HEAL and GROW for ACoAs

ACoAs - NOT allowed to RECEIVE (Part 1)

2012-02-13T01:45:00.000-08:00

NO, THAT’S OK -
I don’t need anything!

Previous: Healthy Control
Review post: "Abandonment Pain, Now"(Aug '10)

Healthy Reciprocity
• Being able to receive is as normal a part of life as giving. It’s ultimately an exchange of energy, which we all need & have a right to, like trees exchanging carbon dioxide for oxygen. Both parties benefit.
Reciprocity is not just about the things that are exchanged, which may or may not have value in themselves, but is a linking mechanism used as social capital (something we spend / expend) in order to bond with others - to create trust, affection & solidarity

• Of course, being able to participate in exchanges of any kind depends on trusting oneself & whoever one is dealing with. When there is too much uncertainly, exchanges are not possible, as one or both parties will tend to hold on to all their ‘valuables’ - time, money, affection, info, confidences.... As a result of chaos, uncertainty & lack of trust generated by our family, ACoAs have great difficulty with reciprocity, having been programmed to give, but not allowed to be given to!

Abandonment - with the focus being so completely on the addicts & narcissists in our family, we were left out of the loop of information (Ts), nurturing (Es) & protection (As) that any healthy parent would have provided. Our training to not-be-given-to goes so deep that even the thought of someone legitimately treating us well can cause a panic attack, especially if we grew up in the Hero Role. It actually feels dangerous, terrifying & physically painful!

Exp: A successful business man found out (by some careful questioning) that over the past 10 years he had employed 3 different assistants who were ACoAs. One of them, Jane, was not only efficient at work but had consistently gone above & beyond her duties to ‘take care’ of her boss.
• This CEO wanted to show Jane his appreciation in addition to the usually expected business ‘gifts’, & asked her what he could do for her. She was adamant that he should do nothing more. He was puzzled & insisted she receive some additional compensation, such as an all expense paid vacation or free school tuition. She began to shake & cry, insisting she could not possible take anything more. Her reaction was so intense that he finally backed off, shaking his head in dismay.

Neglect : After visiting the Empire State building a loving mother asked her little girl: “So, did you like it?” - twice. An ACoA listening recalls that in a similar situation, her parents were totally focused on their own interest: “Wow, that’s some view!” but never actually included the kids.
• This is a rather subtle example of the many ways we were ‘told’ we didn’t count, weren’t seen, had no right to an opinion. And beyond that, we were shown or told outright that we shouldn’t ask for what we needed, much less wanted. When we did ask, we were ignored, punished or flat out told nothing was wrong with us - anything from being hungry to having a broken arm - the message was clear that we were too much of a bother, only to be tolerated - but never helped.

• Dickens’ Oliver Twist was one of many starving orphans forced to labor in a 1830‘s London workhouse. One day he held out his bowl & begged: “Please Sir, I want some more” (watery porridge), which started a riot - but got him no seconds.
• Whether ACoAs were deprived of food or not, & some of us were, we were certainly starved in a wide variety of PMES ways. Abused kids find their own individual way to cope with years of deprivation - denial & repression being an inevitable result. This leaves us acting out the neglect either by being overtly needy & grasping, or ‘above it all’ - suppressing how much we still long for the impossible, for the care they couldn’t give.

Wanting more is not just about having things. It’s about wanting normal human need like love, safety, attention, kindness, the right information, respect, nurturing ....which we didn’t receive growing up. Many of us concluded that our main character defect - is our need for love (a misuse of 12-Step Program’s 4th Step). After all these years, how foolish to still want something we believe we don’t deserve! Right?

WHY ACoAs can’t TAKE in anything positive
1. ABOUT US (our assumptions)
Co-Dependence - because of the ACOA rule ‘Other people needs are always more important than mine’, we have to keep on giving to everyone else, without ever considering our own requirements & desires
Failure - “ACoAs are human doing, rather than human beings”. The focus was always on what we did wrong - on actions, not personal value. And since we never seemed to do anything well, right or good enough - we haven’t ‘earned’ being treated well, receiving respect & consideration, much less love
Loyalty - to stay connected to the family system - not feel rejected, abandoned, alone, even as adults - we unconsciously decided that it’s NOT ok to have more than our family - at any category. That way we can all continue suffering together (“Misery loves company”)

Scarcity - based on real experiences, we concluded that the universe has very limited resources, so to get anything for ourselves automatically diminishes someone else - usually a parent or sibling.
Selfishness - to ask for more is not just futile, it’s presumptuous & arrogant. Many of us were taught that wanting for yourself is a sin.
Self-Hate - it’s not hard to see then why we gathered that we aren’t worthy of being given to! Not only because we’re bad, unlovable, selfish, greedy - “Children should be seen & not heard” - but that we haven’t ‘earned’ it, in some mysterious way! “ACoAs are human doing, rather than human beings”

Suffering is the rule of the (alcoholic) universe: ”Life is hard!” and “You’re always supposed to struggle, but never ‘get there’”. So - don’t bother trying

Payback - If we do take anything, we automatically feel obligated to that person or group. While reciprocity is a normal human expectation, ACoAs believe what we have to give back is our time, money, total attention.... our very life blood! No wonder we’re reluctant!

Punishment - to try for more of anything could easily get us deliberately ignored, a slap, a disgusted look, being humiliated in public or an abusive tirade. Some of us had to ask over & over for anything, even basics, before they reluctantly gave in

This puts us in another DOUBLE BIND:
a. We’ve been brainwashed to believe we have no other choice but to provide whatever someone asks for. We obey the family rules - it’s the only way we can be tolerated. BUT -
b. We don’t want to take care of others, hate having to give & give, especially to angry & selfish people. We’re trapped in a debilitating conflict: If we disobey the Rules, we feel terrible guilt, but if we give in, we hate ourselves & the people we ‘help’. Tortured either way.
• ACoAs handle the expectations, demands or whines of others BY:
-- Most commonly: a knee-jerk reaction to comply - before we can take a breath we’re fixing, doing, comforting - giving, giving, giving!
-- For some of us: the only option is to be almost totally withholding - as the only way to not get sucked in.

✶ Either way, it leaves NO room for us to RECEIVE!

NEXT: Can’t Receive - Re. Others (Part 2)

Healthy Control

2012-02-09T14:18:00.000-08:00

WHAT I BELIEVE
guides what I do!

Previous: Letting go of Acting C, Part 3
REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

Self-Control 101 (Normal)
Events or Thoughts ---> lead to ---> Emotions
Emotions -------> lead to ------> Beliefs
Beliefs -------> lead to ------> Decisions
Decisions -------> lead to ------> Actions
Actions ---> lead to ---> Rewards or Consequences

“To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves” ~ Virginia Woolf

Purpose of Self-Control (SC)
To gain a present reward or a delayed gratification, OR to delay, reduce or eliminate punishment
Location
“Researchers are working on identifying the brain areas involved in the exertion of self control & many different areas are known to be involved.” Scans show that SC correlates with “an area in the dorsal fronto-median cortex in the frontal lobe... distinct from those involved in generating intentional actions, attention to intentions, or selecting between alternatives. This control occurs through the top-down inhibition of premotor cortex.” (Read more....@ Wikipedia)

ASPECTS & FUNCTIONS
Self-control may be defined as being in charge of our own actions & is quite complex. This take the form of staying awake & being in the present, regulating our thoughts, dealing with our emotions, setting goal & following thru, & making responsible choices.
As adults, we’re held responsible for our thoughts, emotions & actions (TEA) to the extent that these can be under our self-control, which is not always possible. HOWEVER, SC is very hard to maintain if we’re in the wrong environment, where others are not willing to govern themselves.

• People are born with varying degrees of tolerance for routine vs. change, patience vs boredom... BUT, unlike physiological traits, SC can definitely be considered a learned skill to the degree that it’s developed through education & social interaction & conditioning
• SC becomes self-discipline when we has to apply intentional effort.
• When it’s practiced habitually for some time, it becomes a personality or character trait.
• SC is an important part of a cluster of internal resources (character, courage, faith, purpose, endurance) which - when tested by constant pressure or long-term deprivation - doesn’t disappear

• It becomes a way of thinking because of the cognitive processes and mental discipline needed to use SC
• SC requires motivation. In certain situations, such as a special celebration or artificial psych experiment, we may decide to briefly give up self-control for the occasion (see posts)
• SC becomes a virtue when we resists temptation in order to achieve a desired goal, & can be considered a spiritual gift when it’s the result of spiritual transformation (Read more...)

Improving SC
Based on many studies, including Fujita (2008), correcting our thinking (eliminating CDs) can enhance the ability to be in charge of ourselves, to maintain our focus and achieve greater self-discipline. It is necessary to step back & always take a mental OVER-VIEW:
• Pay more attention to the forest instead of focusing on individual trees - consider the ultimate goal or big picture of every situation
• Look at how our actions fit into an overall framework, as being part of a larger plan or purpose, NOT just a specific instance or action, and not just staring at a detail in front of us, getting lost in something that bothers us or that may be out of place.

Exp:
When clients are asked what they think the reason for something is, like a) “What is the purpose of Guilt?” or b) “What is the definition of Self-Hate” -- they inevitably answer by giving an example, such as a) “Feeling bad about something or b) “Being hard on oneself” -- rather than it’s meaning, or what it’s meant for
Problem:
• An instance of an issue is not its purpose or definition, so it is faulty thinking, AND
➼ only focusing on a specific exp. prevents us from being able to apply the concept to a wide variety of life situations - thus limiting our ability to understand what causes our actions & to be in charge of them.
Suggestion:
Think of a Definition or Purpose as the large category ANIMAL (the Kingdom), rather than just one of its many examples - cat, horse, bird, elephant....(the Species) 

ACoAs Being IN CONTROL:
• comes from the ‘Unit’ ego state: Healthy Adult + Loving Parent
• requires a lowered level of anxiety, to not have to hide our True Self
• is based on a healthy ego, to make choices that suit us
• allows us to know what our needs and, permission to get them met, AND find ways to meet as many of our needs as possible, under the realistic circumstances of our specific lives

• is being in charge of our emotions, as well as - when, where & how we express them
• is taking responsibility for our life choices, without self-hate
• requires that our childhood rage level goes down enough so we don’t take our hurt & revenge out on others
• is built on having good boundaries, both in how we treat others & how we ‘let’ others treat us

✶ Just because we start out as under-dogs, doesn’t mean we can’t WIN - over our damage, over our pain, over others trying to control us! Being in charge of ourselves - empowered - can be every ACoA’s goal.

NEXT: ACoAs - NOT allowed to Receive (Part 1)

Letting GO of ACTING Controlling (Part 3)

2012-02-06T12:15:00.000-08:00

THE MORE I LET GO,
the more power I have!

Previous: Letting Go of Controlling (Part 2)

MAKING CHANGES - “What we disown - we can’t change”.
Remember: You are not responsible to make changes or correct problems which are beyond your competency, power, authority or responsibility - and that ARE the responsibility of another!

Practice: Consider the following points & write out as much as you can. Do a little for each point, then go back every few days & add more
EXTERNALLY
STAY AWAKE for ways you act C.:
-- When it happens          -- How it shows up in your actions
-- What sets it off                 -- Who it effected
-- How does it affect them           -- How do they react to you
-- How does that make you feel?

• If needed, get trusted healers & friends, mates & your adult-children to make suggestions from their experiences with you. Try not to be defensive. Just write them down & look at them later.
✶ NOTE the examples that crop up over & over, especially if mentioned by several people.

INTERNALLY
Acknowledge that you are controlling, & identify the causes (see ‘Controlling & Abandonment’ posts, Nov.’11). Consider which causes:
• you’ve already been working on
• you are willing to tackle, & what you can do to change how you act
• you have to put on the shelf until you’re more healed
Make a list of:
• all your unmet needs & work toward filling them
• develop &/or hone your talents & get recognized for them
• gradually feel the backlog of old pain that causes your anxiety
• learn the difference between assertiveness & aggression, rage vs anger, humility vs humiliation, controlling vs in control, rescuing vs helping, possible vs impossible, connection vs symbiosis ....

Practice asking for your legitimate needs & desired from others, without demanding or having unrealistic expectations. Know who can meet specific needs & who cannot - or to what degree!

The 3 As & T.E.A.
AWARENESS: Identify your unhealthy attitudes (Ts) towards situations, unrealistic expectations of others & beliefs about how life should be.
Also, life areas that are affected (work, home...) & which are more intense than others (more with spouse, less with friends...)

ACCEPTANCE: Then - write about the experiences growing up that fostered the need to Control, especially the emotions underlying that need (Es). Consider alternative & opposite attitudes & beliefs (Ts) you can use when life stressors set off the impulse to C.
✶ Allow as much time as needed to make internal shifts. Acceptance is about staying in the process & not always trying to jump into Action

ACTION: List better ways (As) to behave when feeling the compulsion to be C. & try them out a little at a time. Learn how to communicate with your IC & do it consistently, to comfort & protect (Ts & Es)
Keep these new thoughts & action handy, & in a variety of locations so you can remind yourself (home, car, office, fridge, wallet or purse ...)

Practice: Pick one thing you feel a definite need to control, and then DON’T make any effort what-so-ever to exert your will over the situation the next time around. Allow yourself to just watch the external experience unfold completely on its own, without any help from you. As you observe, notice you thoughts & emotions.
• You’ll feel shaky at first, as this will most likely bring up fear and anxiety from past trauma. HOLD onto to your WIC, & let it know its not in danger.
Use Bookending with the kid, to prove that most things turn out much better that we anticipate. In this case - observe how things turn out whenever you don’t C. & have little talks with the kid about it each time, so he/she learns that ‘the war is over & we can get out of the bunker’!

From “Losing Control, Finding Serenity” book by Daniel A. Miller
Daily Exercise:
• With respect to your children, listen attentively to them without offering advice. Recognize that they are different from you in the way they think and process things, and accept that your way may not be the right way—for them.
• In your love relationship, lower your expectations of your mate—and of yourself. Focus on what steps you can take to improve your love bond.
• With respect to your creative endeavors, focus on just enjoying the process. Don’t plan or think too much about the outcome. Don’t fret about making “mistakes.” Start a piece with the intention of not completing it, and see what unfolds.
✶ Even if you are only partially successful in doing these things, you will begin to discover that letting go of control brings you freedom & contentment! (Read more....)

NEXT: ACoAs - not allowed to RECEIVE

Letting GO of ACTING Controlling (Part 2)

2012-02-02T14:53:00.000-08:00

NEED TO HEAL THE FEAR -
to stop controlling

Previous: Letting Go, Part 2
Revue : Negative Benefits, 2 posts
REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrev.

Practice: To help you identify the various layers of this issue, consider these 4 Qs. Write as much as you can about each. Put it away for a week or a month & then go back & read it. Share about the Qs in meetings, therapy & with friends. Add more thoughts as they surface.

NEGATIVE BENEFITS (-+) of being Controlling (see posts from 11/’10)
Q: What do you personally get from holding on to this pattern?
• N.B. are patterns that keeps us attached to our damage, that feel familiar & safe - but stunt our growth. It’s the narcissistic grandiosity of the WIC, as well as the ‘entitlement’ attitude of many young people of the current generation, since it makes people temporarily feel powerful.

• When we’re in C. mode, we’re functioning from the underlying position that everything revolves us - good or bad. “Put a sweater on, I’m cold”! , “I should let you go” , “I don’t understand why you don’t (like what I like, think the way I do)....” . This lets us to feel important, to always be right, to get our way, to never be vulnerable, to be heard & paid attention to, to have an effect on the world.... many of the things we didn’t get as a kid - but don’t actually heal us since it keeps us totally dependent on others to provide them.

NEGATIVE DETRIMENTS (--)
Q: What are all the ways it hurts you & others?
• This may be hard to answer at first because Cs are not genuinely interested in others - their experience, their emotions, their needs... only their own. But we can think about the ways we felt when someone was controlling us: resentful, stifled, belittled, disrespected....
• Being C. limits our option - it keeps us from being in the flow of life. We don’t get to find out what wonderful things can happen if we stopped trying to force the world to conform to our narrow vision.

POSITIVE DISCOMFORT (+-)
Q: What are you afraid will happen if you stop controlling?
Changing a deeply ingrained pattern like C. can bring up a lot of anxiety, especially if we’ve built our whole persona on ‘running things’, like Heroes do. (However, the other Roles each control in their own specific ways).
• We think we’ll be in some kind of danger, mainly internal, but not the kind of physical danger that can come from standing up to a bully. More like feeling our old abandonment pain & letting go of cherished illusions.
Changing means giving up a way of experiencing ourselves we thought was our personality, but was another form of acting out our history - just the False Self.

• OR we’re afraid someone we love will be in danger. This may be somewhat realistic if we’re dealing with active addicts who are bent on self-destruction. Sadly, the Healthy thing to do is let them find their own way. We can present info & options for them to Recover, but they have to want it. Sometimes formal interventions work, but not always. And sometimes, no matter what we do, addicts die.
• BUT - most of the time, the world goes on just fine without our two-cents! As we grow we can more & more tolerate the discomfort of not interfering with the natural order of things, & eventually it gets easier.

POSITIVE BENEFITS (++)
Q: Why is it worth giving up?
• Taking responsibility for ourselves is the opposite of being C. Instead of wasting energy on manipulating others, we get to find out who WE really are - our talents, knowledge, gifts, experience... to take center stage in our own life & express our multifaceted Self.

• Even when we’ve achieved / earned a measure of success in the world, ACoAs often don’t own it or feel comfortable being valued & acknowledged. Being in-the-flow (not C.) allows us to enjoy our achievements & accolades.

• For anyone bent on Recovery -at all costs- the gain is in self-esteem, a genuine sense of freedom, & the ability to connect with healthy people who respect us & whom we can trust to be ok without our constant vigilance!

REALITY
✶ Most people have more resiliency, depth, strength and flexibility than they give themselves credit for. Trust yourself to handle all kinds of circumstances. Keep saying: “I know what I know”!
SO - catch yourself in the act of being C. & stop as soon as you can. Remind yourself of the benefits of changing & give your kid a big hug!

NEXT: Letting Go, Part 3

Letting GO of ACTING Controlling (Part 1)

2012-01-30T04:26:00.000-08:00

I CAN GET MY NEEDS MET -
without arranging everything!

Previous: Acting Controlling (Part 2)
REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrev.

STOP Acting Controlling
To change this dysfunctional pattern takes Willingness, Perseverance & Courage! We have to be ready to look at ourselves without intense judgement & S-H, or we’re not going to own the C. behaviors.

The OLD Way: Being C. is to function on the assumption that feeling safe in the world is totally up to us by arranging everything OUR way, all the time.
But, the very act of Controlling is a betrayal the True Self, so we keep shutting ourselves off from healing our wounds & loving connections with others, because of the fear & rage we carry from the WIC & PP.

Ironically, being a control freak never seems to include changing oneself! And, the Negative Introject will keep trying to deceive us, saying that the only way to proceed is to completely control every tiny detail of how and when things should happen, and/or others should act. It will continually torture our thoughts, making us believe we’re not good enough or doing it right, so the IT doesn’t lose its power over us

BOTTOM LINEs
• Being Controlling is NOT the same as having strong opinions. Rather, it’s a way to ‘force solutions’ by imposing our will on others
• C. (vs. to Being in Control) can be labeled a character defect, but it’s imperative we don’t berate ourselves for it
• It’s a form of grandiosity, a defense mechanism - defending against re-experiencing early vulnerability, powerlessness & daily neglect
• Being C. provides a temporary feeling of being powerful (not at the mercy of anyone!) but like all addictions, has to be constantly repeated, since it doesn’t heal the fear that’s underneath

• We likely learned our style of controlling from someone in our family
• Letting go of being C. can only be done in stages & never perfectly!
• As the WIC heals & we strengthen our ‘Unit’, the need for it will diminish in intensity, but may never completely go away. This has to be accepted - with healthy humility & self-respect (opposite of grandiosity)
• Lessening it requires self-esteem, boundaries, making better choices & letting love in - wherever it may come from!

Condensed from ‘Chakra Healing’ : The THIRD CHAKRA
• The Solar Plexus or Personal Power Chakra (energy vortex #3) is located above the navel and below the sternum. It’s ruled by the Sun & emits a yellow light of optimism, renewal & happiness - when free-flowing. The seat of personal power & the will, it generates the mental strength to learn and use gathered information. It forms our sense of True Self, so when this Chakra is open and clear we feel good about ourselves & have the ability to accomplish whatever we set out to do.

• When the Chakra is blocked we’re not genuine & we mistrust others. The enemy of this chakra is shame & overbearing authority figures. It will quickly shut down when children grow up in an abusive, unsafe environment, with constant fear of punishment and age-INappropriate responsibilities. Children are stripped of their personal strength by a parent who is over-controlling, too fearful & full of shame. OR the chakra can be over-energized to the point of making a person too rigid, controlling and fearful. (Read more.....)

LETTING GO of Acting Controlling
There are many wise things to be said about ‘Letting Go’, but here are 2 main ones for ACoAs. To grow, we need to -- 
1. Let go of trying to win our parents’ love - if they didn’t /don’t have the capacity, at all. OR not chasing them (or substitutes) for the KIND of nurturing every child needs but was simply not available to us because of their damage, even if they meant well & said they loved us.

2. Let go of the illusion that doing things perfectly will get us that love & approval. All it does is increase our self-hate & fear, because perfection is unattainable AND our family’s mental or emotional health is not - and was never was - in our power to create. People either can love us or not. We can not earn it!

A NEW Way: To be free of the compulsion to Control is to give up on the internal fight, to stop trying to manage everything, to stop trying to please the PP, & stay out of whatever is none of our business!
✶ This does NOT mean being lazy, withholding or paralyzed.
• Rather - it comes from knowing that even in times of discomfort our inner foundation is built on solid ground - a support system made up of our Loving Inner Parent, the Higher Power & respectful / kind people.
• Being comfortable in our skin means to allow OTHERS to be themselves, & letting many circumstances be - just as they are. There’s a time to act & a time to be still. This is what the Serenity Prayer is referring to: Change what we can right now, & Accept what we can’t change at all, what’s not yet possible, or is not yet the right time.

NEXT: Letting Go, Part 2

ACoAs Acting Controlling (Part 3)

2012-01-25T23:21:00.000-08:00

I’M NOT A CONTROL FREAK -
I just like things done right!

Previous: ACoAs Acting Controlling (Part 2)
Article: Recognizing a Manipulative Relationship

EMPATHY vs Control
Empathy is the ability to identify with another person’s emotions, to put ourselves in their place. This is possible only to the degree that we’re in touch with our own Es, while respecting the feelings, rights & needs of others as valid & separate from our own.
HOWEVER, some sensitives are too easily influenced by the Es of others because they don’t have strong boundaries AND have not yet healed enough of their own wounds. This is not useful empathy.
Controlling is when our needs, requirements, feelings.... infringe on the rights of others. If we let our needs step on someone’s boundaries, they’re are under no obligation to accommodate or empathize with us, because we are being disrespectful & inappropriate. (This also applies to ACoAs when we encounter a controller!) C. are not in touch with most of their own Es so cannot ‘understand’ the pain they cause others.

EXAMPLES of being a Control Freak:
Re. THEM
• Controllers (Cs) are not just opinionated - they always have to be right. They’re not willing to accept & cannot tolerate any differences or disagreements between themselves & others
• Cs are more likely to be moody (up & down), emotionally unpredictable. Because they’re unhappy with their own lives they think controlling others will improve their situation
• Cs use fear to keep others attached to them because of their FoA. If we’re fearful enough, we won’t want to venture out on our own. They tend to focus on negatives in the world - to keep us scared & under their thumb

• Cs may or may not have close friends. If they do it’s :
-- usually with those who are needy, easily bullied, have poor self-esteem & weak boundaries, OR
-- they treat ‘outside’ people better than family members, so they are considered ‘wonderful‘ by anyone who did not grow up with them
• Cs generally are not friends with anyone more attractive, intelligent or well-liked than themselves, & are more likely to be jealous & critical of popular, successful people.
• Cs can sense when they’re losing control, which can trigger psycho-somatic ailments such as headaches, back or stomach pains, fainting, hives.... They can re-gaining control of a situation or relationship by getting the attention, sympathy and concern of others

• NOTE: Cs are very manipulative, playing head games to hide this character defect. They can’t stand it when anyone stands up to them.
The stronger our personality, the harder Cs will work to tear us down. It’s imperative to their unhealthy ego to stay one-up.
✶ This is particularly true of severely narcissistic parents who will make every effort to destroy a strong-minded child so that he/she can not expose or defy the controller.

Re.YOU
• Cs play on our empathy to gain trust early in the friendship, like: telling us what a hard life they had - in great detail, but they can only trust telling us, because we’re different, special!
• Cs attempt to define our reality. They tell us what we like & want - or not - according to their tastes. We can say that we need to be lone & they insist on taking up our time; we save something & they throw it away, saying: ‘you don’t need that or it’s not important!
• Cs remember all the sensitive info we give them about ourselves. They will seem sincere & caring at first, then bring it up and use it to subtly insult us until we agree with them : “Are you still crying about that? It was just a cat / a long time ago / not such a big deal...Right?”

• Cs will accuse us of causing someone else’s bad behavior which hurt us (being cheated on, yelled at, fired ....): “What did you do?”
• Cs often assume that they understand how we think & feel & are not shy about telling us, BUT they really don't know! : “Your anger is bringing everyone down” when in fact we’re withdrawn because of feeling deep pain, shyness, confusion....! Also, they can get frustrated (& abusive) when we don’t act the way they picture us : “Do that in the morning when you’re fresh” said angrily by a morning-person mother to her night-person teen
• Cs don’t hear us when we say NO. They’re unwilling to respect any boundaries - ours or theirs

• Cs get frustrated & annoyed with normal question
• Cs will try to cause trouble between us and our family or friends
• Cs regularly expect us to change our plans to suit their schedule
• Cs make us wait for them - for a response, for decisions, for fulfilling plans or promises.... and they’re usually late, but always have what they think is a legitimate excuse
• Cs rarely give sincere compliments. They don’t want us to feel good about ourselves or take the attention away from them
• Cs can also use excessive generosity as a way to make us indebted to them, so we feel guilty if we don’t reciprocate (AND do what they want!)

NEXT: Letting go of Controlling (Part 1)

ACoAs Acting Controlling (Part 2)

2012-01-23T17:02:00.000-08:00

LOOK AT ME!
See how important I am!

Previous: Acting controlling, Part 1
REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrev.

LOVE vs. Control
Genuine love is concerned with the welfare of others, especially the ones we have a personal connection to, while control is all about us - what we can get, how we can change someone, how we can feel better....
Expl: A woman married a genuinely good man, who allows her to be herself. She know he loves her but it doesn’t fe-e-el right - for the very reason that he’s not controlling, the way her family was. The connection between love & control was wired into her emotional brain during childhood & is the image of how relationships are supposed to be. Her WIC says “He doesn’t tell me what to do, so he must not care!” Fortunately her Adult self knows better.

Beliefs of people who use Emotional Power over others:
About Oneself
• My feelings come first. I need to convert everyone to my way
• I'll always have to pay an emotional price if I open myself up to others, so I keep them at an arm's length
• If I'm open to their point of view they'll try to mislead me
• I have to make them see things my way or they’ll have an edge over me
• Because everyone is out to take advantage of everyone else (me), the best defense is a good offense
About Others
• Dump on them before they dump on you
• Take control of them before they take control of you
• If you keep them busy enough they'll ignore you
• There's only one way for people in your life to think & feel - your way
• It doesn't matter how they feel or react, as long as you keep emotional control over them

P.M.E.S. WAYS to control / manipulate others
Physically : use intimidating or guilt-making body language (a fist, a pout), threaten harm or actively hurt someone
Mentally (negative communications): name-call, be critical & discouraging, use guilt, create unfair obligations ....
Emotionally : pull on someone’s heart stings (cry) or be volatile (rage) - to get one’s way or to punish; also emotional blackmail - threaten abandonment if someone doesn’t do what they want
Spiritually : promoting false visions, such as ‘the end of the world will be on X date’; false prophets & cult leaders, doomsday literature; also anything which diminishes the human spirit

MORE WAYS:
• Greedy - insist others provide us with things we need in the world, even if we know how to but are afraid to try, can’t ask for directly, don’t have permission .... OR we don’t know how to provide for ourselves and don’t want to learn, so we can be taken care of - finally!
• Manipulative - we try to coerce other people into becoming Good Parent substitutes, instead of developing our own ‘Unit’
• Over-giving - because you’re love-buying, compensating for being in a rage at them or for feeling unworthy unless you pay for love / respect
• Powerless - we may take advantage of someone who is needy or ‘easy’, to make up for being helpless as kids, & as adults, to feel one-up
• Rigid - have a hard time with negotiation & compromise, and they can’t stand imperfection
• Self-Pitying - constant whining about how your life is so hard, you can’t do anything right, people are unfair & mean - trying to force others to be with you in your misery (bring them down, so you have company)
• Sickly - sick, needy, playing dumb... to make people feel sorry for you
• Stubborn - mental & emotional walls used as a substitute for having real boundaries
• Superior - an over-inflated sense of your own importance, being detached & above everyone, being a Know-it-all -- makes others feel stupid, vulnerable, insecure & worthless
• Values - C. is sometimes justified by claiming it’s simply wanting to do things the right way, having high standards, being helpful & caring...
• Victim - constantly: asking to be approved of, saying you’re sorry, asking for permission to do anything... (makes people feel they have to take care of you)

NEXT: ACTING Controlling, Part 2

ACoAs Acting Controlling (Part 1)

2012-01-22T01:15:00.000-08:00

EVERYONE HAS TO BE THE WAY I WANT
so I won’t feel so vulnerable!

