Читать книгу Cheating Parents - Dennis Ortman - Страница 12
ОглавлениеThe Disengaged Workaholic—Being an Actor in a Play
Marcy grew up Daddy’s little girl. Her father never hid his desire that he had wanted his first-born to be a boy. His disappointment at Marcy’s birth was evident to those who knew him but hidden from those outside the family circle. As Marcy grew up and displayed extraordinary intelligence and talent, he grew attached to his daughter, developing the ambition to nurture her talents. Marcy loved her father and wanted to please him more than anything. She became his constant companion on weekends as he did chores around the house and ran errands. She listened attentively to his words of advice and guidance and complied with all his wishes.
Marcy’s mother was a fun-loving, sociable woman who spent a good deal of time at parties. She was not around the house much. So Marcy gravitated to her father as if he were a single parent. Her father owned a small factory that produced auto parts. His energy and ingenuity made that small enterprise into a thriving business. He had the ambition that one day Marcy would run the business and he carefully prepared her for the job. Occasionally, he took her to work with him to show her off and introduce her to his business. The employees doted on her, remarking how much she looked and acted like her father.
In school, encouraged by her parents, Marcy worked hard and achieved good grades. Her father would not accept anything less than an A for any class and Marcy’s name regularly occupied the top of the honor roll. Her skills were not limited to the classroom. Marcy was an accomplished tennis player, winning several tournaments in high school. Her proud parents attended every big match, bragging about their intelligent, athletic daughter. With her exuberant personality, Marcy had many friends and was a member of the “popular” group at school. In recognition of her overall ability and popularity, she was elected senior class president and graduated as valedictorian.
Marcy went away to college at a prestigious university to pursue a degree in business and marketing. Her father’s plan for her was unfolding just as he wanted. Marcy threw herself into her studies with enthusiasm, willingly following her father’s dreams. She graduated, as expected, at the top of her class. Her father had her work in his company’s office, preparing her to take over the role of vice president of the growing business.
While in college, Marcy fell in love with John, a fun-loving guy much like her mother. John took Marcy to parties and taught her to laugh and have fun. He was a carefree student who did just enough to get by. Marcy didn’t care, because she believed she had enough ambition for both of them. After college, John worked for a large corporation selling mortgages, while Marcy began working in her father’s business. A year later, when both were established in their careers, they were married in a lavish ceremony that dominated the society page.
While dating, Marcy had made it clear to John that she intended to be a career person and he agreed. True to her word, Marcy threw herself into her work at the factory and advanced to the position of vice president. As her father neared retirement, he passed more and more of the responsibilities and control of the company to Marcy. She thrived on work and seeing the fruit of her labors in expanding the business beyond what her father had ever achieved. Her father beamed with pride at her accomplishments. John also enjoyed the fruits of Marcy’s labors, especially the lavish lifestyle it afforded them. He did not take his work nearly as seriously as Marcy did. He did what he needed to do to get by, particularly enjoying golf outings with clients. John became an avid golfer, spending most of his free time at the country club they had joined. When their two daughters were born, Marcy took a brief maternity leave and then hired a nanny to care for their children. Keeping the business growing and maintaining their lifestyle were her main priorities.
Being so preoccupied with work, Marcy did not recognize the growing distance in her relationship with John. When he complained about her absence, she responded, “You certainly enjoy the lifestyle I’m providing.” He grew quiet, immersing himself even more in his hobbies and social life at the club. Marcy became married to her job and John felt like an outsider. Eventually, the loneliness became too much for him. John began a secret affair with the hostess at the club. John thought he was discrete, but soon became careless in leaving a hotel receipt in his pants pocket. When Marcy discovered it, all hell broke loose and they began therapy to put the pieces back together.
John and Marcy both admitted that they had lost the connection they enjoyed in college. John still admired Marcy’s energy and drive but felt neglected emotionally. Marcy could no longer laugh and have fun with John, because she resented and secretly envied his casual and carefree life. Exploring her childhood in depth, Marcy realized how much she had lived her father’s dream for her and neglected to consider what she wanted for herself. She remembered him bringing her to a bar on many occasions where he met with an attractive woman he identified as a good friend. Her father cautioned, “But don’t tell your mother about her, because she would not understand. This is our little secret, just between you and me.”
