Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (37 page)

You may have so much shame that you have always hidden yourself. You need to find out that you can actually be yourself and be loved for that.

12. Accept Love from the People Close to You.
One of the hardest things for you is to let people love you. You are very uncomfortable being treated well. It is so alien. You are much more comfortable being mistreated or ignored. It is hard for you to tolerate situations where people take care of you, praise you, and support you. You try to push it away or discount it.

ALISON: It’s funny, but one of the hardest things for me has been to let Matthew give me compliments. To just accept them without denying them. Like the other night, we were going out to dinner, and he told me I looked beautiful. I started to say, „No, I don’t“ and then I stopped myself.

THERAPIST: What did you say?

ALISON: „Thank you.“

Both Alison and Eliot had to learn to accept love. Surprisingly, the experience brought up a lot of grief for both of them.

MARIA: Something strange happened the other night. Eliot came home from the club and he was all upset. He had had a bad night.

I lay down in bed with him, held him in my arms, and just comforted him. I was stroking his face.

All of a sudden he started to cry. These deep sobs. THERAPIST: It put him in touch with what he’d been missing for so long. MARIA: I never felt closer to him or loved him so much.

We want you to accept love as well. Stop pushing away the people who love you.

13. Stop Allowing People to Treat You Badly.
As we have noted, there is a tendency for you to choose partners, and perhaps close friends, who are critical or rejecting. Examine your close relationships today. Do you allow people to put you down or criticize you unfairly?

ALISON: Well, you know Matthew isn’t a problem that way. But there is someone who is a problem. That’s my best friend Lynn. She’s been my best friend since we were little. She lived next door to me.

She was always mean to me when we were little. She would say she didn’t want to play with me, or she would make fun of me.

To this day she puts me down. Like the other day she said to me, „You better let Matthew get you that ring before he changes his mind.“

That was such a bitchy thing to say.

THERAPIST: What did you do when she said it?

ALISON: Nothing. I got upset.

Start standing up for yourself. Assert your rights. Tell the person that you will no longer tolerate abusive criticism. Demand that you be accepted as you are. Remember the principles of assertiveness. Do not talk to the person in an angry and aggressive manner. You will be much more effective if you remain calm. Stand up straight and look the person in the eye. Be direct. Be specific. And above all, do not get into defending yourself. Just keep restating your point in a calm and controlled manner.

ALISON: I invited Lynn to dinner and she came two hours late. We had finally started eating, so it meant I had to get up and start getting her courses. All the food was either cold or overcooked. I was really annoyed.

At one point we were alone at the table. I told her that I was angry she had come so late, that it had made it hard for me and ruined my dinner. I told her I had worked hard on the dinner.

She started saying I had some nerve to get down on her when she was so upset about Lenny. Lenny is her boyfriend. They had had a fight and that was why she was late.

I didn’t fall for it. I started to defend myself but I stopped myself. I just told her again that it wasn’t right for her to be so late for dinner.

Be careful not to go too far in the other direction. Try to accept
occasional
criticism that is not demeaning. Recognize the difference between fair criticism and excessive or unreasonable criticism.

If your friend or partner will not change after a while, you must consider ending the relationship. You can try everything; you can give the person every opportunity to change. If it is a romantic partner, you might consider couples therapy. Perhaps through therapy you can solve the problem. But ultimately you must stand up for yourself and either get the person to change or leave the relationship. It is going to be almost impossible for you to heal the Defectiveness lifetrap without ending unhealthy relationships. It is too difficult to fight this lifetrap when the people closest to you are continually reinforcing it.

We have found that the majority of patients with this lifetrap are in relationships that
can
be saved. They can stand up to their partners and get their partners to change. The partners are often able to stop being so critical. In fact, some partners welcome the change. They prefer to be with a person who has some backbone.

Occasionally we run up against partners who cannot tolerate being in a relationship on an equal basis. Most often this is because the partner’s issue is Defectiveness as well. They put down other people as a form of Counterattack, to ward off their own feelings of worthlessness and shame. Such partners are not healthy enough to work on their own insecurities and change.

Some patients continue as adults to live or work with the critical or unloving parents who were responsible for the lifetrap developing in the first place. We have found this to be extremely destructive to the change process, and strongly advise you not to continue such close contact with a critical parent.

14. If You Are in a Relationship Where You Are the Critical Partner, Stop Putting Your Partner Down. Do the Same in Other Close Relationships.
Stop criticizing your partner. Your partner does not deserve it. Remember, you cannot feel
basically
better about yourself by putting others down.

This is equally true with your children. They are innocent and vulnerable, and you are betraying them. Break the chain. Do not pass on your own Defectiveness lifetrap to them.

At some level you feel guilty about what you have done to your spouse or children. Resist getting lost in that guilt. The important thing is to change
now.