Previous: Self-care with Cs (Part 2)
Review: How ACoAs Abandon Others, Part 1 (July ’10)
REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrev.

BEING HELPFUL (vs. Controlling - see ‘Healthy Helping’ post, June ‘10)
The opposite of being controlling is to be of genuine help. The 2 main characteristics are:
a. That you are clear about that the other person needs & that they actually want your help
b. That you have the real ability to provide that need, and that you genuinely want to

CONTROLLING (C) behavior is cause by the disowned, un-felt emotion of FEAR! And no matter how optimistic & hard working, all ACoAs are fear-based, since we lived in constant terror as kids. Because the fear was never acknowledged, comforted or talked about - it accumulated, & now sits like a poisonous fog under all our layers of denial, experiences & determination. That’s not a negative thing to say - it is important to tell the truth. Only then can we change it!
• Like most things in life, controlling comes in varying degrees of intensity.
-- Some Controllers are so tightly wound that it’s ‘their way or the highway’ & they’ll punish or ignore anyone who doesn’t fall in line with the program
-- Others are only C. when under a great deal of stress, especially if too many things go wrong at the same time
-- Some are C. mainly when they’re with a certain category of people (children, a spouse....) so that others don’t know what they’re really like in private
-- Even with Recovery, many ACoAs & addicts continue their C. patterns until they do FoO & Inner Child healing work.

ACoA IRONY: Acting Controlling is one more way to keep others at emotional arm’s length, preventing people (Jy ’10 post) from really connecting with us, while at the same time guaranteeing we’ll keep on feeling abandoned by just about everyone! It’s used as a defensive wall instead of developing real boundaries (Jy ’11 post), which are flexible.
NOTE: Just because someone has a forceful personality doesn’t make them a controller. They can have strong opinions about everything, even insist they’re right but not necessarily impose them on others.
The TEST is: Do they allow you to be yourself? OR do they unduly influence your behavior (make demands, have unrealistic expectations, intimidate)? Stay awake for the difference, in yourself & in others!

GENERALLY, Being Controlling IS
Re US: • often copied from a C. parent
• fueled by deep anxiety - specifically FoA (fear of abandonment)
• generated from the WIC or the internalized PP voices
• used to avoid feeling helpless, powerless, vulnerable, needy
• a form of unhealthy pride - an unwillingness to back down & admit when we’re wrong, need help, don’t know everything....
• never being satisfied, always critical - our attention on what we don’t have rather than what is possible and what is actually available to us
• expressing the belief that we have to ‘force solutions’ or we won’t get our needs met
• a sneaky, dishonest way to get taken care of
• putting our main focus on manipulating the outside world, instead of working on healing inner wounds
• trying to get noticed, be respected, seen, valued, appreciated...but doing it the wrong way (being bossy)
Re. THEM:
• saying that we don’t trust others - to take care of themselves, to be competent, dependable, honest ....
• being disrespectful of other people’s autonomy, their right to learn from their own mistakes, having their personal life path, their tastes & moral values......
• saying that someone owes you - just because of what you’ve done for them, OR for who you are, what you’ve accomplished, your position...
• a compulsive pattern of trying to get people to be or do what we want, disregarding who they are, so we won’t have to feel abandoned, while picking the very people or situations that guarantee we will, because they’re just like our family
“Where there is control there is no love, only fear”
ACTING Controlling
Reasons:
• Angry - a way to express our rage at our family - whom we can’t always get back at directly - for controlling us, instead of loving us unconditionally
• Needy - as adults, when we’re especially lonely, scared, vulnerable or desperate
• Terrified - the fear, anxiety & panic is so intense that our only focus is to force everything everyone become as safe as possible - for us
Ways:
• Greedy - insist others provide us with things we need in the world, even if we know how to but are afraid to try, can’t ask for directly, don’t have permission .... OR we don’t know how to provide for ourselves and don’t want to learn, so we can be taken care of - finally!
• Manipulative - we try to coerce other people into becoming Good Parent substitutes, instead of developing our own ‘Unit’
• Over-giving - because you’re love-buying, compensating for being in a rage at them or for feeling unworthy unless you pay for love / respect
• Powerless - we may take advantage of someone who is needy or ‘easy’, to make up for being helpless as kids, & as adults, to feel one-up
• Rigid - have a hard time with negotiation & compromise, and they can’t stand imperfection
• Self-Pitying - constant whining about how your life is so hard, you can’t do anything right, people are unfair & mean - trying to force others to be with you in your misery (bring them down, so you have company)
• Sickly - sick, needy, weak, playing dumb... to make people feel sorry for you
• Stubborn - mental & emotional walls used as a substitute for having real boundaries
• Superior - an over-inflated sense of your own importance, being detached & above everyone, being a Know-it-all -- makes others feel stupid, vulnerable, insecure & worthless
• Values - C. is sometimes justified by claiming it’s simply wanting to do things the right way, having high standards, being helpful & caring...
• Victim - constantly: asking to be approved of, saying you’re sorry, asking for permission to do anything... (makes people feel they have to take care of you)

Beliefs of people who use Emotional Power over others:
About Oneself
• My feelings come first. I need to convert everyone to my way
• I'll always have to pay an emotional price if I open myself up to others, so I keep them at an arm's length
• If I'm open to their point of view they'll try to mislead me
• I have to make them see things my way or they’ll have an edge over me
• Because everyone is out to take advantage of everyone else (me), the best defense is a good offense
About Others
• Dump on them before they dump on you
• Take control of them before they take control of you
• If you keep them busy enough they'll ignore you
• There's only one way for people in your life to think & feel - your way
• It doesn't matter how they feel or react, as long as you keep emotional control over them

NEXT: ACoAs Acting Controlling, Part 2

SELF-CARE around Controllers (Part 2)

2012-01-16T21:42:00.000-08:00

I CAN STAND MY GROUND -
& still be at peace

Previous: Self-care, Internal

If you HAVE to deal with a Controller (cont.):

EXTERNALLY - With THEM
• Be clear & mean what you say, so they’ll know you’re serious
• Be very firm that you’re NOT going to be controlled. Say NO & stick to it even if you feel scared. Most of the time it turns out ok, but some people can’t tolerate hearing ‘no’ & you have to get away from them as soon as you realize they’re not safe
• Don’t let them talk down to you. It's insulting & belittling
• Point out that their ways make you uncomfortable & are unacceptable
• In a disagreement or argument, stick to your point and the current topic - don’t let them sidetrack you. Write or tape confrontations, to get clear
• Avoid arguing. It’s best to just let the C. carry on, until they’re run out of steam. As hard as it is to not engage, if you just listen but don’t respond, eventually most people will feel ashamed & contrite for carrying on so, especially when their outburst actually had nothing to do with you. This puts you back in control.

• Switch the focus away from what’s wrong with you, & get them talking about themselves on the issue in question. They’ll like that!
• Pick your battles. Unless a topic directly affects you, don’t comment. You can appear to agree & still keep to your own ideas - quietly.
• Try to stay as calm as possible when you’re in conflict with a C., especially since they’re likely to loose their cool because you’re challenging their desperately needed control
• Set your own time schedule for any discussions with a C. or to deal with a need of theirs. Your time is yours to control - NOT them
• Wait before you respond by phone, text or email. Write what you’d like to say & then leave it alone for a while, to think thru the consequences. If you still want to say something, reform it into simple sentences, short, declarative & to the point, using ‘I’ statement, from your Adult voice

Re. YOU
• Be a careful listener (unless you’ve heard the same thing over & over!). It’s easy to tune out when you’re with someone annoying or aggravating. Repeat back what they’ve said & check to see if it’s correct. This reassures them that you understand their point or what they need from you - especially at work. BUT it doesn’t mean you have to agree or do it!
• If a C. ‘keeps you around’ - whether it’s personal or professional - it means they need you for something! That can give you the upper hand, even if neither of you really like each other. Don’t be afraid to remind the C. that you have value & want to treated with respect
• Emphasize positive things about yourself & let them know about all the good decisions you make on a regular basis

• Ask questions - objectively & without anger. Try to find out what they’re frustrated about, what they really want & why, to minimize misunderstandings. This shows them the same respect that you want
• If the situation warrants it, & it doesn’t hurt you, explain that you want to be a part of the solution and are willing to work with the C. once you understand the full picture of what’s needed
• Try getting them to switch roles with you for a few minutes. You play the controller & they play you. Then discuss the results.
• Eliminate Controllers from your life whenever possible. They are energy & self-esteem vampires, need to be ‘put in the light’ & let go of!

ANTIDOTEs to GETTING controlled
• Acknowledge when you are being controlled - without self-hate. If it has happened to you again & again, it means you were trained by your family to accept bad behavior, but you can re-train yourself away from those kinds of people by working with the WIC & developing a Loving inner Parent
• List specific ways someone’s controlling you. If you’re not sure, give your safest friends & family members permission to identify what they see happening to you. Measure that against what you already know but have a hard time admitting

• Identify the long-standing patterns in your thinking & behaviors that make you vulnerable to being controlled. That means careful inventory of your toxic rules & how you obey them (behaviors)
• Work on changing those patterns, so you can get out from under debilitating relationships, friendships, ‘spiritual’ or other groups, corporate cultures...OR leave as soon as you spot anyone trying to use control on you

• Letting someone continue to control you is a type of addiction - it means you’re as symbiotically attached to the current bossy person in your life as you have been to your parents (even if they’re far away or dead)
• If not already - get into therapy & Al-Anon, to prevent further damage from the controller or to yourself (raging, getting fired, self-cutting, isolating, auto-immune illnesses .... )
• Realize that control is not only a psychological problem but a spiritual one, since it negates your fundamental rights & individuality. You have a right to NOT be controlled.

SITE: Dr. Judy Esmond, Ph.D. suggests that we need to respond - not react - when dealing with controllers, by pausing, breathing, thinking & only then speaking. Her book Dealing With Difficult People offers 17 free tips that can be downloaded from her website, nodifficultpeople.com.

USE the LIST of Responses from the HEAL & GROW for ACoAs website: Pick a couple & memorize them so they come our of your mouth easily!

NEXT: ACoAs Acting Controlling

SELF-CARE around Controllers (Part 1)

2012-01-11T23:54:00.000-08:00

I HAVE LOTS OF OPTIONS -
I just need to practice

Previous: ACoAs Acting Controlling (Part 2)
REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

If you HAVE to deal with a Controller:
INTERNALLY:
Re. YOU
• Know you have the right & power to say how you want to be treated. This comes from knowing your worth as a person - just because you exist
• Take full responsibility for all your thoughts, words, emotions & actions - and what long-standing buttons the C. is pushing
• Focus on how to meet your own needs, rather than on what the C. is doing or not doing. And don't overcompensate for someone else's limitations or failures. It doesn’t help anyone, only drains you
• Work at building strong boundaries so you don't take on the Cs problems
• Be true to your own personality - quiet, strong, talkative, fun-loving, up-beat, intellectual, funny.... Trying to out-control control freaks generally doesn't work. They've had a lot more practice

• Identify what really matters or what you real goal is in each situation & then ask: “How important it this?”, “Do I need to be right, validated, applauded, justified..., or can I let go in order to be at peace?”, “How will reacting to this person make my life better (or worse)?”. If it’s not really a life & death situation - literally, you can redirect your energy by quietly talking to the Inner Child, & focus on using Recovery tools
• Write out all your frustrations, hurt & anger about how the C treats you - and the mental arguments to prove your side of the story, without censorship. Picture all that pain draining into the paper & then burn it - safely!
• Let yourself feel your emotional reactions to the C. rather than pushing them away - separately from the C. (meetings, therapy, journaling...). Know that the pain is coming from the WIC, so take a step back from those Es, putting them ‘outside‘ of yourself rather than drowning in them or sweeping them under the carpet. This defuses the intensity. The best way to protect yourselves is to be fully awake to the effects a C. has on you. That’s what Es are for!

• Conventional wisdom says: “Stop endlessly talking to everyone about a negative event or conflict”, which is meant to stop the drain on your energy. This is valid if all you’re doing is whining, complaining, obsessing, dumping.... rather than carefully evaluating what's really going on.
NOTE: However, for ACoAs, as long as a situation is pushing old buttons, our Es can be overpowering, getting in the way of functioning.
What works is to keep sharing what’s upsetting the WIC - in the right environment - for as long as it takes to processes it out & bleed off the accumulated hurt & rage that keeps the obsession alive. We may also need outside validation that we’re not crazy, that someone really is being abusive, that our reactions are normal.....

• Look for the lesson in any difficult situation. That does NOT mean self- blame or judgment. Ask : “What are they telling me about themselves? , Have I been ignoring the signals about this person’s patterns? , Did I stay too long? , Did I somehow set them off? , How are they like my family? Are they just a bad fit with me?”.... Get something out of each encounter with a C. that can help you be stronger, healthier, more awake, more self-protective.... for the future
• Do something physical - run, swim, dance, exercise....it clears the mind & burns off the anger, numbness, fear, frustration.... that deplete us
• Spend time away from the C. Taking a break regularly is important for your mental health. Do things you enjoy even if the C. isn’t supportive.

WITH THEM
• Observe a controller’s repeated actions rather than what they say. You can’t afford to be in denial by overlooking or excusing their ‘game’
• Quietly notice what the C does & says, like research. Write down what you hear, & the kind of things set them off (their buttons) so you can be prepared when it happens again AND so you can avoid setting them off as much as possible
• Imagine yourself in their place. How might they be experiencing you? What do they want from you? What are they reacting to in you?
Remember - you’re not responsible for their perspective, but it might give you some insight into their motivation, & you may be better able to sidestep or deflect their controlling-ness next time

• When possible, don’t respond - at all. Some C. try to pick fights to get a rise out of you. They like the drama. You don’t have to participate!
• Depending on the person or situation, try applying verbal honey by complementing the C. for something they’ve done well or something you’ve learned from them. It may or may not work, but you have to be sincere in your comments
• Stay in the moment rather than getting caught up in their negative projections of the future

REALISTIC CONSEQUENCES
Ask yourself: "What’s the WORST that can happen to me" IF:
a. I DON’T respond at all? Depending on who you’re dealing with & the circumstances, there can be different outcomes.
b. I DO respond to the C? Consider if it will escalate the difficulty or make it better. If you do say something, it has to come from your Inner Adult for it to have a chance of working in your favor.
✶ Use your knowledge of this person to gauge your options. Think it thru all the way to the end of the line - what has happened before when you did or didn’t comment. The more you stay present for what you know - & use it - the better off you’ll be!

NEXT: Self-Care Around Controllers (Part 2)

Responding to Controllers (Part 2)

2012-01-06T22:14:00.000-08:00

NOT GETTING CONTROLLED -
depends on my self esteem!

Previous : Responding to Controllers (Part 1)

Reading: “21 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Responding to Conflict”

WHY “Control” our Responses to Cs?This is a tricky one because as Over-Controlled ACoAs:
a. We are more likely to NOT say anything to controlling, insensitive or abusive people. Our ‘computer’ (frontal cortex) goes blank & we become mute until later - when the moment has passed - & we kick ourselves for not having the words when it counted! This shutting down is from FEAR.
b. THEN, we either hold it in ‘forever’, which eats away at our heart energy, festering in our obsessive thinking -- OR -- when we’ve let things go on for too long, we may blow up & rage at someone who’s been bugging us, or at someone else, as a substitute. (The ‘kick-the-dog’ syndrome).

THE GOAL is to get to the place where we can speak up from our Adult ego state in the moment, if & when it’s safe and appropriate - so we don’t hurt ourselves. That way our frustration, hurt & anger don’t build up. This ability is the result of lowered anxiety (Es) & practicing things to say (Ts). Choosing Adult responses benefits us in the short & the long term.

• Being KIND to ourselves - When we react impulsively or fight back we temporarily feel powerful, but it doesn’t help our self-esteem & personal growth. However, while it doesn’t usually resolve conflict or protect us from further attacks, it is sometimes the only way to get thru to a C. & stop them from seeing us a victim. Many Cs only understand ‘tit-for-tat’!
It’s best when we can step back, mentally & emotionally, to breathe & process how we feel & which of our buttons was pushed. If we can address the problem in a positive way in the moment, great. If not, we can consider what’s best for us & maybe deal with the offender later. In any case, the less we RE-act the more self-empowering & peaceful we feel.

• Freedom of Speech - Other people seem to think it’s OK to say whatever they want but we are afraid to do the same. We need to give ourselves permission to know & express our point of view as well. But over-reacting to volatile or oppositional opinions has to do with our childhood wounds, & not just to what’s being said in the present. Say what you want, but don’t get into a pissing match.

• Minimize Negativity - nurturing all-consuming anger at someone for their comments or actions only hurts us. We then carry that painful energy into other parts of our lives. Malachy McCourt (actor, writer & participant in Occupy Wall Street, October 2011) once quipped: “Holding a grudge against someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” FOR ACoAs, these obsessive reactions come from our damaged past. To free ourselves - we can privately do rage-work, & process our hurt in Program & therapy, so we don’t end up reacting to others in a way that makes us feel bad about ourselves afterwards.

• What’s our Purpose? - What our Adult self wants to accomplish & what the kid wants are often 2 very different things. Any time we get riled up about something, we know it’s the WIC or PP, but how we respond to that annoyance will depend on whether the ‘Unit’ is in charge or not. To get the most our of life we have to be clear about our goal in each situation & act accordingly. 
Exp: One week-day evening Ally was in a church auditorium waiting to hear a lay speaker. In the back vestibule a maintenance man was polishing the floor, & the machine was very noisy! Ally went over to the man & asked him to close the adjoining door, but he refused, so she went back & sat down. A little while later a man in her group went down to the worker, & lo-and-behold --- the door was closed! Ally smiled. She knew that many years ago she would have taken offense & been very angry that the worker ignored her (a woman) yet ‘listened’ to a man. BUT she was not upset - because her only need was to shut out some of the irritating noise - rather than being respected or validated by that stranger!

• Where’s the Focus? The hardest thing for ACoAs is to not take things personally. Whether someone is mean to us or just tactless - they’re telling us about themselves - NOT US! It’s most productive to mirror back to them what we’ve heard, such as ‘Why did you say that?”, or ‘What did you mean by that?”.... Where attention goes, energy flows. We can only focus fully on one things at a time. The sooner we clear up an obsession, the faster we get our life back. Often speaking up for ourselves will put our energy into balance again.

KEEP IN MIND - when we do find ourselves having to deal with being controlled, manipulated or taken advantage of:
• How well we handle the situation tells us a lot about our level of maturity & recovery. Even when we’re stuck in a bad situation, getting nasty or throwing a tantrum usually makes things worse for ourselves. If we let the WIC react, we're being like the controlling person or monopolistic company we're mad at. So - the more we come from an Adult Ego State the more likely we’ll get what we want.

NOTE: As we heal, we will be able to handle familiar controlling situations - some better than others, depending on the depth & size each button.  Buttons are old wounds - things that hurt us over & over as kids, like being accused wrongly, being threatened with abandonment, being ignored, expected to be ‘up’ all the time, often told to shush....
The milder our re-actions to old wounds the better we’ll feel about ourselves. However, some will take a very long time to heal & others may not at all. In those cases the goal is to recover our dignity as soon as possible. DO NOT give yourself a hard time when somethings still gets to you, even after many years of Recovery. That’s just life & being human!

• In most cases we do have choices, even tho many of us are still functioning from ‘learned helplessness’. When possible, we can try out new options. Exp:
-- Immediately end a conversations if it starts to get verbally violent or controlling - by physically leaving, or saying goodbye & hanging up
-- Do NOT return abusive or harassing texts!
-- End a call with any incompetent Customer Service person and try again until you get someone who can help. We can always choose a different service provider, friend, bank, waiter, church, store.....
-- Privately smile or even laugh at the stupidity or ridiculousness of a C’s comments, rather than getting angry or hurt.
-- Sometimes the only healthy option is to quit & find a job elsewhere altho that’s not always so easy these days.

NEXT: ACoAs Acting Controlling (Part 1)

RESPONDING to Controllers (Part 1)

2012-01-03T13:29:00.000-08:00

NO ONE CAN CONTROL ME -
unless I let them

Previous: ACoAs getting controlled
Review post: ‘Relationship FORMS 1 & 2’ (Oct ’10)

REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

RESPONDING TO CONTROLLERS (Cs)
• Even when we’re with someone who is controlling, we always have at least some control of what happens to us, whether we use that option or not. As Glenda the Good Witch says in The Wizard of Oz “You always had the power!” If we must stay with a C., we have to protect ourselves, otherwise all we can do is capitulate or leave.
Exp: As soon as Jody met sexy Sam at a party, she could tell that he was controlling - just like her mom. Even so, they started dating & eventually he moved in. His charm compensated, but Jody still needed to deal with his habit of assuming she was exactly like him (narcissistic control). She went along if it didn’t matter to her, but stood her ground when it did. For a while at the beginning of the relationship, to shift the focus from any specific topic of contention - to the bigger picture - she started calling him ‘Martha’ whenever he acted like her mom! It took him a while to catch on, but eventually he got the point & backed off (but most C. won’t!)

Re. THEM - Cs are also wounded people who don’t have a right to their needs, but choose to manipulating others to provide for them & to feel cared for. Pay attention & evaluate which type you’re dealing with:
• Some are not consciously aware of being controlling, & will be confused or surprised if confronted. They have no idea what they are doing ‘wrong’, but also don’t want to know, so they’re not likely correct their behavior
• Others are aware of trying to deceive or control but will vigorously deny it because they don’t want to be caught (it’s socially shameful) & they don’t want to be responsible for their actions or old pain. So they’re not likely to change either, because they’d have to deal with their damage
• A few will be willing to consider what they’re doing, when it’s pointed out & will work to change it
• And some of us are already in the processes of letting go of being controlling!

Re. YOU
DECIDE: When responding to a C, consider what outcome you want:
-- to inform, vent, set a boundary, for self-protection, fairness.... OR
-- for revenge, to punish, retaliate, humiliate....
✶ If you want to be as psychologically clean as humanly possible (NO perfectionism!) then practice making neutral or ‘I’ statements:
“I don’t respond well to being bossed around” , “That’s not helpful”!
“It sounds like you’re trying to get me to_________. Is that right?”
“When you ___________, I feel ___________” , “I’d rather__________”
“That’s not what works for me / how I feel about it / what I need...”

EXPECT: resistance in the form of excuses, protests, denials, blaming .... from the hard cases. You can let them know you understand their feelings & wishes, but that you maintain the right to have yours, even if that upsets them, makes them angry, attack you or leave in a huff!
• No matter what their reaction, you decide what you’re going to agree to - OR NOT, based on your needs, not theirs!

REMEMBER: When someone insists on accusing you wrongly (a big button for ACoAs) or just refuses to ‘get it’, only state your truth as clearly as you can. You may have to repeat your position, but do not try to make them understand where you’re coming from, do not keep explaining why your point is valid, and do not justify yourself - ever! To stay & argue with someone like that just makes a fool of you!
• The more relentless someone’s controlling behavior, the more narcissistic the person is. In that case you cannot win, because they cannot and will not see you as a separate individual with your own personality. The only healthy thing to do is walk away, no matter how much it hurts, even if it means letting them think they won the round.
➼ To do anything else is to humiliate ourselves!

MIRROR: If you're around a controller long enough you'll inevitably absorb the pain & rage they're projecting onto you (so they don't have to deal with their own issues). If we let this continue it's because we still have too much S-H, AND as a co-dependent Rescuer we may think it's helping them feel better - to ease the C's pain by providing attention, understanding & compassion. But it's never going to be enough to fill their bottomless pit AND it’s not our job to parent them! All we're doing is rewarding them for toxic behavior, giving them permission to keep up the bad behavior, & allowing ourselves to be their emotional garbage can!

CORRECTION: We need to reflect back to the C. what we hear them say & contrast that with our Truth. Also say how we feel as a result of their behavior, & if possible what emotions we observe in them. "You just told me I'm no good for nothing. I know that's not true about me AND it's not a nice thing to say to anyone!" , "I heard you tell me I'm stupid for not knowing _____. Why do you need to put me down?" , "You sound really angry at me. What's really bothering you?"

• Another way of saying this is: Throw the ball back in their court. Let them be responsible for their defense mechanisms - their unhealthy ways of communicating. Do not take it on & then feel bad about yourself.
Exp: While at a party Tina started to talk to a group of friends. One of the men asked her what she did & she told him she was an Astrologer. He started making fun of her & her profession, which Tina did not appreciate. Instead of justifying her choice of career, or getting angry & attacking him, she put her hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye, & calmly said: “Why are you talking to me that way?” He was stunned, & backed right up, barely knowing what to say - but actually apologized!

NEXT: Responding to Controllers (Part 2)

ACoAs Getting Controlled (Part 2)

2011-12-31T12:30:00.000-08:00

I CAN’T SEEM TO GET AWAY -
& it’s all your fault!

PREVIOUS: Getting controlled, (Part 1)
READING: Dealing with Manipulative people - from “In Sheep’s Clothing” book

REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

REVIEW, using T.E.A.: Many teachers & groups teach us that we choose to feel the way we do, often with a subtle judgment attached. Of course the word feel is being used to mean thoughts rather than emotions, (see post: “Feelings Aren’t Facts”, Sept '10) which is confusing & harmful, as it leads to believing we should 'control' our Es! This is not fair or realistic. No one chooses their Es, only what we Think & how we Act! Yes, sometimes changing Ts & As can shift our Es, but not always, especially not when the pain we’re feeling is old & therefore cumulative. That takes time to vent & process out of the body.

• Being controlled is an outward manifestation of beliefs internalized from childhood. And when we consider Toxic Family Rules (‘beliefs’ being a sub-category of Thinking) we find them very hard to change, indeed.
As adults, allowing ourselves to be controlled in not a conscious choice! It’s a knee jerk reaction to specific people or events that are carbon copies of our family experience. It’s a clear indication that in those moments of capitulation to the will of another - our WIC is in charge. To flatly ‘accuse’ us of choosing to be manipulated (Action) or be miserable (Emotions).... only adds to our S-H & is in fact a subtle form of abuse & abandonment.

YES - we are responsible for changing our training. We do need to learn new ways of thinking & acting so we can take back the power we give to others. BUT we can only do this if -first- we:
-- understand what’s actually going on inside of us
-- have compassion for ourselves (we didn’t cause this originally)
-- remember that changing deeply-etched brain patterns takes time
-- learn what our needs are & use them to practice having boundaries
-- ask for help whenever we need it, especially when we’re regressed (in that child ego-state of being a victim, lost child, scapegoat...)
-- develop & continually strengthen the Loving Parent voice in us 

WHO (or what) do we LET Control US?
All but one of these groups can influence us positively or negatively. It’s up to us to know what suits us best & stick to it! However this list refers to the way our negative relation to each can controls us:
• INNER DAMAGE - everything this blog covers
Also “Bitchlifestyle” blog : Who Controls You, Your Bitch or Your Brat?
• PARENTS - wanting their love & approval at any expense, we often twist ourselves into distorted versions of our True Self - & still never please them or get what we need from them

• PARTNERS - our fantasy beliefs about what a good relationship or marriage is supposed to be (especially for women - to be the ‘giver’) makes us into servants or slaves
• CHILDREN - expressing our love for them can go too far, being afraid to set boundaries or teach them discipline can let them take advantage
• PEERS / FRIENDS - trying to keep up with or out-do them, keep their approval, get their admiration, be in the ‘IN’ group....
• JOBs/ Bosses - expectation, demands ... especially the unreasonable one that we think have to be fulfilled. After all, aren’t we used to doing the impossible - or at least trying like crazy?

• NEMESES - (people we’re jealous of or in competition with) - we can do many foolish or self-defeating things to stay ahead of them or keep them from winning over us, whether the ‘prize’ is important to us or not. We become obsessed, over-work, cheat, connive, worry... just to shore up our weak ego
• ENEMIES - A) people who hate us for their own reasons. We didn’t cause it, but we can end up expending way too much time, energy & money trying to win them over or placating them, instead of leaving them alone, praying for them or being neutral - OR-
B) those we hate - & that hatred eats us up year after year - wasting time trying to get even, obsessing about telling them off (but we never do) or actually putting nasty plans into motion

• HEROES - they’re usually one-dimensional because we don’t know the real person, & we put them on pedestals - so they’re not fully human. We think that we could / should be like them, but it’s not automatically true that because they can do or be something, that we can too. And even if we can follow their lead in some way, we may not be able to for many years, or it may be a lot harder that we thought, or we may not have the same resources.... which can leave us discouraged & self-hating. We have to be realistic, without giving up, working toward goals that fit who we are!