Marcy kept that secret for years. She felt a sense of loyalty to her father, who had given her so much. However, she was also angry with him for making her an accomplice in the betrayal of her mother. Guilt gnawed away at her. To relieve the guilt and shame, she worked hard to prove her own worth, pushing herself relentlessly. She became addicted to striving for the success her father desired for her, losing a sense of intimacy with herself and others.
One day, disillusioned and exhausted with her chase after success at work, she told John, “Let’s take a long vacation. Work can survive without me. I love you and want to rebuild our life together.”
CHILDHOOD CONNECTION: LIVING IN A HOUSE OF LIES
When parents are unfaithful, their children dwell in a house of lies. The most harmful aspect of the affair is not the sexual encounter itself but the web of deceit to hide it, in total disregard for the truth and the partner’s feelings. Affairs live in the dark, avoiding the light of exposure. The unfaithful partner lives a double life. What is visible to the family and the public is the pretense of a committed relationship. What is hidden is a secret life of passion with another. When the betrayal comes to light, as it inevitably does, the lies are revealed. The house collapses under the weight of the deceit.
Your parents played a confusing game of hide and seek with the truth, with each other, with themselves and with you. Your unfaithful parent hid the affair, but his or her guilt led to carelessness in order to be found out. Your parent pretended to be a good and faithful person, but knew deep inside that he or she was living a lie. Your offended parent, perhaps picking up clues of the infidelity, wanted to know, yet did not want to know. Acknowledging the truth would have been too overwhelming and would have required decisive action. The offended parent pretended to the world and to him or herself that everything was okay. Your parents likely kept secrets and lied to you about the affair, just to protect you from the overwhelming truth of the betrayal. As a child, you watched this game being played out, not understanding the rules and wondering what was true and real. You were left confused, not knowing whom or what to trust.
Remember what it was like for you as a child when you placed all of your trust in your parents. You counted on them to guide and protect you. You looked up to them as role models. Little did you know what was simmering beneath the façade of normality they created. And you believed them that everything was okay, even though you witnessed some arguing and felt the tension in the home. That was all normal to you. After all, what you grow up with you come to believe is normal. Isn’t everyone’s home just like mine?
When the bombshell of your parent’s affair is dropped, your faith in them, yourself and your perception of the world is shattered. Your sense of security in knowing what is true and real is lost. Your mother is not the kind, loving, faithful person you imagined her to be. When you see your father depressed and outraged, you wonder if he is really the strong person you thought you could always count on. Your parents taught you to be honest and truthful and now their marriage is exposed as a big lie. You imagined your home as a safe and secure place and your parents always reassured you that it was. Now you don’t know if you can trust anything they say. You doubt your faith in what you thought was true.
Your parents’ cover-up planted seeds of deceit and mistrust in you that would flower in adulthood. To survive the trauma of betrayal, the insecurity of not knowing what is true and real, you look for a safe haven. Not trusting that the world of intimate relationships can offer security, you create a sense of safety in competent activity. Your parents may have told you that you were talented in some way, perhaps intelligent, hard-working or creative. So you put your energy into developing that talent and work hard at it. Feeling insecure and unsure of yourself deep down, you begin to feel good about yourself through a sense of accomplishment. People recognize your abilities and praise you for what you accomplish. You feel proud, somehow making up for the travesty of your parents’ failed marriage.
As much as you gain by immersing yourself in your chosen field of activity, something important is lost. In performing so well, you become an actor who so identifies with his role that he forgets who he really is. You lose yourself in the image you are creating. Furthermore, you become married to your work, have an affair with your job and abandon your partner. Without knowing it, you learn to identify with the deceitful betrayer by hiding your true self.
What are some signs of a tendency to hide your true self, instead finding your sense of self-worth and identity in your work?
AM I AN EMOTIONAL ACTOR?
• Am I overly sensitive about what others think of me?
• Do I have a strong need for recognition and approval?
• Do I like to perform before an audience?
• Am I driven by a sense of achievement?
