Q. What is a Devitalized Personality? What is Devitalization?

A. The DP is a person who experiences a continuous chronic state of internal emotional emptiness, aloneness, isolation, un-aliveness. He does not feel alive inside. There is a missing sense of contentment, peace, fulfillment and comfort with one’s inner self ( Private Self). Depression may also be a part of this inner experience but depression is only a part of the more global feeling of devitalization.

He feels untouched by anyone personally since there is a wall around his Private emotional self. He feels that he can’t touch others intimately or feel intimacy with himself, to some extent with his environment or even with God. This is especially true with regard to the same-gender. He feels un-alive! This inner wall always makes him feel somewhat un-real; as if he is never fully being real.

Here’s another way of describing DP. Picture yourself drawing a circle with a pencil on a blank piece of paper. The circular line of the circle is the circumference; the outer, peripheral part of the circle. The area within the circular line is the substance. Shade in this area lightly. This is the shaded, substantial area.

The DP is like this circle. He lives on the circumference of life. The circumference is the outer, insubstantial, fleeting pleasures and pastimes of life. But his inner substantial, spiritual and psychological-emotional center is somewhat empty (the shaded area). It is not completely empty (it would be unshaded).

Since his center or substance is somewhat empty, he finds little there to sustain him or to turn to, when he looks within. He probably and often is emotionally rich and very emotionally intense and sensitive but this is walled off.

He feels without joy, happiness, and satisfaction, and so, he may live on the circumference of quick-lived, gratifying, passing sensations. The problem is his need to develop more depth or substance in his center or open up to what is already there.

A. DP’s have a number of characteristic ways of thinking, feeling and behaving. Together, these form a lifestyle; a mode of living which is restricting, detached, disengaged, guarded, and unfulfilling. Because DP is a lifestyle, it is not a matter of changing a particular behavior but a whole way of orienting to life, others, oneself and God which needs changing in order to effect change in the homosexual or addictive conditions.

DP’s share most but not all these characteristics which represent a mode of orienting to themselves, others, their environment and God.

l. They are more intellectual, cognitive, and "heady", rather than intimate, emotional and feeling. They lead from their heads!

2. They tend to be verbal or non-verbal in their engagement of their world rather than physical and tactile.

3. They are often too calculating, planful, plodding, controlled, and cautious rather than spontaneous, free, unrestricted.

4. They tend toward closing themselves within introverted self-contained boundaries and space and are not interactive and openly engaged with others enough; making it difficult to be touched by others.

5. Likewise they are often unreceptive; they don’t allow themselves to receive nurturing from others.

6. Their interactions tend toward the impersonal rather than the real sharing of their personal, private, inner selves.

7. They are not very openly appreciative of others and tend toward taking others for granted.

8. They are not affirming enough of others; giving compliments or showing recognition that others are worthwhile in themselves. People are often seen as objects which either suit them and fit into their lives or don’t, rather then individuals of worth in their own right.

9. They carry a basic underlying distrust or fear of people and their motives and reactions. They are therefore un-trusting and cautious, suspecting that people will disappoint them and be unreliable.

l0. They do not express love effectively, allow love to resonate deeply within them, or use the word "love" easily.

ll. They do not nurture themselves well. They don’t know how to authentically care for and respect themselves in satisfying ways.

l2. They often live in the urgency and busyness of the foreground of life’s responsibilities without keeping that balanced with the background of the meaning, beauty and enjoyment of the ordinary, the common, the natural environment.

l3. They engage in a certain degree of self-deception, secrecy, hiddenness, and dishonesty with themselves and others. They reserve a reservoir of fabrications, myths, fairy tales, exaggerations, cover-ups about themselves. They have a difficult time really letting their faults, failures, and weaknesses show to anyone. They are troubled by and sometimes filled with shame. Sex is a private world to which they can escape and from which they can feel alive for a moment.

14. Their relationship to God is sometimes contaminated by many of the above characteristics, so that their prayer life may not feel authentic and from the heart but rather superficial or artificial, legalistic, and from a sense of obligation. This in turn causes them to feel that God is unreal, displeased with them and remote, especially since they feel ashamed and guilty for having failed God.

l5. They are up and down, inconsistent, and often unmoved in their approach to God’s Word or give up searching His Word altogether, instead of simply being open to God’s Spirit speaking to them heart-to-heart as they receive and personalize His Word.

Q What causes the Devitalized Personality?

A. We can answer that in two ways: from the perspective of its original causes and also in terms of what causes it to continue in current life functioning.

