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| Rules to Experience a Successful Transition [message #111755] |
Thu, 02 September 2010 13:45  |
 Teresa 
Messages: 8215
Registered: September 2007
Location: Salem, Oregon |
Senior Member
Beginning Life Founder
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Rules to Experience a Successful Transition
I've been mulling over the idea of writing down some basic rules to help someone who is just beginning their transition from one gender to the other. There are many things in this world that can hinder or even prevent a person from successfully transitioning. Knowing what these problems are, before they occur, might just help you reach your goal sooner and with a more positive frame of mind as well.
- Don't always try to please others.
It is important to be considerate of others, for that is how one builds both positive and equitable relationships; that's a given. But you need to think carefully about what exactly your own needs are, before sacrificing those needs to please your family and friends. Of course if you're a parent, sacrificing your needs in order to provide for your children's needs is a normal element of family living, so we're not talking about the elimination of that issue of ones parental life in this essay.
In talking about positive relationships, it's completely rational to want to help a loved one, or a friend, since that person contributes to your life in supportive and nurturing ways. But bending over backwards for strangers, mere acquaintances, or people you don't know well enough to fully trust may leave you not only with the feeling of having been used, but also with the reality of having actually been used.
Now, I think it's important and necessary to say this; truthfully, one finds a great many people who are either emotional or physical users within our own transgender community - those very people whose company we seek for companionship and guidance, in our quest to become a whole and complete person; mind, body and soul.
So, how does someone, who is just starting their transition, find the right kind of help that will enable them, and also give them the means to best reach their goal? Following are some suggestions in this endeavor.
- Don't copy anyone else.
To be successful at being a unique individual, you can't make yourself into a clone of someone else. You must be your own person. Everyone...every person on this earth best represents themselves when they are being totally themselves, because it is the only way to completely express they own personal uniqueness; those unique and individual qualities that en toto, make them who they are. You should strive to do your best at personal self expression, but likewise, you shouldn't overly criticize yourself if you fall short of your own expectations.
Sometimes it's more personally honest to lower your expectations of yourself to a more reasonably accomplishable level, and then try to grow a bit more from that point once achieved.
In short, if you fail to reach the moon on your first try it doesn't mean you'll never reach that goal, but rather, that goal may simply be too lofty for you at the moment, and a goal that is more down to earth might be completely accomplishable. It's often easier to accomplish a large goal in steps, than all at once.
- Avoid negative people.
People that have a negative attitude can over time, rub off on you without you being aware of it happening. This is because the change acts slowly over time, as we don't see the day to day change in our personality toward a darker point of view.
If you're a timid or shy person; loud and aggressive people are probably not good for you to associate with and to seek guidance from.
Quite often, you'll find that like attracts like, and wherever you find a negative personality, so there you will also find still more. The friends of a negative person are often and likewise also negative.
But what do you do if you find that the negative personalities in your life are your own family? If it's parental negativity and you're young, then like all young people you find ways to exclude your parents from your life. If you're extroverted, perhaps you leave home. If you're introverted, you escape into your own world, be it books or video games or something else.
If it's your mate who is perpetually negative, then you should realize that you're in a negative relationship. It's likely as not that you too were perhaps up until your decision to change your body's gender, also a negative personality.
With your decision to change, you begin the process of switching from a negative mindset to a positive mindset. But the problem is that your mate doesn't change with you and they stay negative. Worse, they have become familiar with the old 'negative you' and will try to keep you in that old, familiar and comfortable mindset by using negative emotional manipulations against you. They like the old you, see nothing wrong with the old you - why change?
If you decide that staying with your mate is what you want to do, then you will have to not only work toward moving your mind and your life onto a positive manner of living, but so you must also make an effort to change your mates negative mindset as well.
For someone who is going through the supreme effort that is necessary to completely transition into a life that is opposite your current physical gender - working to improve yourself ~AND~ someone else (who likely as not may not even want to change their negative mindset) is often too much work to do. Unfortunately, you may need to abandon that relationship in order to accomplish your transition.
- Face your fears, and learn from your failures.