You’re being controlled (or O-C) WHEN you STAY:
• on the phone or sit with someone you want to get away from
• in any location or event you’d rather not be (or hate)
• in any relationship, job, home.... way too long
• with someone - when you’d rather be alone, need to rest, or be doing something else, and/or --
WHEN YOU:
• buy or eat things the other person wants you to, but you don’t like
• spend a lot of your time worrying about someone else
• try to be something you’re not, or do things others want - out of guilt
• keep believing a proven liar; keep depending on someone who is continually unreliable
• keep going out with mates or friends who are totally focused on themselves, never on you
• go out with someone because they want you to, or from loneliness
• let other invade your boundaries or say mean things, without objecting
• endlessly listen to someone’s dumping, in too much pain, being demanding, needy, abusive - just using you....
• pay for things only to please another (not from love but from FoA)
• take care of very damaged people who need much more help than you can give them, because it makes you feel ‘important’, needed, less worthless....
• feel sorry for others instead of yourself

Controlling patterns are the same as Emotional Abuse.
You’re with a Controller (C.) in any relationship - IF YOU:
BEHAVIORAL
• firmly state a boundary about something, & the C. ignores it completely
• are given the ‘silent-treatment’ as punishment
• feel like you’re running a loosing race, because you’ve been deliberately isolated by the C. to make you only be, do & think the way they want
• have lost friends because the C. complained about or refused to let you see them
• friends or family see a change in you when you are with the C.
EMOTIONAL
• feel depressed & physically drained much of the time
• feel suffocated by the C being needy, over-protective or intrusive
• feel 'less than', ignorant, belittled or hopeless when you’re with the C.
• eventually 'shut down' and 'give in' rather than insist on your point of view being heard and taken seriously
• hide or run away from problems with the C. because you feel too weak to confront & stand up to them
• end up feeling guilty all the time but don’t know why
✶ are being told by the C. that what you’re feeling - anger, fear, frustration - are from your ‘issues’, that you’re causing it, you’re over-reacting.... (rather than what they ARE doing!)

MENTAL
• always second-guess yourself, because you're actually being criticized, undermined or corrected
• worry about the C’s reaction before you make a decision
• tend to 'go along with things' to avoid conflicts with the C.
• are accused of being boring now because : "You used to be so much fun, more interesting & outgoing.... you just follow whatever I say"
✶ keep being told that the C. is not 'doing anything to you', but rather that you are choosing to do or be what the C. wants! (Cs takes NO responsibility for their manipulations!)
SPIRITUAL
• feel you’ve lost your vision & are willing to compromise your values to try to please them
• are constantly judged & accused of being bad, using a spiritual or religious dogma as ‘proof’

NEXT: ACoAs Acting Controlling

ACoAs Getting Controlled (Part 1)

2011-12-27T18:24:00.000-08:00

I’LL BE & DO WHAT EVER YOU WANT -
just so you won’t leave me!

Previous: Backlash of over-control
Article: “Recognizing.....Control "Recognozing.... Control"” - extensive list of tactics used by Cs

REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

GETTING controlled by others
People who are easily controlled don’t know there’s a difference between -
a. Natural, appropriate authority (& mental/emotional coercion). Being IN control is using our power in a positive way - to be in charge of oneself or to be a good leader. The person in control is the main decision-maker, in charge of communication & makes things happen. People choose to listen & follow Cs because they want to learn, connect &/or be taken care of --
-- VS.
b. Un-natural, abusive control. Controllers (Cs) misuse power - they force us to obey them, against our will. They have no regard for our rights, needs or individuality. They use their position to suppress our identity so only their personality is visible. Their main weapon is their anger, aimed at making us afraid, so we’ll be more compliant.

ACoAs letting ourselves get controlled:
• Most ACoAs were negatively controlled as kids, and without Recovery we continue playing out the victim role we were originally forced into. Allowing others to control us, as adults, copies our earliest experiences. It keeps us symbiotically attached to the ‘source’ of our wounds & therefore emotionally immature, AND ‘protects’ us from having to face our own fear of intimacy (“ACoAs & Boundaries, Part 1 & 2”, Feb.’11)
• Allowing ourselves to BE CONTROLLED as adults is a dual experience:
First: We have to be around someone who is a controller - who belittles us, embarrasses us in front of others, treats us like a child, tells us what to do or how to be....who is manipulative & intimidating, however subtly.
Second: We have to be available. While dealing with such a person is unpleasant for anyone, for ACoAs it is emotionally debilitating - but also emotionally addictive! We fall into a black hole, regressed to an old familiar space of being a powerless child with no options. We’re trapped & become mute! We’ve been programmed to instantly surrender - we have no rights or identity of our own. And then we stay, & make excuses for the controller!

This programming is maintained via:
1. Toxic Family RULES (Sept. '10)
• “Don’t think for yourself” , “You’re stupid & will never amount to anything”.... which taught us to believe that others are more qualified to tell us what to do & how to be
• “If you don’t like it you have to stay”, “You’re always supposed to suffer”.... insures that we do NOT have permission to object or leave

• “You can never be comforted when in pain” , “Joy, contentment & peace are not an option for you”... keeps us from finding & staying in comfortable, nourishing relationships or environments
• “Other people’s needs & feelings are always more important than yours” , “I have no rights” .... makes us afraid to say what we do or don’t want / will tolerate - lest we hurt someone’s feelings or make them angry at us

• “Do as I say, not as I do” , “Children should be seen & not heard”... trained us to obey authority, no matter how stupid or cruel
• “Be loyal to the family, even if they’re crazy, hurtful, neglectful or sadistic” , “Never, ever hold anyone else accountable for their bad behavior" (especially ‘authority’)... insures that we cling to anyone who treats us as badly as our family, because no one else would want us

• “You deserve to be punished severely for bad things that others do TO you (because it’s your fault)” allows the controller to reinforce our victim status & keeps us from questioning the validity of their behavior
• And of course - our Self-Hate (our WIC’s extension of the PP) tells us we’re not worthy of consideration in any way, even when we don’t like how we’re being treated - SO “Don’t Talk, Don’t Feel, Don’t Think” about the abusive nature of being controlled!

2. ADULT EXPERIENCES
We let others control us because we never developed a Healthy Adult /Parent UNIT, to be responsible for leading our Inner Tribe, leaving the job to the WIC & PP. We give in to others because of:
• Abandonment (FoA) - afraid someone is going to leave us (a lover) or take something important away (a job), we act the Victim, trying to twist ourselves into whatever is demanded of us
• Blanking out - ‘leaving our body‘, which shuts our mind off temporarily & makes us not present at all, so we can’t think or talk - allowing others to push their way into our thoughts & actions, & take over
• Co-Dependence - we’re looking for others to tell us who we are, to know how to earn their love by trying to be what we think they want

• Hopelessness - ‘learned helplessness’ is the outcome of trauma, so we learned to not even try, even when circumstances are more in our favor
• Ignorance: not knowing what words to actually say to protect & defend ourselves, or push someone away when appropriate
• Immaturity - we think when others control us it’s an expression of their love, & we don’t want to be in charge of our own life
• Loneliness - that desperate inner emptiness which is actually a left-over from childhood, and in the present is the result of not having a Loving Parent to be nurturing, which would heal the WIC

• Naivete - not realizing (or not wanting to know) how selfish, narcissistic & unscrupulous some people are - wanting to believe everyone has good intentions or is just doing their best!
• Narcissism (ours) - whereby we thoroughly believe that everything others do, say, think or feel - is about us. Very little is!
• Perfectionism - we try to be all things to all people to make up for feeling unloved as a child, and to guarantee everyone’s approval
• Sensitivity - we are highly attuned to other people’s emotional distress, which we not only absorb (when we don’t have good Bs) but then try to fix, instead of healing our own
• S-H - a sense of unworthiness so deep that we’ll let anyone do anything they want to us
• Unable - thinking we don’t know how or can’t do anything, so let others tells us what to do

The more we try to please others (and the more people we try to please), we become:
-- MORE frantic, disorganized, overwhelmed, angry, unhappy, exhausted
-- LESS focused, rested, peaceful, satisfied, pleasant to be with
AND the fewer people we actually please!

Letting ourselves be controlled (by our fear and/or by another person) is giving our power away. Yet we think it will actually:
-- GAIN us acceptance, love, continual attention, protection
-- PREVENT being ignored, made fun of, punished or left
Unfortunately, this is an illusion!

• We can only achieve these thing with SOME people, SOME of the time, depending on who THEY are! We can be absolutely wonderful, healthy, charming, appropriate... & still be abused or negated by someone who is wounded, angry, prejudiced, drunk, crazy.... The measure of our recovery is how quickly we get ourselves away from such people. Think: how good people in the public eye are occasionally vilified, even killed, over controversial topics!
What matters is:
a. To be as sane & responsible as we can be, a day at a time
b. To choose wisely who we spend our time with!

NEXT: Getting Controlled (Part 2)

Backlash of Over-Control (Part 2)

2011-12-23T07:41:00.000-08:00

THE MORE I CONTROL MYSELF -
the more I can get over on others!

Previous: Aggression, Over-Taxing & Regrets

REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

Some CONSEQUENCES, cont.

4. Over-Control (O-C) & Manipulation
More is not always better when it comes to self-control. It's hard for ACoAs to believe that vulnerability is not a weakness, but really a virtue. Of course, vulnerability without boundaries is foolish. But here it refers to a defense mechanism becoming self-destructive when over-used
a. Rigidity: In most people, O-C tends to kill the joy of life, robbing ourselves of spontaneity & fun. This self-imposed caution can make us unhappy & unpleasant to be around
b. Secret agenda: But for an ‘elite’ group, O-C is used for an ulterior motive. They’re the smooth operators, skillful in the art of deception & manipulation: the charlatans, con artists, under-cover agents and some politicians, religious leaders, judges, lawyers, teachers and pillars of society. They will to go to any length to maintain their façade, no matter the cost to themselves, their family or anyone else.
For them:
-- self-control is simply one of the tools they use to maintain a positive public image, to not blow the cover on their actual abusive identity
-- every action is measured and always proper for the occasion. Every word is carefully selected & they seldom reveal their emotions
✶ O-C makes them feel safe, superior. They’re so numb to their deeply hidden inner pain that they’re not bothered by the harm they do

ACoAs: Ironically - while many of us who are caught up in O-C believe we are total victims & would never think of ourselves as con-artists, we are if fact being manipulative & dishonest without meaning to be. We hide behind our own special mask (a role, a defense mechanism, a character disorder....) to keep anyone from seeing what we’re convinced is the real us - weak, worthless & despicable! - which is only the WIC's toxic belief, NOT our True Self.

5. Self-Control & Prejudice
A study from Tufts University showed that effortful self-control can sometimes cause emotional unease and guarded behavior, which could be misinterpreted as racial prejudice in some circumstances.
TEST:
• Researchers ran 2 group of white volunteers through a series of computer-based mental exercises. One group's set was so challenging that people were temporarily depleted of the mental reserves needed for discipline, while the other group was given a less stressful set.
• Once the subjects were finished they met with either a white or black interviewer & discussed racial diversity, a social situation with the potential for racial tension. Later subjects rated the interaction with the interviewer for comfort, awkwardness & enjoyment.
FINDINGS:
• Those who were mentally depleted (lacking discipline and self-control) talked about race with a black interviewer more enjoyably (than those with their self-control intact), presumably because they weren't working as hard to monitor or curb what they said
• Also, independent black observers found that the powerless & therefore less inhibited whites were much more direct, real & less prejudiced in their conversations
✶ CONCLUSION: Relinquishing power over oneself (temporarily) seems to prevent over-thinking and thus ‘liberate’ people to be more authentic, which could benefit both individuals & society

ACoAs: Of course this study does not imply it’s ok to be unruly or a doormat as a result of lowered inhibitions. It’s about “Letting Go” of anxiety, looking good, projecting failure, fear of disapproval, trying to be seen, heard, accepted .... but just being open-hearted & in the moment. Then we can enjoy ourselves, be respectful & put others at ease

6. Over-control & Greed
A. Empathy Reaction - A Yale University study suggests that too much self-control not only wears us down, but even picturing other people's S-C can be too much to handle.
• Researchers taunted subjects with the story of a waiter surrounded by gourmet food he was not allowed to taste. Some subjects were encouraged to go beyond polite listening to actually imagine this scene & have real empathy with his situation. Later everyone was shown pictures of expensive items. Those who had put themselves in the shoes of the waiter had ‘suffered’ all the same S-C as he had (vicariously experienced his deprivation) - and they wanted the bling & other fancy stuff they saw, no matter the price.
STUDY Conclusion:
Apparently it's our fundamental human nature to be out of control (the 'id'), so imagining anyone depriving themselves can unconsciously effect us, eventually bringing out the greedy beast in us all!

ACoAs: This result may also be a reaction of empathy for another person’s discomfort. Most ACoAs are acutely sensitive to the suffering of others, having been powerless to alleviate it in our parents & siblings. This quality is admirable except for the fact that we DO NOT apply it to ourselves.
-- Having NOT had enough of our needs met as kids, the more we deprive ourselves now, the needier & thus greedier we become as adults. We try to fill the ‘hole’ with addiction to people & possessions, behaviors easily triggered by the endless possible choices in our society which can lead us to being over-spenders &/or hoarders.

B. Mimicking Behavior
On the other hand, appropriate S-C can be learned & improved. U of Georgia did 5 separate studied on the issue of over- vs under-indulgence & found that healthy Self-Control is contagious.   EXP: Subjects who thought about a friend with good S-C persisted longer on a hand-grip task commonly used to measure this behavior, while the reverse held true for those who were asked to think about a friend with no restraint.
CONCLUSION:
People tend to mimic the behavior of those around them, so bad habits can spread though social contact. Therefore choosing positive company to hang out with can improve your S-C. "...and by exhibiting self-control, you're helping others around you do the same." says lead author Michelle vanDellen, psychology professor at the U of G.

ACoAs: We are so used to staying attached to people who have similar or worse life-styles than those we grew up with - that we continually reinforce our negative attitudes & habits. This is not helpful or necessary! 12-Step Programs tell us to "Stick with the winners". This reminds us that one way we really can grow healthier is by choosing our work & personal environments with care!

NEXT: Getting Controlled by Others

Backlash of Over-Control (Part 1)

2011-12-20T02:21:00.000-08:00

GOTTA CUT THESE BONDS -
or I’ll explode!

Previous : Price to pay for Over S-C

HEALTHY age-appropriate self-control is an integral part of mental health, which comes from the ‘UNIT’ ego state. But constant self-restraint, from S-H & FoA, can backfire. Among other things it ties up a lot of our energy resources. Eventually we break down or blow up.

STUDIES:
1. Self-Restraint & Aggression
• Past studies in the Journal of Consumer Behavior showed that exerting too much self-control can increase irritability & anger
• New research also found that making the constant effort to stop ourselves from ‘undesirable’ actions can backfire:
-- extreme self-discipline contains the seeds of its own undoing - an explosive failure of control called “dis-inhibition.” People who are trapped in this pattern can suddenly shift from one unhealthy extreme (being ‘perfect’) to the other - acting out a rebellion against too many self-imposed restrictions over too long a time (becoming a ‘failure’).
-- people who try to suppress feelings and behaviors in a variety of ways most often end up with emotional discomfort or distress & cognitive disruption - loss of focus & obsessing about the very things they’re not ‘allowed’ to do!

• Participants in one study were chosen by 2 criteria - those who did vs. did not restrain themselves emotionally - to see how each would react to neutral things presented to them labeled as ‘angry’ or ‘not angry’. Different categories of self-control were chosen & subjects' behaviors noted.
Observations re. the ‘restricters’ --
-- they more often preferred the ‘angry’ options
-- the active dieters preferred public service ads framed in threats
-- those who carefully controlled their spending of a gift certificate were more interested in looking at angry faces than fearful ones
-- those who picked an apple over chocolate were more irritated by ads with controlling phrases like "you ought to" or "need to,” & were more likely to choose movies with a theme of hostility over other genre

ACoAs: It makes sense that the more we deny our legitimate needs, the angrier - & more depressed - we get! But this in no way means that it’s OK to blow people off because we happen to be in a bad mood or feel overwhelmed (not letting them know we’re unavailable or have changed a plan), nor to harm anyone when we’re in a rage.

2. Over-taxing self-control
From U of Minnesota: Professor Kathleen Vohs’s study showed that suppression of emotions (NOT lack of sleep) generates aggression. Half of the subjects were required to stayed awake for 24 hours & half were well-rested. Then all were shown disgusting scenes from 2 movies - Monty Python's ‘The Meaning of Life’ (1983) and ‘Trainspotting’ (1996). Some were allowed to express reactions to the gross images & others were told to show no emotion.
• Later everyone played an aggressive game which they won or lost by chance, & winners were allowed to blast opponent with a loud noise. Those who had -suppressed- their emotions blasted their competitor at a 33% higher noise level than those -allowed- to show emotion, regardless of how much sleep they'd had.
Conclusions:
--"The ability to engage in self-control is determined by prior use of over-self-control, not by how much sleep one had the night before."
-- “Aggressive behavior involves an action by someone else that causes you to want to retaliate”
-- "Being taxed by doing one task can have spillover effects on another." (Even if we try to compartmentalize different tasks we\ do during the day, it turns out they are all connected - emotionally)
ALSO:
The study suggests that because overtaxing self-control drains us, leaving less in reserve for later tasks, doing that makes it easier to fail at achieving all our personal or social aims. “People have a diminishable supply of physical & mental energy for self-control. When they use this energy toward achieving one goal, they have less of it available for others. When you want to succeed, the best thing is to set up your day so you focus your self-control resources on the specific task you most want to accomplish."

ACoAs:
• Spillover: when we have to sit on our frustrations & anger from one or more sources (work, family, shopping...) we may take it out on someone else - unrelated, or turn to an addiction to keep ourselves numb
• Energy drain: This is especially obvious when we waste so much effort worrying, projecting failure, obsessing about some abandonment..... that we have little left for actual accomplishments that would make our life better!

3. Self-Control & Regret
Positive use of self-control - the capacity to resist unproductive temptation, such as overbuying, splurging on tasty but unhealthy food, and indulging in luxuries we can’t afford, especially impulsive purchases & expenditures that are likely to be regretted later on
Negative use of self-control -
-- Hyperopia: the compulsion to always have to ‘do the right thing’ & act responsibly
-- Excessive Farsightedness: always choosing virtue over vice
➼ These two related control-distortions can lead to regret & sadness about missing out on the joys & pleasures of life (not smelling the roses along the way) because of a lifetime of making ‘righteous’ choices

ACoAs: Regret is a basic state of mind for many of us. But in our case, ‘being righteous’ has mostly to do with obeying the Toxic Family Rules, even when we consciously try to be spiritual & generally good people. We complain that we’ve done everything we’re supposed to & but are still alone, have bad relationships & can’t get our life going the way we want. Our EOC keeps us stuck.

NEXT: Backlash, Part 2

Price for Emotional Over-Control

2011-12-16T14:14:00.000-08:00

I TRY SO HARD TO BE INVISIBLE -
but all it gets me is more trouble!

Previous: Over-C Ourselves, Part 3

REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

Obedience vs Self-Control
• Obedience is the willingness to follow commands, orders & instructions without question, because they come from a legitimate authority. It is most often seen as ‘necessary for the common good’ - usually to uphold social order. It requires that the individual give up control to another, supposedly for their own benefit, such as protecting children from the dangers of painful, tricky, or damaging situations.
-- The rationale for promoting obedience, especially in the young, is that at some point, with maturity, the training is transformed into self-control - being inner-motivated. This can happen if children grow up in a relatively benign atmosphere with a fair & respectful authority figure. But when subjected to a coercive (controlling) environment, as most ACoAs were, we learn to obey the Toxic Rules by denying /discarding the very parts of ourselves that would be needed to become autonomous. So as adults we’re still functioning as a symbiotic extension of the family instead of motivating ourselves based on our True Self.

• Appropriate Self-Control is the opposite of obedience - because of where our motivation is located - inside vs. outside of the Self
-- It represents having internalized the rules of our family & society, (hopefully positive, beneficial ones), but only to the degree that they fit our personality & our ethics
-- It requires enough S & I from our family of origin that we can actually think for ourselves, deciding daily what works for us & what doesn’t.
From Encyclopedia of Mental Disorders: “In recent years, the term ‘self-management’ has replaced ‘self-control’ because self-control implies changing behavior through sheer willpower. Self-management, on the other hand, involves becoming aware of the natural processes that effect a particular behavior and consciously altering those processes, resulting in the desired behavior change.” (ie: making autonomous choices)

ACoAs
In most cases, we had to be totally obedient to survive & later to fit in - first to parents, then school, religious community & work.
-- Most of us were coerced at home into being compliant on pain of suffering & death. There was no fairness, or leeway for our individuality. We submitted - or else. Eventually we either rebelled or caved.
-- Others of us had so little guidance that we basically raised ourselves without being expected to obey anyone. This may seen heavenly - to a teen - but a child without rules or expectations not only is being severely neglected at that time - but can suffer from lack of motivation & direction for years to come!

EITHER WAY - we were deprived of the opportunity to learn healthy self-control - which requires a SELF to implement! The only thing we could do was to over-control ourselves - that is, to hide our true emotions, needs, even our intelligence, competence & talents - unless those gifts were needed to take care of our sick, abusive, depressed & crazy parents &/or siblings - but never meant for ourselves!

COMMENT on the Humboldt University study (from ”Types of Self-Control”, Part 3 post): Everyone is born with our own style of emotional reactivity but environmental experiences also effect brain chemistry, modifying the outcome. How we ultimately react to life as adults will depend on this combination. Regardless of what type were born as, pre-Recovery ACoAs are rarely ‘Resilient’. We’re either over- or under-controlled because of all the stress we endured as kids.
-- SO: coming from a turbulent, dysfunctional home, the impulsive kid can easily turn out to be the trouble maker or drama-queen, & the shy one ends up isolated, depressed & marginalized
-- BUT: if someone came from a loving family, the extroverted kid could grow up to be a dynamic go-getter & the shy kid be the quiet one who successfully uses their influence & skill in-the-background

Some RESULTS of Emotional Over-Control (EOC)
The following list is specifically related to ACoAs who are very shut down - O-C that they are visibly repressed & withdrawn. Their need to still protect themselves from the abusive adults they grew up with is ongoing, even when they’re no longer in that kind of physical or emotional danger. The Lost Child Role is the most obvious version, who is mute & feels invisible. But since this coping mechanism has to do with negating our True Self, even those of us in the Hero Role can find it hiding under all our accomplishments - if we dig deep enough.

Re. SELF
• We only notice & focus on the negative or rejecting things in our environment, reinforcing the paranoia & depression we carry from the past
• We keep our feelings hidden & are so self-protective that we become social isolates, incapable of genuinely connecting with others
• We’re so defensive that it's very hard to have mature adult relationships. We stay in the one-down victim role, giving others too much power over ourselves
• We assume that all future outcomes in our life will be as disappointing & hurtful as they always have been

INTER-PERSONALLY
• We can't understand other people's responses to our persona (how we present ourselves) or why they treat us so 'badly'. We react to being scorned or ignored by being over-sensitive & avoiding or rejecting others
• We’re attacked by others for our seeming lack of: caring, openness, communication, emotional awareness, responsiveness, sharing, support or signs of warmth. This reinforces our conviction that we are right to be withdrawn, making us go deeper into our shell
• People become so frustrated with our unavailability that they complain or nag at us, verbally attack, are angry at, fight with or reject us
• Our passivity & withdrawal makes 'present' people uncomfortable (those who are more active, talkative & emotionally open), which can: subject us to their disdain, cause us to be blamed for all kinds of problems not our fault, have our intentions be misjudged & misunderstood, even be seen as the 'sick' or crazy one

At WORK
• We are too anxious to work for anyone else, finding it hard to take direction or be under someone’s thumb - because we grew up with chaos & abuse we have an intense need to control everything, at all times
• Our lack of social competence & problem-solving skills makes us ignore or deny inter-personal or task difficulties. These accumulate & end up overwhelming us - so we can't deal with anything
• Our need to avoid conflict, disapproval & taking risks, when faced with problems, actually makes others angry at us, sometimes even aggressive - the very thing we were trying to prevent
• Our silence in uncomfortable situations can aggravate others who want to talk about or fight things out, magnifying the original problem

BOOK: We can find this personality type in “BARGAINS with FATE”, taken from Shakespeare's plays. Dr. Bernard I. Paris describes the Detached / Resigned character, whose only goal is safety via total ‘freedom’. Their Bargain is: “If I ask nothing of others, try for nothing, expect nothing .... then no one will bother me & I won’t fail or get disappointed” - which is their Reward. What is suppressed is their aggressive side. (SEE all 5 in my website)

NEXT: Backlash from O-C

OVER-Controlling Ourselves (Part 3)

2011-12-11T16:34:00.000-08:00

"ALWAYS THE BRIDES MAID -
never the bride!”

Previous: Over-Controlling Ourselves, Part 2
Review: All the post about Toxic Family Roles (May & June, ’11)

Ways to TELL if we are emotionally over-controlled:
Always the Outsider - it’s ironic that even when attending 12-step meeting of ‘like-minded’ people, we still feel like we don’t belong! When we’re emotionally over-controlled (EOC) --
• it keeps a wall between us & others, especially those who already have a genuine capacity to ‘see’ and accept us
• we gravitate toward ‘people, places & things’ which simply don’t suit our needs, our personality or our goals. We stay even when we’re angry & unhappy with them - insuring that we don’t fit in or feel a part of things
• we often don’t stay long enough or go deep enough with others to let them get to know us & show the good things they’re capable of providing
• we do & say inappropriate or obnoxious things that are likely to put people off & make them withdraw from us, especially if things are going too well for too long (like a week or a month!)

Feeling Unsupported - by staying EOC, we are always suspicious of anyone wanting to be kind, encouraging & helpful, so that:
• we isolate ourselves from the mainstream of society, which keeps us from finding out what kind of support systems are available to us, OR refuse to make use of them when we do know
• we unconsciously prevents ourselves from attracting people who have the capacity to be nurturing &/or nourishing, instead - choosing or letting ourselves be chosen by narcissists & abusers, wolves that are sometimes disguised in sheep’s clothing
• we reject legitimate offers of nurturing or help & find it painful when we’re complemented or lauded. This is predictable as long as the WIC is allowed to make our relationship choices - which will inevitably duplicate our family

Illusion - Experiencing great disappointment in our parents when we were too young to handle it & being in constant emotional pain made it imperative for many of us to create an inner world of fantasy about having an ideal life, with a loving family & never any disappointments!
• As adults this fantasy life can turn INTO various illusions, such as:
-- looking for the ideal partner, friend, teacher, boss.... so that we’ll finally feel safe & get our needs met. Anyone less than that brings up all our terror. When we are inevitably disappointed, we get angry that they don’t live up to our expectations - leaving us feeling hopeless! ALSO,

-- being convinced everyone else has the happy life we don’t, even people on the street we’ve never met, especially if we see them with a partner, children, clothes, cars.... that we wish we had. We know how bad we feel inside, and think everyone actually can see how worthless we are - & we think that’s why they stay away from us. So we look at the glossy surface appearance of others & assume that’s the whole story, O-C (repressing) our ability to see ourselves & others as having several dimensions
• ACoAs think this way because:
-- our media & culture pushes surface images as reality, when they’re not
-- emotionally we’re in child-mode, & little kids are very literal, concrete (what you see is what you get)
-- our family taught us to deny & ignore what’s inside - the deeper truths, whether emotional, mental or spiritual. What counted to them was how good everything looked to the outside world. The facade was all-important, and became the only possibility we were allowed to see.

Isolation - Without boundaries our WIC uses isolation to protect itself. Being O-C can cut us off from various emotions (anger, sorrow, sexual feelings, competitiveness... ), from many of our good qualities or potential talents (artistic abilities, generosity, patience....) & prevents others from benefitting from these valuable parts of ourselves, because:
• we’re afraid of getting stepped on, manipulated, used, boundary invaded, left.... is we are open & available
• we’re afraid of getting sucked into taking care of others or not being able to get away from someone we don’t like because of our co-dependence or passivity, so we’d rather not engage at all
• we don’t want anyone to find out how weak, damaged, vulnerable, dumb, needy ... we really are (everything S-H tells us) --- AND
• we’re sure we’re doing the world a service by withdrawing, to protect them from our rage! We may not admit to that feeling, but isolation is a sure sign that we’re worried about it at some deep level & are trying to keep the lid on.

Jealousy & Envy - emotions considered ‘negative’ that have to be O-C
Envy is about 2 people : “I envy you for having such great hair, having an advanced degree....”, ie. wanting what we don’t have, while --
Jealousy involves 3 or more : “I’m jealous that he has so many friends”, ie. wanting a relationship someone else has, OR
“She pays more attention to her friends than to me”, ie. trying to hang on to someone or something we don’t want to lose.
BOTH emotions come from feeling powerless to get what we want & need in life, not necessarily what the others have, exactly - just that they have something good, & we don’t.

• We may deny being EOC, yet often covet what others are or have. What gives us away is the rage we feel at certain kinds of people or situations! We say ‘those people’ are ‘entitled’, with a sneer in our voice because:
-- we think they’re unfairly lucky - having a family, a decent relationship, a good job, lots of friends... & hate them for what we don’t have permission to get for ourselves
-- or, we call them brats, selfish, arrogant .... because they don’t hold back the way we do. Perhaps they are, and/or we just wish we had some of that confidence & permission to do & say what we’ve always wanted to, but aren’t allowed!
And this kind of ACoA deprivation is always about the BIG A - abandonment - family taught us we couldn’t have, so we won’t let ourselves. The WIC says it’s so-o unfair, but we refuse to admit that now we are perpetuating the original A/A!