Originally, given a highly sensitive child, certain childhood, family and peer experiences forced a burying or hiding of one’s Private Self (real, emotional self) because these were experiences of shame, self-blame, criticism, negative self-judgment, perceived or real unacceptance, rejection, not belonging, not feeling loved, wanted or respected. A type of splitting took place. A separating of the person’s Public (outward, social) and Private Selves (inward, emotional).

To some extent all people make this split. But the DP’s is more dysfunctional because the DP’s Private Self becomes more hidden, troubled and inaccessible than the usual splitting that takes place for everyone.. There is little integration or flow between the two. He therefore, learns to live on the surface of life, with a somewhat superficial emotional lifestyle, receiving some reward and acceptance for what he does and the roles he enacts in society (Public Self), which keep him functional. But underneath (Private Self) he often feels emotionally undermined, for nothing is really touching him deeply, vitally, personally, emotionally, permanently. He is always hungry for deeper, real contact with life and people. As a result there is a sadness, a grief, a painful emptiness within.

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. Likewise he must establish and maintain a vitalized Public and Profound Self as well.

Nothing short of this complete 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.

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.

You can begin to change into a more vitalized person in two ways. (l) By monitoring and observing yourself daily through reflecting on your behavior as you attempt to bring it in line with the characteristics described here. (2) By letting others (friend, wife, parent, children, counselor, accountability partner) give you honest feedback, both positive and negative about how you are doing.

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.

Becoming a Vitalized Person (2)

I want to continue the list of characteristics which encourage a person to live a more vitalized life.

8. Affirming others instead of using, neglecting or judging. As much as is possible eliminate judging things and people in your mind or verbally. Cut out the inner criticism, negative judgments and disapproval. This doesn’t mean that you should be blind to error or sin or faults, but don’t dwell on these in others or yourself. If someone is in sin or error, correct them lovingly.

But most importantly, affirm others. Tell them genuine things that you admire and like about them. Praise people for assets and qualities they have. Find the good things in people that can be affirmed. Do this instead of criticizing judging, finding fault, using people to meet your own needs, or ignoring the worth and good in others. "You know, you really are very good at that; I like the way you understand things...You’ve got a gift that I admire."

9. Trusting instead of suspecting/expecting bad things.

Develop a posture of trust of others and God as much as you can. This may not be easy if you have had early experiences with being hurt or disappointed by others. But try to make innocent, childlike trust real on the basis that God is our Father who cares, protects, looks out for, and provides for His children. Make trust your prayer posture continuously. "Father, I trust You, rely and depend on You!" Extend trust to others! How? Trust people with your time (when someone wants to make small talk with you, for instance), your possessions (lend someone a book at the risk of not getting it back), your love (really care about that homeless person by doing something), your friendship (to a child at church who seems neglected or shy).

l0. Assertive instead of withdrawal and sulking.

When there is a need to reasonably show disapproval or dislike or diffculty with someone’s behavior or issues, you must assert yourself. Devitalized people have the tendency to always be Mr. Nice guy (not in a mature way but a neurotic, fearful way), allowing others to cross your boundaries, or offend you without you confronting them. DP’s are fearful of disapproval or assertiveness because it may imply rejection. So they frequently absorb hurts and disagreements or go along with things which they really should say "no!" to. Try practicing saying "No" more often, (you can at least once a day) or saying things like, "That’s not acceptable to me, I don’t like the way you handled that," etc.

ll. Loving instead of withholding.

Don’t assume that people know you love them, tell them! Say to those closest to you "I love you!" point blank. Stop assuming they know or beating around the bush. But reserve those words for only special people. Don’t say it to just anyone. Say it to God, "Jesus, Father, I love you!" Act in love to someone less fortunate, some child or adult who needs to be given love. Even make a sacrifice for love by helping someone when it is inconvenient and without reward. Send that get well note, make that visit to the hospital, make that telephone call, send an E-Mail, say those words of appreciation, drop a note to your parent or pastor or friend, etc.

l2. Genuinely self-nurturing instead of self-depreciating.

Allow time on a regular basis (weekly) for something that is "just yours". But don’t let it become # 4 above. A rewarding hobby, interest, project, avocation, activity that absorbs and satisfies you. Make time for yourself; for wholesome self-nurturing; feed yourself good experiences, enjoyments, rewarding activities which provide a sense of contentment (movies, reading, opera, musicals, athletic events)

Step back from that painting (project, activity) and be pleased at what you did.. If you don’t nurture yourself in wholesome ways you’ll look for it in less wholesome ways (Pseudo-vitalizing ways) or find yourself reverting to negative internal talk of self-abuse; telling yourself how bad you are. Instead admiting you are a good person who sometimes makes bad choices.

l3. Smell the flowers ("Backgrounding") instead of Foregrounding.

