Standing By Your Sex-Hobbyist -Man; Because It's Your Fault Too?

SECOND, THIRD OR FOURTH CHANCES

Something I have to explain to those I counsel is that some people can not change. They will go through the motions and give lip service to change long enough to get the spotlight off their secretive and/or bad behavior. I then go through the 'list' of how to know if someone's truly changed.

We are taught to give second chances; the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, we do end up being taken advantage of and duped. The one thing we CAN control is our own behavior. We can't tell people we've changed, we have to show them. First we have to start by forgiving ourselves. That seems to be hardest. There are those who just want to "forget" and "erase" what they did and move on. Then there are those who, like myself, aren't able to just 'get over it' - but we adapt, integrate, and move on - using our weaknesses and hurts as lessons in growth.

Last week I read a really brilliant piece on Britney Spears. The reason it caught my eye was because despite the media bashing, I too, felt sorry for her. This young woman was growing up under the public microscope. And anyone, with enough pressure or conflicting messages, can shatter. Anyone, with enough abuse, lies, mixed messages and psychic wounds can shatter. This piece gave Ms. Spears a fairer shake than most:

What the press, which was busy moralizing (“her poor little boys”) and faux-empathizing (“she needs help”), never acknowledged was that Spears’s crack-up was the most interesting performance of her life. She seemed to be trying, with befuddled brilliance, to tell the truth. She recoiled from celebrity culture by mortifying her own flesh. She stripped herself, publicly, of her sexuality. She presented herself as a grotesque.

Few gestures are as symbolically rich as the shaving of a head. That’s what monastics do when they reject the flesh to dedicate themselves to the spirit. In boot camp, soldiers lose their individuality with their hair. Delilah cut off Samson’s to make him defenseless. The French, after the liberation, shaved the heads of collaborators.

....the press rarely calls her “Spears.” That might suggest she’s human. She’s Britney, the singing Barbie. A concoction.

Her mortification of the flesh at 25 is just the latest example of how bizarrely troubling American society finds the female body.

The latest news is that Spears is dropping in and out of rehab. Will she OD or commit suicide like Monroe? Will she have a Grand Guignol death like the fat-obsessed Anna Nicole Smith? No one publicly asks those questions, but that’s what everyone wonders. Her rejection of rehab is provocative: The doctors may be treating the wrong addiction. They would naturally like to restore “Britney” to health, whereas Spears obviously wants to get rid of her dolldom. Asked by a photographer why she shaved her head, she answered, “Because of you.” At the hair salon, she said she was “tired of everybody touching me.” Out of the mouths of babes.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

How many of us have done that to others? Moralized? Judged? Or shouted them down because we just didn't agree, didn't want to hear or - in all honesty - they scared us. They scared us because they were living life out loud and their lives were coming dangerously close to exposing all our own inner dark secrets. The thoughts we only have when we are alone.

But admitting and owning our mistakes is a big part of it. I hear far too many abusers say "BUT they did wrong too." No. Look at your own behavior and don't judge how others acted. Use Hashem's mirror. They are on their own fast track, wrestling their own Yetzer HaRa. Save your energies for wrestling your own Angels.

Unhappy with yourself? Loving yourself? Should we give someone another chance? They already messed up 2, 3 or 4 times with us. Maybe we should write them off. Close our minds and heart to them. Done. Go away. Leave us alone. They never came through in the past. They are all talk and no action. But sometimes, so are we.

Britney is as much a metaphor as our own lives, warts & all - are metaphors for all of us. Metaphors sent to us by Hashem, who put us here, to learn, to grow and to become closer to Him and Torah because of it. Britney is changing, growing up, making mistakes and having to get back on her feet - in public. Most of us don't have paparazzi breathing down our necks to show every time we screwed up. Baruch Hashem.

As the most direct and simple line between two points, it is misleadingly the surest way to town; but in truth, the direct approach is a dead end. As with the route which Rabbi Yehoshua first chose, it seems to lead straight to the city -- only somehow it never quite makes it. For it is a path of never-ending struggle, the scene of perpetual duel between the self-oriented animal soul of man and his upward-reaching G-dly soul. True, man has been given free choice and furnished with the necessary fortitude and spiritual staying power to meet his every moral challenge; but the possibility of failure, G-d forbid, also exists.

No matter how many times he will triumph, tomorrow will bring yet another test.

On the short and long road one may win battle after battle, but there is never a decisive victory in the war of life.

On the other hand, the long but short way is winding, steep, tedious, and long as life itself. It is full of ups and downs, setbacks and frustrations. It demands every ounce of intellectual and emotional stamina the human being can muster. But it is a road that leads, steadily and surely, to the aspired-to destination.

When one does finally acquire an aptitude and intellectual taste for the G-dly, when one does develop a desire for good and abhorrence for evil, the war has been won.

The person has transformed himself into someone whose every thought, deed and act is naturally attuned to his quintessential self and purpose in life.

Based on the teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe; adapted by Yanki Taube

While performing the mitzvohs, there are many mitzvohs that we do not fulfill as completely as we's like. We may rush through prayers, not giving them our full attention & concentration. Are our acts of kindness for only selfless reasons?

Are we living life out loud? Acting out and being angry at others because we are really angry at ourselves? Are we punishing others for something someone else did to us? Or do we turn our angers inward - punishing ourselves for being human & fallible?

Keep trying Ms. Spears. We all aren't far behind you.