by Dan Neuharth
Cultivate nurturing surrogate family members. It is normal to hunger for connections to older people and earlier generations; they give us a context for our lives. If you can’t connect with your own parents, you may be able to connect with relatives. If not, you can volunteer at a senior center or “adopt” a friend’s parents or a neighborhood elderly person. These elders can be the parents or grandparents you wanted but without the controlling baggage. In turn, you’ll be providing the elderly with company and nurturing. Other avenues include volunteer work at hospices, hospitals, Big Brothers or Big Sisters, or community centers.
Touch. If you have difficulty expressing physical affection, start slowly and build on it. Hold or hug objects, then animals, then perhaps children, then yourself, then others. Next, practice receiving touch from each of these (Farmer, 141). Yes, even trees can hug back, even if only in your imagination. Try this a few minutes a day for a week.
Experiment with giving and receiving. Allow yourself to ask for something from a trusted person. Let yourself experience the out-of-control feelings that can accompany wanting, asking, and receiving. Likewise, do a favor for someone and note any controlling and out-of-control feelings the act produces in you. Balancing giving and receiving helps avoid your always being the one in control.
Resources
Bradshaw, John. Healing the Shame That Binds You. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 1989.
Whitfield, Charles. Boundaries and Relationships. Deerfield Beach, FL: Health Communications, 1993.
5. Identify and Change Thought Patterns That Limit You
He who masters the grey everyday is a hero.
—FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY
Attribution theory is a potent technique for recognizing and changing inner distortions—and, in so doing, redefining your life. It comes to us from cognitive therapists such as Aaron Beck, David Burns, and Martin Seligman, who suggest that how we think of ourselves, others, and events determines how we behave and feel.
We tend to view events in one of two ways:
All-inclusive (affecting our entire lives), permanent (forever unchangeable), and innate (caused by inborn personal traits). or
Limited (confined to a specific circumstance), temporary (a passing event or changeable situation), and external (caused by situations outside ourselves).
For example, one person on a diet who eats a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream thinks, “It’s hopeless. I’ll never lose weight. I have no willpower.” Yet, another dieter thinks, “I had one slip. It’s a setback, but my diet is still in effect. Things must be getting to me today.”
The difference between these two dieters is in how they explain their behavior. Dieter Number One attributes all-inclusive (It’s hopeless), permanent (I’ll never lose weight), and innate (I have no willpower) reasons for eating the ice cream. Dieter Number Two attributes limited (I had one slip), temporary (It’s a setback, but my diet is still in effect), and external (Things must be getting to me today) reasons for the same act. The first explanation is likely to leave the dieter feeling pessimistic, depressed, and guilty, thereby causing him or her to lose the motivation to continue dieting. The second explanation leaves that dieter feeling sobered but without guilt, depression, or pessimism, and therefore more likely to continue or even redouble positive efforts.
It’s highly likely you grew up awash in unhealthy attributions. Controlling parents tend to see their children’s troubling behaviors as all-inclusive (“You never do anything right”), permanent (“You’ll never amount to anything”), and innate (“You’re lazy and stupid”). Yet when their children do something well they offer limited (“Doing that right still doesn’t prove you’re not stupid”), temporary (“I doubt you can do that again”), and external (“You couldn’t have done it without my help”) reasons.
Ironically, controlling parents tend to see their own behavior as just the reverse: attributing their own successes to innate, permanent, and all-inclusive factors, while explaining their failures as temporary, limited, and caused by external reasons—such as their children.
Healing lies in reality-testing your attributions. If your parents tended to externalize the source of their parental problems by saying they were your fault, you grew up internalizing negative beliefs about yourself. While these negative internal beliefs may feel real, they are usually untrue.
When faced with a problem or troubling feeling, ask yourself: Is this a limited or an all-inclusive event? Temporary or permanent? External or innate? Externalizing the source of your problems (as limited, temporary, and external) and internalizing the source of your successes (as all-inclusive, permanent, and innate) can be a prescription for healthier attitudes. Of course, internalizing all positives and externalizing all negatives can be nothing more than wishful thinking if practiced blindly and without reality testing. Yet if you grew up controlled, it’s likely that you have been uncritically internalizing negatives and externalizing positives. If you’ve fed yourself an endless diet of self-blame, some wishful thinking may be helpful. Eventually, you’ll find a healthier balance in realistic thinking.
Exercises
Give back family myths. Your parents never really knew you because they couldn’t see you as separate, judged you by their standards, and tagged you with their fears. Be on the lookout for myths and lies you hold about yourself. List the ways in which you have differed with and broken from controlling-family habits. Write down the ways in which you are fundamentally different from each of your parents.
Neutralize brainwashing. Recall uncomfortable situations, such as high-pressure insurance or service-contract pitches, car or electronics buying, or being panhandled. Observe the elements of coercion used. Be cognizant of any untruths, threats, plays upon guilt, and misuses of power. Remember how you felt. This helps you identify parallels in your family and in your inner dialogue.
