Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (40 page)

Take credit for the progress you make. Reward yourself. Reinforce yourself. Acknowledge the progress you make.

Since Kathleen’s strengths are her visual and design abilities, she set a goal to become a television set designer. Oddly enough, she had never pursued this field, even though that was where her interests most lay. Instead she pursued administrative roles, such as scheduling and personnel management. These areas drew upon her weak organizational and administrative skills. She would mishandle her administrative tasks as she jealously watched the set designers proceed with their work.

Kathleen began by observing set designers. She stayed extra hours in order to do this. She slowly developed relationships with the design staff and became a volunteer. She supplemented this by taking some design courses to build basic skills. Eventually she was hired as an apprentice to a designer. This process involved a loss of pay in the short-term, but Kathleen knew she was working her way up.

She made a concerted effort to focus on tasks that used her visual aptitude. She allowed others to perform administrative functions. She stopped setting herself up to fail.

We know this is a hard part of the change process. You will have to push yourself. As your career starts to improve, the positive effects will sustain you. The process will become self-perpetuating. Confronting avoidance almost always has a marked beneficial effect on a person’s life.

Starting is the hardest part. After that it will become easier.

7. Make a Flashcard to Overcome Your Blueprint for Failure.
Acknowledge your Failure lifetrap and your history of escape. But list the evidence that you have the
potential
to succeed. Instruct yourself to take the next small step toward success. Remind yourself of the consequences of continuing to avoid.

On the following page is a flashcard we wrote with Kathleen.

A FAILURE FLASHCARD

Right now I am filled with feelings of failure. This is a familiar feeling. I have felt it all my life. All my life I have avoided taking chances to become a success. All my life I have ignored my design potential, even though teachers pointed it out and I did well in these kinds of classes and enjoyed them. Instead I kept setting myself up to fail by going after things I wasn’t good at.

My avoidance developed when I was sick and lonely as a child. When I fell behind, no one helped me to catch up. No one noticed. Running away helped me cope as a child, but it isn’t helping me now.

But now I’m on track. I’m trying to become a set designer. I have a good chance to succeed. I just have to keep myself focused on my path and on the fact that I’m making progress.

Don’t start avoiding again. That leads only back to failure. What is my next step? This is what I should be doing. Working on taking my next step.

As you begin to make changes, take credit for each small success. Add it to your flashcard.

8. Involve Your Loved Ones in the Process
. Try to create an interpersonal environment that counters, rather than supports, your Failure lifetrap. If your parent or partner discourages and criticizes you, fight back. Ask for support and encouragement as you take steps to change. If your partner is highly successful, emphasize the importance of succeeding for
yourself—
even if you do not need a career for financial reasons.

As we have noted, the Failure lifetrap is often connected to other lifetraps. To truly fight the Failure lifetrap, you will probably have to deal with these other issues as well. Brian had to work on his Defectiveness lifetrap, and Pamela had to work on her Emotional Deprivation. Read the chapters on any linked lifetraps. Work to overcome them as well.

The Failure lifetrap is one of the most rewarding to overcome. A whole area of life that is now fraught with shame and tension can become a source of self-esteem. But you have to be willing to fight. You have to be willing to close off your escapes and capitalize on your strengths.

Carlton:
Thirty years old, puts everyone’s needs BEFORE HIS OWN.

The first thing that struck us about Carlton is that he seemed anxious and eager to please. He had a way of jumping to agree with whatever we said. Most patients spend at least some part of the first session sizing us up—trying to decide if we are what they want in therapists. But not Carlton: he seemed much more concerned with what
we
thought of
him
, with whether he was what we wanted in a patient.

Carlton is married and has two small children. He is what you might call henpecked. Erica, his wife, is very demanding. He tries to make her happy but seldom seems to succeed. She makes all the decisions about the family. He has difficulty setting limits with his children. Whenever he tries to discipline them, he feels guilty. He works in the textile business started by his father. Although he never wanted to work in his father’s business, he is resigned that it is what he has to do. He does not enjoy his work.

Carlton feels trapped in his life. He has started therapy because he is depressed. Sometimes he dreams of running away to a different place and becoming whatever
he
wants to be.

Mary Ellen:
Twenty-four years old, feels trapped in HER MARRIAGE TO A DOMINEERING HUSBAND.

The first impression Mary Ellen gave us was of surface cheerfulness with a hint of resentment simmering underneath. She was immediately on the defensive, and seemed to expect us to try to dominate her.

THERAPIST: It sounds like you’re pretty unhappy in your marriage.

MARY ELLEN: Are you telling me that I should end it?

We found ourselves becoming careful about making any statements she might construe as controlling.

Mary Ellen was still a teenager when she married and had her first child. She has been married seven years and has two children.

