Why Do I Do It If It Makes Me Unhappy?
It's called "placating behavior" and while it may cause you to
be unhappy, it also makes a lot of sense in the scheme of family
things.
When, as a child, our NBA fan assumed responsibility for the
misbehaviors of his parent, he accommodated his parent's flaw
("always be nice to others"). He did this hoping to make things
okay with his parent so that the parent would stop making him
feel bad if he followed his own path. That's the adaptive
purpose of his behavior. Like the indigenous tribe, he too tried
to appease the gods (parents) to make sure the same things
didn't happen again.
As a child, he probably found it very hard to not accommodate
his parent's flaws. Quite possibly because the "guilt trips"
that were imposed on him were powerful, painful, and like a
wrestler's forceful armhold, they made the child submit to their
demands. But when we hold onto our tribe's personal beliefs
(inner rules) too tightly and always try to obey them, we often
end up behaving in destructive ways. Yet when we try to ignore
them and take a stab at doing what is in our best interests, we
often end up experiencing strong feelings of guilt. That age old
"damned if you do, damned if you don't" fits perfectly into this
scenario. You hate yourself for giving in to these negative
inner rules (always be nice to others) just as you hate yourself
for giving into the irrational, negative behaviors of your
parents. What does that leave you with? Resentment. Where does
resentment take you?
To fighting against having to give in to these rules, or
defiance. What's another word for defiance? Rebellion. And
what's the title of this chapter? Guilt and Rebellion. Ah, it's
starting to click now, isn't it? And as crazy as it seems (but
then again, remember those "gods"-- we said they "must be angry"
and it turns out, they're crazy, too) we can be forced against
our will to adopt the very same qualities of our parents that we
hated. And although most of us vow to act better, or at least,
differently, than our parents did when we were growing up, many
of us notice that we have actually assumed their worst
qualities.
Arriving Where We Began and Knowing It for the First Time
This brings us to the question, "Why aren't you in control of
your life?" Now that we can see and understand why you aren't in
control, the only question left to answer is, "How can I be in
control of my life?" And you can be.
If you find yourself behaving in ways that you hate and feel
unable to change, you're probably acting according to
unconscious destructive mental rules. It's as if you've become
your very own computer virus. And like a computer virus, which
conveys misinformation and causes your computer to act in
self-destructive ways, these "self-viruses" interfere with your
goals, fulfillment, and happiness and cause you to act in
self-destructive ways too. How do you clear out the virus? Is
there a Norton Anti-Virus that can scan your brain's files and
documents and rid it of the affected ones so that you run
smoothly and up to speed for the rest of your days? It'd be nice
if it were that simple, and while it isn't, there are ways to
make fulfillment, success, and happiness a part of your future
inner computer program.
Practical, Meet Impractical. Simple, Meet Complicated
It's time for me to take off my author's hat and replace it with
my psychiatrist's. Solving long-standing behavioral problems,
past problems that affect our present-day lives, is something
that usually takes time and a lot of work. However, I also
believe that there are things you can do today, things you can
carry through with tomorrow and the days to come, that will
begin the process. In the section that follows, "Exercise: Now
Look At Yourself," you're going to address what I call practical
approaches to some very impractical problems.
Moving Ahead
You're starting to get an idea of whose voice it is you hear in
the back of your head at different times and in different
situations, and that's good. It will allow you to understand
what you grew up hearing and how it continues to affect you
today. Underlying causes of behaviors affect you--there's no
doubt about that. And those causes can also be changed. But only
when you identify them. Congratulations. By doing the above
exercise you've just identified one, maybe two, maybe more
underlying causes, and you're on your way to long-lasting
change.
In the next article, "Surviving Your Family - Accommodation"
you'll start seeing how you made it through your family in one
piece by acting and behaving in certain ways. But you probably
don't like these ways anymore, and you think they may be holding
you back today.
Excerpted from Self-Help for Smarties: Secret Success Codes for
Weight Loss, Love, Career and
Parenting(http://www.penmarin.com/proddetail.asp?prod=Gootnick2&f
rom=2) by Irwin Gootnick, M.D. (Penmarin Books
http://www.penmarin.com, May 2006).