So what? Fears are often mental pictures of an imagined end result. Thinking about jumping off a cliff might bring a rush of pleasure if we didn’t have a picture of ourselves smashing into the rocks below. When you have a fear, ask yourself: “Okay, if the worst happens, then what?” Keep asking yourself this question until you get to the ultra worst-case scenario.
This will allow you to 1) reality-test whether your feared end result is an actual, probable, or even likely occurrence; 2) contain overwhelming feelings by spelling out your fears so you can see that they are finite; and 3) take your fears to the ultimate conclusion and realize that you can trust yourself to find ways to deal with the event.
Sharpen the noggin. Take courses in or read about logic and communication. Do crossword puzzles or play games like chess, hearts, or spades. If you don’t have friends who like to play these games, you can find plenty of free sites on which to play them with cyber buddies on the Internet. At any age, we can create an infinite number of new dendritic connections—those branchlike endings of brain neurons. The more the connections, the greater your mental abilities will grow.
Resources
Burns, David. The Feeling Good Handbook. New York: Plume, 1989.
Mallinger, Allan, and Jeannette DeWyze. Too Perfect: When Being in Control Gets Out of Control. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992.
McWilliams, Peter. You Can’t Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought. Los Angeles: Prelude, 1995.
Seligman, Martin. Learned Optimism. New York: Knopf, 1991.
6. Pursue Greater Self-Acceptance
Most of us have a surgeon’s mentality when it comes to those [parts of our] selves we dislike.
—HAL AND SIDRA STONE
Since parental control distorts how we see ourselves, we come to feel at odds with aspects of ourselves that we are ashamed of or fear. Yet shunting off those parts leaves us feeling fragmented. Every aspect of you has a contribution to make. You may not like some aspects of yourself, but accepting their presence leaves you stronger than denying them does.
One or more of the following exercises may help you rec
laim aspects of yourself you have cast off.
Exercises
Know the shadow. List any people you strongly dislike, marking down the qualities about them that you dislike most. These very qualities may reflect, as Carl Jung suggested, your disowned or “shadow” parts. Ask yourself honestly whether any of these annoying qualities exist in you. Another approach is to think of things you’ve done that trouble or embarrass you. Objectionable others and embarrassing memories can become teachers, showing you parts of yourself with which you struggle. Realize that all parts of you, both the ones you like and the ones you don’t, make you who you are.
Have a “parts party.” Each of us carries within us subpersonalities, such as protector, perfectionist, nag, critic, hero, child, feminine, masculine, dreamer, comedian, rebel, bully, pessimist, black sheep, and genius. Satir advocates holding an imaginary “parts party” to which you invite all these subpersonalities. By mingling with your subpersonalities or role-playing their parts, you may learn and accept more about yourself.
Keep a dream journal. A foundation of Jungian psychology, the dream journal is a way to discover your less-than-conscious feelings and strivings. For a week, keep pen and paper by your bedside and, immediately on waking, write down any dreams you remember. Then, on your own or with others, write or talk about your dreams and what they might represent. Dreams are like art; much is expressed, and there are infinite valid interpretations.
Try new avenues. Various writing techniques can give voice to the quieter parts of you. One is freewriting, in which you write or type nonstop at a comfortable pace whatever comes into your mind for fifteen to twenty minutes. Anything you write is okay; don’t worry about grammar, punctuation, or spelling. The only rule is to write nonstop whatever comes into your mind (even if you have to write “I can’t think of what to say” a dozen times until something else comes to mind). Afterward, in reading over what you have written, you’ll see new connections and kernels of insight or creativity.
Another approach is to take pens in both right and left hands and write a dialogue. Envision the dialogue as being between your heart and mind, the two sides of an impending decision, or any two parts of yourself (Capacchione). After a time, astounding statements may emerge from your nondominant hand.
Use a favorite social or political movement as a metaphor for your self-inquiry and healing. Writer Deena Metzger used the example of “personal disarmament.” If nuclear disarmament is something you feel strongly about, ask yourself if there is a part of you that terrorizes other parts of you, if there are parts that war with other parts, or if you have emotional “nuclear missiles” piled away (Bogue). Similarly, if you’re an environmentalist, do you have any distorted thoughts or habits that are clear-cutting, strip-mining, or dumping toxic waste in your life and need halting or cleanup? Are there precious resources in your body, mind, or soul you are wasting?
Convene your inner board of trustees. Imagine a meeting of your inner board of trustees with you as chairperson. Envision calling to attendance your various roles and parts: career self, emotional self, body, mind, sense of humor, self as citizen, mother/father, son/daughter, brother/sister, wife/husband, yourself as a child, your future self, and/or any other aspects of yourself you like. Set the agenda—perhaps goals for increased happiness and nurturance. Then ask each “member” of the board for input on your life and goals.
Open yourself to a new group activity. Much of the benefit from women’s groups or from the men’s movement comes from embracing a part of ourselves that we possess but do not fully know or appreciate. We can often become better at self-acceptance by seeing how others have accomplished greater self-acceptance. Groups can also help us acknowledge who we are to others.
