Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (35 page)

Defectiveness is present in other close relationships as well. One danger we mentioned earlier is that you may try to allay your own feelings of shame by becoming critical and rejecting of your own children. You do to them what was done to you. You scapegoat them. They are vulnerable and innocent and cannot stop you.

MARIA: Eliot picks on the children all the time. He harps on every possible little flaw. Every little thing. He doesn’t realize how much it hurts them.

Putting down your children makes you feel better about yourself, at least temporarily.

Many people who attain quick success and then become self-destructive (for example, through drugs or alcohol) have underlying Defectiveness lifetraps. This is often true of celebrities, actors, and entrepreneurs: success is so discrepant from what they really feel that they are unable to maintain it. The pressure to maintain the success when they feel so bad about themselves becomes overwhelming, and many fall apart.

If you use success in your career to make up or compensate for feelings of defectiveness, then your sense of well-being may be quite fragile. Your whole sense of worth becomes built on your success. Any small deflation or failure may be enough to make you nervous. If some thing serious happens—if you get fired, go bankrupt, have a business reversal, or get snubbed by a higher-up—it throws you back into that shameful feeling. You may operate only at extremes: either you are successful and feel wonderful about yourself, or you fail and collapse utterly into feelings of worthlessness.

Jobs that require public speaking may be a particular problem for you. You feel exposed. Public speaking anxiety is particularly common among people with Defectiveness lifetraps. The sense is that somehow people will see through you. Perhaps, through your anxiety symptoms—sweating, shaking, your voice cracking—they will sense your defectiveness.

CHANGING YOUR DEFECTIVENESS LIFETRAP

1. Understand your childhood feelings of defectiveness and shame. Feel the wounded child within you.
   
2. List signs that you might be coping with Defectiveness through Escape or Counterattack (i.e., avoiding or compensating).
   
3. Try to stop these behaviors designed to Escape or Counterattack.
   
4. Monitor your feelings of defectiveness and shame.
   
5. List the men/women who have attracted you most and the ones who have attracted you least.
   
6. List your defects and assets as a child and teenager. Then list your current defects and assets.
   
7. Evaluate the seriousness of your current defects.
   
8. Start a program to change the defects that are changeable.
   
9. Write a letter to your critical parent(s).
   
10. Write a flashcard for yourself.
    
11. Try to be more genuine in close relationships.
    
12. Accept love from the people close to you.
    
13. Stop allowing people to treat you badly.
    
14. If you are in a relationship where you are the critical partner, try to stop putting your partner down. Do the same in other close relationships.
    

1. Understand Your Childhood Defectiveness and Shame. Feel the Wounded Child Within You.
The first step is to re-experience your early feelings of defectiveness and shame. Where did the lifetrap come from? Who criticized and shamed you? Who made you feel invalid and unloved? Was it your mother? father? brother? sister? The answer almost certainly lies in your early family life.

Try to remember as much as possible about specific events. You can use photographs to help you. You can return to familiar places from your childhood, and you can utilize imagery.

When you have some time to yourself, sit in a darkened room in a comfortable chair. Close your eyes and let images of your childhood come. Do not force them. Just let them float to the surface of your mind. If you need somewhere to begin, start with something in your current life that triggers a feeling of defectiveness.

ALISON: I remember when I was little, maybe about seven, my uncle put a $50,000 bond in my name. Of course, he really did it for my mother, but somehow at the time I was confused and thought he did it for me. Because he liked me or something. I remember being really embarrassed to see him after I found out.

THERAPIST: Can you get an image of it?

ALISON: (Closes eyes.) I see myself in my room. Ym getting dressed. My mother has just told me that we’re going to my uncle’s house. Ym getting dressed really carefully. I want to look good for my uncle.

When I finally come out, I ask my father how I look. He tells me I might as well get undressed, Ym not going to my uncle’s. He and my mother are going without me. He says that’s just what my uncle wants, a whining brat hanging around.

I get mad and I tell him my uncle does so want to see me, or else why would he give me so much money?

My father laughs, saying do I actually think the gift has anything to do with me.

THERAPIST: How do you feel?

ALISON: Ifeel that same way. Exposed. Like all of a sudden I realize the gift wasn’t really for me. Ym embarrassed that I got all dressed up, and the gift wasn’t really for me. Ym standing in the had, and I feel so exposed. I’m trying really hard not to cry.

We want you to feel that child who wanted love but instead got disapproval and rejection. Picture yourself as a child wanting those things. And picture the people you love not giving them to you. Allow yourself to relive that original pain.

Bring yourself in as an adult and comfort that child in the images. Comfort, love, praise, and support can heal shame.

ALISON: I bring myself into the image. I take that little girl’s hand, and lead her away from her father. We go outside the house and far away. I take her on my lap and rock and kiss her. I tell her that I love her, that it will be okay, that if she wants to cry she can.

Link these early feelings with your Defectiveness lifetrap today. Can you feel the wounded child who wanted approval and validation?

2. List Signs That You Might Be Coping with Defectiveness Through Escape or Counterattack (i.e.y by avoiding or overcompensating). Are
you hypercritical of other people? Are you defensive about criticism? Do you devalue the people you love? Do you overemphasize status or success? Do you try to impress people? Do you ask for reassurance incessantly? These are the ways you Counterattack or overcompensate.

Do you abuse alcohol or drugs? Do you overeat or overwork? Do you avoid getting close to people? Are you very closed about discussing personal feelings? Are you hypervigilant about rejection? These are the ways you Escape or avoid.

Make explicit the ways you Escape or Counterattack to cope with your feelings of defectiveness. Watch yourself and write them down.

3. Try to Stop These Behaviors Designed to Escape or Counterattack.
This will allow your feelings of defectiveness to surface more readily. You cannot deal with your lifetrap until you are in touch with it.