• Does my self-esteem rise and fall according to how others see me?
• Do I thrive on competition and fear failure more than anything?
• Am I extremely conscious of my image?
• Am I willing to lie to make myself look good?
• Is it important for me to create a favorable impression?
• Do I tend to lose myself in my work?
• Do I believe that love comes from what I produce, rather than from who I am?
• Do I tend to focus on the positive and overlook the negative?
• Do I often set aside my feelings to get the job done?
• Am I uncertain about what I really feel in many situations?
• Am I a vain person?
PATH OF HEALING: BE TRANSPARENT TO YOURSELF
When people come to me for therapy, they are suffering and look to me as an expert in pain relief. Often, they ask me, “What can I do so I don’t feel so bad?” Or they may ask more specific questions: “What should I do about my marriage—stay or leave?” They look to me for the answer. They have exhausted themselves trying to work out the problem with their own resources and hope that I can provide the solution. I may be their last hope.
My response initially causes them dismay, “Who do you think knows best what you need to do? Who is the expert on you?”
“I know I should be the expert and know what I need,” they say.
I encourage them, “Perhaps we can discover what keeps you from recognizing what is best for you.” Busy people especially do not want to waste time. They want quick answers and a clear plan of action to solve their problems. They often squirm in their chairs when I suggest, “I want you to just pause and pay attention to yourself. And we’ll talk about it in our sessions.”
My clients, after many years of pain and frustration because they feel so stuck in their dilemmas, want me to cure them by providing some magical solution quickly. However, I do not see myself as the expert answer man, but as a man of many questions, like Socrates. I invite them to explore a fascinating world that they have ignored most of their lives: the inner workings of their minds. By looking outside themselves rather than inside, they have become stuck. Their distance from themselves has become the source of much of their suffering, although they may not be consciously aware of it. So I ask questions that will help them to become acquainted with themselves and explore their own unacknowledged wisdom. Truth, goodness and beauty lie within them, close to their hearts, if they will only come to recognize them.
My clients, especially the hard-working ones, want to know how they can change themselves, get rid of the behaviors, thoughts and feelings they do not like. They want direction and a recipe for change. I tell them, “You have it all wrong, backward, inside out.” I explain that they want to manipulate themselves by working from the outside in, changing their behaviors in order to change their hearts. Instead, the process of change and growth is an inside-out job which involves acknowledging and releasing the natural power and goodness within them. Change comes through self-awareness and self-acceptance at a deep level. It involves surrendering to the unrecognized power within yourself.
I tell my clients my view of therapy: “I do not see therapy as some self-improvement project, a way to create a better version of yourself. Instead, I view it as a way to come to know and accept yourself as you are, not as you wish yourself to be. Together we explore what keeps you from knowing and accepting yourself as good enough.”
Most of my clients see themselves as somehow defective and hopelessly entangled in problems. They feel helpless and hopeless, lacking resources to work out their problems. They feel imprisoned by the circumstances of their lives, unable to escape. I present an alternative vision, that they are a wondrous mystery to be explored and relished, not a problem to be solved. I invite them to undertake a journey of exploration with me to a little-known and fascinating land with untold riches. I invite them to travel beneath the surface to the center of their lives from which all their hopes, desires and values arise. They hold the keys to their freedom but don’t know it.
Like Socrates, the Greek philosopher, I ask questions to make my clients look within, to appreciate their own truth, beauty and goodness. The truth about themselves will set them free, if they will only make the effort to uncover it. Through my questions and our thoughtful explorations together, I try to impress upon them that they are not who they think they are. They are much more. In searching for the answers to these questions, I ask them to become observers of themselves and their inner worlds. In the process, I hope they gain a sense of their own transcendence, their freedom to just be themselves and escape the tyranny of the many roles they play.
1) WHAT IS YOUR TRUTH?
My questions focus on three areas that overlap in reality. First, I ask the “truth” questions. When clients sit in my office for a session, they sometimes tell me, “Nothing is going on, just the same old thing.”
