Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (52 page)

In couples therapy we do mirroring exercises to help people learn to empathize. Mirroring is a form of active listening. It has two parts. First, you reflect back what you heard the other person say. Next, you say how the person seems to feel.

KATIE: I’m starting to get really mad about the way he orders me around the house. If we’re watching television and he wants something to eat, he tells me to go and get it. And, if I tell him to wait until the commercial, he gets snippy.

THERAPIST (to Mel): Can you mirror that and then respond?

MEL: You’re saying that I order you around the house too much, that I make you get me something to eat when we’re watching television. And how do you feel? You’re mad.

Start paying attention to other people. Practice listening to their complaints and problems. Try to understand how
they
feel when you do not take their needs into account. Work on empathizing without getting defensive.

7. If Your Lifetrap Is a Form of Counterattack, Try to Understand the Core Lifetraps Underlying It. Follow the Relevant Change Techniques.
If your Entitlement is a way of coping with another lifetrap—like Emotional Deprivation, Defectiveness, or Social Exclusion—follow the change techniques we recommend in the relevant chapters of this book. Unless you deal with the underlying lifetrap, it is going to be very hard for you to change.

One of the primary aspects of changing for you is getting in touch with your
vulnerability.
Your Entitlement is a drastic attempt to Counterattack so that you will not have to experience the pain of your vulnerability. Unless you experience that underlying feeling of deprivation, defectiveness, or social exclusion, you will not be able to change.

Your Entitlement is all-or-nothing. Either you get everything you want or you are deprived; either you are perfect or you are defective; either you are adored or you are rejected. You need to learn that there is a middle ground, that you can get your needs met in a normal way.

Find more appropriate ways of getting your core needs met—ways that respect the rights and needs of others. You do not have to be so demanding, controlling, and entitled to get what you want. Give up your Counterattacks. Start placing emphasis on intimate relationships, on trying to get your needs met through closeness with other people. Learn to ask for what you want without demanding it. Try being more honest with yourself. Be more open about who you are. Learn to say who you are, without trying to cover up, conceal, or impress.

We know this will be hard for you. You are afraid that you will be left vulnerable, helpless, and exposed, with no way of getting your needs met or feeling accepted by other people. But you will find that this does not have to be the case. In fact, your life can become much more rewarding. Following the change techniques presented in the chapters on your underlying lifetraps will help you stay in control of the process.

8. If You Have Self-Discipline Problems, Make a Hierarchy of Tasks Graded in Terms of Boredom or Frustration Level Gradually Work Your Way Up the Hierarchy. This is a way for you to learn self-discipline. We want you to set tasks for yourself and force yourself to do them.

We know it is going to be difficult for you. Sometimes it will be boring, other times it will be frustrating. But think of yourself as in training. You are building your frustration tolerance. To keep yourself going, remind yourself of the long-term benefits.

Make a list of tasks to do, ranging from mildly difficult to extremely difficult. Use the following scale to rate the difficulty of the items on your list. Rate how difficult the item would be for
you
. For example, filling out a job application may not be difficult for most people, but it is
very
difficult for Nina.

Scale of Difficulty

0 Very Easy

2 Mildly Difficult

4 Moderately Difficult

6 Very Difficult

8 Feels Almost Impossible

For example, here is the hierarchy Nina made.

Try to complete at least one hierarchy item per week. You may choose to make some items part of your routine. After you have completed all the items, make it a general practice to sit down each week and set goals. Maintain your gains. Do not slip back into your old, undisciplined ways.

9. If You Have Difficulty Controlling Your Emotions, Develop a Time-Out Technique.
Time-out techniques are particularly helpful for controlling anger. When you are about to act out in anger, they help you stop yourself and get out of the situation
before
you vent your feelings. Once you have regained control, you can make a rational decision about whether to express your anger.

What we want you to do is learn to use your rising anger as a
cue
to institute the control strategy. Use the following scale to rate your anger.

Anger Scale

0 Not at all Angry

2 Mildly Angry

4 Moderately Angry

6 Very Angry

8 Extremely Angry

Whenever your anger is 4 or higher on the 0-8 scale, use the time-out procedure. We want you to excuse yourself and leave the situation. (You can tell the other person something like, „
I’m
sorry, but I need to be alone to think for a moment. Let’s finish this discussion in a few minutes.“) If leaving the situation is impossible, start counting to yourself instead. Count to yourself until your anger goes below 4 on the scale.

Once your anger is manageable, spend some time pondering how you want to respond in the situation. You may find that you decide to express your anger to the person. But do it appropriately, assertively. Be calm and controlled in your presentation. Do not attack the person. State what the person has
done
that upsets you.

On the other hand, you may decide, upon reflection,
not
to express the anger. After all—how many times have you exploded in anger and then regretted it later?

10. If You Have Dependent Entitlement, Make a Hierarchy of Tasks Graded in Terms of Difficulty. Gradually Start Doing the Things You Allow Other People to Do for You. Start Proving to Yourself That You Are Competent.
We want you to build your competence. That is, we want you to address the underlying Dependence lifetrap.

Make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of manipulating the people around you to take care of you. How does it affect your sense of self? How does it affect the lives of the people around you?

It was easy for Nina to list the advantages. She got things done for her, other people did them better, and she got what she wanted. It was harder for her to face the disadvantages.

