Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (44 page)

TIMOTHY: The general manager seems to dislike me for some reason. He sometimes embarrasses me. The other day he scolded me in front of some customers and employees. He ordered me to stand there and fold clothes, like a menial clerk.

THERAPIST: What did you do?

TIMOTHY: I did it. I stood there and folded the clothes.

Naturally, this state of affairs kindles anger. Timothy takes out his anger on the salespeople and other employees below him.

TIMOTHY: I’m like a tyrant in the department. I snap out commands, and people better step to. And if they mess up, they are going to hear it from me, loud and clear all through the department.

THERAPIST: That’s revenge. You treat them even worse than your boss treats you.

Timothy has two extremes. At one extreme, he is servile and eager to please. At the other, he is demanding and furious. At one extreme, he appears anger-less; at the other, his anger is completely out of control. Here are the steps to changing your Subjugation lifetrap:

CHANGING YOUR SUBJUGATION LIFETRAP

1. Understand your childhood subjugation. Feel the subjugated child inside of you.
   
2. List everyday situations at home and at work in which you subjugate or sacrifice your own needs to others.
   
3. Start forming your own preferences and opinions in many aspects of your life: movies, foods, leisure time, politics, current controversial issues, time usage, etc. Learn about yourself and your needs.
   
4. Make a list of what you do or give to others, and what they do or give to you. How much of the time do you listen to others? How much of the time do they listen to you?
   
5. Stop behaving passive-aggressively. Push yourself systematically to assert yourself—express what you need or want. Start with easy requests first.
   
6. Practice asking other people to take care of you. Ask for help. Discuss your problems. Try to achieve a balance between what you give and get.
   
7. Pull back from relationships with people who are too self-centered or selfish to take your needs into account. Avoid one-sided relationships. Change or get out of relationships where you feel trapped.
   
8. Practice confronting people instead of accommodating so much. Express your anger appropriately, as soon as you feel it. Learn to feel more comfortable when someone is upset, hurt, or angry at you.
   
9. Do not rationalize your tendency to please others so much. Stop telling yourself that it doesn’t really matter.
   
10. Review past relationships and clarify your pattern of choosing controlling or needy partners. List the danger signals for you to avoid. If possible, avoid selfish, irresponsible, or dependent partners who generate very high chemistry for you.
    
11. When you find a partner who cares about your needs, asks your opinions and values them, and who is strong enough to do 50 percent of the work, give the relationship a chance.
    
12. Be more aggressive at work. Take credit for what you do. Do not let other people take advantage of you. Ask for any promotions or raises you might be entitled to get. Delegate responsibilities to other people.
    
13. (To the Rebel.) Try to resist doing the
    opposite
    of what others tell you to do. Try to figure out what
    you
    want, and do it even if it is consistent with what authority figures tell you.
    
14. Make flashcards. Use them to keep you on track.
    

1. Understand Your Childhood Subjugation. Feel the Subjugated Child Inside of You.
Your Subjugation lifetrap has great emotional strength. In part, this is because the emotions of childhood are strong. Children are less able than adults to modulate their emotions with their intelligence, so childhood emotions have a primitive force. When your Subjugation lifetrap is activated, these emotions are unleashed, and you are filled with negative feelings—anger, guilt, fear.

Ordinarily, you try to
escape
this kind of intense activation of your lifetrap. You try to avoid experiencing these painful feelings. You deny and suppress your feelings. Then, without knowing what you are doing, you blindly act out your subjugation. You repeatedly play a subjugated role in your relationships. In order to change, you must be willing to acknowledge and tolerate some painful feelings.

The best way to feel the subjugated child inside of you is through imagery. Start with an instance of subjugation in your current life. Take a moment to close your eyes, and let an image come into your mind of when you felt the same way before. Try to remember far back into childhood. Do not
force
the image to come. Simply allow it to float to the top of your mind. Who were you with? Was it your mother or father? Was it your brother, sister, or a friend?

MARY ELLEN: I was giving Dennis the silent treatment the other night, and he didn’t even notice.

THERAPIST: Were you mad at him?

MARY ELLEN: Mad? I kept trying to tell him something, and he wouldn’t listen. He kept interrupting me and talking about himself. So I decided not to talk to him at all. And he didn’t even notice.

THERAPIST: Let’s do an imagery exercise about this. Close your eyes and bring back what happened the other night, when Dennis wouldn’t listen. Can you do that?

MARY ELLEN: Yes. I’m back there, trying to get Dennis to listen to me.

THERAPIST: Okay. Now let an image come of when you felt that way before, as a child.

MARY ELLEN: Well (pause). I get an image of my father. I’m trying to tell him that all the girls are staying out late the night of the prom, but he won’t listen to me. He just keeps yelling at me, telling me that no daughter of his is going to stay out until all hours. I am so frustrated I could scream.

Imagery exercises such as these are capable of stirring up a great deal of emotion. What happens might surprise you. Try to accept your feelings, and to learn what they have to teach you. You might find that you experience intense anger at the ones who subjugated you. Try to tolerate this experience of anger. Your anger is part of your
healthy
side. It is serving a useful purpose, telling you that you need to change the way you relate to other people. Your anger can help you to get in touch with the part of yourself that wants something different—that wants to change and grow. One powerful way to get in touch with this sense of yourself is through your anger. Your anger may be your only clue that there is something else that you want.

