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CHAPTER 1
The Universal Problem:
The World's a Crazy Place to Live in
Not so long ago, pop music performer Britney Spears got married and divorced in a little over a 2-day period. A married Palestinian woman with two young children left them behind to become a suicide bomber, killing four Israelis. Almost every week, all over the U.S., infants are found on the steps of a church or, even worse, in dumpsters. And occasionally, in New York subways, people push other people into oncoming trains for no discernible reason.
Open any newspaper on any given day and you'll have clear evidence that the world is apparently going crazy! Is it a "sign of the times?" No, not really. In times past, a kind, loving man was nailed to a cross. A brave woman in France was burned at the stake. Millions of innocent people were put to death in Germany because one man decided they deserved to be. Hundreds of zealous followers agreed to commit suicide in Jonestown at the suggestion of their leader. And some people starve themselves in order to look beautiful while others die because they are starving. The world has always been a little "crazy." It's only the situations at particular points in history that vary.
Unfortunately, many of you obsess over these matters, take them to heart and end up with feelings of anxiety, uncertainty, and fear. Others of you do not feel a personal connection to these world dramas and are able to accept that they go on, have always gone on, and will continue to go on and on.
Even if the worldly catastrophes do not grab you, it's easy to get caught up in the craziness of your personal world, causing tension to build. Why didn't your cousin invite your children to the wedding? The nerve of that other driver taking the spot you were waiting for! You keep having trouble with relationships because your father was an alcoholic. Your parents couldn't afford to send you to a more prestigious college, so now your employment opportunities are severely limited. Your sister's son has gotten involved with the wrong crowd. The guy you've gone out with for five years refuses to make a marriage commitment. Your parents' health is failing, but they refuse to get some form of assistance. You helped out a relative who was in financial distress, only to later find out he was short of money due to a gambling addiction.
The examples are endless. Stack a group of them up in close succession and you're really vulnerable to all the negative impacts of too much stress. At the very least, your world is not free, your world is not calm — there's just too much happening you can't control.
It is true that many uncontrollable things keep happening. No doubt, there will always be situations with which to contend — some are bumps, others feel more like a tornado. These are all part of life. The acceptance of that fact, alone, is very important because if you try to control everything or, at least, be prepared for everything, you will always feel out of control.
What is perhaps even more frustrating than not being able to change a situation is the additional fact that you cannot change another person. You can't make your parents more generous. You can't insist your friends include you in on a dinner plan. You can't get your significant others to stay on their diet. If you continue to expect or hope that a situation will change, or another person will somehow become what you would like them to be, it will only lead you to feel disappointment, anger, or perhaps a sense of helplessness. Your personal world then becomes a stage for drama.
So, does this mean you have to resign yourself to the "same old, same old?" Do you just have to accept that you're going to be bumped and bounced through your day-to-day existence, and hope the resulting damage won't be too overwhelming?
No! Because there is one thing over which you always have control. That one thing is your reaction. You can learn a process, which I have termed The Art of Choice, that will allow you to be "at choice" as a lifestyle. In doing so, not only will you get off the frenzied merry-go-round, you can also create a life that hums with richness and harmony
CHAPTER 2
The Personal Problem: Living a Life that's on "Auto-Pilot"
The world is quite different today from what it was in historical times. Perhaps the most significant difference is how technological we have all become. You can now visit all parts of the world. Perhaps one day you will all be making trips to the moon. You have the ability to stay current, and in a matter of moments, you can know what's going on throughout the world.
Your life has the benefits of ease and access — with potential for greater relaxation and free time. However, despite having all these benefits, our technology can also work against you. Suddenly, your life seems more harried, hectic and frantic, filled with too many things to get done.
With your lifestyle being so demanding, it's often hard to differentiate the cause from the effect, to tell which is the trigger and which is the result. Does the life you lead create a daily existence that seems to run on "autopilot" — or do you allow such an existence to be maintained because you are not even aware that it is happening? Most of you have come to accept the concept of needing to deal with "the cards that have been dealt to you." You have come to accept the idea of getting through life rather than creating your lives.
