What is the truth about Don Juan? What was he like inside? We carry with us a myth about such a character, denying what may be true. This, from my own view is what Don (and Donna) Juan are truly like. Check each point to see how many of them describe you.
* They feel deep pain and worthlessness who have found worth through their beauty. The word beauty is used in a universal, "Hollywood" sense.
* They obtain admiration and affection through their looks, but in fact, feel no worth, no substance at all. They rely on something doomed to fail them and no one can offer assurance of the true value of their souls because it is hidden and they keep it hidden.
* They feel they cannot be loved.
* They let sexual thoughts and sexual urges go before other, more important things.
* They declare that sexual needs cause them to surge forward and find a lover, at all costs, and to "get Laid." Sexual need is a substitute for seeing the real need inside for which there is no solution or fulfillment, as far as they are concerned.
*They are never beautiful enough in their own eyes. They are always too ugly, too fat, their hair is never "right" - they are ashamed of their looks. If they are unhappy, before making any other changes in their lives they start a fitness program, starve, buy a diet, buy new clothes, buy a new car, change their hair.
* Beauty of the opposite sex speaks louder than any other human quality and the sexual excitement caused by someone "beautiful" distracts and rules! Note: if you identify with being homosexual (which in my opinion is not actually a "gay" situation) I have other writing specifically for you.
* Sex for them is desirable until the deed is accomplished and then something changes. Rather than get closer to the truth - to the real person - they would rather seek someone new. In fact, going back to the one they were with is a painful experience.
*They compare themselves with others of the same sex, cursed relentlessly with jealousy, and tend to be overjoyed when someone is jealous of them!
*Knowingly or secretly - they are in deep despair
* They live for lovers. Falling in love is so exciting, so new, they thrive on this ectasy. As John Bradshaw stated in his lecture on the family, who wouldn't like those first feelings to last? But they don't last. Don and Donna Juan know this and leave before the magic is over. They claim it doesn't matter - they don't believe in permanent relationships anyway.
* Hardly anyone knows them or deeply loves them because they've maintained an arms length from most. They want love but they cannot have it. Intimacy brings complications and neither they nor the ones they choose can abide the pain of it.
* Childhood relationships spelled out the disaster of intimacy and pain. A pattern of avoidance has been established.
* They expect a person of the opposite sex to be sexually stimulating, i.e. physically "exceptional" and expect the same of themselves. They must be attractive, they must be stunning, they must be "worthy." Anything that exists to the contrary: flabbiness, wrinkles, fat, is a traumatic threat.
They are terrified. Without beauty, perfection, they will not be loved, they will not be "worthy." The real love they could have without physical perfection recalls painful memories of intimacy gone wrong. There might be a feeling of claustrophobia. Love can be someone owning you, smothering you, using you, sucking the life out of you, which obviously isn't love. But Don and Donna have never experienced love and don't know that.
*Physical beauty is a safe, hard shell that a person can hide behind (until it is gone.) The world of exteriors is a place where many beautiful people hide from their fears. Physical beauty has a life of its own; it determines Don and Donna's boundaries and defines their lives. Movies and television have reinforced this.
In some ways, media has created this. If you can make things look good - your body, your car, your house - then things are good. If you look great with makeup and lighting on the screen, does it matter if you actually look very plain? Does it matter if you're miserable? At least you look good. Vicarious perfection is comforting even in its limitations.
* They don't seem to notice - people are happier who have love in their "ugliness." But what does it matter since Don and Donna can't face intimacy?
* Everyone they meet fits into the same pattern of escapism. They and their companions find intimacy impossible but can't understand why no one can stay with them.
* Women raised in love are a sharp contrast with Donna. They see themselves on the inside where they are loved. They have less use for beauty evident in what they project. Men are attracted and feel safe with them.
CONCLUSIONS:
It is my hope that in reading this you feel pathetic, if the shoe fits. Knowing you are pathetic and not cute, sexy and fantastic, in your game plan, if you are Don or Donna, is the first step towards recovery.
Don and Donna at some point may come to a dramatic dead end where they no longer find joy in the temporal, and realize they want love after all. They want it but at the present rate may not get it. At this point they are forced into an intimate relationship with themselves that is inescapable and the pain of it is indescribable. It may seem like an eternity before one gets to the end of the long journey back to understanding love.
For the journey you need a map and you need a guide. I don't recommend taking the journey without God at your side and a bible in your hand. The jourrney is going to a place where you love yourself the way God intended. Don't listen to the religious. They'll say everyone always loves themselves, even if they don't love others. Selfishness is not love and we do not easily love ourselves but instead, easily hurt ourselves. The bible commands that we love others in the same way that we love ourselves, and that's exactly what we do. We hurt others because we hurt ourselves. The journey leads to loving others as well.
This is continued in part 2.