We only fail when we do not succeed. Seems too simple doesn't it? Well - it is that simple! If you set for yourself a goal and you meet it, then you've succeeded. But what if you set for yourself an unobtainable goal? When something doesn't go the way we would like it to, and we perceive to ourselves that we have failed, there is something to be learned from that, which can be applied next time you are in a similar situation. But to improve, you must try again. If you have the unfortunate experience to have a negative thing happen to you in public; like experiencing some teenage girls laugh at you when they see you in a public situation, don't abandon the idea of transitioning. Rather, try to remove the emotional hurt you feel and try to remember what happened logically - without the tie in of your hurt feelings, what the sequence of events were.
If you determine that your appearance wasn't quite good enough, then you need to have the coursge to try something different. Often though,we find that passing isn't only a matter of how you look, but it's also how you behave, and by going out as yourself often, you give yourself the opportunity of becoming familiar with, and comfortable with, interacting socially with other people as the woman (or man) you really are.
- Don't worry about being "perfect in the eyes of other people."
Aiming for perfection in your life from the point of view and the expectations of someone else is a lost cause because the idea of what exactly is perfection is different from one person to the next. Nobody is perfect in the eyes of everyone else, so by trying to be perfect in the eyes of someone, or some people; you set yourself up for disappointment and failure because you will not be perceived to be perfect to everyone just those people who you are seeking approval from. Instead, seek to achieve personal goals of what you consider perfection. Then try to reach those goals.
- Do something to improve yourself.
Volunteer at a vet's office or at the APCA. Help someone else from within the TS community. You feel better about yourself by making someone else's load a little lighter. Take a class, study hard, and pass - learn something useful or interesting that will help you in your life in the future. It could be anything even learning to play beginning guitar. You can even do a daring feat: become a crewperson on a tall ship (I know one person who did this), hike the Appalachian, Pacific Crest or John Muir trails in whole or part. You could even skydive or attempt to hang glide (with a guide, of course).
To move ahead to a positive frame of mind for self improvement, you need to put behind you and out of your mind, the remembering of negative events and enjoy the moment. Your accomplishment raises your personal feeling of self-esteem by raising your self confidence.
- Learn to appreciate yourself.
Everyone has unique strengths, weaknesses, habits, and principles that define you and make you distinctive from all other people. One way to improve your self image is to spend time when available, focusing more on the qualities about yourself that you like and less on the qualities about yourself that you dislike. You can better accomplish this by taking up hobbies and projects that you can do that will make use of your strengths such as in example #6. Additionally, by completing projects that emphasize your good traits, it will keep you busy so you will end up spending less time thinking about your weaknesses.
- Reward yourself when you succeed.
Bask in the glow of your successes. It's okay don't be embarrassed it's perfectly okay for you to do this. You deserve to have your dreams realized, and to rejoice in the fact that you made them come true. If you believe in yourself completely; you'll find that other positive people, who are close to you, will also believe and trust in you. When you accomplish something always treat yourself to something wonderful and good.
That's basically all I can think of for right now. If anyone would like to add their thoughts; I invite you to do so.
Teresa
[Updated on: Thu, 02 September 2010 17:17]
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| Re: Rules to Experience a Successful Transition [message #111768 is a reply to message #111755 ] |
Thu, 02 September 2010 14:47  |
| Anonymous |
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Thank You Teresa
I think what I mostly took away was to be myself, get out of my own way, and just let it happen.
Singed:
Long time poster, first time listener
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| Re: Rules to Experience a Successful Transition [message #114076 is a reply to message #111755 ] |
Wed, 22 September 2010 13:50 |
Isolde 
Messages: 1363
Registered: April 2010
Location: Canada |
Senior Member
Sacrificial Virgin To The Canadian Pharma Hellmouth
Standard Petulant and Pedantic Personage |
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This is really neat.
I find it interesting that, regardless if this was the intent or not, the items mentioned could easily be used for any situation. In general I think it's a great set of rules for becoming a better person. Not just a successful transition.
I personally don't follow all those rules, in life in general. I used to believe vehemently that my life was here to please others. That I should bend over backwards to make someone else's life easier at the expensive of mine. I tried to please everyone else over myself.
It's taken a long time but I know that's not really true. I had low self esteem and low sense of self value, and those attitudes can be crippling even years after of trying to change them.
I still have trouble with #1, #5 and #7. But I'm working on them. I'm a work in progress.
^_^
-Izzie
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