Through imagery, you can trace the history of your Subjugation lifetrap. Follow the path of its development through your childhood. Note how your experiences reinforced your lifetrap and made it somehow inevitable that you would adopt a subjugated style of relating. Continue until you shift to a more realistic perspective of your early family life. By the end, we hope you will experience sadness or anger about what happened to you in your childhood, but stop viewing these early experiences as proof of your need to subjugate yourself.

2. List Everyday Situations at Home and at Work in Which You Subjugate or Sacrifice Your Own Needs to Others.
Begin to watch yourself. Become an observer of yourself, standing outside of yourself and maintaining a detached view. Observe each instance of your subjugation. Make a list of the situations that tend to be difficult for you. They should be situations that you want to master.

Here is an example of a list constructed by Mary Ellen.

STEPS TO „UN-SUBJUGATE”

1. Tell the paper boy to bring the paper to the door when it's raining.
   
2. Tell a salesperson I don’t want help.
   
3. Don’t give my children any more money than their allowances.
   
4. Ask Dennis to drive the children to school on mornings of my class.
   
5. Tell Dad he can’t criticize the kids anymore in my presence.
   
6. Take a full day for myself. Do things
   I
   enjoy, like shopping, reading in the park, seeing my friends, etc.
   
7. Tell Dorothy (friend) I am angry she is not pulling her share of the kids’ carpool.
   
8. Tell Dennis how I feel when he criticizes me in front of other people.
   
9. Tell Dennis it is not acceptable for him to criticize me when I haven’t done anything wrong or in front of other people.
   
10. When Dennis and I go shopping for the couch, state my preferences instead of just giving in to his.
    

3. Start Forming Your Own Preferences and Opinions in Many Aspects of Your Life: Movies, Foods, Leisure Time, Politics, Current Controversial Issues, Time Usage, etc. Learn About Yourself and Your Needs.
This involves a shift in your focus of attention. Instead of pouring your mental energy into figuring out what the other person wants and feels, start paying attention to what
you
want and feel. Think about what
you
prefer.

THERAPIST: What movie did you two see the other night?

CARLTON: Presumed Innocent.

THERAPIST: Did you like it?

CARLTON: Uh, I don’t know. It was okay. Erica liked it. I hadn’t really thought about it.

THERAPIST: Well, try to think about it now.

CARLTON: Well, it was a little farfetched.

THERAPIST: So much that you didn’t like it?

CARLTON: No. I liked it. It kept me interested. It kept me guessing who the murderer was.

Make yourself the source of your opinions, not the people around you.

4. Make a List of What You Do or Give to Others
,
and What They Do or Give to You. How Much of the Time Do You Listen to Others? How Much of the Time Do They Listen to You?
Look at the give-get ratio in your relationships. Pick the most important ones: your lover, spouse, children, best friend, parents, or boss. Make a list for each one with two columns: „What I give the person“ and „What the person gives me.“ Making these lists can help you see immediately how the relationship is off-balance.

MARY ELLEN: I made a list about Dennis and me. (She gives me the list.)

THERAPIST (reads list): That’s interesting. The list of what you give Dennis has thirty-two items—„Listen to his problems about work,“ „Buy his clothes,“ „Cook his food,“ „Take in his dry-cleaningt“ „Buy bis gifts,“ „Wash his clothes,“ and so on. And the list of what Dennis gives you has one—„Financial security.“

MARY ELLEN: Right. I know. No wonder I’m pissed off.

Our eventual goal is for you to achieve a balance in your relationships. We do not want you to stop giving, but you need to stop giving so much, beyond what you would wish if you were more in control. And we want you to start getting the things you give—being cared for, listened to, supported, and respected.

5. Stop Behaving Passive-Aggressively. Push Yourself Systematically to Assert Yourself—Express What You Need or Want. Start with Easy Requests First.
In order to change, you must be willing to experiment with new ways of behaving that are more assertive and expressive of your needs. You must be willing to make changes in the way you
relate
to people.

Changing the way you behave with someone changes the way you feel about them. For example, it is hard to remain intimidated after you have dealt with someone assertively. Most important, changing your behavior changes the way you think and feel about
yourself.
Positive behavior change creates self-confidence and self-esteem. It builds a sense of mastery.

The next step is for you to begin to behave in a more assertive fashion. We know this will not be easy for you. For this reason you should work gradually. Start by behaving assertively in situations that are relatively easy for you, and slowly work up to more difficult situations.

Take the list you constructed, of situations in which you subjugate yourself. Rate how difficult each item would be for you using the following scale:

Scale of Difficulty

0 Very Easy

2 Mildly Difficult

4 Moderately Difficult

6 Very Difficult

8 Feels Almost Impossible

Here is how Mary Ellen rated the items on her list:

Work on each item from your list, starting with the easier ones and progressing to the more difficult ones. Here are some guidelines for you to follow.

Keep in mind that your goal is to complete the item. Do not let the pull of your Subjugation lifetrap lead you astray. For example, when Mary Ellen completed item #7 on her list, telling her friend Dorothy that she is angry about the carpool situation, she had to keep reminding herself that her goal was to express her anger,
not
to make Dorothy like her. Do not get distracted by what is always a subjugated person’s hidden agenda: pleasing the other person.