UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIOS KILL

UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS KILL

We expect, when we wake up in the morning, that the floor will be awaiting our feet, that the shower will be where we always shower, that the aroma of coffee—if we are blessed with a programmable pot we know how to program, or a partner up and about before we are--will invite us to breakfast.
We expect the buildings we work or run errands at to continue to be there, we expect the weather to fluctuate--not necessarily according to meteorological predictions--the news to bring a typical blend of horror and lightheartedness, and the trees and grass and houses we pass in our comings and goings to remain basically as we expect them to be.
So far, so good. The above and thousands of other examples manifest healthy and realistic expectations that enable our lives to function without major drama.
So how do expectations kill?
By being un-realistic and un-healthy!
Unrealistic and unhealthy expectations can make navigating our lives vulnerable to lotsa’ major drama.
For example, expecting your basically sloppy adolescent to understand that a cleaner, neater room might improve his / her grades and please you in the process.
For example, expecting the partner you’ve known for some time as a basic homebody, to want to go out to shop, picnic, attend a film or social occasion willingly.
For example, expecting your procrastinating partner or child to leap up and immediately comply to your request to take out the garbage, feed the dog or empty the dishwasher.
For example, expecting your cranky and emotionally withdrawn supervisor to say, “You did an excellent job on that project yesterday!”
For example, expecting the twenty pounds you gained over the past three years to disappear and stay disappeared in three days of crash-dieting misery. Or that you, an inveterate nightowl will wake up singing like a lark, or add four inches to your five foot two inch height.
Think about it. Having the above and similar unrealistic expectations and fretting when they are unmet is about as realistic as fretting whether or not the floor will be under your feet when you get out of bed.
Unrealistic expectations of family, friends, work colleagues and one’s own self can create major unhappiness in our lives, including strife in relationships—which can be “killed”, and a high enough self-administered load of stress to actually lower our own immune system.
Our UR’s, by enabling us to indulge in chronic disappointment in those around us, allow us to feel superior and pick any number of fights—disagreements—which chronically tear at the warp and woof of a healthy relationship.
Conversely, our UR’s directed against ourselves—sometimes known as perfectionism and “being hard on ourselves”-- enable us to feel not quite up to the mark, and therefore, no matter how much we achieve, succeed and excel, we are sure we have not measured up.
UR’s can also give us ready excuses for our not quite ever getting around to endeavoring new experiences and / or completing countless projects.
Either way, we lay the foundation for feeling bad about ourselves, because on some level—perhaps in our deep unconscious--we know that our feelings of superiority over anyone else are pretty fragile.
Then why would we continue to maintain unrealistic expectations and their chronic disappointments?
How can such self-defeating behavior possibly serve us?
UR’s do not serve our mature, adult, rational selves. But please imagine an immature, childish, irrational self still “residing” in your unconscious who remembers every hurt and emotional wound throughout your entire life, and sometimes needs to protect him / herself and you from a potential hurt or threat.
Unrealistic expectations, like denial, control, depression*, anxiety* and anger are defenses against our deeper and more genuine feelings.
Indeed, unrealistic expectations are defense mechanisms that must have worked once to protect us from feelings we were unable to tolerate. Now that we have matured enough to bear the unbearable, those defenses that served us well in infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, adolescence and young adulthood have become perverted to work against us.
I believe that each and every one of us, in our earliest and later years, experiences hurt and disappointment and abandonment and rejection and shame and humiliation and fear and a slough of other negative or yucky feelings. Early on, we are actually unable to tolerate the intolerable or bear the unbearable, or simply experience many many hurtful negatives in our lives. So thank goodness, our defenses come forth.
Yet in adulthood, we often do have the resources to tolerate the intolerable and bear the unbearable, and that is the time to let go of our UR’s.

