If you prefer to listen, here’s the podcast version of this post on iTunes and Soundcloud.
Why do we destroy relationships with those who love us? Why do break our own trust, betray our dreams and rob ourselves of happiness and safety as soon as we get close to it. It’s a mystifying loop of behavior that has powerful effects on everything in life: a chain reaction that keeps us hiding or running from the ugly truth of what we’ve done. Just like an addict, you might live with a subconscious awareness that you will inevitably destroy whatever good you might have – and that anxiety is the backdrop of every moment. And so you self-medicate the fear, work harder, try new ways to become a different person and cling more tightly to what you desperately want. When you do inevitably self-sabotage and act out in ways that betray your values and destroy the hearts of those you love, the experience is laden with soul-crushing shame. Like you just woke up inside a nightmare. This is in part because you have no idea why you’re doing it. You have an almost separate self who is doing these things despite you. And because it hurts you and invokes intense guilt, this RESTARTS the cycle of badness. Your action creates the feeling which creates the action.
Part 1. The What
You might be in a long but noticeable pattern that makes you feel crappy about yourself and causes you to ruin a good thing as soon as you find it. Maybe you actually choose to avoid relationships that get serious, even if you like the other person – because you know that it’s going to cost you too much in the end. Better to get it over with, ahead of time.
Maybe you crave love and intimacy and you currently have a great partner! Someone who is more than you could ever ask for – the best and most tolerant accepting person, but despite that truth, you find yourself in situations that you know are wrong, and you usually realize you wanted to stop it way too late – when you wake up or you find yourself hiding the whole truth. It’s like a ship that keeps veering off course when you’re not looking – but the ship is you. You might do things that don’t make sense to you – that upset you and make you feel horrified even as you’re doing them. You might feel outside your life as you’re living it – you have this dark secret identity and cannot be trusted. You might experience joy and love and intimacy and then immediately feel the sorrow of knowing that it could be taken away from you at any moment – that that moment is inevitable, because they will find out the truth eventually, so it’s almost like living as someone dead. You cannot figure out who you are or what motivates you and it takes a lot of energy just to start trying for something good, all over again.
Maybe your cycle of self-torture has become so abbreviated that you cannot distinguish the difference between you and the destructive acts anymore. You might have a faint awareness that the acts are not what you want – that they hurt you, make you feel worthless and disgusting, at times you cannot believe you are the one capable of enacting them – but yet, here you are – once again. Doing the same things, acting like the person you decided not to be. Life is a thick and heavy fog of self hate and hopelessness: there’s no end in sight. Is this really my life? Can’t I promise myself I’ll stop? Don’t I mean it this time? Can’t I work even harder? Why doesn’t anything work for me? This must be who I am.
So if this sounds like you, take heart. You don’t make sense to you right now – but you make sense to m. I see in you – myself in a former stage of life. And here’s what I can see from my vantage point. Your problems are not “who you re” and they’re not your lot in life. They are tied to something specific from long ago. And this issue can be solved – forever – if you choose to look at the problem in detail and untangle the root. This will be the most “worth it” growth you’ve ever done.
I’d like you to treat this podcast as a reason for you do what I did: go to therapy. I know that word probably sends shivers down your spine – it’s a lot of work, money, and you don’t believe in therapy. Yeah, I didn’t either. But that’s all a big excuse for not trying everything and it’s coming from fear. Therapy is different when you go into it with a specific goal in mind and you find the right person to do it with. I’ll come back to that part. Let me give you a general overview on this topic – as I see it, from where I stand today.
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