Astonished, I respond, “How can that be? You may see nothing different around you but how can nothing be going on in your mind?” I ask them to talk about whatever comes to mind. If you observe your own mind closely, you immediately notice a flood of thoughts, feelings and sensations. The movement is continuous, overflowing and unstoppable. It comes from some hidden source that you experience deep inside.
Sometimes clients dismiss their own thoughts and feelings quickly, exclaiming, for example, “I wanted her to hug me. But that’s just silly, childish.” They interrupt the natural flow of their thoughts with critical judgments.
I ask my clients to be objective observers of what is going on in their minds. I invite them to be endlessly curious about what they discover and refrain from judging. Together we examine the flow of consciousness and try to understand what it is telling us. If you observe closely what emerges from your mind, the isolated thoughts will reveal patterns and repetitions. They will echo what you have heard from others and from your past. I say to my clients, “Isn’t that an interesting thought, an interesting way to look at things? How did you come to think that way?” If you stop and reflect on the various thoughts, beliefs and assumptions you have about your life, you will notice that most are not original. They come from someone else who influenced your life, likely your parents or some authority figure. Without questioning it, you came to accept on faith what was passed on to you. You never measured it against the bar of your own experience.
Look at the parade of thoughts and realize that they are relative, not absolute truths. Those thoughts may even be a distortion of reality, not corresponding to your present day experience as an adult. They are ways of thinking you inherited from childhood. If you discover a thought or belief that disturbs you, ask yourself, “Does that make sense to me now?” Ask further, “What do I believe about myself now?” Perhaps you never consulted with yourself or took your opinions seriously. If you don’t take your opinions seriously, no one else will. It may be liberating to realize that you have your own truth and are entitled to your own opinions.
2) WHERE DO YOU FIND BEAUTY?
Second, I ask about beauty. What inspires you with a sense of wonder and awe? A moment when time stood still for me was in St. Peter’s Basilica while I was gazing at the Pietà, Michelangelo’s sculpture of Mary holding a lifeless Jesus. I was transported beyond myself—inspired—and filled with an uplifting, divine spirit. At that moment, transfixed by the beauty before me, I felt a sense of communion with something greater than myself and a deep tranquility. All was well and would be well, beyond the chaos and confusion of my life. Most of us do not stop long enough to contemplate the beauty around us: a radiant sunset, a bee pollinating a flower, a look of love. When we do, we do not recognize it as a reflection of the beauty within us and every human being who walks the earth.
Most of my clients suffer from low self-esteem. They lack awareness of their own dignity. Instead, they are caught up with problems that overwhelm them and behaviors that cause shame. They see only their faults and feel pressure to prove themselves adequate. They do not stop to consider their innate beauty. Do you consider yourself a beautiful person, someone who inspires others? I am talking about both an outer and inner beauty that you desire to display to others. Have you ever asked yourself what you consider your most beautiful quality? Do you see the beauty of everyone around you, or are you preoccupied with their flaws? Do you only see your own flaws? We project onto others what we do not accept in ourselves. If you do not see your own native beauty, you will never really see it in others or in the world around you. Can you view your life as a magnificent, unfinished tapestry that the world is waiting to see? Can you see the fine strands of suffering, successes and failures as essential to the unique beauty of the design?
3) WHAT IS THE GOOD YOU SEEK?
Finally, I ask about goodness. What is the good you are aiming to create with your life? When my clients tell me that they are no-good losers, I remark, “What an interesting way to view yourself.” I follow up with two questions: “How did you come to think of yourself that way? What purpose would it serve for you to think that way?” These questions usually stop them in their tracks. We explore together the payoff in thinking of themselves as no good and useless. If you think you are a loser with nothing to give, you do not expend the energy to do anything of value. You withdraw into self-pity and ignore any sense of responsibility to make yourself and the world a better place. Low self-esteem arises from and reinforces a self-centered preoccupation. Instead, if you appreciate your own goodness, you spontaneously seek ways of sharing it.