NINA: I feel behind everybody. I still can’t do things people half my age can do. I mean, teenagers manage to get jobs and learn things.

There is a tremendous loss of self-respect as a consequence of this lifetrap. You just cannot make progress in line with your peers. Your dependence is a drain on others and damaging to yourself.

Enlist the help of people close to you to gradually stop doing everything for you. It is important to get those reinforcing your lifetrap involved and to assume gradual responsibility for your own life.

Work out a hierarchy of tasks, and slowly move up the hierarchy. Do the easier tasks first, and work your way up to the most difficult ones. Build a sense of mastery and competence.

You have two lifetraps, Dependence and Entitlement. You need to address both. Follow the change techniques outlined in the Dependence chapter as well.

Here are some guidelines for helping
other
people overcome Entitlement.

HELPING SOMEONE YOU KNOW OVERCOME LIMITS PROBLEMS

1. Identify your sources of leverage. What do you have that he/she values? Your respect? Money? A job? Love?
   
2. How far you are willing to go to get change? Would you be willing to leave your partner? Fire an employee?
   
3. Approach the entitled person and express your complaints in a non-attacking way. Ask if he/she is aware of how you feel. Is he/she willing to work on changing?
   
4. If he/she is willing, go through the other steps in this chapter together.
   
5. If he/she is unreceptive, tell him/her the consequences if he/she will not try to change. Try to set up a hierarchy of negative consequences. Begin to implement them one at a time, until the entitled person is willing to work with you. Try to empathize with how hard it is for him/her to change, but remain firm.
   
6. Remember that it is often
   impossible
   to get someone with this lifetrap to change. If you do not have enough leverage, you will probably be unsuccessful. Be prepared to accept the price of carrying through on your decision to push for change. Make a list of advantages and disadvantages of pushing for change by risking conflict and possibly ending your relationship. Make an informed choice.
   

Both Mel and Nina are among the unusual people with the Entitlement lifetrap who are able to change. What made them different? Their partners were certainly one factor. Both had partners who were willing to leave them, and both had partners whom they loved. Love is leverage.

Stop waiting for your entitled partner to change.
You
have to change. You have to learn to manage your partner. Learning to manage an entitled partner is a skill which you can probably master. Basically, the skill is
setting limits.
Entitled people are narcissistic. They lack empathy, they are blaming, they feel entitled to more than they give.
They will never set their own limits.
You have to set limits for them.

When Katie first started treatment, she believed that if only Mel could see how much his affairs hurt her, he would stop. She kept showing him her pain.

KATIE: I couldn’t understand it. I would never hurt him like that. I wouldn’t be able to stand it, seeing him hurt like that. I mean, there were times I was almost suicidal. I just couldn’t understand how he could see he was hurting me and keep right on having affairs.

Katie had to learn that her hurt was
never
going to stop Mel. You have to learn this too. Demonstrations of hurt are almost always useless with an entitled person.

What you have to do instead is to set limits. Use whatever leverage you have. When Katie told Mel that she would leave the marriage unless he entered therapy, she was using leverage to set limits. Of course, Katie’s job was not done. It was just beginning. Throughout therapy, Mel tried to avoid changing any way he could. He kept trying to blame Katie, to get her to be the one to give in.

Katie had to assert herself constantly. She had to learn to say, „Your behavior is unacceptable,“ and mean it. She had to set limits in every aspect of their life—from telling him, „If you have another affair I will leave you,“ to „If you leave your dirty clothes on the floor instead of putting them in the hamper, I won’t wash them.“ Katie had to stop letting Mel manipulate her with guilt. She had to stop asking him for permission to live her
own
life. When she wanted to go out with friends or take a night class, she had to go ahead and do it, regardless of what Mel said.

This is not to say that Katie became mean to Mel. Rather, she learned to address him in a calm, controlled manner. In fact, Katie became much nicer. This was because what she was giving and getting began to even out in the relationship, so she felt less angry.

Deep inside, Mel wanted limits from Katie. They made him feel safer and more secure. And he began to respect Katie, which he wanted as well.

Studies have shown that the more distress patients display when they come for therapy, the more likely they are to change. For your sake, we hope you are in some distress. We hope you find some reason to overcome your Entitlement. Until you do, you will never fulfill your potential for love and work.

The process of change is a difficult one. We watch patients every day struggling to overcome deeply ingrained patterns. We also go through this same process of growth ourselves, and we observe how frustrating it can be to our friends and family members.

We know that self-help books, including this one, probably make change seem easier than it actually is. We wish there were some way to fully prepare you for the ups and downs of growing. We want you to expect change to be an erratic process. Patients always tell us that it’s „one step forward and two steps back.“ There are many obstacles you can expect to encounter in trying to change. Chapter 5 describes many of them and offers solutions.

We have a philosophy underlying our approach to change that includes several basic assumptions. We have no way to prove these beliefs, except to say that we have found change easier when we assume these beliefs to be true. First, we believe that
we all have a part of ourselves that wants to be happy and fulfilled.
Sometimes this process is called
selfactualization.
We assume that this healthy self has somehow been buried under years of neglect, subjugation, abuse, criticism, and other destructive forces. The process of change involves reawakening this healthy side and giving it hope.