THE IMPORTANCE OF THICK SKIN
10 FEBRUARY 2022 (14 MIN READ)
We’ve all become a bunch of pussies. There, I said it, and I really fucking mean it. One measly political opinion can trigger someone so intensely that they lose all sense of rationale and become a fiery ball of anger. Stating the fact that someone may be overweight can land you burning at the stake in a moral prison, where people are lining up to get their chance to throw their stone. Expressing a belief that there are only two genders can offend people so badly that anyone in Hollywood would lose their career if they did so. Instead of enjoying comedy, people are now protesting outside shows because they can’t handle a joke. To them, the only jokes worthy of laughter are those that pick on white men. But then some of those same white men will develop an aneurysm if anyone mentions that a black person exists in front of their kids. None of it makes any fucking sense. No side is free from exemption. Again, we have all become a bunch of emotionally dysregulated pussies and the world is beginning to lose all its fun. But beyond the state of the world itself, we are setting ourselves up for a ton of personal suffering if we don’t develop some thick skin ASAP.
I’m going to take a second to call out the men of this world. Whether you agree with me or not, I believe strong men are the backbone of society, and without their strength, society will begin to crumble fast. If you are a man and you cannot handle someone else’s opinion without throwing a hissy fit, then you are not a man, you are a bitch. I hate to be this blunt, but you will not attract any decent woman or be a good father if you cannot even handle your emotions in the face of a joke or an opinion. So, for the good of society and even the good of your own life, please develop some skin and become a man. And no, I don’t mean becoming sociopathic and numb to emotions. But rather, in deep control of the way you react to them. Because reactive, immature men are the ones who cause real damage to the world. Whether it be a higher prevalence of violence or rape, as well as a lower capacity to effectively be a good father, society will burn if men cannot handle their intense emotions.
Even beyond men, we can all live a happier life if we aren’t so reactive to any little idea or comment that we don’t like. So, in an effort to increase the collective happiness of our fucked up world, here is how you can develop some thick skin and start enjoying your life:
BOUNDARY MACHINES
If you know someone who’s always talking about boundaries and how you need to fit into those, then you’re dealing with a narcissist who is deathly afraid of not having things go their way. Although they might package it with charm and “how their therapist told them to do it,” do not get fooled. These sorts of people are scared shitless deep down of losing a sense of control. More and more of us are heading down this dark road of constant boundaries, creating an army of narcissists that can wreak havoc on kind people who are easy prey. This could be caused by the fact that the self-help world creates these stupid podcasts and Instagram posts about how important boundaries are, and narcissists just eat it up like warm apple pie. Before I start unpacking why it’s rooted in narcissism and causes so much trouble, if you are somebody who is constantly trying to please others and can’t create room to take care of yourself, then you are not part of the group I’m about to shit on—boundaries can actually be very important for you, so ignore what I’m about to say.
At its core, the need to create a boundary is created by the need to control a situation to not cause emotional disruption within. For instance, if you’re a vegan and don’t want to talk about meat because it brings up too much anger in you, and the person in front of you keeps talking about it, then creating a boundary in making them not talk about meat allows you to control them so you don’t get triggered. In other words, you are too much of a wuss to not deal with your own negative emotions that you have to control someone else so they don’t get released. What kind of fucked up shit is that? Because of the dumb ass self-help gurus who make constant boundaries seem like a beautiful thing, the ego takes that false belief and delivers a boundary like it’s the most amazing gift one can give someone. But in reality, it’s a vehicle to tyrannically control the people in our lives to meet our selfish needs, aka narcissism. So, what can we do instead?
First off, understand that you are responsible for dealing with your negative emotions. Even if someone says something fucked up, you still felt the emotions based on certain thoughts and beliefs you possess, so it’s on you to deal with. Sure, you can put your middle finger up and curse at an asshole, but you also have to always understand that your own body produced the emotions; thus, it’s on YOU to deal with them. If you get into the habit of living in fear of triggers you don’t want to feel, then you will end up controlling others to not do something that releases them. Step out of that egoistic place and take full ownership of your capacity to produce these feelings and learn how to ride them out without projection. Although this toleration of brutal emotions is a tough skill to develop, the key in doing so is getting good at separating the sensation from the situation. If I’m at a dinner and some dumbass is calling me all sorts of names because I don’t possess a woke belief, then when anger inevitably boils up in my system, I temporarily remove the NPC from my mind and focus on the sensation itself. I tell myself, “anger is moving through my system,” and I observe it without getting reactive. In contrast to if I just thought, “Let me tell this guy to shut up so I can eat my food,” the previous method allows me to take ownership over how I feel and not project those feelings onto someone else.