JUST A FEW THINGS ANGER COVERS UP

JUST A FEW THINGS ANGER COVERS UP


ANGER IS A SECONDARY EMOTION
ANGER IS A COVER-UP EMOTION
ANGER IS NOT AN EMOTION AT ALL
ANGER IS A DEFENSE MECHANISM
ANGER PROTECTED US FROM PAINFUL EMOTIONS WHEN WE WERE YOUNGER
ANGER ALLOWED SOME OF US TO BEAR THE UNBEARABLE AND SURVIVE
ANGER ALLOWED THE REST OF US TO COPE WITH GENUINELY PAINFUL FEELINGS
ANGER STILL PROTECTS US FROM PAINFUL FEELINGS
ANGER PROTECTS US FROM:
GRIEF
LOSS
SADNESS
HUMILIATION
SHAME
EMBARRASSMENT
HURT
PAIN
FEAR
ABANDONMENT
REJECTION
HELPLESSNESS
HOPELESSNESS
OVERWHELMEDNESS
LACK OF CONFIDENCE
FEELINGS OF INCOMPETENCE
FEELINGS OF LOW SELF-WORTH
ENVY
JEALOUSY

JUST A FEW THINGS ANGER COVERS UP

THE MATCH AND THE CONFLAGRATION / OR HOW TO DISCERN A TRIGGER FROM A DISASTER

“You only hurt the one you love…”
Makes no sense, and yet a genuine phenomenon it is in our lives. The words flown out of our mouths we would give anything not to have uttered, the disconnect of the phone when the other is speaking, the storming out and slamming the door in the other’s face, and—yes, it happens—the push, the shove, the slap we horrify ourselves with. How could we have let things go that far, how could we have done / said anything so terrible?
Let us step back for a moment to our feelings just before we spoke and / or acted. Likely, we were experiencing out-of-control feelings of rage, which were in reality covering up feelings of grief, fear, shame, humiliation, sorrow, loss, fear of loss, threat, rejection, abandonment, and so much more pain. Pain we have known before in our lives, unless we have been living under a rock.
Pain that happened to us long, long ago, before we were able to deal with it, defend ourselves, know that it was not about us at all, but about someone who was wounding us grievously. And perhaps more recent pain, because those of us who were wounded early on, tend to attract ourselves to people who will wound us again—yet that is the topic of another “musing”.
Time after event after occurrence after drama, again and again, we mistake the trigger, which might be symbolized as a “newly struck match”, with its small, sweet flame, for a conflagration. And rather than respond with a breath drawn in and quickly expelled to extinguish the match’s flame, we react, seeing not a tiny match flame, but rather envisioning an inferno descending upon us, and usually, we react badly, saying and doing the hurtful things we regret.
If only we could learn to discern the tiny flame for what it is, and realize that the conflagration is actually from so many painful experiences from our past.
When a trigger is pulled at work, or in traffic, or by a neighbor or casual acquaintance, we are so much more likely to experience that appropriate match flame, rather than a fireball headed our way, and “deal with” whatever actual hurt, fear or anxiety the trigger effected / produced. No, not always, otherwise desk rage and road rage would never have entered our vernacular. Usually, however, because we do not hold the same stakes with those more distant folk and experiences, our reality check resources are more firmly in place.
Yet when a loved one pulls a trigger, we frequently do not even see, feel or experience the tame match flame. Because we have great stakes in giving ourselves over to love—of spouse, lover, partner, child, friend—we are vulnerable, and everything we see, feel and experience is magnified. Ignited into threatening flames.
Because we invest such magnitude of resources upon those we love, we make ourselves vulnerable to them because we fear losing them.
All that fear, loss, abandonment, fear of rejection, shame and so on appear as a bonfire to us, and we are incited to stamp that fire out with an arsenal of hurtful words and actions.
Again and again.
Resistance to going back in time and blaming families of origin and others who wounded us early on abounds, but I am not talking about any moral or ethical or even theological motivational issues here. All parents do the best they possibly can with us and for us, given who they are and what resources they have and what experiences they are going through themselves. Ditto all the other hurtful folk in our younger years. Simply recognizing and acknowledging the results of our early experiences within our families, neighborhoods and schools liberates us to experience all those old pains as the bonfire, and see clearly the tiny match flames in our present.

THE ROLES WE LIVE

“Some are born great. Some achieve greatness. And some have greatness thrust upon them.”

