Donuts and the Truth

If you don't want the truth... don't ask me. If you want something sugarcoated... go eat a donut.

Today while surfing online I read a post that struck me. It really got me thinking... do we want to hear the truth when we come to a counselor looking for support? Or are we just there to have someone reinforce our own point of view? Are we looking for truth or validation?

Personally, I think we attend counseling to allow another to tell us the truth. It may be the awful truth... it may be something we'd rather not hear... but in the end what we really desire is for someone... anyone... to finally be 100% honest with us.

Why do I think that is the case? Because for many of us we have been deceived and manipulated by others for so long that we doubt our ability to discern the truth. We have lost our innate trust in our own gut.

It may have happened when we were kids and our parents refused to discuss the elephant in the room... an alcoholic or abusive parent or sibling for example... and we began to believe that somehow we were wrong. We saw that elephant... didn't they? Why wouldn't they talk to us about it? Why did they insist it wasn't there? Were we unable to properly distinguish reality? They are big... we are small... they know what's real... we don't. We are scared by this difference in perception. In order to feel safe we decide to believe they are right.

Here we are... many years later. We try to select a partner with whom to create a life. We pick someone who "feels right". All goes well at first... we then discover we have chosen a person who mirrors some of the same dysfunction we experienced in our childhoods. It "felt right" because as dysfunctional as our childhoods may have been... it's comfortable... familiar.

Years pass and we and our partner drift apart. We come to counseling and we vent... we cry... we allow ourselves to be seen in all our pain. We want answers. We want someone... anyone... to finally tell us why this happened in our relationship.

Finally we begin to see the truth. We are told something in counseling that infuriates us and realize we are still reacting to the same old pain. Sometimes we read a book and see ourselves in a new light. Sometimes others situations are similar and we learn from their wisdom. However it happens... we learn more about ourselves through the process.

In the end we come through the experience with new wisdom... an inner strength we never knew existed... and discover serenity and acceptance.

Behind the Veil of Lies

When lying becomes a way of life... when we are unwilling to be ourselves and hide behind a veil of lies... when lying takes on a life of it's own... Why does this happen? Can we stop the pattern?

We are five years old. We are a home with the babysitter while Mom and Dad have dinner out with friends. The sitter lets us stay up past our bedtime and watch TV. It is fun to stay up late and be naughty. We scurry off to bed just before Mom and Dad arrive. The next day when Mom asks if we got to bed on time, we say yes. We have learned to lie. We have learned that we can be naughty, have fun, tell a lie and get away with it.

We are fifteen years old. We go out with friends and smoke pot. We forget our curfew and come home thirty minutes late. We tell our parents that we were watching a movie and wanted to see the end. They accept the story. We learn that we can take illicit drugs, feel good, lose track of time, miss our curfew, have fun, tell a lie and get away with it.

We are twenty five years old. We are married and have a brand new baby in our life. We aren't getting enough sleep, still have to work during the day and feel overwhelmed. A coworker seems quite empathetic toward our situation and gives us much needed sympathy and attention. We begin to have inappropriate feelings toward our coworker. Our partner is unaware of the developing situation. Eventually we enter into an affair. Over the next few months we find we feel confused and guilty and end the indiscretion. Our partner has noticed our distance and asks us if there is a problem in the relationship. We say we are tired and just need more rest. Eventually the baby begins to sleep through the night and our relationship stabilizes once again. We learn that we can have a brief affair, feel good, regret our decision, change our mind, not be discovered, tell a lie and get away with it.

We are now forty years old. We have lied our way in and out of circumstances for most of our life. As a result we have never learned how to deal with the consequences of our actions and have never developed a set of strong personal values. We have been able to manipulate our way out of sticky situations and never had to face the proverbial music. Our business life has been profitable. Then the economy collapses causing us to face massive losses. We cannot lie or manipulate our way out of this situation and have no skills with which to cope. We are lost.

When lies are not caught or challenged we may learn that we can cheat the lessons of life. That is inaccurate. Sooner or later everybody's bill comes due. As we have passed through the years manipulating situations and people through our lies we have never learned how to cope with actual consequences. When we can no longer wiggle out of our proverbial bed that we have made we feel lost and unable to cope.

