Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (32 page)

The hierarchies involve gradually stopping both your escapes (e.g., going places you usually avoid) and your overprotections (e.g., taking more risks alone). Be sure to include both. Use the first chart you made as a reference.

4. Meet with the People You Love—Your Spouse, Lover, Family, Friends
—
and Enlist Their Support in Helping You Face Your Fears.
Let the people around you know what you are doing. Tell them you are trying to overcome your feelings of vulnerability. Ask them to start protecting you less and reassuring you less. You can ask them to gradually phase these things out.

Encourage people to express more of their own vulnerability to you. Most likely, they will be relieved.

WALT: It’s nice not to have to be the strong one all the time. It was wearing on me. I mean, I have problems too. I’d like to discuss them with Heather without her falling apart. I have some problems at work especially that I really would like to talk out.

Most partners will jump at the opportunity to give up such an overprotective role. Usually partners are weary of being so solicitous. Besides, they do not have to give up the role entirely. They just have to reduce it to a normal level.

You have chosen many of the people around you because they reinforce your lifetrap. You have to get them to stop if you want to overcome your Vulnerability lifetrap.

5. Examine the Probability of Your Feared Events Occurring.
Many people with the Vulnerability lifetrap exaggerate the probability that feared events will occur.

THERAPIST: What do you think the odds are of your airplane crashing?

HEATHER: I don’t know. I guess about one in a thousand.

THERAPIST: And when you are on an airplane, what do you think the odds are then?

HEATHER: When I’m on the plane, the odds seem higher. Maybe six out of ten.

THERAPIST: Do you know that the odds really are closer to one in a million?

Right now you use
intuition
to judge the odds of feared events occurring. You
feel
that the likelihood of danger is high. The problem is that your intuition is simply wrong because it is under the sway of your lifetrap.

We want you to conduct a more objective assessment of the odds. Start gathering information. Solicit the opinions of other people. Read about the subject. Educate yourself. Greater accuracy will decrease your anxiety.

For each feared situation, write down the odds of each fear happening
as it feels to you when you confront it.
Then write down the
realistic
odds of your fear happening, based on the opinions of the people close to you who do not share your Vulnerability lifetrap.

Use this chart. This is a sample entry filled out by Robert.

In fact, the 25 percent figure Robert wrote here is too high. The odds of someone losing their mind while having a panic attack are
practically zero.
This is because, as far as we know, it has never happened. Panic Disorder is a vastly studied subject, but there is not one reported case of a person going crazy during a panic attack. The same is true of dying and losing control. These things do not happen during panic attacks. You are just
afraid
they will happen.

To put it another way, the odds that you will die, go crazy, or lose control during a panic attack are no higher than they are at any other time, when you are not having a panic attack. The panic attack does not make it any more likely.

Exaggerating the odds is part of your tendency to catastrophize. You jump to the worst possible conclusion and consider it to be the most likely one. In fact, the likelihood of most catastrophic events happening to you is extremely low.

6. Write a Flashcard for Each Fear.
Write a flashcard for each one of your fears. Remind yourself of how the lifetrap leads you to catastrophize. Encourage yourself to face what you are escaping, and give up your overprotectiveness.

Here is a card Heather wrote for her fear, riding the elevator.

A VULNERABILITY FLASHCARD

I know that right now I am afraid to ride the elevator. I am afraid of some catastrophe, like the building catching fire, and the elevator getting stuck. I feel this is very likely to happen.

But what really is happening is that my Vulnerability lifetrap is getting triggered. I’m probably exaggerating the degree of risk. Therefore, I will force myself to go into this situation anyway, in spite of my fears, to see that it’s not really dangerous.

I know I want to count the floors five times before I get on the elevator. I feel that the checking will make me feel safer. But I don’t need to do the checking. I am safe enough without it. The checking is just a superstition. Besides, it’s a burden and I want to give it up.

Use the flashcards whenever your lifetrap is triggered. It can counter your tendency to catastrophize. Keep reassessing the odds. Enter the situation. Eventually, your anxiety will pass and you will feel comfortable.

7. Talk to Your Inner Child. Be a Strong, Brave Parent to Your Child.
The feelings connected to your lifetrap are
child
feelings. They are the feelings of your vulnerable inner child. You need to develop an inner parent to help this inner child. You can use imagery.

THERAPIST: Get an image of a time as a child that you felt vulnerable.

Don’t force it. Just tell me the first one that comes into your mind.

HEATHER: I am in the kitchen with my mother and our new neighbor. Her name is Blanche and she’s very nice.

I’m about six. I was almost six when Blanche moved into the neighborhood. I’m sitting at the table eating a sandwich, and I hear Blanche ask my mother about the numbers on her arm. She has just noticed my mother’s tattoo. My mother starts to tell Blanche that she was in a concentration camp. „A long time ago, „ she says, „when I was a child.“

This is the first time I have really heard of it. I mean, I already know something terrible happened, but this is the first time I start to understand what it was.

THERAPIST: How do you feel?

HEATHER: I feel this chid rush over me. I’m scared, very scared.

Once you are in touch with the image and the feeling of vulnerability, bring yourself into the image as an adult to comfort your frightened child. Try to make the vulnerable child feel safer.