Begin to recognize your environment; the environment of nature and the natural. Take a walk in the woods or on a trail and observe the beauty of God’s creation. Devitalized people live only in the foreground of life (busy, competitive, preoccupied with getting by, surviving, sensual) and neglect the background of life in nature. Vitalizing people stop to smell the flowers, look at a sunset, count the stars at night, wonder about the universe, watch a bird at the feeder, play with a pet or a child, snuggle with a teddy bear, listen to the ocean, laugh, dance, frolic, roll on the floor; get absorbed in a great symphony turned up exceptionally loud while driving in your car, or singing at the top of your lungs.

l4. Ruthless Honesty and Accountability

Devitalized and compulsive/addictive people tend to engage in self-deception, denial, hiding, secretiveness, deceiving of others, outright lying, stretching the truth to make themselves look better to others, or concealing the whole truth to protect their delicate self-esteem. They compartmentalize their lives into black and white, good and bad. They say to themselves, "I’d rather not do that now; I’ll put that difficult thing off; I’ll avoid that as much as I can, etc" Such behavior and self-talk is the death-blow to recovery of a vitalized and non-addictive personality. Such dishonesty, avoidance and compartmentalization keeps you divided, guarded and defended from the truth about yourself.

When you risk facing what is difficult and being ruthlessly honest and open, a chain of positive changes occurs: (l) First, you start to close the gaps between your public and private and profound selves. In other words, you begin to experience yourself as integrated and whole rather than compartmentalized, disunified and dissassociated one self from another. (2) This causes you to experience a new authenticity, genuineness and realism inside, which leads (3) you to end the false, phony, unrealistic expectations of perfection which you have been living under, and (4) in turn this leads to an intimacy with yourself which opens the door to real self-acceptance, self-liking and less self-dislike. (5) Such self-acceptance makes you more confident to reach out to others and to God in a healthy relationship which is real, nurturing and rewarding; and such healthy, mutual nurturing makes it unecessary to collect unwholesome, short-lived, eupohic experiences.

Ruthless honesty and accountability is the backbone of personality and lifestyle change. And the good news is that you have been already doing this as you Monitor Your Self Systems and through your Support Team.

If you are dealing with addictive sexuality, you must be honest with yourself and others about admitting you are addictive/compulsive; that you have a problem; that you are not only what others think of you or what you want them to think about you but that you are also a person in transition and change. You must be honest about your weakness, your failures and vulnerability to sexual acting out. You must be honest about your need for help. Saying to God, "I am weak, I am vulnerable, I can’t handle this without your grace," is most important. "In your weakness is My strength made perfect in you. My Grace is sufficient for you."

Therefore you must practice ruthless honesty and accountability with "someone". There must be someone in your life (sponsor, counselor, friend) with whom you come absolutely "clean" about the nitty-gritty details of your troubled behavior, acting out, shameful thoughts and desires. Someone with whom you hold nothing back and expose the shameful, embarrasing, unflattering side of your compulsive/addictive life. Only this kind of truth telling will set you free! This someone must be one who offers you unconditional, non-judgmental acceptance.

15. Authentic prayer.

The honesty spoken about above extends to your relationship with God. You will find yourself cutting out all the formulas, reading about and studying about prayer or using other’s prayers or methods. Instead, you will want to go to God’s heart and have a few real minutes of conversation with God from your heart in spirit, truth and honesty. It’s better than all else. One minute of the burning bush is worth more than hours of all the beating around the bush with God. One method for doing that is to pray your "name". Yes, your "name"! Get quiet before God and say, "God; Father, Jesus; this is _(your name)." Say that over a few times sincerely. You will find yourself experiencing the moving of God’s Spirit through you in a clensing, convicting, convincing, loving, authentic way. Continue with "Father,You know me, You know all about me. I don’t have to hide or pretend with You" And go from there!.

16. God’s Word.

Five minutes of reading, receiving and reflecting on a passage of Scripture every day with attention and in the Spirit is God’s way of speaking to you. It’s worth more than hours of other Bible study methods which may also be valuable. Are you still engaged in Biblical Prayer faithfully?

l7. Give Yourself Away today.

It is very important that you find opportunities in spontaneous or planned ways to "give yourself away". This means that you should find some moments or planned time to do an act of kindness, helpfulness, courtesy, or ministry to someone. It is most important for you to go out to others in helping, caring ways. Is there a nursing home patient you could befriend and visit periodically? Is there a homeless person on the street that you can approach with some money? Is there a elderly person you could help get their groceries into their car? Is there an upset child you can talk to? Is there a family member you haven’t called in awhile? Is there someone to visit in a hospital?

l8. Same Gender Bonding