A journal entry might look this:
“A” (What Happened): Teacher screamed at me in front of other students when I talked during class in the fifth grade.
“B” (What I Told Myself Then [Lies]): It is all my fault my teacher yelled at me. I made him mad. I am a horrible person for causing all this. My friends all think I’m a stupid idiot. I’ll never be able to show my face around school again.
“C” (How I Felt/Coped Then): Face became flushed; started breathing shallowly; heart started racing; felt embarrassed, humiliated, ashamed, and anxious; sat down at my desk and didn’t say another word the rest of class; went straight to my room and hid from my parents when I got home.
“D” (What I Tell Myself Now [Truth]): It was wrong for me to talk during class, but that didn’t make my teacher yell at me. He was wrong to react that way. Being caught talking didn’t mean I was a stupid idiot or a horrible person. I made a mistake then, and my teacher compounded it by losing his cool. I forgive him for what he did and won’t hold it against him anymore.
“E” (How I Feel/Cope Now): No longer feel humiliated or ashamed; have forgiven the teacher who yelled at me; learned from the situation to be more sensitive about not talking when others are trying to conduct a class or meeting.
As you approach this assignment, take a few minutes to think through the most painful situations from your past that still bother you. My intent here is not to unnecessarily stir up unpleasant feelings. I do intend, however, to get you to examine your formative years more closely. I agree to some extent with Alice Miller, in her book The Drama of the Gifted Child, when she writes, “Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and the emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique history of our childhood.”1The truth about our early years—what happened to us, how we interpreted it, how it felt, how we coped—is critically important to understand if we are to make progress in the here and now as adults.
Use the space provided to make your A-B-C-D-E entries concerning those events from your past that you feel were the most emotionally significant.
Event #1
“A” (What Happened):
* * *
* * *
“B” (What I Told Myself Then [Lies]):
* * *
* * *
“C” (How I Felt/Coped Then):
* * *
* * *
“D” (What I Tell Myself Now [Truth]):
* * *
* * *
“E” (How I Feel/Cope Now):
* * *
* * *
Event #2
“A” (What Happened):
* * *
* * *
“B” (What I Told Myself Then [Lies]):
* * *
* * *
“C” (How I Felt/Coped Then):
* * *
* * *
“D” (What I Tell Myself Now [Truth]):
* * *
* * *
“E” (How I Feel/Cope Now):
* * *
* * *
Event #3
“A” (What Happened):
* * *
* * *
“B” (What I Told Myself Then [Lies]):
* * *
* * *
“C” (How I Felt/Coped Then):
* * *
* * *
“D” (What I Tell Myself Now [Truth]):
* * *
* * *
“E” (How I Feel/Cope Now):
* * *
* * *
Event #4
“A” (What Happened):
* * *
* * *
“B” (What I Told Myself Then [Lies]):
* * *
* * *
“C” (How I Felt/Coped Then):
* * *
* * *
“D” (What I Tell Myself Now [Truth]):
* * *
* * *
“E” (How I Feel/Cope Now):
* * *
* * *
Event #5
“A” (What Happened):
* * *
* * *
“B” (What I Told Myself Then [Lies]):
* * *
* * *
“C” (How I Felt/Coped Then):
* * *
* * *
“D” (What I Tell Myself Now [Truth]):
* * *
* * *
“E” (How I Feel/Cope Now):
* * *
Look back through your five entries, and answer the following questions:
1. Was a certain person involved more than once? If so, who?
* * *
* * *
2. In terms of the lies you may have told yourself at the time, did you tell yourself one or more of these?
_____ What happened was all my fault.
_____ I must be a rotten person to have caused this.
_____ If I had acted differently, this wouldn’t have happened.
_____ I deserve to be treated this way.
_____ There is something wrong with me that is causing all this.
_____ I deserve to be treated this way from now on.
_____ I’m not worth loving.
_____ The future will just be more of the same.
3. What emotions were the most common across the five events?
Hurt _______
Anger _______
Shame _______
Humiliation _______
Anxiety _______
Depression _______
Other: ___________________________________________
4. How did you cope with what happened?
Isolated _______
Self-medicated _______
Attacked _______
Tried harder _______
Other: ___________________________________________
5. What truths do you tell yourself now that help you better understand what happened to you?
Truth: __________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
Truth: __________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
Truth: __________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
6. Have you been able to forgive people for what they did to you? If so, how were you able to forgive them? If not, why not?
___________________________________________________________________________________________
A balance must be struck concerning the past. One extreme is to ignore it and act as if what happened back then had no impact on shaping you as a person.
The other extreme is to obsess about it and use what happened as a scapegoat for who you are today. The balance is to examine the truth about your past and to use it to walk wisely today. Easier said than done? Sure it is. Worth doing? Absolutely.
The ultimate bottom line to painful events from the past is facing the truth about them and being able to forgive and move on. Not being willing to forgive is the kiss of death. Unforgiveness, as one writer described it, is like gnawing on your own bone. It is a self-destructive act to refuse to forgive another person. I hope by doing this exercise that you are a little closer to seeing the truth about your past and its impact on you. I also hope that you, as an act of your will, will choose to forgive the person or people who hurt you. Do it for your own sake if for no other reason.
One final request before you move on to next week’s workout. Read Matthew 18:21–35, and use this space to summarize what it says:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Week Five:
Overcoming Perfectionism
During the next few weeks, we will focus on a specific lie that we believe. This week is Perfectionism W
eek. Most of us, to some degree or another, struggle with perfectionistic thinking, and this week I want you to deal with yours.
