whether it's popular in your head like really allow yourself to have your own experience and and no one else can really dictate what that is for us but we do it all the time especially something that has stigma attached to it or has like a popular opinion attached to it like it's similar to when I was in high school and I I overheard people talking about this other person that I didn't really know too well I was brand new coming from private school in 8th grade to public school in 9th grade and I was looking around well who's cool and who's not cool and my way of figuring that out was looking at the people that ...
... I assumed were cool and then listening to them about who else wasn't cool and who was cool like I didn't know I didn't trust myself I didn't trust my own opinion and my own way of figuring it out I didn't trust my intuition so what did I do I turned to others who I thought had the answers and went with that and I still see that tendency in myself and noticing um just noticing like allowing myself to have my own opinion regardless of what other people think and that goes for herpes too it's like who's to say what herpes is going to be for you most of all of the Horrors and all of the the fear and all of the disconnection and I'm not going to be loved and what if this happens and what if that happens most of that 99% of that is just in our head and it never actually ends ...
... up happening what is it that quote um forget who said it but um I've what is it oh no there are a lot of horrible things in my life most of which never actually happened something like that it's like how much of the horror of Our Lives or how much of the horror of herpes and what other people are going to think and how many times we're going to be totally um rejected and people looking at us disgusted and all of that how much of that actually actually really happens in real life and how much of it happens in our imagination I really want more fairness around this for all of us like totally having fairness around what is real and what is imaginary a
Part 1: Yesterday I posted a video of me crying. My girlfriend just moved out. Crying about the loss of a relationship is a way our heart says, "I'm going to miss you." In this way, crying can be seen as another facet, another expression of love.
Part 2: Projection is a knee-jerk reaction, assuming that everyone else's experiences life in a similar way than we do. And it can be insidious if we don't catch ourselves doing it in the moment. I see this happening in the herpes coaching I do with people. Specifically people who just got herpes, there are a lot of projections on what the rest of their lives will look like based on the cultural stigma about herpes. Allow yourself to have your own experience of having herpes. Form your own opinions of yourself instead of taking on the negative hype from people who don't know you.