Also, if there’s room for it, try to convert a boundary into a bridge. Attempt to find common ground where you and the person in question can become connected instead of divided. Rather than coming from the “I” and creating a boundary to protect yourself and gain power, come from the “we.” This unification would look like both parties owning their discomfort and working together to reduce it equally in each other, rather than one having more comfort than the other. However, to go back to my previous point, this unity can only occur if both sides are willing to face their triggers. And facing your triggers requires thick skin.
BE ABLE TO LAUGH AT YOURSELF
Although many of you may have already learned this the hard way, be very wary of someone who can’t laugh at themselves. The wrong joke made to the wrong person can either land you in social suicide, or for me growing up, a smack or two in the face. Also, it just fucking blows to be around someone who can’t take a joke. The reason why certain people can’t handle a joke is because they need a certain belief to be confirmed because it soothes their pain. And a joke becomes a roadblock in this confirmation of belief. For instance, the macho man who always has to be perceived as alpha needs to confirm that belief because he’s deathly afraid of the wounded little boy in him, who was either abused by his father or bullied. Thus, if someone were to joke about him being a pussy, then his need to prove that he’s the opposite of that would lead him to not accept the joke and retaliate.
Another example of this dynamic that comes up often is the social justice warrior who always has to be perceived as “woke.” If a semi-racist or sexist joke is made, then they’re unable to laugh at it or accept it, no matter how funny it is, because doing so would sabotage their identity as an SJW. And they need to hold on dearly to that identity because it soothes a deep wound in their life, such as the potential pain of taking on responsibility over their life instead of remaining a victim. Even though there are levels to how bad people are at taking jokes, we all have a wound inside ourselves that we don’t want anyone to see. A big step in becoming free and developing thick skin is to find what you can’t laugh at in yourself and question the pain underneath the belief, as that’s what you have to heal to remove the intense emotional reactivity.
Personally, I used to not be able to take jokes that revolved around my physical appearance, such as zingers about my mild chubbiness or terrible haircut. Whenever someone would go there, all I wanted to do was either physically harm the person or diss them so badly that they would never make fun of me again. The reason I reacted in this manner was because I used to be incredibly insecure about my appearance, due to the fact that I was bullied by the cool girls growing up for being “fat and ugly.” Even though they weren’t wrong, my sensitive spirit could not handle the amount of pain it caused me. Once puberty blessed me like a sexy genie in a bottle, I held on to the belief that I was attractive for dear life, as it finally allowed me to escape the pain of my inner child. In other words, every situation presented to me had to confirm the belief that I was attractive or else I would face intense triggers that I did not want to feel, hence why jokes about the way I looked became so dangerous.
The way I dropped my reactive behavior surrounding jokes about this topic was through no longer needing to hold on to that belief to avoid my pain. Sure, it was fine to know that I had above-average looks, but once I needed that idea in my head to repress my childhood trauma, it became a huge issue. So, I dove straight into the trauma and did my best to release it from my system. And when that pain mostly left my body, I no longer held on to that belief so tightly. Since I didn’t need the person in front of me to believe I was attractive to feel safe, this letting go allowed me to start laughing at jokes about a poor haircut or a terrible facial hair style. Additionally, I had space in my system to loosen up and see how ridiculous my shadow was in wanting to be perceived as pretty, letting myself laugh at this side of me in the process. Once I could genuinely laugh at this side of myself, that’s when it truly lost all control over me.
If you learn to laugh at the beliefs you need to hold on to for dear life to avoid your pain, then you begin to remove their control over you and can live life in the present moment. However, as I touched upon in the last section, don’t go straight to laughing at yourself while all that pain is still stuck in your system. Try your best to release it as much as you can and then move towards laughter. Because if you go straight to laughing at pain that still has a deep hold over you, then it can quickly turn into a form of self-bullying loaded in shame. Once you begin to feel lighter from that pain, which you can only discover by becoming aware of what you don’t want to be made fun of in the first place, then it becomes ok to move into laughter. But how can this process actually be done?