Over-Dependence - Cutting off (control) important parts of ourselves - our intuition, observations, intelligence, psychological growth... - keeps us in emotional child-mode even tho we’re physically adults. This leaves us with a desperate need for others to take care of us as replacement parents, giving them the right & the power to run our lives. Arranging this ‘deal’ with someone is not that difficult since there are plenty of other damaged people in the world to choose from who are control freaks

• To establish an unhealthy bond with a caretaker type -
a) WE need to be willing to give up most or all of our autonomy, which may be our usual style (Victim, Lost Child), or we may only abandon ourselves in romantic relationships. Too easily we end up doing mostly what they want & thinking their way. We need them to tell us who we are & that we’re OK. What we’re really asking for is permission to be alive!
b) ‘THEY’ can be a taker/user or rescuer, but some degree of narcissist - or else they wouldn’t want to take on the parental or bully role towards us. Takers & rescuers both like to boss people around, they just do it differently - the taker does it with anger & obvious superiority, while the rescuer does it under the guise of helping & caring, or guilt & martyrdom (“See how much I do for you!”).

Perfectionism - Just as illusion is about others, P. is about ourselves. We O-C to compensate for never feeling good enough to be loved unconditionally. We figured that we should always be perfect, in every way, otherwise we deserve to be dead - or definitely unacceptable.
If we are flaw-less, know everything & never make a mistake - we’ll never have to re-experience the pain of rejection - everyone would always accept & love us, starting with our parents. This is the WIC’s delusional tactic geared at getting approval from our rejecting, controlling family.
• It’s actually a form of S-H & a sneaky version of EOC which forces us to deny our soft side, our human limitations, needs & vulnerability. Since no one can be perfect, we waste our efforts & prevent feeling valued & wanted (even when we are!), but we foolishly keep trying - which adds to our desperation & depression
• This compulsion keeps us from trusting, taking appropriate risks, challenging & empowering ourselves to grow, OR from helping others to develop themselves when we’re in positions of authority, like a parent, boss, group leader....

GROWTH: When we ‘let go’ of having to control our inner world & start finding the lost parts by listening to our healthy intuition, hard-won knowledge & experience, we can comfortably participate in the world on our own terms.
It also allows us to tell the difference rather quickly between who is safe & who isn’t. There’s a big difference between being cynical or paranoid and being realistically cautious. People always tell us about themselves from the very beginning - not everything - but enough for us to take it slow & evaluate wisely!

NEXT: Price for Over-Control

OVER-Controlling Ourselves (Part 2)

2011-12-06T15:46:00.000-08:00

I HAVE TO BEAT MYSELF UP -
to keep myself in line!

Previous: Emotional Over-Control (EOC), Part 1

REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

Unhealthy BELIEFS of Over-Controllers:
• Everyone is out to rape me emotionally
• If I lose control, there will be no sanity in my house (or on the job)
• No one's ever going to get under my skin again, & I'll never let myself get hurt again
• No matter what happens to me, I’ll never cry or need anything again
• Don't trust anyone with your feelings, beliefs or thoughts
• Getting angry or losing your cool is unsafe, so avoid conflict at all costs
• It’s important to keep control over your feelings so you don't go insane
• Never let others know how their behavior or actions affect you
• There’s only one way to survive a crazy environment - to climb into your shell, & stay there! (Do you hear the voices of the 4 Toxic ROLES?)

PATTERNS we USE to Over-Control ourselves
a. DEFENSES - Rigidly held defense mechanisms are used to hide from emotions we’re afraid to experience, but the ‘protection’ ends up running our lives:
• Addictions - as a way to numb out the cruel PP voice & to ignore our WIC the same way our parents did, but only adds to our suffering
• Counter-Phobia - being attracted to things that are scary while not fully aware of the fear. Dangerous relationships & activities are seen as fun, in reaction to how deeply terrified we really are. We’ve stuffed all the fear into the unconscious, but it needs an outlet, so we rush towards unhealthy ‘excitement’. This can include torturing ourselves with ‘what if’ thoughts & endless obsessions of S-H & FoA
• Fear of Engulfment, which was originally caused by being over-controlled as a kid. Not having developed inner boundaries, we put up a wall against intimacy to keep everyone at a distance, while longing for connection. The wall gets activated whenever anyone wants something from us, even if it’s what we would like to do & would make us happy.

• Guilt, (review post ‘What is guilt?’) - an emotion that controls us to:
-- ensure we obey our family’s Negative Rules
-- keep from learning healthy rules & using them to improve our lives
-- prevent us from developing our True Self, as that would take us away from the toxic family system
• Over-activity, controlling how much & what kinds of emotions we allow ourselves to have by staying so busy that we don’t have to feel anything ’real’, using it to cover up S-H & powerlessness
• Paralysis, stopping ourselves from saying & doing things that would be good for us, because of fear of punishment, fear of abandonment & fear of visibility..... those good things that would help us grow, stop others from hurting us, enhance our self-esteem & move us toward our dreams
• Vagueness - staying in ‘lala land’ so we don’t have to face any reality info we don’t want to deal with, starting with how badly we’ve been treated & that we now have to care for ourselves. We don’t notice how much we spend, how others treat us, how we feel, how we treat others....

b. SELF-HATE - controls us to:
• keep ourselves in line (harsh discipline) because we’re not take charge of our thoughts & actions (healthy control) via a mature ego state
-- Young man: “I’m not supposed to look at or covet other women because I’m married - but I do anyway - so if I’m strict about beating myself up for looking & for what I’m thinking, I’ll stop being bad”. It works temporarily but doesn’t last, creating a vicious cycle
• stave off the inevitable abandonment
-- Young woman: “I just met a new potential partner / boss / friend... & I’m already thinking - I know I’m going to fuck it up”. So she won’t really let anyone get too close, to protect herself from what she believes to be inevitable - that they’ll hurt her &/or leave.
• stay symbiotically attached to the Introjects (no S & I)
-- Teen: “I don’t care about keeping my room neat, even tho I would like it, because Mom is horrified that I’m not compulsively clean like her. She keeps telling me I’m a pig, repeating: ‘You could lay down next to dirt and sleep!’ - which to her is the greatest possible insult. So if I’m a pig, I might as well act like a pig!”

Our Damage: Being subjected to intense control is painful & debilitating, especially as kids, when we were powerless to escape it. Yet because we constantly experience that growing up, it has become the most familiar way ACoAs have of relating to self & others. As a result, we can be both controlling and controlled, depending on who we’re with & what kind of stress we’re under

• Freud theorized that successful socialization is a process by which children learn to suppress immediately gratifying impulses, to do what is best for oneself and for society. After all, you can’t have your cake (later) - & eat it too (now)!
✶ Unfortunately for AcoAs - that suppression went too far in our family - not just our child-ish impulses but our very core self had to be obliterated. The more some of us conformed to this harmful requirement the more acceptable we seemed to be - on the surface - perhaps even getting less of the abuse. But CoAs who tried to hang on to our True Self (which ‘they’ labeled rebellion, disobedience, stubbornness, back-talk...) were crushed, leaving us scarred & crippled

O-C is based on fear of our ‘id’* desires AND legitimate needs:
• ACoAs were not raised by the ‘Handbook of how to be a Healthy, Happy Human Being’, leaving our Child-part impulsive, anxiety-ridden, only able see itself & the world thru the distorted lens of the alcoholic /narcissistic thinking we grew up with. Pre-FoO Recovery, most of the time we act as badly as our family, or put ourselves in positions to get punished for trying to be ourselves. We’ve been so brainwashed that we’re desperately afraid of letting go of our family patterns, which the WIC believes would make us fall into a black hole of chaos & pain we’d never get out of

*The ID: Developed by Freud, the id is the only part of us (id, ego, super-ego) that is present from birth & contains everything that is inherited. It is entirely unconscious, includes our instinctive and primitive behaviors & is the source of all psychic energy, making it the primary component of personality. The id is driven by the Pleasure Principal, always pushing for immediate gratification of all desires, wants & needs, which if not satisfied right away creates much tension.

• Our difficulty in letting go of over-controlling ourselves makes it hard for many addicts & other types of ACoAs to benefit from the spiritual connection provided by the 12 steps of AA, especially:
Step #1: “We admitted we were powerless over (alcohol / our family / our damage / our resistance / our fears...) -- that our lives had become unmanageable”, and
Step #3: “Made a decision to turn our will & our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him”.
• According to our WIC, to actively accept & use either one of these Steps feels like surrendering - again - to an abusive authority, like the ones we grew up with. John Bradshaw reminds us that: “Until the age of 7 children deify their parents, & after age 7 they parentalize their Deity’. With that in mind a saying was created in ACoAs meetings: “God is NOT an alcoholic parent”.

• Instead, we can gradually learn that the God-of-our-understanding is a loving Higher Power/ Universal Energy that we can rely on, available for healing & strength. Trust comes from actual experience & doesn’t come easily for ACoAs. We need to find & connect to healthy people, growing our own Loving Parent & get into the healing flow of the universe, making it possible to experience being truly taken care of at a deeper level. Then it becomes safer for us to let go of O-C (AA calls it our destructive ‘self-will run riot’) which we can only do when our inner threat-level goes down thru emotional growth & mental clarity!

NEXT: O-C Ourselves - Part 3

OVER-Controlling Ourselves (Part 1)

2011-11-30T18:16:00.000-08:00

THE BAD PARENT -
doesn’t want me to outgrow it

Previous: Types of Control (Part 3)

ARTICLE: “8 Styles of Controlling Parents”, & while on that site, click on ‘Statistics’!

AS CHILDREN
Normal / Healthy: Self-control (S-C) is about setting limits with oneself, but forming it is a long process because we are not born with boundaries. Developing them is linked very closely to --
-- how children feels about themselves, which comes from unconditional love, stability & guidance
-- being taught how to deal with everyday frustrations & practicing those skills by making their own choices and decisions, when appropriate

To develop healthy S-C people need 2 perceptual faculties :
a. the ability to estimate time, in order to make decisions based on immediate as well as future outcomes. Young children cannot do this because they live completely ‘in the present’, so it’s not rational to expect them to have the same S-C as older kids & adults
b. the ability to direct attention away from a current event. This allows people to take time to evaluate situations, in order to make better decisions & weigh the consequences of their choices. Altho young children’s attention can be easily distracted, they aren’t able to consider alternatives or potential outcomes, so it’s inappropriate to demand it of them
• Children need discipline given with consistent, age-appropriate expectations & realistic consequences, but without constant punishment or power-conflicts with parents. They need the security of knowing the rules and limits of behavior - without which they feel uncared for & at a loss. The healthy goal is to guide & nurture them so they feel supported and valued, rather than judged and rejected.

ACoAs:
• Some of us received little or no guidance - left too much on our own. This gave us no sense of boundaries leaving us full of anxiety, not knowing what was expected of us or how to function in the world.
• But most of us were given too many rules, assumed to be ‘little adults’, demanded that we be competent & self-sufficient way beyond our years. This also created great anxiety, knowing we couldn’t fulfill their spoken & implied expectations, but desperately trying to please. For some of us the rules kept changing, arbitrarily. For others they were rigid & unrealistic. For all of us, no matter what we did, it was never good enough!

Description: Over-controlling (O-C) ourselves is not so much about our actions - altho it can effect that too - but mainly means to reject our emotions, needs & observations to such an extent that we go thru life in a state of constant ‘undernourishment’ & bewilderment. Our rejected parts then become our shadow side, which we’re terrified to face.
• Instead we are run by a False Self (FS), a protective identity formed so early that we actually think it’s the real us. It’s made up of various aspects of the WIC (scared, angry, apathetic, suicidal...) & the PP disguised as a 'guardian' in the form of a know-it-all goad with a cattle-prod. The FS is comfort-seeking & therefore short-sighted, making unwise, unhealthy decisions - a kindergartner trying to do college level work.

• Peter K. Gerlach, MSW, writes that unhealthy will-power occurs when a person is controlled by a fierce Guardian hardened into possible sub-selves such as Addict, Zealot, Fanatic, Perfectionist, Preacher, Survivor, Martyr.... Its determination to protect the WIC at all costs can cause rigid self-discipline toxic to the host person & others. For example, the talented Magician sub-self can distort reality to justify or excuse self-destructive attitudes & behavior patterns.
-- Of course some ACoAs react to the controlling inner voice by doing very little with our life - from confusion & terror, OR nothing positive - from misdirected rage.
Over all - these limiting sub-personae cause intense shame, guilt, fears, reality distortions (CDs) & trust imbalances, resulting in difficulty with emotions & bonding to others.

The Over-Control of ACoAs is not related to being Introvert or Extrovert, which are inborn, but rather ignoring qualities (being intuitive, intelligent, perceptive, outspoken...) we all share that were unacceptable to our family, & would have made our lives even more miserable if we hadn’t suppressed them - altho some of us could not hide them well enough to escape being attacked
Exp: A perceptive & bright daughter was a threat to her incestuous father because she wouldn’t be easy to silence if he molested her. So instead he turned her into the family scapegoat, verbally & physically beating her. This succeeded in convinced her that she was stupid & unable to trust her observations & intuition. Even tho she resented him, she still gave him the benefit of the doubt & spent much of her life hopelessly trying to win his approval!

Copying our early training leads to BECOMING --
-- on one hand: ‘anorexic‘ about self-care - depriving ourselves of many legitimate human needs. Depending on our personal style, we don’t allow ourselves enough (if any) awareness, accomplishments, comfort, compliments, food, kindness, love, money, relaxation, respect, sex, support, touch ...... There’s even a net forum called 'I Starve Myself to Have Control Over Something In My Life'!
-- at the same time: over-indulgent, over-spenders, hoarders & debtors - so that on the surface it looks like we’re giving ourselves whatever we want. Actually, it’s the WIC spending time & resources on love-buying & filling the empty-hole-in-our-soul with people, places & things that can never satisfy because they’re all forms of addiction - to relationships, to substances, to activities... rather than being nourished by love & right-knowledge.

Source: Being over-coerced &/or under-attended are abusive & abandoning styles of upbringing, which forced us to gradually over-control ourselves in reaction to the restrictions & neglect. Deliberately or not, our family gave us the message: “Search & Destroy any signs of personal identity. Be ‘good‘ (emotionally O-C) or you’re not part of this family!” And we know that every kid obeys their Family Rules - whether by giving in or rebelling. Toxic rules are like a virus in our operating system, invisible while corrupting, which needs to be de-bugged!

• Over-controlling ourselves is a defense mechanism developed early on to survive lack of healthy nurturing, and now it poisons all our interactions as long as we’re run by the WIC, who is filled with fear (FoA) & false beliefs (various CDs) that come from our Negative Introject. For exp:
-- Anytime we’re faced with scary new experiences - the WIC comes up with the usual reasons why it won’t work out
-- If we even consider going after something we want a great deal, the PP says: “Who do you think you are - anyway?”!
When either of these two ego states is in charge we don’t have an ‘off’ switch for obsessive thinking or compulsive behaviors. Without a Loving Inner Parent to sooth & a Healthy Adult to guide, we use the only tools we have for ‘self-control’ - various forms of self-abuse!

NEXT: O-C Ourselves - Part 2

Types of Self-Control (Part 3)

2011-11-24T17:39:00.000-08:00

I HAVE TO CONTROL EVERYTHING
to feel safe

Previous: Types of Self-Control - part 2
Review: Healthy Adult & Loving Parent (11/’10)

REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

• Objective Control: What is measurable, and psychologically or practically achievable - given the person’s age, genetics, native abilities & leaned skills.
However, the perception of control (whether accurate or not) influences people's behaviors and emotions more strongly than actual control.

• Perceived Control: ‘generalized expectancy for internal, as opposed to external, control of reinforcements’. It is people’s sense of how effective they are in the world, based on who is sitting at the control panel of their life, which has a great impact on their physical & mental health. It will depend on --
-- Contingency: deciding if a particular outcome is controllable or not
-- Competence: thinking that we are capable of creating a desired outcome OR can avoid / suppress an undesirable result or not

• People generally attribute one of these 4 broad causes (reasons) for arriving at a goals or receiving rewards:
-- Internal Stable : self-determined by our own ability & personal mastery ("It's due to me")
-- Internal Unstable : how much effort we put out, & for how long
-- External Stable : objective task characteristics & level of difficulty, OR outcomes created by powerful others ("It's due to them")
-- External Unstable: chance, fate, karma ("It's just luck")

• 'Internals' believe they have general control in life, and specific control over areas such as health, intellectual functioning, memory & relationships. They tend to be highly motivated to achieve, have low outer-directedness & believe they’re able to successfully take actions needed to achieve their goals (Read more about ‘Locus of Control’)

• Believing in our ability to control outcomes is necessary to be successful in life, as long as it’s based in reality.  BUT, many unhealed people only have the Illusion of Control, assuming they have power over people, places & things - when they do not. This is a type of fantasy & narcissistic grandiosity - used as a bandaid to cover feelings of S-H & powerlessness, instead of finding & expressing the empowering energy of our True Self.
It’s what drives symbiotic, co-dependent ACoAs to believe we can do the impossible - control everything & everyone else by our thinking and actions - anything to avoid working on own damage! See ‘The 3 Cs’ of Al-Anon & the Serenity Prayer.

STUDY from Humboldt University, Germany: Broad styles of emotional control can be identified early in life. This study followed children for 19 years, starting at age 4, eventually dividing them into
-- Under-controlled: “When feeling frustrated they may act aggressively towards others, notwithstanding the negative consequences.”
-- Resilient (balanced): those who are “good at modulating their emotions, interacting with others & bouncing back from adversity”, AND
-- Over-controlled : who are quiet, self-conscious & uncomfortable around strangers “... control their emotions too much, so are less ‘natural’ & ‘spontaneous.’ Being slow to warm up, they are seen by others as shy.”

• One observation from the study was that - “compared to the resilient children, the other two types took longer to move into adult roles, such as leaving home, starting a romantic relationship or finding a career. Accomplishing these milestones requires a social adeptness that over- and under-controllers take longer to develop....”

• Jerome Kagan, from Harvard University, studies whether personality changes with age, & noted that brain wiring is a fundamental factor. He & his colleagues used MRI scans to show that the brains of young adults - who were identified as shy when they were toddlers - work differently than those who had been more extroverted as kids. But there are many other factors, including class, that make a difference in how kids mature.

STUDY - by the U. of Alabama of people with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) done in an inpatient rehab program to see what effects personality types would have on assessment and intervention. Using the MMPI, patients were grouped into Resilient, Over- & Under-controlled, based on Block & Block’s 1980 theory of 2 psychological functions needed to effectively adapt to change & conflict:
-- Ego control : able to act on or inhibit emotions & desires
-- Ego resiliency : the flexible & appropriate expression of ego control in the face of uncertainty, change & environmental demands - without which people tend to become either over- or under-controlled.

• Patients were separated into categories based on the ‘Big Five’ personality traits: A = agreeableness, C = conscientiousness, E = extraversion, N = neuroticism & O = openness :
-- Resilient: the smallest group, were assessed with low N, above-average scores on all other factors & were relatively well adjusted
-- Under-Controlled: the highest percentage of patients, assessed with low C (C = self-disciplined, careful, thorough, organized, deliberate & needing achievement), who sometimes also had low A & high N, generally with more external problems
People with SCI are more often under-controlled extroverts, with traits such as sensation seeking, risk taking, high activity levels, and low C.

-- Over-Controlled: the group who were high in N and low in E, & had more internal problems. They were prone to obsession, pessimism, avoidance & internalization (taking things personally). They most often reported being depressed & less likely to find meaning in their circumstances, compared to the active and flexible types.
-- Over-controlled/Non-desirable was a sub-category of patients who had less C and A, along with the high N & low E and were in the greatest need of intervention - more negative, pessimistic & internalizing.
NOTES:
• These last 2 types showed the highest levels of depression at admission and lowest acceptance of their disability at discharge.
• In spite of having SCI, people who were able to be socially active & mentally positive experienced less emotional distress or interpersonal difficulties after leaving the hospital.

ACoAs tend towards extremes, being either :
Over-controlled - complaining, depressed, fearful, invisible, isolating, passive-aggressive, sullen, victims.... reacting to the early abuse by being Risk-Averse, sometimes to the point of not functioning well at all

Under-Controlled - angry, controlling, dramatic, impulsive, over-doing, Risk-addicted....
The Laundry List says “We became addicted to excitement”, from being exposed as kids to endless chaos, unpredictability & danger. Now we think ‘drama’ & anxiety are normal, constantly recreating it in our lives to keep the adrenalin going. It’s one reason why it takes so long even in Recovery to relax & be at peace - emotional swings are the only states that feel ‘normal’. When things are calm & sane we feel bored!

• Fortunately, the addictive pull of Hi & Lo extremes fades as we heal, just as always hiding out from the world gradually becomes less satisfying than making appropriate connections.

NEXT: Over-controlling ourselves

Types of Self-Control (Part 2)

2011-11-19T18:53:00.000-08:00

“I KEEP A TIGHT REIN -
on this heart of mine”

Previous: Types of Self-Control, Part 1

Review post : The Introject (8/’10)

Emotional-Over-Control (EOC) is a hidden problem being studied by Professor Tom Lynch of Southampton University. In a lecture he said:    “... heightened threat sensitivity and diminished reward sensitivity transact with early family experiences, emphasizing ‘mistakes as intolerable’ and ‘self-control as imperative’ which results in an emotionally over-controlled coping style that limits opportunities to learn new skills and exploit positive social reinforcers”.

➼ This is a classic description of what happened to many ACoAs in our childhood. To restate Dr. Lynch:
a) too much danger       + b) lack of love - combined with
c) having to be perfect + d) denying one’s True Self
-- leads to stagnation, depression & social ineptness!

• Author & lecturer Alfie Kohn’s article ‘Why Self-Discipline Is Overrated’ states that: “....(excessive) self-discipline can be less a sign of health than of vulnerability. It may reflect a fear of being overwhelmed by external forces or by one’s own desires that must be suppressed through continual effort. In effect, such individuals suffer from a fear of being out of control” ...... (appropriate) self-discipline implies an exercise of the will, therefore a free choice, but many such people are actually not free at all, psychologically speaking. For the overly controlled, what looks like always being on top of things is more about not being able to relax, let go, allow for process or be spontaneous - be in the moment.

• In his classic work Neurotic Styles, David Shapiro described how someone might function as “his own overseer, issuing commands, directives, reminders, warnings and admonitions concerning not only what is to be done and what is not to be done, but also what is to be wanted, felt, and even thought.”
ACoAs: Shapiro’s list is referring to an unhealthy internal influence. So WHAT the ‘overseer voice’ is telling us is what matters. If it’s harsh, unforgiving & restrictive it’s either the S-H or PP. If it’s firm but respectful & kind - then the overseer is the ‘Unit’ ego state.

• Re. self-control for Delayed Gratification (from Part 1): researcher David C. Funder observed that those who keep putting off getting a reward for their efforts (like too many ACoAs) are not actually better at self-control, but seem compulsively disciplined, unable to be any other way!
➼ Ironically - this way of functioning is definitely a loss of control.

BTW - what identifies ‘being out of control”? Most people think it’s ‘loosing it’ by expressing some intense emotion like yelling (rage, frustration... ) or crying (pain, sadness.....). By itself this is not loss of control. There is only one cause: lack of choice!
Not being able to act is just as much a lack of control as taking actions that are compulsive (not in our conscious control). They’re both driven by deep WIC anxiety that we’re not aware of or not in charge of modifying.

Exp: Doing - Willfully trying to befriend someone in a group who is obviously ignoring you &/or clearly angry & volatile!
Exp: Not Doing - Staying, staying, staying, stuck in your chair - at a party where your alcoholic boyfriend is deliberately ignoring you while flirting with his ex! - you can’t bear to leave him behind with someone else instead of you.
Everyone sees what’s going on - making a fool of yourself by not leaving, but you’re paralyzed. While you can’t ignore one more indignity from him, the pain of betrayal & loss has triggered abandonment shock!

• Harmful purpose & effects of exerting Emotional POWER - over others, or Emotional CONTROL - over oneself. In either form it :
-- is an attempt to influence inner feelings, beliefs, attitudes, values
-- is an internal strategy for dealing with issues, conflicts or mistakes
-- is less obvious than physical methods, because it’s a way of manipulating & influencing (self or others)
-- produces subtle results when dealing with people, places or things - anytime emotions are affected
-- is identified by signs of emotional suppression, depression, negativity, pessimism, low self-esteem, insecurity, discouragement

From Wikipedia: How self-control is handled is directly related to the pressure an individual may face.
• Positive: Good Pressure - Being in a competitive but non-judgmental, non-prejudicial environment makes people want to be like those around them, become motivated, inspired and gain self-control.
• Negative: Bad Pressure - In a judgmental & prejudicial environment with no competition, people can get depressed, unmotivated & lose self-control.
• Neutral: No Pressure - In a free environment with no competition, where one can do whatever one wants, self-control is based on however one feels at the moment. With no one else to compare to, people will be more -or- less motivated, depending on the urgency of whatever they’re doing, or the capacity for self-motivation.

ACoAs - Re. ‘No Pressure’, as mentioned in other posts, self-motivation is not our strong suit, as mentioned in other posts, We are driven to take care of others - instead of ourselves. When we have an open chunk of time, we often think “I don’t know what to do”, OR “I have so many things I could do / should be doing - I don’t know which one to pick”. So we end up wasting the opportunity by doing nothing or just puttering around. Then we feel frustrated & upset with ourselves (S-H). Some Suggestions for change:
Non-action - If you really need to just mentally veg, process things, get over being sick or badly need to rest .... then give yourself permission!

Actions - • Keep a list of FUN things you like doing, and how much time each one requires, from least to most favorite or shortest to longest time. Review it whenever you are going to have free time. Pick one & do it even if all the chores are not finished!
• Keep a list of TASKS you’re ‘adult’ wants to get done - when there’s an opening in your schedule. When you have the chance, pick one - whichever would relieve immediate stress on you. Is it doing the laundry, straightening the place up, answering some emails ....?

✶ If possible, do one from each category - fun + task. Whichever action you take, cross it off the chores or put a check mark on the fun list.   Consciously give yourself credit. Every positive action counts, no matter how many others are left. They add to your self-esteem & let your kid know you care. Progress NOT Perfection!

NEXT: Types of self-control, Part 3

Types of Self-Control (Part 1)

2011-11-15T21:59:00.000-08:00

WHO MOTIVATES ME -
Others or myself?

Previous: Controlling & A.

Review posts: Healthy Adult & Loving Parent, (11/2010); Personal Responsibility (8/2010)

REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

Def. of CONTROL, from the dictionary: To exercise authority over, direct & command -OR- to hold back, curb, restrain - self or others.
BTW, in case it’s not clear - control is about power! The power to make someone do or be what we want them to. When applied to ourselves -
• we can use that power well - to heal & nurture ourselves & express our best to the world - OR
• when used as a defense mechanism to deny & cover up our pain, that same power is debilitating & destructive

Locus of Control : what we believe causes the end-result of situations - either from our own actions & character, OR by external forces
a. External: Outcomes are outside of our control, determined by 'fate' & independent of our hard work or decisions (belief of most ACoAs). Such people tend to be more stressed and prone to clinical depression
FoO sources: most often have a lower socioeconomic status because social unrest increases the expectancy of being out-of-control, come from large single parent families headed by women &/or if parents are themselves ‘externals’

b. Internal: Outcomes are within our control, determined by our attributes, decisions & hard work. (Take Quiz at MindTools) Overall these people are happier & more successful.
FoO sources: families who emphasize effort, education, responsibility and thinking, where parents are warm, supportive, encouraging, give their children the rewards they promised & are consistent in self-discipline

✶ With Recovery, ACoAs come to understand & accept b. However, we do not have 100% control - over everything, (contrary to some Teachings) as pointed out in Step 1: “We admitted we were powerless over.......”. To believe otherwise is called grandiosity!

SELF-CONTROL (S-C) can be defined as gathering one’s willpower to accomplish things that are generally regarded as desirable, including long-term goals, & is highly valued by society.
It is internal mastery over our own actions - by monitoring our thoughts, regulating our emotions, setting goals & making responsible choices. This gives us the ability to moderate competing urges, desires & activities. Self-control implies the ability to govern oneself - to make choices & decisions that benefit ourselves, & then others. To do this we need to honor who we are - our needs, tastes, abilities & experience.

• S-C is not an inborn character trait that would automatically allow us to govern our thoughts, emotions & behavior. It is a skill that has to be learned & built up - by the process of ‘stalling, distracting and resisting’ negative urges. Healthy families help their children to grow this skill as part of their over-all training. In adults - developing S-C is motivated by a conflict-free desire to stop doing harmful things to ourselves or others. Practice & perseverance are required, but it gets easier with repetition.

VALUE of Self-Control - it allows us to:
• be a responsible and trustworthy human being
• gain self-esteem, confidence, balance, inner strength, a sense of personal mastery so we can take charge of our life
• eliminate the feeling helpless & having to be too dependent on others
• have enough mental & emotional detachment to give us peace of mind
• be in charge of our moods & replace negative beliefs - helps keep in check self-destructive, addictive behaviors & obsessive thoughts

ACoAs - Healthy self-control is very difficult to achieve as long as:
• the WIC is the ego state in charge of our daily actions & reactions
• we don’t own our True Self, by following the Toxic Rules
• externally, we stay symbiotically attached to our family
• internally, we continue to obey the Negative Introject

SELF-DISCIPLINE relies on that same willpower as self-control, but instead uses it :
a. to prevent ourselves from doing what is seen as UNdesirable, OR
b. to delay instant gratification & pleasure, in favor of some greater gain or for more satisfying results at a later time
• Healthy self-discipline is not rigid or limiting. It provides the stamina to keep going & the ability to handle stresses, with flexibility.

