Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (31 page)

You are most attracted to people who can take care of you. By selecting a partner who protects you, you Surrender to your Vulnerability lifetrap and thus reinforce it. On the following page are the signs that your choice of partner is lifetrap-driven:

DANGER SIGNALS IN RELATIONSHIPS

1. You tend to select partners who are willing and eager to protect you from danger or illness. Your partner is strong, and you are weak and needy.
   
2. Your prime concern is that your partner is fearless, physically strong, very successful financially, a doctor, or otherwise specifically equipped to protect you from your fears.
   
3. You seek people who are willing to listen to your fears and reassure you.
   

You want someone strong who is solicitous of your problems. You want someone who will pamper and overprotect you. You want someone who will make you feel safe.

VULNERABILITY LIFETRAPS

1. You feel anxious much of the time as you go about daily life because of your exaggerated fears. You may have generalized anxiety.
   
2. You worry so much about your health and possible illnesses that you: (a) get unnecessary medical evaluations, (b) become a burden to your family with your constant need for reassurance, and (c) cannot enjoy other aspects of life.
   
3. You experience panic attacks as a result of your preoccupation with bodily sensations and possible illness.
   
4. You are unrealistically worried about going broke. This leads you to be unnecessarily tight with money and unwilling to make any financial or career changes. You are preoccupied with keeping what you have at the expense of new investments or projects.
   You cannot take risks.
   
5. You go to exorbitant lengths to avoid criminal danger. For example, you avoid going out at night, visiting large cities, traveling on public transportation.
   Therefore
   ,
   your life is very restricted.
   
6. You avoid everyday situations that entail even a slight degree of risk. For example, you avoid elevators, subways, or living in a city where there could be an earthquake.
   
7. You allow your partner to protect you from your fears. You need a lot of reassurance. Your partner helps you avoid feared situations. You become overly dependent on your partner. You may even resent this dependence.
   
8. Your chronic anxiety may, in fact, make you more prone to some kinds of psychosomatic illnesses (e.g., eczema, asthma, colitis, ulcers, flu).
   
9. You limit your social life because, as a result of your fears, you cannot do many of the things other people do.
   
10. You restrict the lives of your partner and family, who have to adapt to your fears.
    
11. You are likely to pass on your fears to your own children.
    
12. You may use a variety of coping mechanisms to an exaggerated degree to ward off danger. You may have obsessive-compulsive symptoms or superstitious thinking.
    
13. You may rely excessively on medication, alcohol, food, etc., to reduce your chronic anxiety.
    

Escape from Vulnerability is one of the greatest dangers. You avoid so many activities that it damages the quality of your life—and the lives of your partner and family. The lifetrap limits and restricts you.

HEATHER: Sometimes I feel like I’m living inside of this dark cloud, and outside the world is going on bright and sunny. And I’m missing it all.

You experience so much anxiety that it is hard for you to feel other things.

HEATHER: I was at my son Robby’s school concert, and there was one moment when I was sitting there with Walt and looking at Robby play, and I just felt so happy. It just struck me that I am so seldom happy. It was just a moment when the happiness broke through and the anxiety was blessedly gone.

You can be in such a protective mode that you become closed to life. Robert felt trapped in a job he did not like because he was afraid to take risks. He worked as a computer programmer.

ROBERT: My job is really dull and boring, way below my level. I really could be an analyst. It’s really depressing for me to go to work. All day, I sit there and do the same repetitive things.

THERAPIST: Why don’t you look for another job?

ROBERT: I know. I think about that myself. It’s just that the money’s good and the job is really secure. I mean, they’re not about to fire me.

When you weigh the costs and benefits of taking a risk, the overwhelming factors you consider are safety and security. They are more important than any possible gain. Life for you is not a process of seeking fulfillment and joy. Rather, life is a process of trying to contain danger.

The Vulnerability lifetrap damages you socially as well. Your constant need for reassurance is a drain on the people you love. Trying to reassure you is exhausting. (We know. Before we learned better, we went this route with a number of Vulnerability patients.) You can never be reassured
enough.
It is a bottomless pit.