So why is it that most people function in this robotic way? Why do you remain in a state of auto-pilot? Because to go against these concepts means making a change. Change is, at the very least, discomforting. For some, making changes is downright frightening. When you continue to do the things you've always done, even if they don't bring the greatest amount of satisfaction or pleasure, there is one major benefit. That benefit is comfort. Because this is what you've always done, you know how to do it.
A byproduct of living life this way is a state of mindlessness — you don't have to think about it. There are many everyday examples of acting mindlessly. If you're a good cook, you can make scrambled eggs for breakfast without really thinking about it. If you've driven to your friend's house on a regular basis, the next time you get in your car to go there, you arrive never really paying attention to the actual drive. Perhaps these are matters of convenience. But mindlessness also extends to every aspect of our daily living. Many people can eat an entire meal without really tasting it. Or you listen to your kids as they share the events that occurred in school that day, but you have not really heard what they've said. When you're involved in a relationship with a significant other, or a family member, or a work colleague, numerous conflicts or difficulties can arise that are the result of automatic reactions. You don't feel heard, you don't feel understood, and/or you don't feel loved. You get disappointed or hurt or angry.
Another benefit of not making changes is that you feel like you are in control — you know the outcome. Your risk factor is minimized. Furthermore, functioning in this manner releases you from your responsibility. If you're not all you can be, you can easily blame it on your past — something that happened to you, or something you didn't get. If you're out of sorts, it's because of all the horrible things that occurred that month, that week, or that day. As a psychologist who has spent years helping people heal from their wounds, I have heard countless people excuse themselves for the unhappy lives they have by saying, "I can't help it, that's how I feel."
Earlier, I mentioned my abominable formative years. Was my early life the worst environment ever? No. Unfortunately, I've had a few clients whose childhood stories were a lot worse. But my family still scored high on the dysfunctional scale.
I was exposed to almost every type of abuse there is. Though I wasn't subjected to physical abuse directly, I had to witness it over and over. My father would throw things or hit my mother. One time, my mother, sister, and I were preparing to leave our apartment. I don't remember why my father got angry, but what I vividly recall is that he grabbed her purse and flung it with all his might at her head. To this day, I'm still sickened by the image of her slumping to the floor as he connected with his target.
When my dad wasn't throwing things, he was raging at one of us. The littlest things set him off. But what triggered him one time would not upset him at another. I lived in total confusion. There was never any way to predict how to behave in order to avoid his wrath. The phone would ring in the middle of the afternoon during his nap — I'd run and try to grab it, but the first ring woke him up and all hell broke loose! The next time he napped, I disconnected the phone. When he woke up and found the phone off the hook, he went ballistic again. How do you please someone like that?
When I was eight, my younger sister was in a highchair in the kitchen and I was told to watch her. My parents were in the bedroom of our three-room apartment. All of a sudden I heard my mom screaming and I instantly knew my dad was about to punch her with his fists. I stood in the hallway, paralyzed — whose safety should I be more concerned about? If I went to protect my mother, my sister could fall out of the highchair. If I stayed to watch my baby sister, my mother could get brutalized.
As a psychologist, my specialty is in relationships. When people ask how long I have been doing this, I reply, "Since I was eight." And I'm not joking! My father had a string of affairs and I was always trying to salvage my parents' relationship. Strangely, they would sometimes come to me for help — or they found a way to put me in the middle. In that same kitchen where I watched my baby sister in the highchair, my parents had an awful fight about his latest fling — her name was June. I stood between the two of them, begging for them to stop yelling. Finally, I cried, "I'll call June and tell her to stop!" But this time the fight continued, my mother ended up with a black eye and she actually threw my father out that night. The weird thing is, even though I knew she was right, there was a part of me that didn't want my daddy to go. And when I missed his call because I went out to have a good time with my friend's family for the day, I was heartbroken. They never thought to have him call me back ... it took me years to realize that often I was afraid to "miss out on things" because of this incident.
As inappropriate as it was, the responsibility for helping my parents was a role I was thrown into more times than I care to remember. I had a second sister who died just short of a month old. I did everything I could think of to soothe them. However, my parents were not able to contain their emotions even for the sake of their other two children. The drama was awful: terrible wailing, banging their heads on the crib. What was totally lacking in my parents was a concern for helping my sister and me deal with our emotions as well, or comprehending such a frightening and confusing event.