I want you to write down three examples of how your perfectionistic tendencies show up. An example from my life is that I don’t like things to be out of place. In my home growing up, I was taught “there is a place for everything and everything has its place.” Boy, did I learn that lesson well because that is exactly how I am around my own home (much to the chagrin of my family!).
As you list each example, I want you to write down how you would act differently if you weren’t so perfectionistic. In other words, if you were more balanced in this area (more realistic, more laid-back, less obsessive), how would you handle the situation? Concerning my perfectionistic “everything must be in its place” approach to life, I have learned to simply let things be out of place longer, not immediately put them away, or get someone else to do so. I have learned to accept a certain amount of clutter and not to let it bother me as much. I am a little “saner” because of this, and I am not driving my family as crazy (which they appreciate greatly!).
What about you? What are some of the ways you are perfectionistic? And how would you be different?
I’m perfectionistic in that I _________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
If I were not so perfectionistic, I would ______________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
I’m perfectionistic in that I _________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
If I were not so perfectionistic, I would ______________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
I’m perfectionistic in that I _________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
If I were not so perfectionistic, I would ______________________________ ________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
Looking back through what you wrote, which specific example of your perfectionism would you like to do something about? Choose the one that bothers you (or others) the most. Now, for the rest of the week, do exactly what you said you would do about it if you were not so perfectionistic. Make the change—be “antiperfectionistic” in this area of your life for a week.
After you have practiced this new behavior for a week, respond to the following questions:
1. How did you feel when you were not being perfectionistic?
________________________________________________________________________
2. How were things better for you and those around you because you were not being perfectionistic?
________________________________________________________________________
3. How were things worse?
________________________________________________________________________
4. How hard was it for you to do the new behavior (did you feel uptight, get frustrated, lapse into the old way of doing things)?
________________________________________________________________________
Changing our focus some, I want you to write down examples of imperfections in others that you have a hard time accepting. Perfectionism shows itself not only in the idealistic expectations we have of ourselves but also in the unrealistic standards we set for others. An example from my life is other people’s driving. People never drive perfectly enough for me. They don’t always signal, they go too slow, they go too fast, they don’t totally stop at stop signs—well, you get the point. Rather than accept that, I let it bother me that people are imperfect drivers. I keep going out on the highway, expecting people to drive perfectly, and I am always disappointed.
What about you? What imperfections in others drive you up the proverbial wall? List them here:
1. ______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
4. ______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
5. ______________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________
Choose one of the five you listed, and make a commitment to quit expecting people to be any different. Let them off the hook for being that way, and just accept that as how they are, whether you like it or not.
Shifting gears a little, I want to further challenge your perfectionism by asking you to consider doing something imperfect on purpose. Go out and do something that you know isn’t perfect. Let me give you some ideas to choose from, but I want you to feel free to come up with one on your own:
• Wear socks of a different color.
• Spill something on purpose and don’t clean it up.
• Move things around on your work desk until they are out of place and leave them there for a few days.
• Wear your watch on your other wrist.
• Eat with your fingers.
• Put your underwear in the sock drawer.
• Go out in public looking like a wreck.
• Tilt all the paintings in your home.
• Don’t shave for a few days.
Your idea:________________________________________________
The purpose of this assignment is to get you to do the very thing you don’t want to do—be imperfect—so that you can accept it and let it be! Instead of fighting to be perfect when you can’t be, let yourself enjoy the freedom you have to be an imperfect human being.
Please don’t misinterpret what I’m saying. There are some areas of life where we can’t be perfect but need to keep trying to improve ourselves and strive for excellence every day (our faith, our marriages, our parenting, our friendships, our work abilities). To not do so would be wrong. But I want you to quit trying to be perfect about all “the small stuff” that we aren’t supposed to “sweat.” So many things in life really don’t matter, and to be perfectionistic about them is crazy.
One final assignment. Read the following passages of the Bible, and summarize what they are trying to say:
Philippians 3:12:
* * *
* * *
1 John 1:8:
* * *
* * *
Psalm 18:30:
* * *
* * *
What is God trying to tell you through these passages? What is God saying that He wants from you? Far too many Christians are caught up in a legalistic approach to Christianity that simply isn’t biblical, a kind of “If I just dot all the right moral ‘i’s’ and cross all the right moral ‘t’s,’ then God will love me and I might make it into heaven.” Nothing you do can make God love you more, and nothing you do can get you into heaven. The balance for us as Christians is to keep “pressing on to the mark” of being more like Christ every day, knowing we will never be exactly like Him while simultaneously avoiding continuing to sin so that grace may “abound.”
Bottom line: do your very best, apologize when you fall short, and learn from your mistakes. That is what is asked of you.
Week Six:
Defeating the Need for Approval
This is Approval Week. During this workout, I want you to examine how much of a need for approval you have and take some steps to overcom
e unhealthy approval needs.
Before we get started, though, I want to say that I believe that we all come prewired with a need for approval and that there is nothing wrong with that.
What little kid doesn’t want his mom, dad, teacher, coach, or friend to approve of something he is or has done? What adult doesn’t want the approval of other adults? It is human to want approval.
This week I want you to focus on whether or not your need for approval is too strong and leads you into being something you are not in order to get someone to approve of you. Do you put on a “mask” or “false self” to get the approval of others? Do you do things that violate your morals just to get people to like you? That is the issue here.
The Lies We Believe Page 31