The Vulnerability lifetrap also drains you of time and energy you might otherwise devote to social activities. Instead of socializing, you are running to the doctor or installing burglar alarms. You are beset with symptoms, such as panic attacks and psychosomatic disorders, that further distract and debilitate you. And, of course, there are many places socially that you just cannot go. You might get attacked or spend too much money. And you require the people you love to restrict
their
lives as well.

Dependence often goes along with Vulnerability. If you deal with the Vulnerability lifetrap by picking a strong partner and constantly asking for reassurance, you never learn that you can cope on your own. Alone, you feel completely exposed to that feeling of vulnerability. You need your partner there. Obviously, this situation can create anger on both sides.

WALT: She gets angry at me when I won’tgo places with her. Angry at me. It boggles my mind. Like I’m supposed to go trotting after her wherever she goes.

You are prone to superstitious thinking. You may use magic rituals to ward off perceived dangers.

HEATHER: Before I go to sleep I have to go around the house and check everything five times. I check the iron, the stove, the microwave, the toaster oven, the hair dryer, the children’s room, the car, and the garage.

THERAPIST: That sounds pretty tedious. Why five times?

HEATHER: It’s what I have to do to be able to relax and go to sleep.

THERAPIST: What happens if you don’t do the checking?

HEATHER: I lie in bed and worry. I just can’t go to sleep until I’ve checked everything five times.

Counting, checking, washing, cleaning—these are all examples of obsessive-compulsive rituals you may engage in to make life magically safe. Such rituals are a further drain on your life energy.

All of these patterns reinforce your exaggerated sense of the world as dangerous. You never learn that with reasonable precautions, the world can be a safe place.

These are the steps to changing your lifetrap:

CHANGING YOUR VULNERABILITY LIFETRAP

1. Try to understand the origins of your lifetrap.
   
2. Make a list of your specific fears.
   
3. Develop a hierarchy of feared situations.
   
4. Meet with the people you love—your spouse, lover, family, friends—and enlist their support in helping you face your fears.
   
5. Examine the probability of your feared events occurring.
   
6. Write a flashcard for each fear.
   
7. Talk to your inner child. Be a strong, brave parent to your child.
   
8. Practice techniques for relaxation.
   
9. Begin to tackle each of your fears in imagery.
   
10. Tackle each fear in real life.
    
11. Reward yourself for each step you take.
    

1. Try to Understand the Origins of Your Lifetrap.
Were your parents phobic? Overprotective? Underprotective? In what areas did you learn to feel vulnerable? Was it illness? Traveling? Money? Dangers in your environment? Losing control?

The origin of the lifetrap is usually obvious. You may know it already. Insight into the origin is important. However, it does not usually have as powerful an effect on this lifetrap as it does on some others. It is a good place to start, but it will not get you far in terms of change.

2. Make a List of Your Specific Fears.
We want you to take an objective look at your fears. Look at the ways you Surrender to your Vulnerability (by overprotecting yourself) and the ways that you Escape (through avoiding situations).

Use the following chart. List the situations that you fear—the subway, the streets at night, spending money, places where there are germs, etc. Now rate each fear along a number of dimensions. Use a scale from 0 to 100, with 0 meaning „not at all“ and 100 meaning „as much as you can imagine.“ How strong is the fear? How much do you Escape, or avoid, the situation? Finally, how do you and your family overprotect yourself?

Here is the chart, filled out by Robert, for „Being alone in my house at night.“ Robert feared this because „something bad might happen. I’ll be alone without distractions, and my mind will start going off on a track.“ Ultimately, what Robert feared was having a panic attack and losing his mind.

Do this for all your feared situations. Become aware of how the Vulnerability lifetrap manifests itself in your life.

3.
Develop a Hierarchy of Feared Situations.
We want you to develop a hierarchy for each feared situation on your chart. Break each fear into small steps you could take to overcome it. Next, rate the steps from 1 to 100 in terms of how anxious you are about each one. Finally, arrange the steps in order, listing the easiest step first and working your way up to the most difficult step. For example, here is Heather’s list of hierarchies:

List as many steps for each situation as you like. The crucial factor is that the hierarchy be
do-
able. There should always be an item easy enough to do at the top of your list.