The above quote about greatness applies equally well to those roles which are “thrust upon” us during childhood—toddlerhood—infancy—and even as early as the womb.
Yeah, families do that—thrust roles upon family members! Nothing personal. And it is likely that nothing is done on purpose. Yet family dynamics—that interchange of energies and personalities and feelings and values and beliefs, both conscious and especially unconscious—create and establish roles for each of us that we adhere to not only during our sojourn within our families of origin, we carry them in to our adult lives.

Perhaps you will recognize some of the following roles from your own family of origin; perhaps one or more might even have been thrust upon you:

1) The Star
Also known as the cheerleader, athletic hero, excellent student, popularity plus, volunteer extraordinaire—

2) The Mini-Parent
Mediates disagreements amongst all family members, makes sure schedules, obligations, appointments and daily living requirements are met--

3) The Bad Boy / Bad Girl
Just cannot get it together, seems to fail at everything and act out in anger

4) The Child Who Is Easily Ignored
Possibly this child hides out on purpose in order to avoid family dynamics, or, sadly, because of low self-worth, actually loses him / herself in profound isolation

Some roles become ours through sobriquets which family members insist are “terms of endearment”, such as, clumsy, princess, dumbo—referring to either or both ears or intellect—pipsqueak / runt / geek / loser / shorty / fats / handsome / gorgeous and so on. Such nicknames and their accompanying roles can be positive, as well as negative, and such positive labels sometimes lead to an inflated sense of ego and self-importance.

The point is, all “endearing terms” impact one’s self- belief, self-worth, and the attitudes and behaviors which follow. In other words, they impact how individuals see themselves as successes, failures, or mediocrities.

Please note well, that these roles that we have carried with us from our childhoods, lack reality. We have internalized them, but we have not owned them. Children internalize. Adults own.

Roles are thrust upon us, in other ways, as well, by circumstances in families.

Some examples follow:

Families in which one or more—I am referring to step-parents as well as biological parents—parent is alcoholic or addicted to party drugs or prescriptive medications

Families in which a parent—especially a mother—is depressed

Families in which a sibling has died or is chronically ill—either physically or mentally—or chronically acts out or is a prodigy

Families in which a parent dies

Families in which a divorce happens

Families in which hardship—economic, environmental, numerous internal losses is chronic

Every family bestows roles upon its members. The process does not follow a game plan of each and every parent giving a particular role to each child. Siblings thrust roles upon one another, and children create roles for their parents on a continuum from demon to saint! When extended family members are closely involved, and the family, as is most common these days, is a blended family, the complexities of roles within family life can resemble a—well, a—drama.
As successful as we are in our careers, as parents, as spouses and partners, even on the golf course or at the gym, we may still hear an inner voice calling us clumsy or dumb.
Fortunately, we create new “families” throughout our lives—friends, work colleagues, neighbors and the families of our spouses and partners to interact with. And from them, we can learn new, healthier, and more realistic ways in which to experience ourselves. We can shed the old roles and evolve into new ones.