For example, you may place too much emphasis on success as a way of compensating for your feelings of worthlessness. You try to disprove your defectiveness by proving you are of value. But the problem is, you overdo it. It becomes your sole focus, and your life starts to revolve around success. Eliot displayed this pattern:

ELIOT: I always maintain that the main reason I don’t spend more time with my family is time. I don’t have the time. I’m at the club from eleven in the morning till three or four in the morning at least five nights a week.

MARIA: And he spends the days he is home recovering. He really doesn’t want to do much but lie in bed or watch television.

THERAPIST: All you do is work or recover from work.

Eliot’s life is devoted to gaining success and status. He does it to impress people. When he is with a woman, it is all he talks about. This is his way of proving himself worthy of love. The end result, though, is that he has status and success, but he still does not have love. He is looking for love but settling for admiration. His success never touches his core feeling of defectiveness. It just provides temporary relief.

Success and status often become addictions. You try to get more and more, but you can never get enough to make you feel good. Success is a pale substitute for finding one person who really knows and loves you.

Similarly, if you are always running away from your feelings of defectiveness—if you are always drinking, avoiding close relationships, or hiding your real thoughts and feelings—your lifetrap cannot change. Your feelings of defectiveness remain frozen.

Eliot avoided intimacy with his family in many ways. On days that he was home, he smoked marijuana and drank beer. Most of the time, he stayed isolated in his bedroom watching television. At dinner he spent most of the time bragging about his success or criticizing his children. Some evenings he made excuses to leave so he could meet one of his lovers.

We made an agreement that he would stop trying to escape in these ways for one month. We want you to do the same. We want you to stop engaging in patterns that keep you from facing your feelings of defectiveness. We want you to get in touch with your defectiveness feelings so that we can begin to work on them.

4. Monitor Your Feelings of Defectiveness and Shame.
Observe situations that trigger your lifetrap. Become aware. List situations in which you feel defective or ashamed. These feelings are cues that your lifetrap has been triggered. Here is Alison’s list:

SITUATIONS THAT TRIGGER MY DEFECTIVENESS

1. Alone on a Saturday night with nothing to do. Matthew is away. I feel that no one wants to be with me.
   
2. Out to lunch with my best friend, Sarah. I feel that she is better than I am—smarter, prettier, more interesting. Instead of talking about myself, I fade.
   
3. Talking to my mother on the phone. She gets down on me for not being able to make up my mind about getting married. She sounds desperate, like if I don’t say „yes” now, no one will ever ask me again.
   

List all the ways your lifetrap manifests itself: when you feel insecure, inadequate, or worried about rejection; when you compare yourself to others or feel jealous; when you feel sensitive to slights or defensive about criticism; when you allow yourself to be mistreated because you believe you do not deserve anything better. List all the situations that trigger Defectiveness for you.

We realize that this will be hard. We all devote considerable energy in life trying
not
to feel painful things. Try to maintain hope throughout this process by reminding yourself that acknowledging these feelings is the first step toward overcoming a problem that is bringing you great unhappiness.

In addition, write down the complaints various partners have made about you. See if there are patterns. Have you been accused repeatedly of being too jealous, insecure, or oversensitive? Have you been told that you need too much reassurance, or that your feelings are too easily hurt? These complaints may provide important clues about how you reinforce your lifetrap.

5. List the Men/Women Who Have Attracted You Most
,
and the Ones Who Have Attracted You Least.
We want you to take a look at your choice of partners. List all the lovers you have had. Group them into the ones that excited you most and the ones that excited you least. Compare the two groups. Were you most excited by partners who were more critical of you? More rejecting? More aloof or ambivalent toward you? Are you most attracted to partners before you have won them over? Does your interest drop off afterward? Were you bored by partners who loved you?

6. List Your Defects and Assets as a Child and Teenager
.
Then List Your Current Defects and Assets.
We want you to get a more objective view of yourself. The view you have now is not objective. It is biased against you. Your cognitive style is to exaggerate your flaws and discount your positive features. Take a more scientific approach. List your defects and assets, both when you were a child and teenager, and now.

Here is Alison’s list:

ASSETS AS A CHILD OR TEENAGER

1. I was smart.
   
2. I was sensitive.
   
3. I was pretty good to other people.
   
4. I could sing.
   
5. I had leadership qualities. (I was head cheerleader and class representative of my junior and senior class.)
   
6. I was good to my younger brother and sister.
   
7. I was popular with other girls.
   

DEFECTS AS A CHILD OR TEENAGER

1. It’s hard for me to say what my defects were. I just didn’t have much to offer anyone. No one really wanted to be with me. I have always felt that there is something about me that people don’t like. I can’t really say what it is. It is something about me that other people can see. Boys in particular didn’t like me. When I was a teenager, boys didn’t ask me out.
   

It was interesting for Alison to see how much trouble she had writing this list.

ALISON: It’s funny, but writing the positive parts made me upset. It was hard for me to just say what was good about me.

THERAPIST: It’s so alien to you.

ALISON: And writing the negative part was hard too. At first it surprised me that I couldn’t think of any defects. But then I realized it wasn’t any one thing about me. It was who I was.

Alison had a similar experience writing the list for herself now. Although it was not easy, she was able to generate many positive qualities. But she had difficulty listing any significant defects. Her only evidence was that she
felt
defective.

These lists represent the evidence that you are defective versus the evidence that you have value. Examine the evidence. Writing the lists helped Alison to see that there were positive things about her that she tended to discount.

You can also turn to family and close friends for help developing your lists. (Of course, do not ask the people in your family who gave you the lifetrap in the first place.) At first Alison could not generate any positive qualities at all. She was just unaccustomed to thinking that way.