MARY ELLEN: My biggest problem is Dennis, my husband. He’s very picky. I’m always running around waiting on him. I feel like a slave. When he wants something, he expects me to jump. And it’s not only that. He wants everything done a certain way. If it’s not exactly right, he throws a fit. He can get pretty nasty. He just goes on and on. Yesterday he yelled at me for hours because I woke him up ten minutes late.

Mary Ellen feels that living with Dennis is intolerable. To make matters worse, he forbids her to spend time away from the family with her own friends. Once, he caught her sneaking out to see friends and hit her. Soon afterward, she decided to start therapy.

Mary Ellen feels desperately unhappy, but she is afraid of what Dennis might do if she left. She also believes she should stay for the sake of the children. The relationship is even more appalling to Mary Ellen because it mirrors so closely her relationship with her father. In fact, the primary reason she married in the first place was to escape from the house where she lived with her father. Now, living with her husband seems even worse.

Both Carlton and Mary Ellen have the Subjugation lifetrap. They allow other people to control them.

This questionnaire will measure how strongly you have the Subjugation lifetrap. Use the scale on the following page.

SCORING KEY

1. Completely untrue of me
   
2. Mostly untrue of me
   
3. Slightly more true than untrue of me
   
4. Moderately true of me
   
5. Mostly true of me
   
6. Describes me perfectly
   

If you have any 5’s or 6’s on this questionnaire, this lifetrap may still apply to you, even if your score is in the low range.

INTERPRETING YOUR SUBJUGATION SCORE

10-19 Very low. This lifetrap probably does
not
apply to you.

20-29 Fairly low. This lifetrap may only apply
occasionally
.

30-39 Moderate. This lifetrap is an
issue
in your life.

40-49 High. This is definitely an
important
lifetrap for you.

50-60 Very high. This is definitely one of your
core
lifetraps.

To a large degree, you experience the world in terms of control issues.
Other
people in your life always seem to be in control—you feel controlled by the people around you. At the core of your subjugation is the conviction that you must
please
others, that you must please parents, brothers, sisters, friends, teachers, lovers, spouses, bosses, coworkers, children, and even strangers. In all likelihood, the only exception to this rule of pleasing people—the only person you do not feel obliged to please—is yourself. It is what the other person wants that comes first.

One common theme in the lives of Carlton and Mary Ellen is the feeling of being
trapped
in their lives. The feeling of subjugation is oppressive. It is a burden to live life under the weight of that feeling. Constantly meeting the needs of other people is so much responsibility. It is exhausting. Life loses much of its joy and freedom. Subjugation deprives you of your freedom because the choices you make are dictated by their effects on other people. Your focus is not on yourself. It is not, „What I want and feel,“ but rather, „What you want and what I can do to make you happy with me.“

Subjugation robs you of a clear sense of what
you
want and need—of who you are. Carlton, who was hounded by his father since childhood to go into the family business and who obeyed, knows inside that he does not want to be a businessman, but has no idea of what he does want to be. He has never taken the appropriate steps to find out. You are passive. Life happens to you.

CARLTON: I just feel like I can’t get what I want in life. I don’t know how to get it.

THERAPIST: You feel like all you can get is what other people deign to give you. You don’t go after what you want.

You feel that you cannot shape the course of events in your life. You feel trapped by circumstances or swept along by fate. Rather than an actor, you are a reactor. You feel there is little you can do to solve your problems. You merely wait and hope that suddenly, miraculously, everything will get better.

You probably think of yourself as the kind of person with whom it is easy to get along. Since you are so agreeable and eager to please, and tend to avert conflict, naturally you get along with others. You see yourself as someone who is willing to accommodate. You even might consider this one of your assets: that you are flexible and able to adjust to many types of people. But you have difficulty setting limits on the demands other people make of you. When people ask you to do things that are unreasonable, such as more than your share of the work, you say „yes.“ And you find it extremely difficult to ask other people to change their behavior, no matter how much their behavior disturbs you.

Similarly, you might feel proud that you are able to serve others—that you are able to help other people and be attentive to other people’s needs. And you are right. The ability to be there for other people is a strength of self-sacrificing people. You probably have developed exemplary skills in helping others, and may be in one of the helping professions. However, one of your weaknesses is that what
you
want often gets lost. Too often you are unassertive and silent about your needs.

Your subjugation lowers your self-esteem. You do not feel
entitled
to the legitimate rights of all people in relationships. Everyone has rights except you. Erica expressed this about Carlton in one of our marital sessions.

ERICA: I was so mad at Carlton the other night.

THERAPIST: What happened?

ERICA: We went out to eat, and when Carlton got his food, it was cold. But he wouldn’t tell the waitress to take it back. He kept the food, and he ate it. And meanwhile he complained about it to me the whole night.

CARLTON: It just seemed like such a trivial thing to make a big fuss over.

We hear this argument often from subjugated patients: that they do not fight for what they want because their desires seem so trivial. But in the end, when you add all the trivial desires together, you are left with a life in which few of your needs are met.