VALUE of Self-Discipline - it allows us to:
a. -- obey legitimate rules & laws
-- avoid talking or acting on impulse, overcome procrastination & sloth
-- not give in to addictions & other self-destructive patterns
b. continue & finish internal or external projects, even after the initial rush of enthusiasm has faded, or when they get too boring or too hard

ACoAs are often short on healthy self-control, which would come from the “Unit”, and too long on self-discipline. At first the latter category may seem like a good thing - because it’s supposed to keep us from doing actual bad or wrong things (which it can also do) - but that’s not the main way we use it

✶ What ACoAs often do, instead, is to prevent ourselves from pursuing what we believe to be UN-desirable actions, BUT are in fact positive ones DIS-allowed by our Toxic Family Rules: having an opinion, thinking for ourselves, standing up for our rights, leaving bad situations, following our bliss, feeling our emotions, relaxing, being happy ....

• Western culture is so focused on DO-ing, that we think of any topic only in those terms. For ACoAs, unhealthy self-control is not just about stopping ourselves from taking harmful or unacceptable actions, but is more often an internal self-denial. While ‘acting out’ (a visible lack of restraint) causes obvious problems for ourselves & others, too much internal self-control (being up-tight) can also create distress, such as social isolation, poor relationships & the development of severe, difficult-to-treat mental health problems (anorexia, chronic depression....)

NEXT: Types of self-control (Part 2)

‘Controlling’ & Abandonment (Part 2)

2011-11-11T02:49:00.000-08:00

THOSE OLD FEELINGS -
give me acid-reflux!

Previous: Controlling & A. (Part 1)

Review Posts: My Rights - Qs (12/’10) and
ACoAs & Having Rights (7/ ‘11)

Abandonment (A.) as SOURCE of Control Issues, cont.
REVIEW: Present-day Results of being Over-Controlled as a child
-- are a perfectionist, driven, rarely satisfied - especially with yourself
-- are intimidated by or feel enraged at controlling people
-- expect others to hurt, judge or take advantage of you
-- experience temporary dissociation (splitting), disconnecting from self
-- feel chronically empty or numb inside, easily bored, restless
-- feel like you’re always under scrutiny - even when alone
-- find it hard to relax, laugh or be spontaneous
-- keep yourself isolated from shame & so ‘no one can hurt or leave’ you
-- frantically try to avoid real or imagined abandonment - by clinging, people-pleasing, being invisible....
-- lose yourself in relationships by automatically putting others' needs first; over- & then under-value people you get too close to
We HAVE:
-- chronic obsessive thoughts, going ‘round & ‘round without solutions
-- confused or distorted self-image: “Who am I really?” , “What do I really look like?” (feel ugly, fat, too thin too short....)
-- compulsive self-damaging behaviors in 2 or more areas of life, such as an eating disorder, addictions, fights, under-achieving....
-- harsh "inner critics" that torture you, especially after a loss
-- impulsivity - can’t control your choices & reactions
-- inappropriate & intense anger; difficulty controlling temper
-- mood swings not caused by bipolar disease
-- paranoid thinking - as a regular way of experiencing others
-- recurring suicidal thoughts or actions
-- trouble asserting yourself or feeling proud of your accomplishments
-- trouble finding a spiritual belief, or one that feels right

• All long-term unmet childhood PMES needs cause damage to our development. It’s the same as nutritional deficiencies, like for sailors in the past who came down with scurvy (internal bleeding, connective tissues weakness & sudden death) for lack of vitamin C in their diets during long trips.
For ACoAs this deprivation will eventually show up as fear of taking appropriate risks, lack of trust, fear of intimacy, not having a personal dream to follow, lack of healthy communication skills (how to talk to oneself kindly, how to make small talk, how to stand up for oneself), a weak sense of self.....

• Think of accumulated old A. pain (terror & rage) as acid, filling a deep well buried in our unconscious. We may not taste it all the time, but when it bubbles to the surface it gives us intense emotional heart-burn! All intense present-day A. pain is kicked up from the reservoir when someone or something bumps up against an unhealed wound in our psyche & the lid get blown off. (Like: not getting a call back, being left out, a broken promise, being accused wrongly or made to wait ....)

However, this pain can actually be an opportunity to clean out a little more of that acid - as long as we recognize it for what it is & don’t put all our attention on the other person or event that pulled off the scab. What the WIC needs then is total empathy & nurturing!

✶ In the present ACoAs often accuse other adults of abandoning us, when some interaction or loss hurts. What we’re actually experiencing is our WIC’s OLD A. pain, which is still held in our mind & body. It is usually out of proportion to what’s actually happening now. Naturally there are real-life situations that make us sad, frustrated, angry... but unless an event is extreme, such as the death of a close loved one, a life-threatening attack or illness, a fire... most of the situations we encounter that push our A. button don’t warrant the intensity of our reaction. Remember “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical”.

When others A. us: if someone we very much want to be with doesn’t call or write right back - we can get very angry at them for not responding, immediately. We feel as devastated as if they had threatened to take away our livelihood or our home, which are NOT equivalent to being ignored or put off. Yet we get just as scared & blame ourselves, & then try to control them to stop our pain.

When we A. others: We also have great FoA when we aren’t perfect. Talking too much, asking questions, expressing strong emotions with someone - or standing up for ourselves! - is NOT equivalent to attacking them, yet ACoAs can feel the same intense anxiety & self-hate as if we had! So we try to control ourselves (not the same as being in control of ourselves) to stave off being abused &/or left.

Exp: A breakup or other loss can leave an ACoA feeling self-hate, depression, despair, even being suicidal. While breakups are almost always emotionally stressful, healthy people don’t fall into such a deep hole when it happens to them. ACoAs not only take the loss personally - “I’m not good enough to be loved”, “I’ll never be loved like that again” .... but the current situation taps into that acid-filled well, so we experience 2 different levels at the same time: the intensity of our WIC’s accumulated old hurts & the recent real or projected loss. The combination can be devastating.

OVER-CONTROLLED: Primary emotion is Self-Hate
Not having had the freedom to ‘be all you can be’ in our family made us believe that certain parts of us were so unacceptable that we had to lock them away - forever! We tried to protect ourselves from rejection and punishment - even tho what they were rejecting & punishing was the very essence of our being! So little by little we became controlling toward ourselves, to the point of forgetting our True Self.

CONTROLLED: Primary Emotion on the surface is FEAR
Not ‘being in our power’ makes us terribly vulnerable to people, groups & institutions whose specific goal is to control & dominate, especially the ones who tell us they just want to help! This makes it easy to let ourselves be controlled, since we think this means we’ll be taken care of. All it gets us is more repression & damage.

CONTROLLING: Primary Emotion on the surface is ANGER
Not being internally ‘allowed’ to meet our needs pushes us to make others do it for us - any way we can - and desperately try to arrange our world to fit an ideal - so we’ll feel safer. We become the ‘control freak’ we hate so much in others!

BOOKs by J. Ray Rice: “Thank You for Loving Me...” (originally for teens in treatment for Abandonment) and “What I Must Give Myself - First!”

NEXT: Types of Self-Control

‘Controlling’ & Abandonment (Part 1)

2011-11-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

I NEVER GOT WHAT I NEEDED -
so now I force it out of others!

Previous: Purpose of Emotions - Motivation
Review Posts: Abandonment Pain, Now (7/’10); The Introject (8/’10)

REMINDER: Go to Acronym PAGE for abbrev.

Abandonment (A.) as SOURCE of Control Issues
• To understand getting controlled or acting controlling, we have to know the underpinnings. Both are caused by our original abandonment experiences. In common usage, a person is said to be A. when someone physically leaves us - moving away, a break-up, divorce, long or repeated hospitalizations, death.....
However, based on ACoA experience we know this definition is too limited. When we observe little kids - ours or others - we notice how very needy they are. This is perfectly normal, in spite of what we ACoAs were told growing up = that we were too much, too selfish, a bother, too sensitive, dramatic .... We got the clear message that at best we were being tolerated!

• A broader & more accurate definition of Abandonment is: "Not getting enough of our needs met in childhood". This includes all needs on each of the 4 levels of PMES - Physical, Mental, Emotional & Spiritual. We can also say that A. is not being loved unconditionally, with the resulting loss of genuine connection so crucial to a child’s sense of well-being & safety.
✶ Technically, adults cannot be abandoned, unless they’re physically or mentally incapacitated, so the term mainly applies to children.

• EMOTIONAL A. makes kids having to hide the parts of themselves that are considered NOT OK by the family (from the “Laundry List”), in order to not get rejected: DON’T make mistakes, have needs, be successful, show feelings
Exp: We were told that what we felt was not true or legitimate - "You don’t have anything to cry about so stop being such a baby”, “Stop crying or I’ll really give you something to cry about" "That really didn't hurt", "You have no right to be angry"....

• Picture all children as having 100 different needs in each of the PMES categories (total 400 - an arbitrary number, as an example). Then consider the reality that in a severely dysfunctional family each kid only gets a small percentage of those needs met - just enough to survive. Of course some of us got more, while others didn’t even get that much & have died too young as a result! Depending on birth order, gender & astro-sign*, different siblings received differing amounts in each category. But over all, let’s say that we were only provided with 30 - 40% of our normal human needs - when we were the most fragile & in need of great care.

*Whether we believe in the value/legitimacy of astrological signs - or not - children are very often favored because their ‘native personality’ is similar to the parent, or rejected by the narcissists because the child was not like them! This will clearly show up in astro-charts.
Exp: A Gemini father who incested each of his children (total of 5 boys & girls) was slightly less abusive towards the one child who was also a Gemini. This son is the only sibling who was able to forge a decent life for himself (becoming a doctor), but not without emotional scars. The others became addicts, severe under-achievers &/or criminals.

• Every need that consistently goes unmet - is ignored, or worse yet, punished - creates intense fear and shame in children. Total dependence on their caretakers make them very vulnerable, so too much deprivation will feel life-threatening, & in some cases is! The longer the lack continues throughout childhood, the more the terror & helplessness grow. With no validation & nowhere to process the emotional pain, it all goes underground & slowly eats away at us. Toxic Beliefs then get ingrained : “I’m not allowed to want anything and I’ll never get what I need - ever!”, “Don’t FEEL!” and “Being close is dangerous”!

• When we combine these Toxic Beliefs with a great backlog of unmet needs we’re left with an overwhelming desperation to be ‘fed’ by someone, anyone - along with the deep hopelessness of it ever happening. Pretending we don’t have needs or suppressing our awareness of them does not make them go away. So we push them into our ‘shadow’*, which is made up of all those parts we believe to be so awful that we have to deny their very existence. Only filling needs will diminish them, like eating stops the feeling of physical hunger, but in both cases the needs come back & have to be regularly replenished.

*From Wikipedia: In Jungian psychology the shadow aspect is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, instincts & shortcomings.... "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. It may be (in part) one's link to more primitive animal instincts, which are superseded during early childhood by the conscious mind”
➼ Unfortunately for us, ACoAs not only relegate our ‘unpleasant’ aspects (such as the ‘7 Deadly Sins’) to the shadow side BUT also many of our good qualities - parts of ourselves that were not allowed in our family! We become terrified of these aspects & actively do anything to keep them at bay, using a wide variety of defenses & addictions. The more we suppress those legitimate needs the more anxiety builds up. Sooner or later they leak out or erupt in distorted ways, like being clingy, invisible, manipulative, irresponsible, vague, needy..... AND/ OR
controlling, mean, demanding, domineering, promiscuous, pushy...

IRONY: The more we deny our legitimate needs and natural qualities - the needier (& meaner) we get!

We are STILL controlled by our PARENTS if we:
-- are afraid to express our true E. & opinions around them
-- get tense even thinking about being around them; want to reduce contact with them or sever it all together - but feel guilty & afraid
-- feel : confused by their mixed messages; intimidated or belittled
-- feel : disloyal when you act or feel differently; easily annoyed or impatient with them without knowing why
-- find it hard to be emotionally separate from them (feel their Es for them, care too much, assume you know what they need...)
-- spend time or talk to them more from obligation than choice

NEXT: Controlling & A. (Part 2)

PURPOSE of Emotions : Motivation

2011-11-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

I NEVER REALIZED -
how much my feelings make me do things!

Previous: For Decisions

REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrevs.

2. For the INDIVIDUAL - Cont.
f. To MOTIVATE Actions
• Psychologists define motivation as the driving force by which humans achieve their goals (the internal & external factors that cause & direct behavior), and it is our emotions that prepare & drive us to take those actions. The urge to act is hardwired to specific emotions, an automatic built-in part of us. When we feel emotionally, we also feel physically. Our muscles tense or relax, blood vessels dilate or contract.... signaling us to either do something urgently or to stay in our comfortable state

COOPERATION: In spite of many factors that discourage cooperation & maintaining social relationships (self-interest, greed, the pleasure of instant grat....) people do manage to get together & stay together. Emotions allow us the benefits of long-term relationships with people or groups that are important to us, because they provide the self-control that helps us resist the temptation to act irresponsibly or to run away.
✶ This is why it’s imperative to have access to a wide range of Es, and that they be as cleared of damage as possible.

RISK: Action requires risk, & the willingness to take risks is rooted in our emotions, which are themselves based on our moral convictions - those values that do move us, not those that ought to move us.
When we’re confronted with a new experience, new opportunity, new danger - we wonder: Should we be courageous? withdraw? hedge our bets? What’s an appropriate risk? To make sense of an unexpected experience we need to interpret what it means: is it good for us, bad for us or irrelevant. Our values can generate the emotions that inspire up to act.

ACTIVISM: (see ‘Purpose for Es - Survival’ post , Oct.'11)
In 1938 Carl Jung wrote: “There can be no transforming of darkness into light or of apathy into movement - without emotion”, indicating the profound role that Es play in shaping & directing human actions. Pro-social emotions such as guilt, empathy, sympathy, caring, and especially justified outrage .... may be used to influence an apathetic groups of people into becoming one of positive action to benefit others in need. These emotions can shape the way a group functions, leading to action strategies that focus either on social stability or social change, depending on the problem.

QUICK RESPONSE: Because Es reflect back to us our reactions to our environment, they can also guide us to act in ways that are useful & appropriate to situations we encounter
Exp: -- when you experience pleasure, excitement, joy - you can respond by coming back for more, once or as many times as possible
-- if you see your two-year-old son in the middle of the street with a car coming, you feel intense fear. This automatically prompts you to rush out to save him without having to think

OBSTACLES: Emotions can help us overcome obstacles in our environment. For example:
-- the anxiety we feels when we're about to take a test, although uncomfortable, helps motivate us to study so we can do our best
-- anger can motivate people to protest injustices, & help them override the fear they might feel at a demonstration or rally
-- guilt may keep someone sticking to their diet or finishing a work assignment. It doesn’t mean we should feel guilty, just that it’s what prompts some to follow through with a difficult project or goal

AVOIDANCE: By nature we are motivated to avoid pain & be attracted to pleasure. We choose actions based on what emotion we want to experience or elude. As a kid in school, what determined if you raised your hand to answer a question? It depended on which felt safer / better: the pleasure & recognition of answering it right, or avoiding the embarrassment of getting it wrong

LIMITATIONS: Es cannot fix problems - we can’t ‘anger’ something into a solution. We also need free will. Sometimes we can have a strong desire for something but then don’t create an action-plan. Es may be a driving factor in wanting to change, but they have to be combined with a desire to act in order to become motivation. And once we have the motivation, there has to be actual carry-through - the signals sent to our muscles that allow us to move. However, if Es are too overwhelming, they will prevent us from taking any action at all.

ACoAs have a lot of trouble with motivation. (See post: "Autonomy & Attachment", Sept.'10 and “ACoAs & Being Visible", Nov. '10). In this context it's because we are so disconnected from our feelings. Emotion is energy for movement. ACoAs have a huge reservoir of unexpressed old pain that weighs us down, trapping all that energy that could be used to take actions. Recovery phrases: "Feel the fear & do it anyway", "Act yourself into right feelings"

UNDER: ACoAs often don’t 'feel like' doing things - so we just don't. These may be actions:
-- that some part of us really wants to take, but are too scared to do (go to a class, make friends, play an instrument...)
-- that we hate doing but need to (cold calls, taxes...), or
-- that have to do with self care, which we don’t have permission to fulfill (staying healthy, Recovery activities, speaking up for ourselves ...)

OVER: Others of us over-DO, not taking breaks when we need them (sick, over-worked, tired...), don’t take time to rest, process or have fun - because of toxic family Roles & distorted beliefs that generate painful emotions like guilt, shame, FoA & S-H. Rather than allowing our emotions to guide (not dictate) our actions, staying extremely busy insures that we don’t have time to feel much of anything!

• When specific actions are important to us or if the consequences of blowing them off are dire - we need to deal with what’s behind our choice of over-action/ under-action - intense resistance caused by our rage, terror & the distorted beliefs or demands of the WIC.

NEXT: ‘Controlling’ & Abandonment

PURPOSE of Emotions : Decisions

2011-10-29T19:29:00.000-07:00

I CAN’T DECIDE !
- what if it’s the wrong choice?

Previous: For Prediction 

Article: “The Role of Emotion”

2. INDIVIDUAL NEEDS
e. For DECISION-MAKING (DM)
• Decision-making is about evaluating & achieving goals, & the most meaningful ones are combined with strong emotional tags. Recent scientific studies have established that the role of Emotion in DM is biologically extensive and complex, & therefore indispensable. The brain's areas used for thinking are strongly connected to emotions, as shown by people with severe frontal lobe damage, who are left with an inability to make practical & social DMs, even tho they still have all the information & skills need. Their damage was not in memory or intelligence, but the neural connections between emotional & cognitive centers of the brain.

• California Professor of Neuroscience Antonio Damasio suggests we have emotional processes called "somatic markers" made by strong chemical connections between events that are important to us & the emotions they induce, which are stored in a section of the prefrontal cortex (the whole section normally associated with rationally thinking). When we face complex or conflicting choices, we may become overwhelmed by too many options & not be able to decide using logic alone. Somatic markers can then simplify things by focusing our attention on specifically useful & desirable options.
For more info, read Emotional Decisions, and the Somatic Markers Hypothesis .

CHOOSING - When we try to figure out something or make a decision, we:
• Consciously use cognitive functions (thinking) via the rational cortex which takes at least 0.1 seconds to get going. This level of DM is based on the principle of utility, where the value of each option is assessed by its cost-benefit to us or a loved one.
Exp: Stopping oneself from crossing a busy street when the light is yellow

• Unconsciously we also react with emotions - especially under stress such as in heated arguments or being in immediate danger. Emotions happen almost instantly, so it’s much harder to notice & be in charge of them!
Exp: Saying something inappropriate to the boss as a knee jerk reaction

• Directly, feelings stimulate our brains to deal with input very quickly or in specific ways. If information is processed disregarding facts, common sense or other factors, it can easily result in poorly analyzed & therefore inappropriate final actions
Exp: Calling an old lover who has made it clear she/he’s not interested

• Indirectly, we observe how we react emotionally to unpleasant encounters, notice what we think about doing & remember what has happened on other occasions. We learn from our experience & adapt our actions accordingly.
Exp: Feeling love for an abusive ex, but knowing it’s not safe to reconnect, or we may want to hit someone who insulted us, but don’t

• If we do something that harms us or contradicts our values, our Es will let us know - so we need to pay attention. Even when we’re just imagining what might happen, our Es are still triggered, & hopefully we always use them as a guide in picking the best options available.
Studies show that when people's emotional connections are severed in the brain, they can’t make even simple decisions, because they don't know how they feel about the possibilities they have to choose from 0 SO don’t complain about have Es!

Some influences on Decision Making
• Anticipatory Emotions (re. before an event):
Neg: E. anxiety & mental worry about not knowing how to decide, making the wrong choice, not having enough info.... OR
Pos: pleasure & excitement about having attractive options, not knowing for sure but willing to take a chance/ risk, hoping to learn or experience something new....

• Anticipated Emotions (re. after an event):
Neg: fear, guilt, anxiety about what will happen as a result of our decision - being rejected, causing more problems, not getting what we want..... OR
Pos: relief, wonder, excitement about the potential benefits of the choice made - leaving a bad relationship, going to a longed-for event, choosing between desirable job offers....

Other Factors: (These conclusions come from various studies - & may seem obvious or logical - but it’s useful to have ‘scientific validation’)
• MOOD we're in at the time of DM -
When participating in, or even just observing, an ambiguous or pleasant event, being in a good mood will allow people to access positive associations in memory that contribute to a positive evaluation of the situation (If I’m feeling good when meeting someone new, I’m more apt to like them). A theory of “mood maintenance” states that happy decision makers are reluctant to gamble since they wouldn’t want to undermine their happy feelings in case of loss.

Studies about gambling choices & job selection decisions also showed how Es influence us:
-- unhappy subjects preferred high-risk / high-reward options, because sadness generates an inherent goal of ‘reward replacement’, while --
-- anxious subjects preferred low-risk / low-reward options because fear generates an inherent goal of ‘uncertainty reduction’

• MEMORY: Any Es we experience in a situation will be recorded in our emotional memory banks. Later those Es will be activated when we face a similar condition, or have a difficult decision to make quickly or under pressure (state-dependent remembering). Emotions work as “memory retrieval cues” & effect our DM, yet we seldom realize how we felt in that previous experience & how it’s influencing us now. We will make very different choices in the present if the memory of a similar event from the past is a happy vs. one than is distressing

• HELPING: (Review “Weak Decision Styles” posts, April 2011)
When legitimately trying to help someone else make a decision, we need to first find out what their style is - if it’s primarily emotional or logical - so we talk to them from that point of view. Since Es always play a part in everyone’s reactions, we can make emotionally colored appeals in order to encourage them in the ‘right’ direction. It can also be used to manipulate people to our will: children do this all the time - knowing how to get to their parents, & successful sales people are trained in techniques such as NLP

At the same time, ACoAs need to honestly evaluate our motives for wanting to influence someone, before proceeding. We all may be guilty of this occasionally - but to consistently try to control what others want & how they live their lives is about our FoA & arrogance (grandiosity), as well as insulting to their DM ability.
Of course, even when what we want for others is reasonable & healthy, we aren’t always successful at convincing them to make decisions we believe to be good for them, such as getting an alcoholic parent / sibling / spouse to go to AA or other family members to go to Al-Anon.
✶ In any case, our primary Recovery goal is to keep the focus on our own emotions, needs, motives & goals.

ACoAs: We often have difficulty making decisions because:
• we’re so fearful of displeasing someone, lest they get angry at us, OR
• that we’ll make the ‘wrong’ choice, be sorry later & then have S-H
ALSO:
• we’re so brainwashed by our family that we don’t know what we actually want & like
• our symbiotic attachment to them makes us believe what they taught us rather than what works for us
• we don’t have a right to say what we want or like when we do know
• we have internal conflicts that are so strong we become paralyzed - & call it being lazy! The confusion in our thinking & feeling can be between the WIC & the Healthy Adult, the Bad vs the Good Parent, mental health vs the addict’s voice ....
✶ ACoAs need to continually pay attention to our emotions & intuition - that still small voice, that whisper - that tells us what’s really going on, if something’s wrong, to ask for our needs and to never give up!

NEXT: Purpose - Motivation

PURPOSE of Emotions : Prediction

2011-10-24T22:42:00.000-07:00

NOTICING OTHERS’ FEELINGS -
helps me know what to expect

Previous: For Protection

REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrevs.

2. INDIVIDUAL NEEDS - cont.
d. To PREDICT BEHAVIOR
• Psychological research has shown that Emotion shapes behavior, perhaps because strong Es reinforce experiences. Knowing how someone feels will help us evaluate how they will act.

From AREK: We all have a chronic or habitual emotional state that determines our fundamental & relatively constant behavior patterns. When we experience success or failure in our activities, emotional levels move up or down accordingly, but eventually re-balance, returning to our personal base line
AREK’s site includes an emotions chart which reflects the same viewpoint as in the ‘What about Emotions, Part 2’ post (Aug '11). Here he numerically grades each E. by intensity, from -0- at the bottom of the Unhappiness Domain to -4.0- at the top of the Happiness Domain. While no chart can ever be complete, this type can be used as a general guide to understanding & predicting human behavior in all it’s complexity, so we can make better choices in our relationships

ATTITUDES (Att) are someone’s consistent evaluation of people, objects, & ideas, based on TEA - Thoughts (cognitive), Emotions (affective) or Actions (behavioral). Explicit Att are opinions that people consciously endorse & can be easily described, whereas implicit Att are involuntary, uncontrollable & usually unconscious. Attitudes can predict behavior if we know which of these two categories someone is coming from in a given situation

T.O.M. -Theory of Mind- acknowledges our capacity to understand internal states such as beliefs, feelings, desires, hope & intentions. We can create a mental picture of our own emotions & reactions, which helps us understand that other people’s behavior is caused by their inner feelings, beliefs or intentions. This allows us to anticipate & predict some of what to expect from them
• We know that whatever goes on in the mind of others is not visible, so our images remain a “theory” that we create. So T.O.M. is not a form of mind-reading but more like putting oneself in someone else’s shoes. For example - even as a kid, you ‘understood’ that your sister would be sad, furious & frustrated with you IF you tore up her favorite dress! And you could also predict how she’d react - yell, hit you, tell your parents, get back at you later - depending on her personality

CHILDREN: A group of Child Psychologists made a systematic examination of emotions & themes in children's play to see if the combination could provide useful information about their bad behavior (acting-out). In play scenarios made up by 4 & 5-year-olds, expressions of emotional distress & destructive themes (aggression, personal injury, unusually negative responses for their age...) correlated with their actual behavior problems, as rated by parents & teachers.

SALES: Marketing studies have used emotional measurements to see if they could link people’s purchasing decisions & capacity for persuasion with emotional experience. They concluded that combining the knowledge of people’s emotional responses with other key measures gives a fuller understanding of consumers’ true basis for their choices, providing companies with an effectively tool for connecting with customers. Es play a vital role in behavioral decisions & can account for 70% of the respondents' purchasing intentions

ACoAs: Again, the type of Predicting referred to here is NOT mind-reading, which is based on our assumptions, projections & wishes. Rather, it is the ability to observe what others are telling us about themselves - which they do all the time - AND recognizing what our emotions are telling us about them.
As we get to know people we can make general but legitimate assumptions about how they’re going to react when they’re in a variety of emotional states & social situations. It’s up to us to observe & stay awake for this kind of information.
Children figure out how to do this at an early age by watching their parents & others around them, so they know what’s expected of them, how to respond & how to protect themselves. BUT we we taught to not trust those observations - so we ignore what we know, to our detriment!

• Not only do ACoAs try to mind-read, but we also make the mistake of ‘predicting behavior’ based mainly on the way our parents treated us & each other - instead of responding to who someone actually is in the present. Exp:
-- If we were constantly neglected as kids we expect everyone will ignore us now
-- If we were always scapegoated in the family, we keep ‘seeing’ ways others marginalize us
-- If we were usually punished for getting angry, we assume everyone else will also reject us when we express our anger ....

➼ Yes, we can easily find people who are just like our family, often choosing & then staying with them because we can act out the Negative Prediction of always & inevitably getting abandoned.
However, these are not the only possibilities. There are respectful, caring people in the world as well. We have a right to be with them - so believe in that right & keep looking!
✶ Relations are like fish - it’s up to us to pick the ones with the least bones!

NEXT: For Motivation

PURPOSE of Emotions : Protection

2011-10-20T04:51:00.000-07:00

ACCESS TO MY EMOTIONS -
gives me an early warning sign of danger

Previous: To feel Alive & for Self-Awareness

Article: “The World of Feelings & Emotions

2. INDIVIDUAL NEEDS - cont.
c. PROTECT from HARM
• BODY - i. Painful Es like depression, hostility, rage, anxiety, worry... have been linked in many studies to heart disease & other physical illnesses such as diabetes, as well as to hospital deaths caused by stroke
ii. Pleasurable Es: A first-time study of ‘positive’ emotions linked to illness concluded that people who are usually happy, enthusiastic & content are less likely to develop heart disease than those who are not. This was done in Nova Scotia (1995), using 1,700 people who were followed for 10 years. Dr Davidson noted that the chronically unhappy people had a 22% higher risk of having a heart attack. Even those with some positive feelings we less at risk, & the safest were the overall happy people, even tho they sometimes got depressed as well

• MIND - Our emotions give us information about what’s going on in our environment. We subliminally pick up signals about situations that will produce an emotional reaction, but we can’t always tell what set off our ‘Spidey Tingle’. We might say: "Something doesn't feel right about this" or "I had a feeling something was going to happen and it did" - thoughts based on physical clues that are below our conscious threshold. We need to honor those intuitive feelings - but it’s OK to check them out with others.
It’s also very useful to keep a dated written log every time we’re right - as well as when we’re not - then make a note about what we think may have made the difference between what we imagined & what actually occurred. These notes give us much needed self-mirroring & validation of reality

• ACoAs - We know that ACoAs have a great need for safety - even above love. As adults we still walk around deeply fearful of people, places & things because we aren’t internally connected to our “early warning system” - our emotions. Cleaning out back-logged Es, instead of just reacting to life from old pain, gives us more & more access to our current feelings about things so we can tell what’s really going on in the present. That allows us to find more successful ways to respond to “situations that used to baffle us” (from the AA Big Book Promises), creating an increased sense of safety in the world

• Just because an Emotion hurts does NOT mean it should be avoided! Unpleasant Es such as fear, anger or disgust prepare us mentally & physically to take immediate action against an object or situation that poses a threat.
ANGER is an emotion with a lot of energy that can protect and preserve life - by mobilizing us and inspiring determination and creative action.
-- Without it we wouldn’t object to someone regularly mistreating us, so we’d stay & take it, while it wore down our health & our soul

FEAR is a deeply rooted emotion which supports life by signaling danger and triggering life-preserving action.
-- Without it we wouldn’t be aware when being with a dangerous person, so we’d keep interacting with them & easily become emotionally scarred, not to mention possibly hit, raped, wounded or killed

SADNESS is a call to slow down, stop thinking & surrender to whatever we’re feeling. It suggests that we trust ourselves & ‘the process’ enough to open up & be vulnerable, in order to recover from losses
-- Without it we would never know that we missed someone or something that is gone - a loved one, our youth, a career, a home..... etc .