LOSS AND GRIEF

No-one ever tells us we need to grieve the loss of kindergarten or pre- or play- schools when we “graduate”. I do not believe grief plays much of a part in graduating from high school or college, either.
And yet we will never experience these integrative and major years of our lives again. Does that not constitute loss? Does that not cry out for grieving?
Marriage can be a joyous transformation, yet does anyone ever give us permission to grieve our loss at no longer being single? Even when we so wanted not to be single any longer? No longer being single is a loss, and it needs to be acknowledged and honored.
Then, sometimes, after joyous marriage, comes divorce. Grieving—and raging—through the divorce is usually accomplished, but grieving the marriage itself, the loss of all the past positive times and memories, frequently gets smothered in the vitriol of the break-up, as all the present - day negative thoughts and remembrances take priority.
Moving, whether across the street or a continent away, evokes loss. Hovel to dream home spells success, but also nostalgia. Losing—not misplacing—keys or wallets creates frustration, but we do not usually grieve over this loss, and it would help if we did.
Theft, job loss, injury, illness and aging all incur loss, but do we mourn our youth—or even the younger self that looked at us in the mirror yesterday? Every day we are a day older, but do we mark the past days as lost to us forever? If we did, we just might welcome the todays and tomorrows as being more precious. Injury and illness can mean great or not so great loss of mobility and good spirits. Do we honor these losses by mourning them? If we did, we might clear a path for optimum healing.
Theft is a blow to ego and our sense of security—job loss blows our ego to smithereens and torches our sense of security. Yet most of us respond to these events with anger in order to cover up our grief and fear, as we “Let Go And Move On.”
Wait a minute!
Letting Go And Moving On is not doing the hard and painful and even terrifying work of grieving. LGAMO is a shortcut that cheats us. Stepping up to the plate in order to allow ourselves to be immersed in the pain of loss is how we grow and grow up.
Death, of a beloved, or our own imminent death, surely stands forth as the greatest loss, the loss of precious life itself.
And, if we have not yet dealt with life’s smaller yet still shattering losses how might we fully grieve death? What do we authentically know about loss and grief that prepares us to mourn to the fullest?
And yet, and yet and yet—every single one of us experiences our first loss, abandonment, rejection at birth! When our own moms push us out of that seemingly lovely, serene, peaceful, secure bucket of warm water we have been floating around in, fully nourished without our having to lift one of our tiny fingers, into bright lights, meaningless voices, dry air, unwanted—because it is unknown—touch!
Amazing any of us survives our call in to our--at that moment helpless-- place in our new world.
However, every loss and rejection we suffer from our birth abandonment forward, resides in the reservoir of our unconscious, whose very existence comprises waiting around for triggers!
Triggers comprise any and all painful incidences and / or reminders of rejection and abandonment, and / or loss. Because these triggers from present losses delve so deeply in to the unconscious morass of pure pain from the past, any of us who experience a loss, bounce for only a way too painful nanosecond in to and quickly out of our overwhelmingly painful past emotional memories.
Grieve? Mourn? Feel the loss? Not! I am far too busy LGAMO!
Guess what? The pain accompanying each and every loss, great and small, is bearable when we realize and honor that this pain from this loss is authentically about every little and major loss my life has encompassed and prevailed over.
I can and will bear the unbearable. I can and will grieve and mourn each loss, even until death with respect and honor.

PATTERNS--TOOLS FOR HEALING AND TRANSFORMATION

Clients ask me for tools to guide them in their journeys, make essential personal changes, build confidence and self-worth, enhance relationships and release their inner most creative and positive and powerful selves.
Not such a tall order.
The “solutions”* lie in our pasts. No, I do not advocate “Woody Allen” therapy—5 days a week for 55 years.
I do advocate delving in to our earlier life experiences in order to recognize the patterns which pervaded then, which have continued to pervade over the years, and which now will be used as tools for growth.
Patterns emerge from our observing how our parents interacted with each other, and from experiencing how each of them interacted with us. And just think about all the complexities arising for individuals with backgrounds of divorce, re-marriage, step-parents, unknown parents, adoptive parents, more than one step-parent and so many more variations of patterning / patterns.
If you are that complex person or are involved with him / her, listen up! If you manifest a simple nuclear family and / or also manifest simplicity in family connections, you, also, please listen up and read on!
Siblings create patterns, as do half and step siblings and
no siblings. Neighbors--both adults and children contribute to early patterns, as do teachers and classmates and clergy and other folk at church when that applies. Extended families make patterns, both those which meet the fairly unrealistic expectations of one marriage with children and grandparents and aunts and uncles, and those extended families in other circumstances, which meet different expectations of many folk playing multiple roles on multiple occasions. Extended families pattern our early lives into kaleidoscopic complexities!
And those early years only begin our life patterning.
Our lives’ original patterns tend to re-create themselves with variations on the original themes as we enter school and forever after, unless and until we create our own transformation. Are we the klutz in our family? Or perhaps the hero or star? The always relied-upon one? The loser? The brain?
While it pains me even to write some of these personae families imbue their members with and which we carry on from day 1 into our lives, recognizing and acknowledging these roles / labels and their associated feelings liberates us to recognize and acknowledge the familiar—same yet different—patterns we, as adults, continue to perpetuate.
Recognizing self-defeating patterns and their repeated negative outcomes in our lives allows us to make healthy changes for positive outcomes. Yes, the changes may be painful and even frightening, but the patterning technique can readily be as rapid as “solution” or cognitive therapy, yet on a far more profound level.