At this point we have a choice. We can begin to learn coping skills and adopt tools to get us through life, or we can cry foul and decry the fairness of the world. It is the choice we should have learned as a child or teen, even as a young adult that is forced upon us at midlife. How we cope and the decisions we make will be a true test of our character. Will we whine and cry? Or will we finally step up to the plate as a responsible adult? The choice is ours.

Am I A Victim?

Why does this always happen to me? How come any partner I choose ends up doing the same things to me that the last one did? Why do I find myself in the same relationship over and over again?

What do these three questions have in common? They all allow us to believe that we are the victim. In that role, we give our power away. How did we come to be the victim? What are we getting out of this role? What can we do to over come this pattern in our lives?

We may have come to see ourselves as victims through the lens of co-dependency. During a time in our lives when we lived with dysfunctional people we may have truly been a victim. We may have been a young child incapable of independence who needed our family system to survive. We may have been in an abusive relationship. We may have been genuinely hurt as a result of some past event.

If we didn't realize how we had adapted to survive these experiences, we may have become comfortable in the victim role. We may not realize we are feeling like a victim, but our language gives us away.

We may feel empowered in our capacity as victim. We may be using our role to passively control others and outcomes. In our past we may have needed to rely on our ability to manipulate through victim hood to ensure our survival. Now that we no longer live in that same family system, we have not yet realized how our victim identity has affected our current circumstances. In essence we continue to re-create the same dysfunctional familial dynamic in our new relationship by maintaining our victim status.

Once we realize our pattern and come to grips with the fact that we are no longer victims, we can begin to rebuild our self image and self esteem. It is vital that we let go of the need to control others and outcomes. In doing so we free ourselves from the need to continue our passivity and begin to own our power once again. As we begin to practice self care in our daily lives and use our tools to increase our self esteem, we free ourselves from the bonds of victim hood.

Sabotage: Crossing the Line From Taking Care to Caretaking

How do we know if we are sabotaging our relationship? How can we determine if our actions are crossing the line from taking care to caretaking?

Co-dependency has been roughly defined as a condition which develops within us as a result of living with dysfunctional people outside of normal boundaries for an extended period of time. That definition, although specific, is general enough to allow a vast variety of dysfunctions to fall into the category of creating co-dependency. We can develop co-dependent characteristics as a result of being care givers to elderly parents, living with a disabled family member, having a partner who is an addict (alcohol, food, drugs, gambling, sex, etc., etc.), being subjected to extreme fear (post 9/11 trauma) or horrific violence (murder of a family member, rape, abuse, military service). There are many other obvious ways we can develop co-dependency, but what about the more subtle indications?

Overall we can say with accuracy that when we are doing for someone else what they can and should be doing for themselves, we are behaving as caretakers. That is the hallmark of co-dependency.

Why is caretaking a problem? Because the underlying message isn't help... no, it's incompetence. When we do for others what they are perfectly capable of doing for themselves we are telling them by our actions that we don't believe they are capable of self care. They don't feel good about what we are doing and act accordingly. They are ungrateful and annoyed with us for our interference. We feel hurt. We tried to hard to take care of the situation and have not gotten what we expected in return, appreciation. That is because the meta-message is felt clearly by the recipient... you are incapable!

Additionally, there is another matter involved in caretaking. Manipulation. We are taking action to force a particular result. We are not actually focused on what's best for the other party, we are focused on what we would like to have as an outcome. That message, although we try our best to pretend we are angelic in our role, comes through loud and clear as well. The recipient doesn't really know why they feel uncomfortable about what we are doing, but they sense something isn't right.

We must learn to let go of outcomes and find a way to let the universe unfold naturally. If we feel uncomfortable not controlling, we use our tools to decrease our stress and practice self care. In the end we will triumph in our relationship if we allow our partner to take care of themselves as we do the same.

I'm So Mad I Could Just...

What do we do when we feel resentment toward our partner? How do we get past the challenge and renew the loving connection we long to feel once again?

When feeling resentful, our inner voice tells us we want our partner to care about the way we are feeling. This seems a natural state of affairs. To that end we may try to explain why we are upset, give our partner a long list of current and past offenses, cry, become angry, manipulate, use the silent treatment and many other expressions of our displeasure. Our inner child stamps our feet and fusses trying whatever works to draw attention and gain understanding from our partner. The apparent flaw in this logic is that our reaction to our resentful feelings, create exactly what we are trying to overcome... feelings of resentment in our partner. We have treated our partner with the same insensitivity and coarseness that created our initial resentment.