ELIOT: When I let myself think about it, I get very upset about things I’ve said to the children. But I know I didn’t choose my lifetrap; I know I didn’t bring it on myself. Now I have to get out of the lifetrap for the sake of my children.

THERAPIST: If you can fight your own feelings of defectiveness, you won’t have to keep venting them on your children.

You have to face what you have done, forgive yourself, and change, starting right now.

Try praising the ones you love. You love them for a reason. They have qualities that are valuable and deserve credit. Aim for a relationship of equals—beyond the see-saw of one-up, one-down.

How quickly you can change your Defectiveness lifetrap depends in part on how punitive your parent was. The more punishing and dramatic your parent’s rejection was, and the more hatred and violence there was connected to it, the harder it is to change. You may need help from a therapist. Get help if you need it; there is no shame involved in getting help to treat your problem.

Changing your lifetrap involves gradually improving how you treat yourself, how you treat others, and how you allow others to treat you. With the exception of patients who are in truly abusive relationships, changing does not usually involve sudden, dramatic shifts. Rather it is an incremental process. Patients gradually feel better about themselves. They become less defensive and more able to take in love. They feel closer to people. They feel more valued and more loved.

Keep in mind that this is not a short-term issue. You will be working on it for years to come but there will be progress all along the way. Gradually you will come to accept that your defectiveness was something that was taught to you, and not something inherently true about you. Once you can open yourself up to the idea that your defectiveness is not a fact, the healing process can begin to work.

KATHLEEN: THIRTY-EIGHT YEARS OLD. CONSIDERS HERSELF A FAILURE IN HER PROFESSIONAL LIFE.

When Kathleen first walks into our office, she has a tense, crestfallen appearance. She tells us that she has considered coming to therapy for quite some time, but has put it off.

KATHLEEN: Lately I’ve been feeling really depressed.

THERAPIST: How did it start?

KATHLEEN: Well, I’ve really been depressed for a long time. Sometimes I think Tve been depressed my whole life.

But something happened a few weeks ago that really upset me. My husband and I were out to dinner and we ran into my friend Ronnie. We went to college together. We got to talking, you know, and I found out that she just had been made a partner in her law firm.

THERAPIST: And that bothered you?

KATHLEEN: Yeah, it bothered me. I mean, look at me. Thirty-eight years old and all I have to show for it is a job as a production assistant. I mean, I’m basically a gofer, and have been for fifteen years.

Kathleen works as a production assistant in television. It is basically an
entry-level job, which she has held since she started in the business after graduating from college. She has made almost no progress up the ranks. „I feel like such a failure,“ she says.

BRIAN: FIFTY YEARS OLD. FEELS LIKE A FAILURE EVEN THOUGH HE IS A SUCCESS.

Brian has the impostor syndrome. People with this problem do not feel that their successes are justified. They believe that they fool people into seeing them as more competent than they really are. Although Brian has a good job as a press secretary for a prominent politician, he still
feels
like a failure.

BRIAN: I’m not crazy. I know I have a great job, that people think I’m great. People think Fm doing well. But still I feel worried constantly. It’s like I’m an approval junkie. If my boss tells me I did a great job, Fm on cloud nine, but if he makes one tiny correction I start worrying that he doesn Y like me anymore, hefs gonna fire me.

THERAPIST: Like hefs found you out.

BRIAN: Yeah, like I’ve just been faking it all along, and he’s finally found me out.

Brian’s sense of success is fragile. He is afraid he will be exposed as fraudulent and his entire career will collapse.

This questionnaire will measure the strength of your Failure lifetrap. Use the following scale to answer the items. Rate what you
feel
more than what you
think
intellectually.

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.

INTERPRETING YOUR FAILURE SCORE

10-19 Very low. This lifetrap probably does
not
apply to you.

20-29 Fairly low. This lifetrap may only apply
occasionally
.

30-39 Moderate. This lifetrap is an
issue
in your life.

40-49 High. This is definitely an
important
lifetrap for you.

50-60 Very high. This is definitely one of your
core
lifetraps.

Interpreting Vour Failure Score

10-19 Very low. This lifetrap probably does
not
apply to you. 20-29 Fairly low. This lifetrap may only apply
occasionally.
30-39 Moderate. This lifetrap is an
issue
in your life.

40-49 High. This is definitely an
important
lifetrap for you. 50-60 Very high. This is definitely one of your
core
lifetraps.

Interpreting Vour Failure Score

10-19 Very low. This lifetrap probably does
not
apply to you. 20-29 Fairly low. This lifetrap may only apply
occasionally.
30-39 Moderate. This lifetrap is an
issue
in your life.

40-49 High. This is definitely an
important
lifetrap for you. 50-60 Very high. This is definitely one of your
core
lifetraps.