Читать книгу Everyday Narcissism - Nancy Van Dyken - Страница 14
ОглавлениеCarrying the well-being of others on your own shoulders? Heavy, isn’t it?
Meanwhile a very important life is being neglected. Yours.
We humans take extraordinary measures to feel safe, even sacrificing awareness of our truest selves in order to follow explicit and implicit rules. On that path, we can stray so far from our authentic center that we don’t know that we’ve lost ourselves. Our own false self then relates to the false selves of others. How precarious is that?
My cat can’t read. Even if I could bear to punish or withdraw from him, or if I used all my best skills to teach him, he still would be unable to read. (And imagine how our relationship would be affected, were I to continue to pressure him to live up to my expectations.)
Yet well-meaning parents routinely try to enforce behavior that is beyond a child’s normal developmental capacity.
What do you imagine this does to a child? What did it do to you, when you were expected to handle a feeling or task that you weren’t old enough for? How did your parents handle it, when you couldn’t?
And if you’re a parent, how can you avoid passing on the same downward spiral of internal neglect? How can you avoid demanding the impossible of others, especially after years of being immersed in myths yourself?
Forced compliance with cultural myths that are contrary to internal integrity, and even common sense, inevitably sets up problems with authority.
We all have a relationship with authority. We can struggle with it every day our whole lives and not be aware of the energy it uses or the cost of the struggle. This struggle can take many forms—love/hate, insist/resist, open compliance hiding secret defiance, open defiance leading to self-sabotage, overt or subtle domination, and/or passive resistance.
We may reward and please others, while simultaneously digging out the ground they are standing on. We can even force ourselves into internal compliance, while losing all awareness of honest reactions. We learn to wear a mask so smoothly that the edges of the mask graft to our skin.
What is your relationship with authority? Is yours healthy and sensible, or an ongoing struggle—at work or in professional situations, in your intimate relationships, and within yourself?
Do you defy your own needs or leanings? Shush inner guidance? Force unreasonable control over natural processes? And does your body resist you, or manifest the resulting tension by attacking itself? Are you sometimes surprised by sudden and impulsive explosions of anger?
Beneath this struggle is your own weeping self.
Through this thoughtful book, you will discover your own automatic behaviors that consume your time and energy. You will track their origins and then free yourself from them. You will uncover attitudes and thoughts that were programmed into you when you were just a tot, and your brain was still being formed, and replace them with messages that are more loving, honest, and effective.
With Everyday Narcissism, you can find your way back.
You will unearth the myths that have sidetracked your life, and reinstate boundaries that help you heal rather than suffer. You will channel yourself toward the life that belongs to you—a life that you create as you discover your own truest focus and deepest resources.
You will emancipate honest feelings that have been trapped in vaults deep inside you. By lifting out of darkness those closeted parts of yourself, you will discover a fuller self, release your own wisdom, and free energy that can fuel travel in your own best direction.
Do you know where that direction goes? Maybe not. And you need not fear your deepest self.
Even if you suspect that a fiery layer of anger lies dormant, you need not fear your deepest self. That anger is like a battery. It is stored energy. As with any energy source, learning how to handle it will empower you.
Everyday Narcissism will raise your awareness of your own layers. It will also give you tools to gently bring those layers into the light, according to your own best timing.
You have the potential to emerge from your cocoon of inauthenticity, to find a peaceful internal grace as you tune into your own profound self-authority that can orchestrate your unique best life.
Anne Katherine
Bestselling author of Boundaries and Where to Draw the Line