If you stop to observe that flow of consciousness, you will immediately notice many desires, wishes and strivings. A close examination of them, again, reveals a pattern whose origin can be discerned with some analysis. You discover an emotional program, an unconscious agenda, that guides your life. It is likely you inherited that program from your parents, based on choices for or against how they lived. When you feel the inevitable conflicts in your life while pursuing your goals, you are probably not living out of your own freely chosen value system. Your inherited values clash with what you really want in life. Those moments of painful conflict are invitations to explore what is the good that directs your life. Ask yourself, as I ask my clients, “What are your deepest desires? What do you want in your life? What makes you feel alive? What kind of person do you want to be? Where do you want to go in your life?” When looking at your values more closely, I believe you will discover you want something more than the conventional mindless pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. You search for something that gives your life enduring meaning. What would you want your obituary to read?
QUESTIONS FOR SELF-AWARENESS
1) Who am I?
2) What do I believe about myself?
3) What within me reflects the beauty of the universe?
4) What are my deepest desires?
5) What makes me feel fully alive?
Taking seriously your own opinions and desires, become aware of how much your parents’ agenda guided your life. You played roles assigned by them, not created by yourself. As you gain freedom from their dreams for you, you will liberate yourself from the anger toward them that has imprisoned you.
EXERCISE: SELF-QUESTIONING
Instead of being an actor in a play scripted by your unhappy, unfaithful parents, you can begin to direct your own life according to your own truth. In the process of finding yourself, you can develop a sense of compassion for your parents who lost their way, becoming dishonest with themselves and each other. Continuing your efforts at self-awareness, reflect deeply on some questions that may further help you wake up to yourself, to be fully present to yourself.
Ask yourself, What is going on in my life right now? Be aware of all the circumstances of your life that may be influencing your thoughts, feelings and reactions. Be aware, too, of your reactions to the events going on around you and the stories you are telling yourself about them. Are you seeing yourself as a helpless victim at the mercy of what is happening around you? Or do you see yourself as the master of your fate, navigating through the various challenges of your life circumstances? Awareness of the influence of the conditions of your life helps you to respond consciously, rather than react mindlessly.
“Can I see my life conditions as my path to healing and wholeness?” As much as you would like to write your life script, having it turn out according to your plan, the unexpected always occurs. You did not choose your parents or a childhood marred by their infidelity. Nevertheless, your past and the present conditions help shape your life. But not entirely. You are still the author of your life, working with the material given to you. Do you see the inevitable problems you face as opportunities to awaken and exercise your freedom? While you cannot control many of the circumstances of your life, you can control your attitude toward them.
“What are my most cherished beliefs about myself and my world?” Not only the circumstances, but how you think about your life shapes the way you live it. You react automatically to events according to your emotional programming, unless you develop self-awareness. Be aware of the automatic thoughts, beliefs and assumptions that arise as you encounter difficulties. We all have beliefs that guide us through the chaos of our experience. Life is too overwhelming without these inner guides. Being aware of our beliefs gives us the opportunity to evaluate them and not make them absolute. Some beliefs may not match the reality of our life experience and need to be discarded or altered.
“What am I experiencing now?” We create a false sense of security with our beliefs about life, living out of our heads instead of out of our current experience, which is always new. Our belief system is a scaffolding that both supports us and separates us from our everyday experience. If you have suffered the trauma of your parents’ infidelity, you have likely constructed walls of beliefs, routines and roles to protect yourself from being overwhelmed by the pain. Healing will come only from allowing yourself to feel and work through the pain, and not skirting around it. Pay close attention to all that you are experiencing in the present moment, recognizing and setting aside the scaffolding of your thoughts about yourself. Listen especially to the sensations of your body that hold much of the pain you seek to avoid. Your body often knows more than your mind and can give you useful information in making decisions about your life.
Can I accept my present experience wholeheartedly? We usually relate to our lives with a divided mind, with an eye on our beliefs, expectations and wishes for how we would like it to be and an eye on our ongoing experience of the moment. The divided mind inevitably leads to conflict, confusion, indecision and pain. With a fuller awareness of your circumstances, reactions and beliefs, you can avoid the human compulsion to cling to pleasures and get rid of pain. You can avoid the tendency to judge yourself and your experience as defective and flee from it into the fantasy world of your wishes. Accepting your current experience, which is always new, wholeheartedly is the only path to healing and living a full life.