Setting Boundaries (rather than using defensive walls) is necessary to protect our physical & mental health. Review all the posts on Boundaries (Feb & March 2011).
• In order to develop appropriate Bs we must have internal permission to have all our needs. In order to allow ourselves those needs, we must have self-esteem - that is - Love our Inner Child via the good Parent. SO - it’s imperative to have access to a full range of emotions, giving us the cues that tell us:
-- who is too close, or too far away for our comfort
-- what feels right for us & from whom (touch, talking, info...)
-- who or what gives us the ‘icks’ in our gut
-- when something is abusive, or ‘off‘ - etc.

• Internal Bs are just as important as external ones. They have to do with keeping the PP (Negative Introject) voice from battering us into over-working, demanding that we be perfect, telling us we’re no good..... They’re also needed to prevent the WIC from running the show - alone, by building the ‘Unit’. Bs allow us to step back from the force of our damage, actually putting the Child & PP voices outside of ourselves - ie. detach with compassion. This makes it possible to cope with emotional stressors that come from these 2 ego states by putting their intensity & distortions in perspective.

• External Bs help define us in relation to everyone else, while being needed as physical & psychic protection. When another person's behavior has a harmful effect on us, our emotions alert us. If we trust our Es & thoroughly believe it’s ok to speak up for ourselves, we can let others know what’s acceptable for us & what isn’t. Bs can help us choose who we want to spend time with, have sex with, work with, marry .....

NEXT: To predict behavior

PURPOSE of Emotions : Awareness

2011-10-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

MY EMOTIONS GIVE IMPORTANT INFO -
how I feel & respond to the world

Previous: For Communication
Review: “Getting to our Es - Over” post
REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrevs.

2. INDIVIDUAL NEEDS
a. To Feel ALIVE
Over-all purpose of Es: To experience & get the most out of life. A healthy, integrated life includes having access to all our Es, as they surface & then pass thru us, moving on to the next emotion & the next. When an emotion is experienced to the fullest & allowed to run its course, it dissolves like smoke & can be remembered with a smile - even when it was an unhappy one!
Es are spontaneous responses to everything inside & outside of ourselves. They’re what make us feel alive - both the thrills & chills - telling us who we are & how we feel about our experiences. The more an event or person means to us, the more intense our emotional reaction.

• Without Es we would be like robots (see “Computer Role”, May ‘11).
People who are physically healthy but emotionally shut down, or completely cut off, have difficulty identifying with others & can do a great deal of harm. If their state is not too severe, as it is with NPDs & psychopaths, this emotional numbness can be modified when such a person is willing to do the ‘thawing out’ work.
A medical parallel is with autistic people who have a disability in recognizing facial & body cues. (See “E’s & the Body, Part 2”) This limits their capacity to identify Es in others & therefore to make emotional attachments & social connections. Autistic people do have feelings, & if taught to identify physical cues in childhood, they can lead more satisfying lives

• Positive Psychology tells us that psychological well-being & life-satisfaction comes from participating in activities that boost pleasant Es, which then allow us to discover & use our character strengths & virtues.
It offers four broad pathways that can help us enhance these Es to experience more moments of happiness. The pathways are: of joy & pleasure, of love & relationships, of peace & tranquility, of hope & resilience

b. For SELF-AWARENESS
Self-Perception Theory & Cognitive Appraisal Theories of Emotion suggest how we figure out what are our Es are, by staying awake & observing ourselves.
✶ Es provide us with inner guidance - as internal indicators of what is good & bad for us and what our needs are. While we all share human needs, each differs in amount, just as some people require more water, food or sleep - than others. One person may need freedom & independence while another security & continual social connections. Some may have a need for understanding life & satisfying a great curiosity, while others are content to accept whatever they’ve been taught

• So emotions alert us when any natural, normal need is not being met. Es signal us to pay attention & do something about it - hopefully something appropriate & empowering. When we feel:
-- lonely: we know we’re not connected (enough) with other people
-- afraid: we know we don’t feel safe (for self or loved ones)
-- rejected: we know we aren’t being accepted, respected, valued....
We couldn’t appreciate life if our emotions disappeared:
- How long could we physically survive if we never felt fear?
- Why would we want to apologize if guilt was not available?
- How could we miss the company of others if we couldn’t feel loneliness?

• ACoAs grew up in environments where our Es were constantly minimized & invalidated, which made is very hard to get our legitimate human requirements taken seriously. It taught us not to trust our emotions, but it didn’t take away those needs! So, in reaction, some of us increased the intensity of our Es & how we expressed them (became dramatic - but NOT crazy), desperately trying to get some of our needs met. For others - we decreased the strength & expression of our Es (became withdrawn & invisible), making it hard to be seen & heard, leaving us even more ‘starved’!

• Many times the nonverbal emotion-cues we put out don’t match our inside experience. It’s inevitable, then, that people will misread & misunderstand what we’re experiencing - which adds to our pain & isolation. For example:
-- smiling or making a joke about some painful event in our life
-- always acting like everything is fine, when we’re dying or raging inside
-- acting sexual when we’re actually lonely or needing to be acknowledged as a person
-- crossed arms, stiff, aloof - when feeling terrified, BUT others read those signs to mean we’re angry or arrogant

• On the one hand, Es cannot tell us the objective, measurable truth about things which require facts & proof. From time to time we have been correct when we ‘felt’ that something was going to be good or turn out badly. But misusing intuition, when it’s based on our damage, can have us believing all our ‘feelings are facts’: "I love him, so he's definitely a good person", “I feel stupid, so I am stupid"..... While our emotions are always valid, they don't necessarily tell us that’s real about other people & outside situations (see “Feelings Aren’t Facts” post, Sept ’10)

• On the other hand, not feeling something doesn’t mean it has completely & forever gone away. We may say: “I don’t feel a connection with a H.P. anymore” , “I don’t feel anything about her / him leaving” , “I don’t feel love / empathy / compassion for them”, “I don’t feel sexual anymore” ..... The reality is: in some cases this could mean that we may need some hormonal or other medical help, but usually it means we’re so emotionally shut down we are temporarily out of touch with the energy flow that keeps us joined to ourselves, our spirituality & to others. When we do Emotion Release work - on our own or with help - we can reconnect!

• Es are an important part of a mechanism that tells us that we are - at our core - pure, positive energy, the energy of love. Most of us are trained out of this knowledge early on, but we can find our way back by using the vibrational feedback system of our Emotions! Think of this energy as the signal strength on a cell phone
-- the less aligned we are with the energy of healthy self-love (because of S-H & CDs), the weaker the signal strength. The less of this energy we receive, the worse we feel, to the point of becoming powerless, afraid, vulnerable, depressed & out of control. We can get so far away from the signal that we not only can't hear it, we forget the signal even exists!
-- the more aligned we are with our True Self, the stronger the self-esteem is, the clearer we can feel the energy of love - first for ourselves & then for others (not from Co-dependence or FoA)

• Even with all the trouble life brings, our natural state is to be happy, curious & creative (watch little kids, before they’re damaged!) & this state is what we need to recapture from our earliest years, OR heal enough to experience for the first time
-- Es let us know when we are miserable or just uncomfortable - because someone has harmed us or because a specific need is unmet or missing in our life. We can be warm, dry & full of food but still be miserable
-- But feeling genuinely happy, content, relaxed.... indicates that, at least for the moment, some of our needs have been met, whether short-term or long-term
Expl: Chaz Bono talks poignantly about being unhappy his whole life until his sex change. He always knew he wanted to be a boy & now that he is - he is genuinely happy & content. The rest of us may have less dramatic needs to fulfill, but they are no less important to our well-being!

NEXT: For Protection

PURPOSE of Emotions: Communication

2011-10-09T22:22:00.000-07:00

IT’S GOOD TO SHARE MY FEELINGS -
it keeps me connected

Previous: For Humanity, Connection, Unity
Site: FACE DATA (Psychology, Appearance & Behavior of the Human Face)

1. SOCIAL NEEDS - cont.
d. For COMMUNICATION
• Effective communication is not just about exchanging info - we also need to understand the Emotion behind the facts. This requires skills in reading nonverbal signals, attentive listening, dealing with any stress in the moment & the capacity to understand our own Es as well as recognizing those of the person we’re communicating with - without their needing to spell it out for us

• Studies have shown that when emotions are intense, the part of the brain controlling higher reasoning tends to shut down (frontal cortex), which is unfortunate because that’s when we need it the most. However when we find ourselves in a situation that’s emotionally charged, IF we know ourselves well and have learned to stay emotionally present, we can reconnect with our thinking capacity & so have more control of our re-actions, even in a heated state. This allows us to communicate negative or difficult messages without creating conflict or destroying trust

• How & when emotions are expressed are regulated by social & cultural norms, so that even minor violations of the rules governing emotional behavior can cause serious problems in our interactions, whether personal or in business. We learn to communicate Es based on:
-- Framing Rules, which define the emotional meaning of a situation
Exp: For the most part in our culture, funerals are sad occasions & it would be in bad taste to treat it like a party, whereas in others a funeral is a time to rejoice & celebrate.

-- Feeling Rules, whereby each society tells us what we have a right to feel or are expected to feel in a particular situation. These rules reflect & perpetuate cultural values & the roles assigned to various groups. Societies try to keep order by controlling emotional expression in order to maintain their broad structures & moral codes
Exp: Societies that emphasize individuality allow the feeling of pride in personal accomplishments, while those that value cooperation encourage expressions of humility or self-effacement, no matter how great the work

-- Emotion Work, the ‘management of one's own feelings or internal work done, in a conscious effort to maintain the well-being of a relationship’. It’s the thought & self-restraint we use when we consider what Es are appropriate for each situation we encounter, especially when we’re concerned that those Es may not suit a specific event. Normally we make these evaluations based on what we learned at home & from the larger culture we currently live in
Exp: We feel guilty if we start socializing too soon after the death of a loved one. On the other hand we’re judged if we mourn a loss for too long!

i. EMOTIONS effecting COMMUNICATION
• Facts are a type of communication ‘channel’ that allow us to present ideas, plans & goal. Info stated clearly ensures that we will be correctly understood. But Communication also has an Emotion channel. Emotion changes people’s outlook on facts, so a person who is sad tends to see problems & risks in the world, while someone who’s happy sees mainly opportunities and potential rewards

• Our emotions help us communicate with others & we signal those Es via verbal & nonverbal language (“Emotions & the Body” post). When there’s a difference between the 2, observers will usually respond to the nonverbal portion. We can talk about a painful experience in a calm, rational way but show distress on our face or the way we hold our body - & we’ll get a response to the visual cues first. If we look sad or hurt, we signal that we need help, & an angry face will tend to keep others away from us.

• Clear expressions of emotion have an automatic effect on others. And because we’re social creatures, we want to know about each other’s emotional state. When we’re deeply into a certain mood, whether elated or depressed, that mood will be picked up by others very quickly. If we’re talking to someone who is depressed we can feel depressed too (short-term), & if we talk to someone who is happy & confident we’re likely to feel good about ourselves as well. This is particularly evident when someone famous or charismatic comes in to a room - everyone is drawn to their emotional energy, even before they say anything. It’s also why we feel scared in horror movies as we watch actors expressing fear which they’re communicating through gestures & facial expressions

ii. COMMUNICATION effecting EMOTIONS
• Every communication has an emotional context so we can use that context to create an emotional response in others. News media, powerful speakers & successful advertisers embed key emotional phrases in their presentations, knowing this is an effective way to manipulate their audience. But we also consciously let ourselves be moved by things we know to be untrue - as shown by how avidly we consume all kinds of fantasy media, because of the emotional impact it has on us. The best works of fiction not only communicate interesting ideas but also pull at our heart strings

• Our communications are always wrapped in some emotion.
-- If you were to list your extensive accomplishments in a dull, flat voice, your audience would lose interest & not take you seriously. Or they may feel concern & wonder what’s wrong with you, since in this context you should be expressing joy, excitement & pride - not boredom
-- Conversely, an enthusiastic salesman can spin such a clever pack of lies that we end up longing for their worthless products (picture late-night infomercials)!

• The right kind of communication will have a direct & powerful effect
a. With ourselves
-- dialoguing with the WIC in a loving way will often bring calmness
-- writing in a journal can organizing our thoughts & get us in touch with hidden feelings
-- by imagining a conversation with someone - to solve a dispute, apologize for a difficulty, to add something we forgot or neglected to say earlier.... we can feel some emotional relief

b. With Others
-- talking to someone who is sympathetic & understands us, when we’re troubled, can change our mood rather quickly - even when they don’t have a lot to say. The experience of being heard can put difficulties in perspective & making our emotions feel more manageable
-- expressing joyful Emotions to others can make them even stronger
-- when sharing an important experience we can unexpectedly get choked up, adding weight to our communication
-- and nonverbal expressions of caring – a reassuring touch, a hug, holding hands – can make us feel so much better.

NEXT: Individual Needs - Being Alive, Self-awareness

PURPOSE of Emotions: SURVIVAL

2011-10-04T13:17:00.000-07:00

WE HAVE EMOTIONS FOR GOOD REASONS
- so now I welcome & work with them!

Previous: Human Emotional Needs
Review: “Getting to our Es - Under” post
REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrevs.

PURPOSE
✥ Do you know what to say when you hear someone insist that emotions are a waste of time, unreliable, too much trouble? The next several posts will give important reasons - biological, personal & social - why we have them!

1. SOCIAL NEEDS
a. For SURVIVAL
• The evolutionists’ answer is that Es have helped us survive. According to this theory, animals are aggressive & self-conscious (compared to rivers, mountains, plants....which have also survived) & humans are the most self-conscious of the animals, making us increasingly invested & crafty in our efforts to endure. Over time we developed a wide range of emotions & a complex rational thinking system, which allowed us to imagine our own past & future selves, giving us preeminence over fauna & flora. ‘If you want to create a system that works hard to survive, make it be conscious and emotional. It will want to keep itself around!’

• Researchers believe that Emotion, rather than logic, is the driving force in the human brain. Recent studies show that Es are responsible for neural integration - linking various brain functions (how they talk to each other) by tying together physical, cognitive, sensory & social processes. Es therefore allow our bodies, thoughts & senses to coordinate - keeping us sane, healthy & functioning effectively

• Robert Plutchik, of the Emotion Wheel, wrote that the purpose of emotions is to form an interaction between a person & a stimulus - event, thing or another person - so that when the emotions are acted on (correctly, of course) it brings the person back to a state of equilibrium, ie. feeling ok / safe
Expl: You’re in the woods & see a bear loping towards you. You’re very afraid. The fear makes you run away, so the emotion has served to produce an action that saves your life, by allowing you to reach safety. You are then returned to a calm state (eventually).

b. For CONNECTION
• Humans are fundamentally social animals, intensely relying on each other for survival, so we not only have personal emotions, but also specific social Es deeply embedded in our nature that connect us to the actions & emotions of others. Es motivate & organize our individual behavior & social interactions, as well as facilitate communication. Social needs include the need for acceptance, prestige & access to certain people, events or resources, since others provide a mirror for our feelings, attitudes & reality

• Belonging to a group or community gives us a sense of identity.
Researchers have found that people are happier when they’re with others rather than too much alone - and the “boost” is the same for introverts as for extroverts. Strong emotional support also reduces immune system abnormalities that contribute to numerous disorders due to stress.
People are more likely to stay in fulfilling relationships because they continue to feel good from the closeness they experience, & the positive effects of these connections are long-lasting.

Exp: The success of the many 12-step Programs (AA, GA, OA, Al-anon, Gam-anon, O-anon....). The Al-Anon closing includes the statement: “The welcome we give you may not show the warmth we have in our hearts for you. After a while, you’ll discover that though you may not like all of us, you’ll love us in a very special way—the same way we already love you.”
✶ Loving relationships are important to our well-being & happiness because they create the psychological space & safety to explore & learn, which builds our resources for inevitable times of difficulty.

• Emotions that primarily serve a social function bridge the gap between ourselves and others, helping us to feel a part of a larger whole. Exp:
-- legitimate guilt (not the ACoA type) makes us realize we’ve done something inappropriate or hurt another person, which can motivate us to make amends (8th & 9th Step of AA)
-- feeling responsible (not co-dependent) can keep us from harming others or be of help where it’s needed....
-- social altruism, going beyond passively ‘behaving’ oneself in order to not cause social problems, leads to active participation in groups & organizations that provide relief for the needy & the suffering

c. For UNITY
• Because Emotions are universal, the ‘positive’ ones are a great potential source of uniting all members of the human race. Various religious, cultural & political beliefs tragically & even fatally divided us. But Es such as empathy, cooperation, forgiveness & heroism can bring people together.
SOURCES that generate powerful Es which can unite humanity --
-- Caring: careful listening to the emotional concerns of others can help people feel understood, important & cared about
-- Faith: (defined as something that’s believed in with especially strong conviction, not necessarily religion) - in what a widely held ideology or belief tells us is right or wrong, that can help us feel connected to like-mined people at home & all over the world
-- Music (& other art forms) emotionally linking artist & a vast public, and unites all humanity via its most basic traits
-- Laughter: a universal language that makes people feel good & so helps us change for the better, and from there change the world, in positive peaceful ways
-- Love: can unite humanity by fostering compassion, responsibility, acceptance, understanding, education & spiritual growth.

NEXT: For Communication

"ACTIONS - Healthy OPPOSITES” (Part 3)

2011-09-30T12:27:00.000-07:00

I HAVE TO DO IT ALL DIFFERENTLY -
it’s such a big job but I’m not giving up!

Previous: The Problem
REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrevs.

“REVERSING our Behavior IMPROVES our Life” cont.

C. HEALTHY Opposites
So, what can we do?
• In order to make the desired changes we need correct info. Like any new language, we have to learn the vocabulary, grammar, syntax & rhythm of healthy actions. Actions that lead to any type of success are usually the exact ‘Positive-Opposite’ of our life-long patterns. Yes, we’ve tried to do things differently, but to no avail because we’ve been doing the ‘Negative-Opposite’, with great effort & sincerity, but which always ends in failure

• We know it’s hard to change. ACoAs hate change! It makes us feel unsafe. Taking positive actions can temporarily make us feel crazy, in danger & we can temporarily regress to immature ways - as if we haven’t grown at all! Recovery asks us to let go of old ways of thinking & doing - which seems very threatening. Healthy functioning goes against all our Toxic Rules & disobeying them feels like we’re betraying the family. What we in fact must do is to become totally, unequivocally loyal to ourselves, since we didn’t get nourished correctly from the beginning. Our ONLY job is to heal the Wounded Child & bring out the best of our Natural Child

Exp: Picture that you’re a highly trained plumber with a fully stocked tool bag which may be worn & dirty, but has always been available & made your work possible. You’ve been using those tools for a long time, replacing old parts, stopping drips & duck taping leaky pipes, hoping to avoid a flood. You’ve been on the job so long you can’t imagine doing anything else!
• Then one day you’re told the old-style plumbing is being replaced with an all new infrastructure & your specific skills are not needed anymore! You can throw away that raggedy tool bag & carry an elegant briefcase with fewer but more refined new instruments! You’re shocked, even devastated. You know how to use the old instruments - what are you going to do with a briefcase? You don’t know how to read the new rules & or how to implement them. What are you going to do without having those cracked pipes to tinker with?? Who are you going to be now!!??

• Shifting from Negative to Positive ways of living is done thru:
-- Process (9/10 posts) - another one of those things ACoAs hate!
• And we need practical examples of correct thinking & acting:
-- “My Rights” and “Responding Positively to Events” - 12/10
-- “Healthy Helping” - 7/10,                  --“Healthy Boundaries” - 2/11
-- “ACoAs & Healthy Rules” - 9/10        -- “Recovery - Is ” - 8/10
-- “Self-Esteem” - 1/11, )                           -- “Healthy Adult / Loving Parent” -11/10........

✶ When our Inner Child is on the same page as the Healthy Adult /Parent
(the ‘Unit’) then we’re able to take the actions we want & that are best for us. With time the new actions become the new norm!

From NEGATIVE to POSITIVE Opposites (#1 to #2) :
Actions:
Aggressive                      ➼    Assertive
Addictions                      ➼    Sobriety
Avoiding                         ➼    Owning, Facing, Dealing
Being Dramatic              ➼   Being Realistic, Balanced
Being Passive                ➼   Taking healthy Risks
Doing without               ➼    Asking for Help
Depriving ourselves      ➼    Filling our needs
Over-disclosing             ➼    Being Discrete
People-pleasing           ➼    Choosing for ourselves
Promiscuous                 ➼    Discriminating

Attitudes & Emotions:
Being abused                ➼   Zero tolerance
Being a Victim              ➼   Being Responsible
Co-dependent               ➼   Inter-dependent
Isolated                          ➼   Sociable
Morose                         ➼   Pleasant
Rescuing                        ➼   Helping
Rebelling                   ➼ Co-operating
Self-Hating                    ➼   Self-Caring
Shame-filled                  ➼   Self-respecting

REVIEW - it helps to remember that:
• Most people in the world are damaged. Without healing everyone is run alternately by 2 ego states: the ‘Bad’ voice (Introject) & the Wounded Child. Many people have a functioning Adult, but rarely do we meet someone with a Loving Parent voice. Without the L.P. it’s hard for anyone to make long-lasting improvements

• While many of us across the country & the world legitimately have limited options for help & support where we live, now we have many new possibilities via the internet & books that can improve our lives

• It’s the younger, damaged part of us making these negative choices - by training, to be loyal to our family & prevent punishment. This is normal for everyone

• To shift into Positive Opposites ACoAs need 2 new ego states to work as the ‘Unit’: the Healthy Adult that deals with facts, & the L.P. in charge of nurturing & guidance. The Unit must take over the responsibility of running our lives, & care for our wounded part - away from the ‘bad voice’ that beats us up & holds us back

✶ As Healthy Adults, we can choose what actually works & what doesn’t - in the present - rather than what we learned originally.
Using T.E.A. (thoughts, emotions & actions) our goal in Recovery is to:
• notice that our Es are, & as much as possible, manage them in safe ways
• keep track of our Ts, re-enforcing the realistic & healthy ones, while changing the toxic beliefs - or at least not obeying them!
• observe our As, especially the ones that are self-defeating, noticing their practical & emotional consequence, so that we WANT to change them - and re-enforcing the good ones, no matter how small!

RESULTS of Positive Opposite actions:
   ✧ ability to have fun                    ✧ be loved by good, kind people
   ✧ be comfortable in our skin     ✧ express our creativity
   ✧ feel effective                              ✧ gain self-esteem
   ✧ get our needs met                    ✧ improve living & working conditions
   ✧ have less anxiety                    ✧ make true friends
   ✧ smoother relationships           ✧ spiritually connected
   ✧ take appropriate risks              ✧ trust our judgement      .....   etc

➼ Taking Positive Opposite actions add up, giving us a sense of worth, permission to be our True Self, be part of the human race & actually enjoy life!

NEXT:

"ACTIONS - Healthy OPPOSITES” (Part 2)

2011-09-25T21:06:00.000-07:00

I’VE BEEN DOING THE OPPOSITE!
why isn’t it working?

Previous: Choosing Negative Opposites
Review: ‘Why are you stuck?’ post

“REVERSING our Behavior IMPROVES our Life” cont.

B. UNHEALTHY Opposites
• From the very beginning of our lives we’ve have been trying to figure out how to survive, fix our family & how to get our needs met - mostly with corrupted info (GI-GO = computer / Army lingo for “garbage in - garbage out”). ACoAs are very smart, creative & determined - even tho we don’t realize or own it. As kids all of that talent went into a valiant effort to save our parents & siblings - maybe even our friends. Now we find other dysfunctional people to ‘rescue’ - desperate to make them well enough to be there for us!

Exp: The 4 yrs old trying to help her drunk father up the stairs that he’s passed out on, the teenager hopelessly trying to convince her mother to go to Al-anon or leave dad, OR as adults - trying to keep a heavily addicted lover /spouse from killing themselves - with no success

• As unrecovered adults we stumble around without mental or emotional clarity - in spite of our high intelligence, because of the convoluted & warped info we were fed in childhood. The ACoA Laundry List says: “We guess at what normal is”, so we obsessively watch normals to figure out what to do (how do they talk, how do they eat sushi, what makes them happy, how do they make friends?...). Even so, we still use our old childhood / family templates. That’s to be expected - it’s how every brain is programmed from birth. And we always end up in the same old place, defeated & hopeless, thinking that it’s: a) somehow all our fault, & that b) the universe is against us! Either way, it hurts!

Exp: Afraid to be in social situation because we don’t know how to make small talk, convinced we’ll be boring & look stupid

• And how do we use all our native cleverness & determination for ourselves? Take a few minutes to study this chart & see what we do!
There are many convoluted ways UNhealth can manifest itself. From that mess we choose a set of patterns that most suits our specific personality & our background. We keep trying them in complex variations & with lots of different people. When these patterns don’t get us what we need or want, we unconsciously pick thru the mental rolodex of the distorted options that were forced on us, looking for an opposite way to handle things, hoping it will solve our problems. And we DO try obvious reversals, BUT all our action-choices are taken from the ‘disease’ end of the spectrum. From a. to b. & back again!

Exp: I always say the wrong thing, so now I’m not going to talk at all! or
My last 3 girlfriends were nightmares, so I’ll never trust another woman

• Recovery is about moving from being unhealthy (#1) to gradually becoming healthier (>>>#2), from doing self-harming things to becoming more self-caring. All wounded people start out on the far Left side of this chart, taking mostly unhealthy actions. Unfortunately it’s where many ACoAs stay - altho we don’t have to.
There’s a saying in AA: “Alcoholics dig themselves into a rut, & then they decorate it”! -- instead of getting themselves out. Since many of us were raised by alcoholics we learned to do the same & find it very hard to reverse. (Also if our parents were other kinds of narcissists & depressives, no matter what their drug-of-choice was - booze, food, money, exercise, relationships, workaholism, rage, religion....)

• Naturally, if we don’t know what Healthy Opposites are we can’t work towards them. So we settle for Unhealthy Opposites without even realizing what we’re doing. Because they don’t work either, we go back to our original coping style, caught in a vicious cycle between the extremes of the Left end, never making it over to the RIGHT side!

Some Negative Opposites (a --> b --> a....)
• Feeling HURT
Too Little: backing down, suffering in silence (& rage), being a victim...
Too Much: rude, hostile, attacking, insulting, giving the cold shoulder....
• DISAPPOINTING “relationships”
Too Much: clinging, chasing, verbally attacking, demanding....
Too Little: isolating, depressed, not saying how we feel or what we need, ignoring our needs, waiting to be taken care of...
• WORK Stress
Too Much: trying to please the boss, doing everything immediately, staying late, worrying about getting fired...
Too Little: being late, going on strike, not finishing projects, making lots of mistakes, taking too much time off....
• In the HOME:
Too Little: being lazy, sloppy, careless, dirty
Too Much: compulsively cleaning, obsessively putting things in ‘order’, not wanting anything moved....

More Examples:
• from clinging to bad relationships, family, jobs... to isolating ourselves to the point of emotional starvation
• from not being able to get out of bed, totally goofing off, not using our talents .... to running around like a headless chicken, taking on too many projects, becoming a workaholic
• from being so poor that we end up living with drunks & crazies, to overspending every cent we have as a way to sooth ourselves
• from physically being undernourished to stuffing ourself, especially on unhealthy food & drink
• from promiscuity to sexual / sensual deprivation
• from living in daydreams to being hard-nosed & controlling - and back again....

NEXT: Healthy Opposites

"ACTIONS - Healthy OPPOSITES” (Part 1)

2011-09-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

I TRY & TRY -
but I still don’t get anywhere!

Previous: Repressing Emotions
REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrevs.