We know how difficult it is to be empathetic toward our partner when we are feeling resentful. We may have been treated in ways that were hurtful and unpleasant. We may feel violated or used. We feel righteous in our indignation. We may be unaware and disinterested in our partners feelings while in this state. We have become insensitive and coarse toward our partner.

Conversely, our partner probably feels exactly the same way toward us now that we are angry and resentful. This is the core of the dilemma. Much as the itch/scratch theory, it is unimportant who began the conflict or resentments, if the goal is to return to loving communication and warmth. The way out is to regain our balance and center ourselves.

We take a time our for self care. We give ourselves some space and alone time. We use that time to reflect on all that has happened leading us to this place of resentment. If we have been using our tools and giving ourselves appropriate self care throughout our recovery, we will slowly be able to see our part in the conflict. Our ownership of the responsibility for our part in the discord enables us to let go of our resentments. We can then approach our partner in love and discuss our differences from our center using detachment.

We use "I" statements focusing ourselves on our part of the problem and making amends where necessary. We ask our partner if we have missed any area of responsibility prior to moving on with the discussion. We give our partner a chance to take personal responsibility themselves before we point out areas of discontent. If we have been diligent in our efforts to be forthcoming our partner may well respond in kind. We can give ourselves credit for having the maturity to respond vs react. Our self esteem flourishes when we treat ourselves, our partner and our relationship with gentleness and dignity. We recall that we create balanced karma when we give what we wish to receive.

In continuing to use our tools we develop the skills we need to overcome resentments in our relationship preventing bitterness from taking root. We practice self care in our daily lives increasing our self esteem each time we succeed in responding vs reacting to the challenges put before us. In this way we give ourselves the gift of honest loving communication.

We See The World As We Are

We see the world not as it is, but as we are.

This is a fundamental truth. People see the world through their own eyes and no one else's. The experiences of their lives form the basis for the lens through which they view the world and those in it. Native Americans have a saying that aptly addressed this most basic truth: "I shall not judge a man until I have walked a mile in his moccasins." We try without success to see the world through the eyes of another. The best we can hope to accomplish is empathy.

In our relationships we may have times when we need to be able to see our partners point of view. When we disagree it is imperative that we recall that our lens through which we view the world was created in our family of origin. A family that we no longer live with on a daily basis. The way in which our caretakers interacted with one another colors our beliefs about how we behave with our partner. If our caretakers were gentle and open with one another it is likely that we will display that behavior in our relationships.

But what if our caretakers were not warm and balanced with one another? We may have had one caretaker who manipulated and cajoled their partner in order to have their way. Although we may not have been able to verbalize what we witnessed at the time, due to our youth, we incorporated the lessons we saw into our memory. Over time we may have perceived the imbalance as weakness on the part of the manipulated caretaker and become intolerant of weakness in others as a result.

If one of our caretakers was cruel or abusive toward their partner, we may have unintentionally adopted their style, as we may have seen the abused partner as a weak and ineffective adult. Adult relationships are complex. As children we do not have the mental capacity to interpret or understand the nuances we witness.

When we enter into adult relationships we may attempt to correct the imbalances we witnessed in our caretakers interactions, in our own relationship. We must come to realize that attempting to fix the imbalances we witnessed in our caretakers relationship, by duplicating them in our own relationships, is not possible nor desirable. In adopting the patterns of our caretakers we are taking on problems that we did not create and cannot solve.

Once we become aware of our patterns and how we are duplicating those of our family of origin we can begin the long journey back to a healthy relationship. Breaking free from the patterns of our family of origin is difficult work that requires we become willing to see ourselves with all of our warts. It is not work to be undertaken lightly. It requires the guidance of a counselor capable of steering us through the maze of feelings and beliefs in order to peel away the inaccuracies within.

As we begin our journey we reach out to our higher power for guidance and wisdom. This path is one that many have travelled before us. We place one foot in front of the other not knowing where the path will lead, but having faith that we are exactly where we need to be to learn the lessons we must to move forward with our lives.

We use our tools to help us cope as we walk the path of recovery into light from darkness.