HEATHER: I bring myself into the image as an adult. I sit down at the table with the child Heather. I say: „You don’t have to be afraid. You’re safe. You’re in your own house and I am here and you’re safe. No one will hurt you. There are no Nazis here. If you want to go out and play, I will come with you. I’ll protect you. I’ll help you face what you fear.“

We want you to bring in this adult whenever your lifetrap is triggered. Reassure yourself that there is nothing to fear. Help your inner child feel safe enough to confront the situation.

8. Practice Techniques for Relaxation.
Relaxation techniques can help center both your body and your mind. They can control the physical symptoms of anxiety and keep your mind from galloping away into catastrophizing.

Here is a simple meditation. It has two parts: a breathing part and a meditation part. Breathe slowly and from your diaphragm. That is, you should breathe no more than eight breaths a minute, and when you breathe, only your stomach should move. Your chest should be totally still. Breathing this way will prevent you from hyperventilating, the major cause of most physical anxiety symptoms, particularly panic attacks.

The meditation part follows the rhythm of your breathing. As you breathe in, slowly think the word
relax.
As you breathe out, think the word
breathe.
Just keep mentally repeating these words, slowly in time to your breaths.

Use this relaxation technique whenever your Vulnerability lifetrap is triggered. You will find it can help immeasurably.

ROBERT: At first, when I started using the breathing meditation, it made me nervous. It took me a while to really get going with it. I didn’t like focusing on my breathing.

THERAPIST: I know, you have to get through that with this technique.

ROBERT: But I did get through it and now it really helps. Whenever I start getting panicky I use it, and it calms me down and helps me stay in the situation.

9. Begin to Tackle Each of Your Fears in Imagery.
Imagery plays a major role in the triggering of this lifetrap. If you pay attention, you will realize that you are not only having catastrophic thoughts, but you are also having catastrophic images. You are vividly picturing the worst possible outcome. Naturally, this scares you.

We want you to start using imagery to make things better, not worse. We want you to rehearse
good
outcomes—in which you give up your overprotections, enter situations, and cope well.

Use the hierarchies you developed. Start with the easier steps first. Sit down in a comfortable chair, and relax yourself with your breathing meditation. Once you are relaxed, get an image of the feared situation. Imagine yourself going through the situation exactly as you would wish.

THERAPIST: What are you imagining?

HEATHER: I’m standing at the elevator. Walt is with me, and the adult
Heather is there too. It makes me feel safe to have them there.

I want to count all the floors five times, but I resist Once I decide not to do the counting, I get this wave of anxiety, but it passes through me and leaves. I feel fine. I feel strong and confident.

The elevator comes and the doors open. We get in. I stand calmly and do my relaxation. Before you know it, the elevator stops and we get out. We have gone five floors and I feel fine.

Gradually work your way up your hierarchies. Use imagery to gain a sense of mastery over all your fears. You have had many imagery rehearsals of bad outcomes. It is time to have some imagery rehearsals of success and safety.

10. Tackle Each Fear in Real Life.
Behavioral change is the culmination of everything you have done so far. It is the most powerful way to change your lifetrap. Once you actually experiment with overcoming avoidance and start proving to yourself you were distorting, then it becomes like a loop. The more you enter situations and see that the bad thing does not happen, the safer you feel, and the safer you feel, the more you enter situations.

Again, use your hierarchies and start with the easier steps. Keep doing a step until you can do it comfortably. Gain a sense of mastery over one step before you move to the next one. Gradually work your way up until you are doing everything. Use the flashcards, breathing meditation, and reparenting techniques to help you confront each situation.

11. Reward Yourself for Each Step You Take.
Remembering to reward yourself will cement the gains you have made. After you complete a hierarchy step, take a moment to congratulate yourself. Give your inner child credit for confronting these fears. You deserve praise—what you did took courage. It is not easy for you to confront your fears.

Point out to yourself how each fear does not actually come true. This will reinforce the sense that your feelings of vulnerability are greatly exaggerated.

The real reward for overcoming your Vulnerability lifetrap is the expansion of your life. There is so much that you miss because of your fears. After using the steps described here, both Heather and Robert found their lives vastly improved.

ROBERT: I think the thing that really got me moving was realizing how much I was missing out. I mean, I was really depriving myself of so much. It was a life devoted to anxiety.

If you find you cannot overcome the lifetrap alone, consider therapy. Why continue to restrict your activities and deny yourself? The journey out of the Vulnerability lifetrap is a journey back to life.

ALISON: THIRTY YEARS OLD. SHE FEELS UNWORTHY OF LOVE.

ALISON: Maybe I just haven’t had too many good relationships. The last guy I thought about marrying was not exactly the nicest guy in the world. In fact he was emotionally abusive. He was on my back about something all the time.

THERAPIST: But it doesn’t sound like Matthew is like that. Just the opposite.

ALISON: No, I know. It’s something different. I think I’m just afraid to let anyone get close to me. And Matthew’s a person who is trying to get close to me.

And that is why Alison has come to therapy. She is having a „crisis of intimacy“

ELIOT: FORTY-THREE YEARS OLD. HE COMES TO THERAPY WITH HIS WIFE FOR MARITAL PROBLEMS.

SCORING KEY

1. Completely untrue of me
   
2. Mostly untrue of me
   
3. Slightly more true than untrue of me
   
4. Moderately true of me
   
5. Mostly true of me
   
6. Describes me perfectly
   

If you have any 5’s or 6’s on this questionnaire, this lifetrap may still apply to you, even if your score is in the low range.