Going back to my own example, if a thought comes up around how I need to look sexy and pretty for others, then I will laugh at how absurd that thought is with playful curiosity. Instead of shaming and getting angry at myself for thinking that way, this approach allows me to heal much faster, because it replaces changing through shame with changing through loving humor, allowing me to move forward instead of being stuck in shame. Also, presenting a beautiful cherry on top, the more you get into this habit of laughing at the more problematic sides of yourself with love, the more you will be able to accept jokes from others without feeling the need to rip them a new asshole. And that way of going about life will not only lead to more happiness, but also a higher chance of making genuine connections, since you will no longer live in fear of having to be perceived in a certain manner to feel safe. Going back to the theme of this article, arriving at this new place of accepting humor will require thick skin.
HANDLING THE HATERS
Whether it be the woke snowflakes inundating you with negative comments over any deviation you make from their beliefs, or the more extreme republicans who respond to hate with hate, no matter what we choose to discuss, we will be met with negativity and disdain. Since this is the ugly truth, to think and speak freely in today’s day and age, we have to be able to handle the uncomfortable feelings that come with receiving hate. Think about a time where you felt uneasy about a common sentiment held by the majority of your friends. It could have been something like how the government was handling the pandemic or maybe how you feel about the police. Now, think about the feeling that didn’t allow you to speak up about the way you felt online. All your friends felt compelled to say what was “morally” acceptable, but you couldn’t say what you believed. How is that fair? The reason you refused to give voice to what you felt was that your fear of criticism was stronger than your desire to speak your truth. Anyone who deviates from the status quo and speaks truth to something that no one is able to see has to put their desire to speak freely ahead of their fear of pushback. And sadly, most of us today have become scared sheep who just conform because we are too scared of the haters.
I used to be among this crowd of sheep, but one thought by Jordan Peterson completely changed my perspective and forced me to leave the herd. Peterson presented an interesting thought exercise which consisted of viewing both the cost of not speaking up and the cost of speaking up. And after serious deliberation, it’s pretty easy to see the cost of not speaking up as greater than the cost of speaking up. In my mind, not speaking up would make me feel emasculated, like a coward, and enslaved to a group of people who were emotionally unstable. On the other hand, speaking up would lead to harsh words from that same group. Once I compared both those realities on paper, I had no choice but to choose speaking up. But in doing so, I knew I had to thug it out when the mobs inevitably came to try and burn me at the stake, which required me to build some thick skin. Since we are so afraid of facing harsh criticism, and overcoming that fear is essential to start speaking freely, how can we learn to face it willingly?
The first step is acknowledging that we need to overcome this fear, because if we don’t, then we are stuck under the rule of a bunch of emotionally stunted idiots. Imagine being at your deathbed, possessing ideas that could have changed society, but you never spoke them because you were afraid of some political extremists commenting hate. I know that sounds extreme, but that’s what will literally happen if you don’t get ahead of this fear. In terms of facing it, we must learn how to tolerate the negative sensations that come up when somebody meets our ideas with hate. I can go down the psychological route of telling you how each comment really has nothing to do with you, and everything to do with someone who is projecting their pain onto you. But at the end of the day, that doesn’t really matter because you are still left with the painful feeling in your body of receiving hate for your ideas. Don’t resist the pain that arises because it will only become stickier and stronger over time. See the pain, nurture it, and love it. Of course it fucking hurts to receive hate. Our core wants to be seen, loved, and appreciated, which receiving hate completely messes up. Once you learn to stop resisting the discomfort, move on to thinking about your secure attachments.
When we get hate thrown our way, our brain will quickly make us feel like we are worthy of that hate and not worthy of the love we desire. To fight this, think about the people who will always love you no matter what you say or do. Feeling this comfort will allow you to tolerate people handing you hate, because you know it will not affect the love you truly cherish. Taking it a step further, know that you can give yourself unconditional love no matter the circumstances. Let yourself know that you will not love yourself any less if you receive a barrage of hate for an idea. The better you get at this skill of tolerating hate and returning back to love, the tougher your skin will get and the freer you will begin to feel.