“REVERSING our Behavior IMPROVES our Life” (1998)

A. UNHEALTHY Patterns
• Many of us know how we would like our life to be:
HAVE a fulfilling career, loving relationships, less pressure, a little fun... and we’ve been trying, struggling, obsessing - year in & year out - but not much has changed. We feel stuck, frustrated & depressed - still run by our false beliefs (CDs) & un-processed emotions. We grew up around chaos, addictions, criticism, rage, depression, neglect, illness & years of abuse. We learned to survive by adapting to what ‘they’ seemed to need & want, so we cobbled together a set of behaviors as best we could, with very little guidance, which allowed us to survive - but not thrive. We became a ‘human doing’ instead of a Human Being.

• We often hear advice like - “Just do it!”, “Just start somewhere”, “do the opposite of what you normally do”, even “Take the action & let go of the result”.... America was built on hard work, perseverance, risk taking & chutzpah. All of these qualities are action-based. Anthony Robbins, famous athletes, business moguls & business coaches focus us on taking the next action & the next - no matter what. This has value, up to a point, but ACoAs know it’s not that simple, because depression gets in the way & besides - we didn’t have early role models for what right actions actually are

ACoAs have a tendency to:
• do everything based on B & W thinking (‘always, never, no one, all’...)
• are afraid to do anything that’s against the Toxic Family Rules
• only do what we think others want us to, or what others expect of us
• behave in much the same way that our dysfunctional parents did
• use the same type of actions in every situation (no nuance, no variations, no risks, no innovations or what actually works ...)
• not learn from our mistakes, just repeat bad patterns & then complain
• blame others for our mistakes, emotional distress or lack of action
• react from a wounded, anxious or angry emotional place (the codependent triangle = victim / perpetrator / rescuer)

Dysfunctional Functioning:
a. Some ACoAs have a daily struggle to function at all - maybe from being chemically challenged, not having the vitamins & nutrition needed to be ‘level’ & / or being so devastated by damage we have little or no will to act

b. Some waste years of our life just drifting along, not knowing what we want to be ‘when we grow up’! We’re unhappy & unfulfilled, but don’t have a direction to focus on. Or we fall into whatever jobs that allow us to earn a living. This is not blame - only identifying the result of being wounded, not from personal defect! Various forms of Recovery can help us find our True Self, which includes our dreams, goal, talents & abilities

c. Others of us have a strong sense of what we’d like to do - if only we had the support, the education, the opportunity, the connections..... But we don’t go for it because it would require going against every message we picked up at home, such as - “Don’t out-do us, Don’t be successful, Don’t be the real you....” all of which feel like life & death if we disobey! ✶ This is not an exaggeration to the WIC, so don’t let anyone tell you you’re being dramatic!

d. An alternative to not doing anything is to either take up a profession that was dictated by our family or a secondary interest of ours (doing makeup instead of acting, being a nurse instead of a doctor...) - sometimes even becoming very skilled at it, but without enough satisfaction. ➺ It’s not unusual for ACoAs to do quite well at what we like to do the least!

e. Many ACoAs fail to take the beneficial actions we absolute need to have a decent life - at the very least, always choosing the worst relationships, the most unsatisfying jobs, isolating ourselves, refusing to take advantage of growth opportunities (personal or material), not caring for our health - not to mention continuing with any number of addictions

f. And then there are the Hero ACoAs, who over-DO all the time. Action is their god, their escape, their addiction. Keeping busy is the only thing keeping their emotions at bay. Heroes are so good at everything they DO, but are hard on themselves & hard on everyone else. They may or may not be working at a job they love, but have to be the best - even if it kills them!

• Moving forward in life includes taking healthy productive actions, altho doing things is not the only aspect, & sometimes taking no action is wiser & more effective. In terms of T.E.A., all our actions are motivated BY our thoughts & feelings, whether healthy or not, whether people acknowledged this or not

➼ However, this set of 3 posts is about the way we decide what category of actions to take. It’s not a guide to what we should do, but rather correcting what seems to us a quite logical - yet misguided - way to fix our lack of success at work & in other relationships: ➼ We periodically reverse our usual way of handling things - but always choosing its Unhealthy Opposite!
NEXT: the PROBLEM

REPRESSING Emotions

2011-09-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

I HAD TO SHUT OFF MY FEELING -
in order to not go crazy!

Previous: Human Emotional Needs
Reading: “I Don't Want to Talk About it: The Secret Legacy of Male Depression.” by Terrance Real

Resistance to Es
• The source of our personal power is in our self-esteem - which is fueled by the emotions of Love & Joy. So resistance to having our emotions is a way to stifle the flow of life. It takes a lot of psychic effort to push down our Es & keep them down - not leaving much energy left over to function fully! And when we had to shut down because our pain was too much to handle, we also shut down our joyful Es! Repressed Es are trapped in the physical body and in the layers of the aura that radiate from our core. Such a backlog of Es can cause holes in our aura, leaking out vital energy, which creates fatigue, vulnerability & low self-confidence!

• The ability to repress emotions comes from the fact that humans have several brains - the mammalian fore-brain, the reptilian early brain & the mid-brain - a combination of the two. To function well we need the capacity to choose how we act - or not - on our emotions. But sometimes we also need to disconnect from the emotional intensity of traumatic events in order to go on with our lives:
-- When we wish to remember, we record the information in all 3 parts, altho what info is stored varies according to which data bank it goes into
-- When we want to forget, we disconnect the memory links between the fore-brain (thinking) & the other two - creating amnesia
BTW - ACoAs are notorious for having a built-in forgetter, which includes all the good things that happen to us day by day in the present!

The mid-brain, as the go-between, is responsible for keeping it all straight, & does so very well - especially in a ‘civilized’ society
Exp: Not letting blind rage erupt in public will prevent getting fired, thrown out & in some cases killed (road rage, gangs...). Not acting on every sexual impulse will preserve our promise of fidelity to a mate

Are you emotionally repressed?
• If we want to know what Es we are denying, there are many ways - when we’re ready & capable of facing them (“Getting to your Es - Over & Under” posts have a list of tools - Dec 2010). We can always start by asking some basic Qs, like the obvious one: “What am I feeling?”. The typical repressive’s answer is predictable: “I don’t know”. From there we can go on to: “What feelings am I not expressing?” & then to “If I knew what I was feeling, what would I say it is?”. If the answer is always the same - it’s time for outside help (which we can all benefit from anyway), such as 12-Step meetings, therapy, reading, spiritual gatherings, healing groups .....

-- One hint is when everything in life seems rather gray. We may only feel a bit off - as if something’s wrong but we don’t know what it is. We’re lonely & dissatisfied with ourselves, our life & others around us. It’s like being allergic to something in the air or mold in the walls - it’s making you sick but you can’t see it
-- Or it’s a deep sense of anger & disappointment, with no immediate or obvious cause. Sitting on decades of built-up pain (rage, terror, sorrow, frustration, loneliness...) is a lot like a normal-looking mountain that’s really a volcano with gases trapped & bubbling underground waiting to erupt. We need to find the right kind of pressure-valve that won’t add to the suppression but also won’t harm us or others

• Researchers have made the connection between suppressing Es & OCD, PTSD, auto-immune illnesses & panic attacks. Other studies have shown that deliberately trying to push painful Es out of our consciousness can lead to a ‘rebound effect‘ setting up a vicious cycle: You have a painful emotion. You try to push it away. This lasts for a few seconds - or more - & then it rushes back in. This leads to more pain, which you try to push away again, etc. Since you can't stop it from repeating you start with the mental recriminations “I can’t do anything right, It’s hopeless, I can’t cope, I’ll never get better” ....

• Emotions, as such, are never dangerous, but rather it’s having un-processes feelings that pile up year after year, causing them to fester. Our body wants to eject emotional poison the same way it does physical toxins. If we don’t allow this to happen they have a damaging effect. Releasing them voluntarily is best in the long run - so we don’t explode all over ourselves & others. If we “dump” our pain on others or act them out in a self-destructive way we feel even worse about ourselves (more S-H)

• Some ways we circumvent Es, which then get swept under the carpet:
-- ignore or pretend something hasn’t happened that upsets us
-- stuff ourselves with food, or ingest things that dull our mind & senses, such as sugar, wheat, fats, drugs, alcohol....
-- any type of compulsive activity - being overly busy, on the net too much, excessive tv watching, exercising, reading, sex ....
-- isolate; live in our head - constant intellectualizing & analyzing
-- keep all our conversations superficial, especially around someone who is expressing Es; always make something serious into a joke
-- bury anger under a mask of peace & love OR hide vulnerability under expressions of anger, cynicism & sarcasm

Re. Women
People refer to ‘being emotional’ as a bad thing. It’s unfortunate that this expression refers to crying or wanting to cry - as if that’s the only emotion people have, even tho when we’re excited, angry, pleased, scared, feel sensual ..... we’re also being emotional! And even worse, this accusation is target mainly at women, who are taught to repress anger, which get turned in on themselves, & then into depression. Outwardly, for many, it can show up as the compulsion to rescue, fix & change the very people who are hurting them because they don’t have the right to express their outrage directly or leave
Re. Men
Men aren’t supposed to show fear or sadness or any other form of vulnerability. But since men have all the same Es as women, eventually their repression can also turn into depression. And since these softer Es are often covered by aggression & busyness, it’s harder to identify. One way to spot their depression, when it’s not obvious, is when a man develops sexual dysfunctions with no physical cause, including lack of libido (loss of interest). Of course men can be sexually active & still have walking-depression, or be hyper-sexual as a coping mechanism

• “The only way out is thru!” No method of avoidance is successful - emotions don’t actually evaporate when we ignore them - they just go underground.
Yes, as kids we needed to shut off as much of our pain as we could - because there was no way to stop the abuse & no real way to escape.
But as adults we need to gradually clean them out in order to be free.
At first letting the old feelings up can be intense & scary, but as we continue the process in safe places the pressure on ourselves is relieved, making us feel lighter, freer & happier. We’ll always have some pain to release, but eventually we can let them out in more appropriate ways, even ‘gracefully’!

NEXT: “Actions: Healthy Opposites”

Human Emotional NEEDS

2011-09-08T07:01:00.000-07:00

SEE, I KNEW IT!
and they said I was tooo sensitive!

Previous: ACOAs & Emotions

REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrevs.

THIS post comes directly from The MindFields College Blog & is being reproduced in it’s entirety because it fits so well into the current ‘Emotions’ series & speaks for itself.

“We are all born with fundamental physical & emotional needs which have to be met in order to promote good mental health - as well as the innate resources to help us fulfill them, known as human ‘givens’.
Life is never perfect, but as long as our basic needs are being provided for & our resources are being used well, we don’t suffer mental health problems. However, if just one of these needs is unmet, or our resources are being misused, it can negatively affect our total being!

A. Essential Emotional Needs
1) Security - a safe territory & an environment to develop fully in
2) Attention (to give and receive it) - a form of nutrition
3) Sense of autonomy & control - free will to make responsible choices
4) Being emotionally connected to others
5) Feeling part of a wider community
6) Friendship, intimacy - to know that at least one other person accepts us totally for who we are, “warts ‘n’ all”
7) Privacy — opportunity to reflect & consolidate experience
8 ) Sense of status within social groupings
9) Sense of competence & achievement
10) Having meaning and purpose - which comes from being stretched in what we do and think

B. Innate Resources (human givens) to meet our emotional needs:
• The ability to develop complex long term memory, which enables us to add to our innate knowledge & accumulate new information
• The ability to build rapport, empathize & connect with others
• Imagination, so we can focus our attention away from our emotions, use language, and problem-solve more creatively & objectively
• A conscious, rational mind that can check out emotions, question, analyze & plan
• The ability to ‘know’ — that is, understand the world unconsciously through metaphorical pattern matching
• An observing self — that part of us that can step back, be more objective and be aware of itself as a unique center of awareness, apart from intellect, emotion & conditioning
• A dreaming brain that preserves the integrity of our genetic inheritance every night by metaphorically defusing expectations held in the autonomic arousal system because they were not acted out the previous day.

✶ To see how many of your emotional needs are being met, take the Emotional Needs Audit.”

NEXT: Purpose of Emotions - Social Needs

ACoAs & Emotions (Part 2)

2011-09-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

I JUST WANT TO BE HAPPY -
but I have to clean out the old pain first

Previous: Why ACoAs hate Emotions
Suggested book: Emotional Intelligence, by Goleman, 1995 "....What it means to be smart"
REMINDER: Use Acronyms Page for abbrevs.

ACoAs often have emotional over-reactions to how other people behave towards or around us. We hate being told that, because we think it means:
-- we don’t have a right to be upset, and
-- that the hurtful person or situation is being let off the hook.
Neither is the case. The reality is that "When it's hysterical, it's historical". When our Es are out of proportion to an unpleasant current event, all we have to do is acknowledge that an old wound is being ‘bumped’ up against. THEN - we can validate the kid’s pain as we get another glimpse into our past suffering, & stop blaming ourselves for our loneliness & grief

• Yes, we are responsible for our behavior & the attitude we bring to our life (most people prefer being around someone who is mentally positive & emotionally up)
But, we also need to remember that HOW people treat us is mainly dictated by their inner PP &/or WIC! (very few people have a L.P. even if they have a decent H.A.). In any case, their choice of act / reaction has nothing to do with us, whether we are coming from a sane or damaged place
• YET - we get so upset emotionally by others' words & deeds because we take things personally! This is clearly:
-- coming from the WIC who is reacting from a time when we were totally powerless to stop being controlled / abused
-- an indicator of the particular button in us that is being pushed, which is useful info for growth

Exp: You’re in the middle of working on a project & someone keeps trying to control how you’re doing it. You get angrier & angrier, since you interpret their ‘directions’ as proof that you’re not doing it right & therefore aren’t good enough - as a person!
• Instead of just raging at the other person (in your head) & wanting to smash their face in - ask : “What does this angry reaction tell me about myself?” It may be that you still believe you're so unworthy just as you are that you have to be perfect, to compensate, BUT because you can’t be, you resent being exposed as a failure, which means you’ll never be loved!
• If you get that this is simply S-H & your kid desperately needs a hug & a mental course correction, then you have the opportunity to work on modifying the CD called Perfectionism, which is very corrosive! Much of the anger will dissipate even if the other person is still being a big pain!

CHECKLIST
At first it can seem hard to figure out whether our strong emotional reactions are appropriate for a present-day event or coming from an old wound. As we heal & develop our “Unit” we can begin to tell the difference more often. Whenever we’re obsessing (mentally ruminating about a hurt), we can look inside to see what’s under it, by asking:
1. Which Toxic Rule is in play? (all have turned into self-destructive patterns, also called character defects)
 Exp: “If I don’t like it, I have to stay” becomes passivity
2. Which of my WIC’s unmet needs am I re-experiencing?
Exp: Being constantly ignored or punished for trying to get attention
3. What am I thinking about this situation?
Exp: “They’re never going to call / email back”, “I’m unlovable”

4. Which of my old buttons is getting activated? -- A ‘button’ is an emotional sore spot from things your family & others consistently did to you &/or to each other - that hurt you
Exp: Being accused wrongly / being shushed
5. Which ego state is likely in charge at the moment (WIC or PP) ?
6. If I’m acting out, which parent am I copying, & how?
7. What am I most afraid of in this situation? (FoA, punishment, isolation, not being heard...)
➼ Use the info in other posts to help you answer these Qs.

Delayed Reactions
• The post “The Body & Emotions” mentions how we ignore our Es to the point of missing them altogether
• In the post "Identifying Emotions - Part 1" there’s an example of how we can experience distressing or traumatic events & not be aware of how they have effected us.
ACoAs are notoriously slow to catch how we feel emotionally - having a delayed reaction to all kinds of encounters & events, pleasurable or not. We may not realize them for a few days, weeks, even years!
We do have feelings about everything, but we:
-- learned early in life to deny having our Es
-- have become so numb we don’t consciously know what our Es are
-- have such negative beliefs about actually having Es
-- are afraid to feel too much, because the WIC thinks it will kill us
-- never learned how to deal with uncomfortable or unacceptable Es

Down side of some ‘New Age’ ideas
• Those of us brought up on religious, new age or other spiritual teachings that tells us to always be positive (“Don’t worry, Be happy!”) have found it impossible to live up to. It has left us hating ourselves more, feeling desolate & hopeless of ever ‘getting there’. What they often don’t acknowledge is that we need to allow our human side to heal & be nurtured first, before we can aspire to be ‘serene’!
• While we certainly do aim for a balanced & peaceful emotional life, it’s not healthy - OR successful - to just cover painful emotions & negative thoughts with a bunch of platitudes & ‘positive thinking’, without first cleaning out old Es accumulated from as far back as childhood

• Charles Whitfield, MD has provided a useful image:
Take a basket of delicious fruit & let it sit for a long time until they rot. Someone comes along & says - “Ugh, that’s gross. Let’s put some fresh fruit in there. It’ll look & smell so much better!” So you do that & everything is fine - for a while. After all, it sounded like a good idea, & they were offering it for free. BUT you added the beautiful fruit on top of the rotted ones without cleaning the basket out first
Q: What will happen to the new food?
A: After a while the fresh ones will start to rot from underneath!
Obvious? Well that’s what many people do when they try to layer new ‘positive’ ideas & attitudes on top of all the emotional damage & cognitive distortions learned growing up. They think they can escape the pain of Recovery & still be ok
• We are like that basket - originally holding precious, wonderful qualities & potential. But to survive we had to create a False Self, added their Toxic Rules & mixed in a lot of S-H

➼ TO fully heal, we need to keep cleaning out the old beliefs & accumulated pain, which is an ongoing process. Don’t get discouraged, or demand that it be finally done, once & for all
• As we ‘take out the garbage’ of our past, we can gradually replace it with the ‘good stuff’ we’ve been told about, so it doesn’t get contaminated!
• When our Healthy Adult is in charge we are more likely to act in ways that protect ourselves & are respectful towards others. This doesn’t mean backing down or being quiet but it also does not mean being rude or aggressive. The H.A. can be forceful but clear & to the point. Practice making declarative sentences so you don’t beat around the bush
Expl: Say “I know he’s being disrespectful”, instead of “I feel that he’s not respecting me” - which sounds like it’s only your opinion rather than what’s actually been happening

As adults we :
• carry an enormous backlog of those daily hurts, big & small, until they’ve become an overwhelming iceberg or inferno we’re afraid to approach lest it destroy us (the WIC’s belief)
don’t believe we have the right to be comforted when we’re in any kind of pain - much less emotional. So why would we want to deliberately pull the scab off a wound if it’s just going to bleed & bleed!??
Correction:
As stated before, we must give ourselves permission to have all our human qualities, requirements & all emotions, AND to receive validation (cognitive) & comfort (emotional) from as many people & for as long as we need them - including from our Higher Power. These responses (validation & comfort) allow us to tolerate the intensity of old emotions as we re-experience them in Recovery - a little at a time.

NEXT: Purpose of Es - Social Needs

ACoAs & Emotions (Part 1)

2011-08-27T22:12:00.000-07:00

I DON’T WANT TO FEEL ANYTHING -
& you can’t make me!

Previous: Parrott’s Emotions List

You know the 3 Laws of an alcoholic system, right? “Don’t Talk, Don’t Think, Don’t Feel” & the ‘greatest’ of them is - the last one!

Those Dreaded Emotions! (Es)
• ACoAs definitely believe emotions are a bad thing. When asked what’s going on with us, or how we’re feeling, ACoAs usually fail to mention our emotions. We’ll talk around them, over & under, but never hit the bulls-eye. We’re terrified of our Es the way mice are afraid of cats.
We treat them as if they were a wild beast in us that has to be locked away in a deep dark dungeon. Then we wonder why we can’t get out of bed, why we always feel like the outsider, why we feel so alone, why we don’t get along with others, why we have panic attacks..... Emotions that are ignored have sneaky ways of showing up in disguise. BUT those ways (listed throughout this blog) are the symptoms that give us vital information we can use to deconstruct (reverse-engineer) the source of our distress. Then we can set about making the necessary corrections

• Without healing, ACoAs are clearly not happy campers, having lived with depression most of our live - even the ones who don’t show it on the outside. It’s not surprising, since our dysfunctional families indicated in thousands of direct & indirect ways that we should never object to being hurt by them, & then not express any pain caused by their abused & neglected! (“Stop your whimpering. You’re such a baby. You’re just too sensitive!”). They didn’t give us much to be happy about but they also didn’t want us to react to their mistreatment. So we learned: “DON’T FEEL”!

➼ IMP: What they never told us was that our Es are not intrinsically bad to have, but were simply unacceptable to them, because:
-- they didn’t experience love & nurturing, so could not give it to us
-- our needs as children enraged them because they wanted all the attention for themselves
-- they had no clue how to cope with their own problems, much less be there for us. The responsibility of parenting scared them to death
-- never having dealt with their wounded Es as adults, they shoved them under the carpet & demanded we do the same. An infant’s first ‘language’ is that of intense emotions. Then we learned to talk! This combination would be a constant irritant to parents who already felt too much OR didn’t want to feel at all - our emotions and needs acting like sandpaper. They had to shut us up!
-- with one or more parents who had chronic mentally or physically illness or who were overly dramatic themselves, there was no room for our needs or feelings
-- some of them delighted in hurting & humiliating us, & had no intention of giving us comfort or validation (did you catch one of them smirking when you cried?)
✶ One tender soul remembers her mother, the heartless narcissist, saying with a sneer: “I’m so glad I’m not sensitive like you & your father!”

As a result:
• many ACoAs have a limited range of Es they are aware of, much like being able to play only 2 or 3 notes on a full piano keyboard - such as anger & disdain, fear & guilt, loneliness & desperation....- even tho there are many more available on both scales
• some have so many feelings we can hardly breath, acting them out all over the place or hiding under the covers as much as possible, always in ‘suffering mode’, which makes us wish we were like the other ones - numb
• others of us have intense Es without consciously knowing it OR being able to identify them by name - not associating certain physical sensations with actual emotions, but tending to be cranky & exhausted

• Unfortunately our culture reinforces the ‘don’t feel’ rule by telling us that
-- Es aren’t ‘rational’, so they can’t be relied on to tell us anything real or useful
-- it’s not sophisticated, strong or admirable to be ‘emotional’ (meaning to cry or get too upset, no matter how terrible the situation! - think Jacky O.)

Reasons why we hate having emotions sooo much:
• we expect to be made fun of, ignored or physically punished for expressing them (“I’ll give you something to cry about!”)
• we want to be ‘good’ & obey family rules, as a sign of loyalty & love
• some want to stay connected to a particular parent by copying their resistance or inability to feel
• others are determined to be the exact opposite of a dramatic / out-of-control parent
• we were never taught the healthy way to identify & deal with our Es when they surfaced
• MOST of ALL - we were never comforted when in pain & had no way to process our Es, so they accumulated in our unconscious, & now we’re terrified of opening ‘Pandora’s Box’

Expl: Josie insisted to her BFF that she couldn’t feel at all, but her friend Sara knew better - just from observation. One day they went to the Planetarium to see a laser light show. Afterwards Josie acted like she could barely walk from the intensity of her pleasure at the experience - she was bowled over. Sara smiled & said “Those are emotions! So you do feel a lot!” Josie was stunned, but never again denied having Es even if she didn’t always know how to talk about them.

PART 2: Delayed reactions, Rotten Fruit

IDENTIFYING Emotions (Part 2)

2011-08-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

EENY MEENY MINIE MOE -
catch a feeling by it’s show!

Part 1: Plutchik’s Emotion Wheel
Review: Getting to our Emotions - OVER

This chart, by W. G. Parrott, is another way of grouping emotions - a general guide you can agree with in whole, in part or not at all. The more Es you can identify in yourself & others, the better. One reason I’ve added it is that it includes the Es of Shame & Guilt, which Plutchik does not.

IDENTIFYING Emotions (Part 1)

2011-08-19T23:08:00.000-07:00

I HAVE TOO MANY FEELINGS -
I just can’t handle them

Previous: The Body & Emotions
Read post: “Getting to our Emotions - Under”, Dec 2010

CATEGORIES
Many psychologists & sociologists have created their own Primary Emotions list (90 so far), some of which are seen on the Changing Minds and Alley Dog sites.

One Theory of Emotions
There are a variety of concepts that try to explain the source of Emotions (Es), put forth by psychologists, sociologists, philosophers & scientist.
Just to give an example - the James-Lange theory argues that an ‘event’ first causes physical arousal (body), which we then interpret (mind). Only after the interpretation do we experience emotions (body) related to the event. However, if the physical ‘symptoms’ are not noticed or not given any thought about a specific event, then we don’t experience emotions

Here are some ways to think about this theory:Expl: You’re walking down a dark alley late at night. You hear footsteps behind you. You start to shake, your heart beats faster & your breathing deepens. As you notice these physiological changes & decide this is telling you you’re in danger - then you feel fear
BUT: Those same physical symptoms can also occur when you met your exciting new lover - & your interpretation (what you’re thinking) is that this is a very good thing - so you feel the emotions of excitement, joy & sexual desire!

No Reaction: If you just found out that you lost out on a job opportunity you interviewed for but weren’t crazy about getting - you don’t have a physical response & don’t give it a second thought - so you’re not upset

Suppressed Reaction: You’re having a very busy day, running around without a moment to think. You pass by a major car accident on the street, with people screaming & bodies everywhere. You don’t stop - you’re mind is on the next task & how late you are so you’re too preoccupied to feel anything about the event you just saw
However - you did register fear, sorrow, revulsion.... at some physical level you weren’t aware of - so maybe late that nite you have a nightmare, or the next day you’re sluggish & cranky but don’t know why!

Famous Emotion Wheel
This is Robert Plutchik’s well-know chart, a 3-D model using the color spectrum to indicate adjacent & opposite Es, (Fear is opposite Anger, Sadness is between Surprise & Disgust .....) The vertical dimension represents intensity & the circles are degrees of similarity.

1. Fundamental - inner circle are the most basic Es. They are the intensity of an infant’s feelings, whose brain pathways are not yet developed enough to experience a variety of subtler Es
2. Secondary - each row out from there are milder versions of the core
3. Tertiary - in the white spaces, each E. is made up of the 2 adjacent secondary Es (Trust + Fear = Submission; Anticipation + Anger = Aggressiveness ....)

Expl: Fear opposite Anger in extremes
• Think of some who always seem angry. They are using that emotion to feel powerful while covering up how scared they are, because they think it makes them too vulnerable (it wouldn’t if they had a strong identity, good boundaries & healthy self-esteem!). They believe that feeling fear is a weakness & will do anything to avoid it
• Now notice people who usually present themselves as scared, delicate, easily hurt, a victim, isolating..... You can be sure that hidden underground is a lot of suppressed rage which they’ve been taught to deny & are terrified of!

➼ Yes, anger AND fear can also mask sadness, loneliness, shame, guilt, hopelessness..... BUT we can actually see the difference when someone does FoO work & those extremes get evened out. The person is easier to be around since they live less in the painful Es, but can still respond with fear or anger when it is appropriate, as well as have a wide variety of pleasant feeling.

PART 2: W. G. Parrott's Emotion List

The BODY & Emotions (Part 2)

2011-08-15T21:16:00.000-07:00

I TRY TO HIDE MY FEELINGS
but my body keeps giving me away

Part 1: The Feedback-loop, Blindsight
Suggested: Does Your Body Lie? , re. how emotions affect various body parts

NLP (Neuro - the mind & how we think / Linguistic - how we use language & how it affects us / Programming - how we sequence our actions to achieve our goals)
• Emotions (Es) represent a great part of our interchanges with others. If we leave our feelings out or if we communicate them inadequately, we will fail to get across an important chunk of our intentions
NLP tells us that the Verbal part of Communication is only one portion of the message we present, the others being our tone & body language. Words are important & have power - they can inspire or they can do great harm. It is our tonality & body language that convey emotions

• Being overly expressive in public is usually looked down on or made fun of (in the theater it’s called 'chewing the scenery', & think William Shatner) unless we’re at ball game or rock concert - but -
• there are times when NO sign of emotions is read by others as an indication that:
-- a situation is not important, as when someone expounds on a topic too intellectually, or in a monotone - with flat affect - like ACoAs talking about their bad childhood, or when giving terrible news in a neutral or pleasant voice, like reporters on TV
-- an event or person is disapproved of, like complete silence from an audience to a performance, a public figure, a friend or spouse.....
-- a person is considered ‘cold’, heartless, even a psychopath, such as having no reaction to the news of a loved one being horribly killed or being told that one has lost everything in a disaster

• Regardless of the actual reason for someone not adding emotional subtext to their communication (in shock, terrified, shy, in denial....) the average observer is looking for some cue as to the value & relevance of what they’re hearing from / seeing in another person - & therefore how they themselves should feel & respond
HOWEVER -
Everyone telegraphs their true emotional reactions - even the reticent & the repressed - by micro-expressions of the face & throat muscles (in addition to other physical signs like a clenched fist, leaning forward or back, slouching....). Normally, both sender & receiver of these tiny movements are unaware of them but, as observers, we pick them up anyway & respond internally, if not outwardly. As seen on the “Lie to Me” TV series, anyone trained to read them can consciously identify what someone else is feeling / experiencing

ACoAs:
• because these involuntary muscle contractions are such subtle cues to someone’s emotional state, and
• because ACoAs were trained to ignore legitimate perceptions (using our intuition, emotions & thinking), unfortunately:
-- we have become numb to this level of information, OR
-- if we do pick up the cues, we don’t trust what we’ve observed & then talk ourselves out of their implications. This is one reason we are greatly handicapped in understanding & dealing with others. Fortunately, we can change this!

