A devitalized person is essentially a closed personality. He must become an open personality who transacts with himself, the environment, with others and God in more nurturing ways.

He must become, in effect, a new person, or new personality. He must engage in and strengthen and establish a new lifestyle; one that is radically different from the underlying, undermining lifestyle of devitalized living. He must begin to establish thinking, behavior and habits which change his Private Self from one of devitalization to vitalization.

Nothing short of this personality and lifestyle change in thinking, behavior and habits will produce the break-down and break out-of the old DP personality, and the break-through to a VITALIZED PERSONALITY.

Q Now, what do I need to do?

A. Look over the characteristics of a Vitalized Person! Study these carefully. Recognize how they are, and are not, the kind of person you are

The Vitalized Person

What do you have to do to begin to change from living a lifestyle as a (DP) Devitalized Personality, to that of a Vitalized Person? You will have to begin to practice switching over to more vitalizing ways of living. This needs to be practiced for a sustained period of time. This means a new and different way of behaving toward yourself, your environment, others and God.

Begin to use these descriptions as a way to put these new attitudes and behaviors into action. Begin to adopt these characteristics. Most of these new behaviors can be done every single day. In fact, that might be an initial goal to set for yourself as you will see in the homework section. Get specific about how you will do this on a daily or weekly basis. Keep a record (diary) of your new vitalized lifestyle behavior.

You will undoubtedly experience switching over to this new lifestyle as somewhat forced and artificial, at least at first. Like the practice of all new habits, there is a feeling of it being somewhat "unnatural". But in reality it is the lifestyle of a mature, adult, Christian, heterosexual man or woman which is supposed to be "natural" and the abundant life, the supernatural life which is yours as a child of God and a new born disciple of Christ.

Two analogies: If your car had an oil leak, you would undoubtedly have it plugged. This is what you have been doing over and over again with regard to your sexual struggles; plugging the leaks. But your life is not running smoothly because in reality your car has four flat tires. No matter how many times you plug the leaks, you may still be living a devitalized (flat tire) lifestyle which causes the car to operate poorly and causes leaks to re-occur. Your car; your personally should be running more smoothly, more vitalized. To put air in the tires is to start living as a vitalized person whose personality runs smoothly and operates better, thus reducing or eliminating the oil leaks.

A second analogy: Look at a thread which has pulled out of your shirt or sweater. If you pull that thread, and it won’t give, it will cause the cloth to bunch up and tighten. To focus exclusively on homosexuality or sexual addiction is like pulling on the thread. Instead, work on loosening up the other threads which make up your personality, and homosexuality and addictiveness will start to release and loosen up. Now here are the first seven characteristics of a vitalized person.

l. More Emotional, less intellectual.

This means that it is important for you to name, speak or use emotional words or the language of feelings more often, letting yourself feel them rather than passing over them quickly or ignoring them, telling others (appropriately/tactfully) that you are feeling something when you are, and showing your emotions more. All this in opposition to constantly intellectualizing and rationalizing your emotional life. It means saying "I feel" followed by a real feeling word rather than "I think"! "I feel hurt, I feel disappointed, I’m amazed, I feel so good about..." It calls for you to increase the frequency of reporting and talking about your feelings.

2. More Physical, less verbal.

This means appropriate and wholesome re-orienting to touching, holding, hugging, kissing, making physical contact with people more, (perhaps also being more physical through athletics, exercising, working out), rather than maintaining a physical distance and remoteness from people. For people with sexual addictions, this characteristic needs to be reviewed with a person of accountability in order to insure that you are not deceiving yourself into touching others inappropriately.

But touch and tactile-ness is important for you because in some ways you are "tactile deprived". To touch and be touched physically is the external symbol for being touched and touching others emotionally and spiritually.

It also means welcoming and inviting others to touch and make physical contact with you appropriately. When others touch or show affection to you, receive it and respond to it proactively rather than passively, reluctantly or rejectingly.

3. Spontaneous instead of Calculating.

This means being more immediate, joyous, silly, flippant, humorous, singing, musical, smiling, goofy, playful, joking, teasing, tricking, pretending, acting, instead of always being compulsive, obsessive, planful, rigid, cool, serious, somber, reserved and inhibited. You can find lots of ways to incorporate playfulness and humor into your life. For instance, go into a greeting card store and read the humorous cards; perhaps buy some and send them to people. You can be non-offensively playful, humorous and teasing with people you are close to. Get a good joke book and learn some jokes to tell others. Rent some comedy videos or on audio tape and learn to have some good belly laughs. P.S!!!. Most Important!!! Learn the art of small talk with people in stores, service people you meet, when shopping, on the street.

4. Interactive instead of Self-contained.

This means verbally engaging people more often (both known and anonymous) instead of giving so much time and space to isolating, aloneness, withdrawing, separating, retiring from others in a self-containing way. Be in crowds or with three/four/fivesomes rather than in pairs or alone. For men, I strongly recommend that you go to athletic events in which you can be in noisy, yelling, excited, spontaneous crowds of other men. Even if you are not a great sports fan, you should be able to find someone to go with, or initially, go by yourself, and experiment with letting yourself "act" out being spontaneous, loud, noisy, exhunerant, exrroverted.

5. Receptive instead of Walled off. Listen for, recognize and receive love, appreciation, admiration, and the interest of others more demonstratively. Take it in and acknowledging it. Don’t treat other’s care and interest and appreciation for you lightly. Don’t be numb or blind to it. You may not fully realize how often people may be showing you interest or affection because you have become blind to it.

When you receive a compliment or a word of appreciation or admiration or praise, don’t throw it away or dismiss it; instead respond to it proactively; "Thankyou very much, I really appreciated that, or, "Hearing that makes my day.....", or, "I needed that." Don’t just respond with the common, uninvolved, insensible, ordinary "thanks".

6. Personal instead of impersonal.

Be a lot more self-disclosing, vulnerable, open, obvious about your feelings, revealing, real, honest about your inner experience (thoughts and feelings), especially about what you need and want; what is painful and difficult, what is hard for you. This is especially true about feelings of anger, annoyance, and irritation. You must express negative feelings appropriately. DP have difficulty with the in and out of negative and positive feelings. Their emotional economy becomes dammed-up.

Don’t try to work out difficult feelings by yourself and act like you are self-sufficient and need no one. Learn to rely on and turn to people when you are feeling troubled. Don’t be closed; be more open, available and exposed emotionally and personally. "I’m really having a hard time with this; I’m confused, can you help me out? You made me very irritated when you.....I want to talk with you about it"

7. Appreciative instead of taking it for granted.

Tell others directly and tell God directly how much you appreciate them; that you feel appreciative, thankful, grateful. Witness to people around you that you are thankful to God. Let words of appreciation and thankfulness be constant instead of taking the good things for granted or the opposite: complaining, griping, showing dissatisfaction or "poor me". "You know, that was really nice of you to do that for me!" "Father God, I thankyou so much for showing me the way!" Make it a commitment to not go through a day without using the word "Thankyou" to some person and to God at least once.