Resources
Branden, Nathaniel. The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem. New York: Bantam Books, 1994.
Carson, Richard. Taming Your Gremlin. New York: HarperPerennial, 1983.
McKay, Matthew, and Patrick Fanning. Self-Esteem, 2nd ed. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, 1992.
Stone, Hal, and Sidra Stone. Embracing Our Selves: The Voice Dialogue Manual. Novato, CA: Nataraj, 1989.
7. Live in the Present
I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.
—CHARLES DICKENS
Life only happens in the present, and what-ifs and if-onlys are not present-based. If you focus on what-if (the future), you tend to be anxious. If you focus on if-only (the past), you may live with regret. Living in the present gives you the greatest opportunity to be a full participant in your life, living each moment as it occurs. Grounding yourself in the here and now is richly rewarding, especially if you lived much of your childhood dissociating.
Great novels, great poetry, and great film all deal in specifics. They may address huge themes but do so with specifics: colors, textures, nuances, small actions. So, note specifics in your life. Speak in specifics. Think in specifics.
Observe pets. Dogs and cats are remarkable for their ability to live in the present. When a dog is happy, he or she shows it completely. When he or she is afraid, it shows. When dogs and cats are hungry, they eat; when tired, they sleep. The moment an appealing activity appears, dogs and cats seem to completely forgive, forget, and move on. We can learn from animals.
Exercises
Stop, look, and listen. Take twenty minutes and remove all distractions. Turn off the phone or turn down the answering machine. Absorb yourself in your thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and desires. Observe what is in your immediate environment: clothes, furniture, walls, floors, trees, water. After a time, you may notice how much calmer you feel—and how much you’re focused in the present.
Meditate. There are many forms of and purposes for meditation—relaxation, awareness, concentration—but sitting quietly for fifteen to twenty minutes a day does wonders. Envision rhythmic, gentle images such as warm white light, falling water, bubbles rising, circles on water, or snow falling. See your thoughts or worries as fleeting bubbles rising away from you. Repeat a simple mantra or tune into your breathing. Whichever method you choose, you’re learning to be in the present and developing moments of inner peace.
Take a “conscious” bath or shower. Find a time when you are alone and not rushed and take a luxurious bath or shower. Tune in to each of your senses. Close your eyes and listen to the water dripping and cascading. What do the water, tub, soap, and your skin smell like? What do the tub and tile feel like against your skin? Look at the hues of color in the water, your skin, the shower. Gently and slowly touch various parts of your body, reveling in the various sensations from your hand and the part of the body that is being touched.
Sit with nature. Sit outdoors and be sensitive to textures, smells, sounds, scenes. Allow this practice to expand gradually to your everyday life so that you’ll fully appreciate even the simplest of activities.
Resources
Carlson, Richard. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff…and It’s All Small Stuff. New York: Hyperion, 1997.
Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Miracle of Mindfulness. Boston: Beacon Press, 1997.
Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. New York: Hyperion, 1995.
8. Seek Peace with Your Body
Compassion for myself is the most powerful healer of them all.
—THEODORE ISAAC RUBIN
Your body is your home, the one thing you truly “own” in life. For those who grew up controlled, it’s a challenge to treat your body in ways other than your parents did.
We have explored ways in which to ignore or reduce the critical thoughts you take in from your inner critic. By the same token, increase your attention to what you physically put into your body. Increase your education about nutrition. Every one of your cells can be nourished or diminished by what you eat. A healthy diet can reduce mood swings, depression, fatigue, irritability, and cloudy thinking. Get regular physical checkups and dental care and congratulate yourself on doing so.
Exercises
Tune in, turn on, but don’t drop out. Stretching, progressive muscle relaxation, biofeedback, massage, bodywork, meditation, or yoga can help. Even a ten-minute nap can be restorative. The extra attention you give to your body pays off.
An hour a day. Former L.A. Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda has said that out of the twenty-four hours a day, each of us deserves to give our bodies one hour. Exercise, stretch, do fitness training, aerobics, or yoga. If an hour seems like too much, start with twenty minutes. When you think of all the hours you spend not taking care of your body, an hour a day isn’t so long.
If appropriate, seek professional help. If you are depressed, you may have a distorted body image and may loathe and/or punish your body. For some, a trial course of medication may help. Most of us readily take medicine to right a chemical imbalance in our muscles and stomachs or other organs when needed. Yet for many there is still a stigma attached to taking medications like antidepressants or antianxiety agents to right an imbalance in brain chemistry. We know that long-term stress or traumatic events can alter our brain chemistry, thus altering our moods. The stress and trauma of years in a controlling family can contribute to an imbalance in neurotransmitters, which can induce chronic, low-level anxiety or depression. For some, medication designed to restore a healthier chemical balance in our brains can make a significant and lasting difference. Taking medication is a personal decision, but it’s worth trying if other avenues haven’t brought the progress or healing you desire. If you choose to try a course of medication, it’s generally best to seek out a qualified psychiatrist or very knowledgeable physician.