This makes it harder for us to know :
• what someone is actually telling us (we can easily misread their meaning or motives)
• what we feel emotionally about their communication (we react from our internal wounds instead of responding to the present info)
• how to respond appropriately (our actions are too harsh or too weak)
Because of our ‘limited vision’, when someone is verbally insensitive or mean, we don’t feel the emotional punch in the stomach until sometime later & then end up blaming ourselves, becoming angry & self-hating!

Holding in our Feelings
• How we carry our body can indicate how we are feeling emotionally, not just in the moment but habitually. We store un-processed stress in our body’s organs, muscles, chakras, meridians & electro-magnetic layers. Specific emotional residue of abuse AND our negative beliefs are stored in specific locations in the body. (Anger in the liver, not being supported - in the lower back muscles....)

Expl: There are some people whose center (gut area) is visibly concave, as obvious as in this drawing. It is likely they were severely & regularly abused in childhood, & perhaps continued in current toxic relationships. Their solar plexus has been emotionally punched so often (sometimes physically too), that their body is trying to pullback from future blows they’re still expecting to come. (There are also many abused people whose outward signs are much subtler, but just as important to notice)

➼ Generally, people who are confident & happy stand erect, head up, shoulders back, & walk with a sure but nor arrogant gait. Depressed or self-hating people may stand with slumped shoulders, head down, slow or unsure walk..... Changing how we hold our body can improve how we feel about ourselves. Of course there are exceptions:
-- some who have a chronic physical illness may move slowly, clumsily, be hunched over, need a wheelchair - because of physical limitations. Yet they are confident & emotionally balanced (with ups & downs, but not miserable)
-- while some who are deeply insecure may strut around & seem emotionally ‘strong’ only because their external presentation is a facade to compensate for being afraid, usually formed by anger & inflated self-importance

• Meditation, yoga, tai-chi, acupuncture.... are all aimed at releasing old pain & allowing our natural healthy energy to flow freely
• One of the ways to identify & expel recent or old traumas is via Brain Gym, also called brain re-patterning, via kinesiology & exercises. The two sides of our brain are meant to work together, connected by the Corpus Collosum which acts like fiber optics - shunting info back & forth - the left side of the brain being for thought, the right for emotions - among many other functions.
➼ With long-term stress the 2 sides stop talking to each other. Some people get stuck using mainly the right (over-feelers) while others are limited to the left brain (under-feelers)

• Brain Gym has many techniques to re-balance the 2 sides, including its 26 Movements, based on the principle that moving with intention leads to optimal learning. These activities recall the movements naturally done during early childhood when we were coordinating eyes, ears, hands, with the whole body. Correcting a variety of learning difficulties, as well as healing old traumas, can be done by carrying out certain repetitive actions that create new pathways by “activating the brain for optimal storage & retrieval of information."

NEXT: Categorizing Emotions

The BODY & Emotions (Part 1)

2011-08-13T17:26:00.000-07:00

TELL ME ABOUT IT --
ok, but you left out your emotions!

PREVIOUS: 'What about Emotions?"
REVIEW: Extensive list of Es by category on my ACoA website page: ‘Emotions‘

The PHYSIOLOGICAL FEEDBACK Loop
Modified from a Psychology Today article by Peter Coming, PhD:
'The brain is a parallel processor, doing many things at once. Visual & other kinds of perception are the result of input from both the senses & top-down (mental) interpretations based on past knowledge. Similarly, the brain generates emotions by combining high-level judgments about goal satisfactions with low-level perceptions of bodily changes. Cognitive judgments are performed by the prefrontal cortex interacting with the amygdala & insula which process information about physiological states. For details about how this might work, see the EMOCON model of emotional consciousness'

❀ The following is a very simplified outline of the process of generating emotions. When there is a disconnect between any of these components, we :
-- won’t know we are registering Es
-- can’t think about them, just react
-- think incorrectly about the Es we’re feeling

• BODY: we experience an internal stimulus (a sad memory, a self-hating thought) or external arousal (starting a new job, buying a new dress)....
• BRAIN: ..... that stimulates a reaction in our Limbic System deep in the center of our brain, releasing chemicals such as adrenalin. These create physical agitation & so a 'readiness for action' (Es), while they temporarily reduce thinking & therefore conscious control, depending on intensity. The Reticular Formation in the brain stem also contributes, by integrating brain activity
• BODY : those chemicals then activate our gut (middle of the body).... Notice statements like “It felt like I was punched in the stomach”, or “I feel nauseous when he touches me”.....
• BRAIN : ..... which then get returned to the frontal cortex for evaluating & ‘understanding”

✶ How we interpret events can sometimes change our emotional state, BUT not always! Some behaviors or situations are objectively bad & should not be given the benefit of the doubt or ‘reframed’ - like rape, incest, beating, murder, emotional or physical torture, neglect of the young & helpless ....
Changing our perspective about such actions will not change the character of the abuse!
➼ The only things that DO need changing are:
-- making excuses for the perpetrators (“They did the best...”)
-- and blaming ourselves for being abused !! (S-H)

EXPL: At 36 Nina started dating a great guy - kind, smart, warm, & very spiritual. But his ex-wife had cheated on him & then left without taking their young daughter. He said he had forgiven her & wasn’t angry - that the emotion of anger was unspiritual & unacceptable. Nina knew this was a warning signal that he was ultimately unsafe since it put such unrealistic pressure on her (& obviously his Ex) - but she wasn’t quite ready to let go.
After a few weeks of dating, Nina noticed that her elbow & wrist joints were sore, but figured she was too young to have arthritis. She talked to several people & finally realized she was holding back her anger at feeling controlled by him, in order to not get abandoned. That same day the pain in her arms disappeared! It wasn’t long after that they broke up

SENSING Emotions
Even tho there are still people who deny the value of having Es, (even some who flatly deny that animals even have emotions!) but fortunately there are scientists who continue to gather data identifying the brain structures associated with emotions & the ways we can use our senses. Maybe it will eventually convince the skeptics!

Blindsight is a term coined by researchers at Oxford University over 40 years ago - working with blind monkeys & then humans, in the process of testing their ability to sense their environment using other parts of the brain

• In the new TV series “Through the Wormhole” the episode 'Blind Sight' shows a scientific study in the Netherlands about the way Emotions travel from person to person by picking up changes in the faces of others. Dr. de Gelder’s subjects were stroke victims who can see with one eye but not the other. To their sighted eye they were presented pictures of people with a neutral expression, while at the same time faces with a variety of emotions were shown to the blind eye

• In every case, each time the unseeing eye was presented with people’s features that expressed emotions, the subjects automatically mimicked those exact expressions in their own face - without realizing it. When asked if they knew what emotion was on the screen, they all said they were just guessing. Clearly they were using some other areas of the brain. For an explanation & to see the whole program go to: http://science.discovery.com/videos/through-the-wormhole-sixth-sense/

CAT scans show that we experience many complex interaction we don’t realize & don’t make enough use of, which include the emotion centers of the brain. It would benefit us as ACoAs to learn about these connections & realize they are legitimate parts of us - built in to our biological system. We can then become more comfortable with our Es & use them to navigate the complexities of life!

Our HEALTH: Most of us know that emotions affect our physical bodies as much as the body affects how we feel & think. People who ignore, dismiss, repress or just ventilate (dump) their Es are setting themselves up for physical illness. Es that are not felt & released but are instead buried in the physical & energetic body (meridians, organs, chakras, muscles) can cause serious illnesses
✶ Having painful emotions is not the problem - it’s when they go on & on for years unexpressed that they wear away at our physical & mental well-being. When fear or rage-based emotions are long-term & chronic they damage our chemical, immune, endocrine & other physical systems

Naturally, we know not all sickness is caused by emotional suppression, such as genetics, poisons in food, water & the environment, world travel & importing of goods & supplies, harmful medicines ...... so it’s imperative to accurately identify sources of illness AND not blame ourselves no matter what the cause!

Part 2: NLP, Micro-Expressions, Holding Es

What about EMOTIONS? (Part 2)

2011-08-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

I FEEL THAT SHE DOESN’T LIKE ME!
OOPS - that’s not a feeling. It’s a thought!

Part 1: Definitions
Review: CD & Emotions (Part 1 & 2)

Primary emotions - usually are immediate responses to some situation or thought in the moment. They are important because they give us information about our current status & gets us ready or motivated to act when appropriate or necessary. They are a direct result of either:
• an external event, like being cut off in traffic or your boss being annoying - so you may feel angry, irritated, frustrated.... or
• an internal ‘event’, like memories of --
-- a bad job, a lost loved one - you can feel sad, lonely, angry, scared
-- a fun party, great success - you may feel happy, relieved, proud.....

Secondary emotions - not beneficial, because they’re the result of obsessing on the above experience & our judgments about how we felt.
They won’t dissipate easily or fast because they’re attached to self-abusing beliefs that our WIC is loyal to
✶ Secondary Es prevent us from being in touch with or honoring our honest gut responses, which then distract us from taking needed actions, or make us take the wrong kinds of actions

Expl: You got really angry at a rotten driver on the highway, yelling & giving them the bird... but then gave yourself a hard time about having that anger - because you learned as a kid that it was not an acceptable emotion - so you may feel guilt, shame, anxiety & self-hate on top of the primary E. In this case you may not have made a distinction between the emotion of anger & your outward behavior.
Truth: All emotions are legitimate, but not all actions are appropriate. Regardless, you may not always be able to prevent the self-hate 'recording' from starting up, but don't let it go on & on, since it's a type of internal abuse & just adds to our misery!

REMINDER
• As stated in other posts, using T.E.A.: Even tho most people (even healers & therapists!) talk about Es as either positive or negative, that is not a realistic or correct way to consider them. We assume anything labeled ‘negative’ is bad & should be suppressed or eliminated. However, it is not healthy to suppress or eliminate Es! What is most healing is to feel our emotions in appropriate places & with safe people, so we don’t have to carry them around for too long. If we keep shoving them away they pile up & clog our energy pathways, like an old sewer. They harden us or we explode

• It is our thoughts & actions that are either positive or negative. To feel empowered we need to keep track of our Es (with great patience & kindness toward ourselves) so we can be in charge of what we’re thinking & how we act on them. Emotions just need to be accepted & felt!
Expl: After regularly attending ACoA meetings for a couple of years, one young man explained: “I spent much of my life running from my emotions. I was convinced that if I stopped, I would drown in them. Finally I got so tired of running I just ‘sat down’, fearing the worst. Instead, the waves of emotions came like a tsunami but washed over me and kept on going. And I’m still here - better than ever!

Correction: Instead of calling them positive or negative, we need to think about Es in terms of being painful or pleasurable, in varying degrees, from neutral to the extremes: Pa <---------> 0 <--------> Pl
Always keep in mind that Emotions are necessary & beneficial. Not having them or trying to get rid of them is like wanting to be rid of your hands or feet!
Consider:
• Sociopaths are people who feel little or no emotions, doing whatever they want without remorse, guilt or shame. They have no internal deterrent to prevent being abusive to others because they can’t empathize with the pain they cause. Many of them do understand intellectually that their actions create suffering in someone else, & this may actually give them some satisfaction or pleasure, but no identification with the sufferer, so they don’t care about the terrible effect they often have
• Narcissists (especially NPDs) can feel some Es, but mainly for themselves & assume that others feel exactly the way they do - about everything, like the N. mother saying to her daughter: “Put a sweater on, I’m cold”! Narcissist say they ‘love’ someone, (a child, a spouse...) BUT it’s all about themselves - only about their need to get something from the other person or protect themselves
-- Legitimate (healthy) patent-to-child or adult-to-adult love can see the other person clearly & always has the other’s well-fare in mind. The healthy parent would say: "Jimmy, I'm cold. Are you?" If the answer is "No", the mother lets it go & adds a sweater to the backpack..... (depending on the age of the child, of course)

RECOGNIZE when you’re having feelings - by regularly asking “What am I feeling emotionally right now?” Name any that you can. If you’re not sure, write about recent events & talk them about it to a friend or in a meeting. Often that helps to clarify our Es because we don’t have to be alone with them
Q: Have you noticed sometimes that at the end of a day - or maybe a week - you feel heavy, tired, depressed - BUT you think nothing really big / bad happened?
A: List every event, no matter how trivial or ‘innocuous’ you think they were. Some events may actually have been quite intense.
• Next to each one - list Es you did have OR as many emotions as you may have felt about it - if you were ‘in touch’ (sad, mad, lonely... or happy, relieved, peaceful....)
• You notice that there are many possible emotions associated with the people & situations that came in & out of your life recently - but by ignoring those Es, usually the uncomfortable ones, they stayed in you body & now you’re weighed down! (We can also overlook the pleasant ones if we’re not used to or allowed to notice them)

✶ Not all Es are big, scary or overwhelming. The ones we have in the moment are usually subtle, short-lived & sometimes conflicting. ACoAs have been so brain-washed to not recognize any emotions in general, that we barely acknowledge the big ones, & the subtler ones we miss altogether! Some ways to relieve the pressure of backed-up E:
-- sometimes just writing them out is enough of a relief, & also drawing them using pens or crayons
-- call someone who won’t try to fix or control you, share your Es in Al-anon & therapy
-- if angry, do a minute or more of under-your-breath yelling while pounding on the couch or bed, or go outside to a deserted place to vent
-- if sad, listen to music, watch a movie, read a book.... to trigger your tears. Some of us can only cry when we are with other - if they’re safe, others only when we’re alone
✶ In many cases you’ll feel lighter & be able to sleep better!

Expl: You got an email from an ex you haven’t heard from in a long time. You’re over him/her, & the content was ok - nothing special.
So --- you don’t feel anything. Right?
Well --- when you take a look inside, you find there were strong Es. Don't judge, just accept & use all your tools to process them
• OR maybe there’s only a little sadness, or guilt, or loss or disappointment or forgotten anger - that got activated. But you’re not aware of it - because, in this case you don’t really care that much, you’ve moved on.... and yes, you really are not invested in this person anymore BUT feelings are feelings & aren’t logical. Just say “I might be feeling something - just quietly.” It’s normal. Acknowledge whatever Es you identify (intense and subtle), give your kid a warm hug & go on with your life - no drama!

NEXT: Es & the body

What about EMOTIONS? (Part 1)

2011-08-06T14:32:00.000-07:00

WHAT AM I FEELING?
Don’t ask - I don’t know!

REVIEW: “Feelings Aren’t Facts” post
Read article at ConneXions - food for thought, & decide what you agree or disagree with (always!)

Some DEFINITIONS:
• The English word emotion (Es) is derived from the French word émouvoir, from the Latin emovere, where e- means ‘out’ and movere means ‘move’, as in emit & emote
• At it’s most basic: Es are pure mental & spiritual energy coming from the core of our being that makes us all one, where we meet and overlap as human beings
• Es can be used to motivate us to actions needed to protect ourselves, to connect & to grow
• Our Es enliven those actions, which would otherwise be rigid or boring

• Es are the result of combining external experience, brain chemicals, our thought process & the actions we choose - based on our native self, our personal history & the cultural rules & values we grew up with
• Es are short-lived psycho-physiological phenomena that represent efficient patterns of adaptation to environmental demands (Levenson, ‘94)
• Es are the part of the consciousness that involves feeling / sensibility: "The very essence of literature is the war between emotion and intellect" Isaac Bashevis Singer

• From Evolutionary Psychology - Emotions developed as a way to coordinate our many adaptive needs so we can function more efficiently without those needs being in conflict or demanding attention all at the same time (food, shelter, reproduction, safety, sleep, communication....)
Es are seen as an overriding program that temporarily deactivates, activates or modifies particular needs, depending on the situation we are facing at the moment, where one has to be deactivated & another activated so we can keep functioning properly (to sleep vs go to work, stay connected vs withdraw from danger, achievement vs privacy, etc.)

BTW - Don‘t confuse feelings or emotions with
• Compulsions, which are actions we’re not in conscious control of - OR -
• Obsessions, which are overly-focused, circular mental ruminations, our personal hamster-in-the-wheel:
a. most Os are unconsciously fueled by anxiety (from trauma, S-H, FoA....) & are supported by immature thinking (CDs, desire for revenge, being one-up, proving oneself ....)
b. less often (legitimate) Os may be:
•• motivated by a deep need to connect with a H.P, to be of service to others or to follow a creative goal. These may better be called passions
•• mentally repeating phrases or counter-arguments which have been created by our Healthy Adult - practicing them at every opportunity, especially when not under any special stress - until they become automatic & easy to say
Purpose: to set in place a more successful & empowering way of verbally responding to others, especially anyone likely to attack or try to control us.

Since ACoAs tend to blank out when confronted or criticized (we get scared), and when being told something outrageous or mean (we get enraged), this kind of ‘obsessional repetition’ is a smart tool, creating new brain pathways so that our frontal cortex will stay ‘on line’, in the moment, when we need to stand up for ourselves

TIME factor in experiencing Es:
• Most: In a healthy state, emotions usually come & go rather quickly. We can have several, even conflicting Es, at the same time about a specific person or situation, but they’re not long-lasting, because they’re situation-specific & we’re not holding on to a negative mental interpretation of what is being felt (not judging or being fearful of having Es)
• Some: Then there are the long term ‘feeling states’ like love, loyalty, faith.... that can last years or a life-time, even with ups & downs, depending on the individual or the relationship

• Unhealthy or Unusual: Painful Es that we feel continually over long periods of time (rage, fear, sorrow, hopelessness .....) may be:
-- from a traumatic past & are tightly linked to belief, hope, wishes, resentments... that we have not processed & so are detrimental to us
-- caused by sudden shock or unexpected loss we can’t seem to get over (such as with PTSD)
-- the result of aging, a brain injury, chemical imbalance (like in clinical depression) or side effects of legal & illegal drugs
Many (but not all) of these categories of Es can be worked thru psychologically so they can be released, & in some cases can be greatly helped by corrective medication

MASTERY VS CONTROL
• EXTERNAL: Control is defined in the dictionary as exercising authority over, directing & commanding others or to hold back, curb, restrain. The need for control (being controlling) in our personal lives comes from an intense desire to avoid feeling fear - fear which we’ve been storing away a little at a time, year after year, until we have a huge stockpile that is too overwhelming to face. Without realizing it, we believe that if we can ‘direct or restrain’ other people & situations around us we can prevent our feelings of terror & rage from surfacing. Controlling our Es keeps us from knowing ourselves fully, & tries to manage others' perceptions of us

• INTERNAL: On the other hand, mastery indicates becoming an expert in some area. Regarding emotions, it has to do with recognizing & accepting our True Self & therefore others - since we’re all emotional beings. We can be in charge of our feelings & behavior, as well understand & be respectful of others. It means being responsible for our own Es!
In ACoAs language mastery of our emotions means having our Healthy Adult & Loving Parent in charge, instead of the WIC, while giving lots of room for the Healthy Child to thrive & express itself ("Mental health is an inside job")!
When we allow ourselves to have a wide range of Es & learn how to handle them correctly their intensity fades because they don’t get back-logged & then have to explode.

PART 2: Primary/ Secondary Es, Reminder

Infatuation, Sexual or Romantic Chemistry

2011-08-01T12:42:00.000-07:00

HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT
But how do I feel?

Review: Relationship Continuum & following posts

NOTE to Readers: If you are interested in these topics & the other charts from the book “The Love Test”, I recommend you also do additional book & internet searches to read variations about these issues. The lists below are only one version - my goal was to get you thinking & to give you a place to start from.

ACoAs - Having Rights

2011-07-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

I CAN CLAIM MY RIGHTS
no matter what they told me!

Previous: Not Deserving
REVIEW posts : “My Rights - Qs” & “Not Enough Love?”

• This article is not about making a list of rights - there are other places in this blog & on the net for that. It’s about driving home for us, as ACOAs, a core truth so antithetical to the ‘twin towers’ of alcoholism & narcissism. The issues in these 2 posts (Deserving vs Rights) are polar opposites. We often hear people in Recovery say that we “deserve to be....... OR to have.....”. This can be misleading since it assumes that we did something to merit x or y, so it is conditional.

• As we mature & heal we eventually come to understand that just being born gives us certain rights, as human being with a soul & a connection to the Universal Spirit - a far greater power than any one of us & beyond our understanding. As has been said many times in 12 step programs: “God did not make trash!” So if we are all one & part of the Universal Energy then we do NOT have to earn / pay for / suffer for the qualities & benefits that are our birth-right

• In another post I recall a basic CD developed in childhood - that my greatest character defect was my need for love - I thought how “stupid to want something I clearly never had, had no right to & would never get”! Well, that was 35 yrs ago & now I know differently
• Around that time a boyfriend said “My loving you is none of your business” - that I didn’t cause him to love me (and no one has the power to make another person love us, including our parents!). He meant that I couldn’t make him not love me & therefore should stop obsessing about how I was going to ‘ruin it’ because I wasn’t good enough, or because of what I said or did! If I had known that I have the right to be loved - I would never have worried at all

HAVING RIGHTS
A “right” is a moral principle defining & sanctioning a person’s freedom of action in a social context, & can be exercised without anyone’s permission. A right is a natural or God-given permit received at birth, to act in one's own self-interest with total control over one's own life and property as long as others are not injured. Some of these rights are stated in our constitution - “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”

What does inalienable mean?
➼ The state of a thing, or a right which is not capable of being alienated, that is - sold, surrendered or transferred, without the consent of the one possessing such rights, such as the natural rights to be alive & to be free

• This concept generally refers to the way our government is supposed to treat ‘the people’, although much of the world is run by regimes that do not function that way. It is primarily a Western idea, but we know from anthropology, archeology & sociology, even mythology, that some cultures throughout history have also valued personal freedoms, especially those that were matriarchal

• We may then make a comparison between the family unit (specifically parents) & government - one group in the role of the authority over another group needing sustenance, guidance & support. Clearly, there are few governments & few families that respect these ideals.
The focus here, for ACoAs, is not to consider political rights, which are important, but rather to to be clear about our personal rights starting in childhood - as they sets the tone for our whole life

• If we believe that human beings are born with certain fundamental rights then this ALSO applies to how the family should treat their children. Again - one does not have to earn rights. They are part of who we are from conception. We have these rights simply because we are here

SHAME: this emotion (E) is associated with any need we were NOT allowed to have, that was made fun of, restricted or punished. We learned that we did not have the right to have many needs that are absolutely fundamental AND normal to all human beings & so became ashamed of having them as adults. Read an extensive list of rights at Break the Cycle! similar to the ones on this blog

Some ways we can have things we didn’t earn: 
• being born with certain abilities & genetic predispositions, such as musical talent, a great immune system, a head for business, being an extrovert, physical stamina, a quick & clever mind ....
• a lucky accident - being in the right place at the right time - but - we would need to take advantage of the opportunity to receive the benefit
• an outright gift from someone who values us (or needs a tax break, lol)

Some personal rights
a. ‘Positive’, recognized by law
“Most countries—though not the USA—have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which accords to children a wide range of rights including, most centrally, the right to have their ‘best interests’ be ‘a primary consideration’ in all actions concerning them (Article 3), the ‘inherent right to life’ (Article 6), and the right of a child “who is capable of forming his or her own views … to express these views freely in all matters affecting the child” (Article 12) United Nations 1989.

b. Moral (children’s rights in a family & beyond):
-- care, nurturing & unconditional acceptance (love)
-- to know & develop ones own personality to its fullest potential
-- be treated with respect, no matter what age
-- given age appropriate guidance, including acceptance of our human limitations (mistakes, inabilities, developmental stages of skill....) & a spiritual basis for our life
-- not be exploited for the parents’ or other adults’ benefit
-- experience positive social contact - play, education, creativity, relaxation....
-- to be heard, for our opinions and our emotions - all of them
-- paid healthy attention to, with boundaries
-- encouragement, validation, praise -- etc. 

Right to the Pursuit of Happiness (from philosophy)
The right to the pursuit of happiness is freedom of action. To live, we must
be able to choose our values & act on them. To achieve values, we must be free to think and do whatever it takes to develop ourselves, which may sometimes include self-defeating actions, as long as it doesn't conflict with the rights of others. It means that human cannot be forced to devote our life to the happiness of others.
Ultimately, we must be free to pursue our own goals and happiness.

FOR ACoAs - we need to identify the qualities & activities that are legitimate for us to have & pursue, in spite of the fact that they were denied us as children. S & I (separation & individuation) means we choose the best way to live, especially when it conflicts with our toxic family traditions & rules, while keeping the best parts of our inheritance!

ACoAs: NOT DESERVING

2011-07-26T04:16:00.000-07:00

I’LL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH
to get the love I want

Review posts: “Self-Hate”, “People should treat me better, but....” , “The Introject, Part 1, 2, 3”

THE PROBLEM  : ACoAs often say we feel undeserving of all kinds of things
• we were taught by our religion & our family that asking for what we want & need is ‘selfish, sinful, arrogant, childish’.....
• we were discouraged from improving ourselves beyond what our parents are or have accomplished, as if it would somehow diminish them (show them up). Actually, healthy parents (& many immigrants) want the opposite - for their kids to do better than themselves & be the very best they are capable of!
• other people (sometimes even our siblings) were clearly allowed to have good things - but not us, especially if we were scapegoated in our family
• many of us concluded that we don’t even deserve to be alive, based on messages we got about being so bad: “You’ll be the death of me yet”, “Why did I have to have a kid like you”, “I never wanted kids anyway”, “You’re killing your mother/ father” , "You ruined my life"....

We Don’t Deserve to:
• feel safe, receive compliments, be respected as a person & for our opinions
• have fun, relaxation, vacations, ‘veg time’
• make mistakes, not know or be good at everything, not like & even hate some things
• be ourselves, have clear & strong opinions
• have all of our emotions, without judgement
• object to all forms of mistreatment
• take care of our needs, be self motivating
• be center stage, shine, get attention, admiration, recognition
• maintain our boundaries, say ‘no!’
• be competent, functional, clever, visible
• be talented, funny, creative, imaginative, intuitive
• be healthy, clear thinking, emotionally sane, sober .............

✶ The implication to the idea of ‘deserving’ is that we have to earn something in order to get it. The problem with this rule is that in dysfunctional families it is a B & W concept, rigidly held in place by low self-esteem (S-H), depression, deprivation mentality & lack of love.
The conviction of our unworthiness is so deeply ingrained that it prevents us from even imagining possibilities, much less allowing us to actively pursue normal goals, expressing our natural talents or following our dreams!
DESTRUCTIVE: This means we were given love conditionally (if at all) - “do what we want & be what we want - then you’re ok, then you’ll deserve our love & attention”. Unfortunately, this keeps us from developing self-esteem, because that is created from UNconditional love! AND worse yet - no matter how hard we tried to please them - it never worked. For many of us - nothing we did was ever good enough! This left us in a double bind & ultimately hopeless

We believe we have to earn:
• being loved - by suppressing ourselves, by please everyone else, by not having needs, by shutting off may of our emotions, by never objecting to other people abuse or selfishness.....
• getting affection, attention &/sex - by giving in to whom ever want us, by setting no boundaries, by focusing on the needs & desires of the other person instead of ourselves
• respect or admiration - by being perfect, by out-achieving everyone else, by having all the answers, by following every rule .....

REALITY
a. there are things in life we do need to earn - an education, our career, our income, Recovery, physical well-being, healthy respect, honors ....
Earning means that we have to work at reaching certain goals, using our intelligence, being persevering & asking for appropriate support. People who think they are entitled to whatever they want, whenever they want it - have been raised incorrectly (the other extreme of not deserving), so end up selfish & arrogant
b. there are some things we should never have to earn - like love! See the next post about having rights

For expl, when ACoAs inherit money, we often squander it all quickly because:
• we're emotionally & mentally immature - being run by the WIC
• have been so poor & deprived that we’re trying to make up for all our suffering
• feel guilty for having more than others & our co-dependence tell us to give it to others INSTEAD of valuing the gift & using it wisely
• deeply believe we don’t deserve it (S-H) so we tell ourselves we shouldn’t have the money because we didn’t earn it

“Spiritual”
Many religions teach us to feel ashamed , guilty & unworthy. If you were not raised in any specific faith, your sense of unworthiness would have developed mainly from unhappy & cruel interactions with parents & community. But those of us from strict & fundamentalist faiths were taught that because we were born in sin “we are not worthy” of God’s love, period. We are bad, bad, bad! This dogma is used as a way to control & discipline children, & keep the ‘faithful’ in line
➼ Some of us no longer consciously agree with this concept, BUT, whatever our personal belief is now - as long as we live our lives from the assumption that we don’t deserve most things, we’re agreeing with an introjected voice that is still trapping us in a religious culture that has perverted the meaning of its basic teaching

✶ What is being left out of this specific lesson is the key to the message: that God has given us many gifts in this world, as well as salvation from eternal separation from Him in the afterlife, in spite of our imperfections & not having earned these great blessings! We cannot earn any of life’s benefits & beauty - they are simple here for us to enjoy & partake of!
The meaning of ‘grace’ is unmerited favor! You may be interested in reading all the lyrics to “Amazing Grace”, a universally beloved song even by the non-religious

• Regardless of the source, any tinge of ‘not deserving’ represents our Child’s allegiance to the bad voice & therefore the toxic aspect of our parents & society. The Child would rather stay ‘small’ in the world, be invisible, ignore its talents & deny or limit its opportunities - than disobey the family rules - for fear of punishment, abandonment & death!

NEXT: Our human Rights