The inappropriateness of my parents' behavior was not limited to times when they were in horribly traumatic situations. I've said that I was a victim of almost every type of abuse — that included sexual. Most people, when they hear that term, conjure up visions of rape or molestation. But there are other types of behaviors that also cross boundaries and leave a child feeling unsafe, confused and violated. When I was a preadolescent, my father would bring me to lie in bed with him and cuddle me. My mother simply turned her back to this. At first, I didn't know how wrong this behavior was. It felt nice to lie up against him — like we had a special secret from my mother. It started to become discomforting as I got a little older. At my mother's urging, I accompanied him as he did his chores. As we drove in the car, he'd put his hand on my knee. If I objected, he'd make some remark as if there was something wrong with me. It became especially uncomfortable when he'd kiss me in the ear. By then I knew it was wrong. But when I stiffened up and didn't respond, he told me I'd never find a husband if I didn't stop being frigid.
"Where was your mother in all of this?" you might ask. Well, from what I now know as a therapist, she had the personality that was typical of a mother of a sexually abused daughter. She was neglectful and closed off. For me, of all the types of abuse I was subjected to, neglect landed the hardest. My mother worked during a time in history when most mothers didn't work. Consequently, she never came to class parties, she wasn't there on open school days, she was never home to help with homework. I was so envious of all the other kids. When I was really young, my grandmother would have to come to the class parties. Even though I loved my grandmother, I hated that she came — I was embarrassed because she was so much older than the other moms. (Today, when I think back, I feel badly about that — she actually was my saving grace.)
There were many nights when I waited to eat dinner with my parents. They'd call and say they were leaving their office and they were bringing home a pizza. I was so excited and couldn't wait to see them! But as it usually turned out, they got home so late that I'd fallen asleep — without dinner. The sad thing was, the hours my parents spent at work were for their own business, and so the demanding hours were of their own making.
When the neglect became too much to bear and I finally complained, guess how my mother responded? She'd stop talking to me. And when she was talking to me, it was frequently to offer criticism. My mother would often comment on my legs. She'd feign surprise that she had such lovely legs but mine were so unshapely. Apparently, my mom thought she was offering motherly advice — like the time she took me aside and said that I was the kind of woman who would have to wake up before my husband and put makeup on so he would find me attractive.
Add to all that, they were also horribly strict and never seemed to care about how out of place their rules made me feel in relation to my friends. For one of the school's boy/girl parties, all the girls were given permission to wear lipstick. My mother not only forbade me to wear it, I wasn't allowed to go unless she was assured the other girls were forbidden to wear it as well. My parents would give me a curfew before the end of a dance, then refuse to pick me up at that hour. In order to go, I'd have to find another strict parent who was picking up their child early and was also willing to drive me home. And for good measure, my father would frequently pick a fight with me right before I went out, making it almost impossible for me to enjoy myself after that.
As a young adult, my self-esteem was low and a sense of worthlessness predominated my life. I compensated in lots of ways in response to these feelings. Among them were always trying to please people, a constant weight problem as I attempted to nurture myself through food, living in constant drama, getting involved in relationships that reflected the same early childhood patterns. My feelings were intense — I was angry, I was depressed, and with a childhood like I had, who could blame me?
But I was strong. I was a survivor. In spite of it all, I got married, had two children and established a successful career. Was my life okay? Sure. But deep down, I wasn't truly happy within myself. As I worked to deal with my issues, the depression got worse. It was so bad that at one point that I wasn't sure I could take the pain.
It was that experience that helped snap me out of my mindlessness. I chose to live! I embarked on learning how to create a life that would bring me satisfaction and joy. I no longer allowed myself to merely react to whatever was presented to me. I set out to create the life I wanted as opposed to one that was a consequence of my past. I refused to accept that the unhappy circumstances of my upbringing would dictate how I lived my life. I was determined not to be held back by a past that dictated my future. The die had been cast but I made the conscious decision to break the mold.
It was from this point that I realized how the mindlessness of people takes place. When you're children, the only way you come to know your world is through experiencing it. You don't yet have the ability to think or understand things.
The most important people in your life are your parents — you are totally dependent on them. They're the ones with the goodies — they have the food, they have the shelter, and most importantly, they have the love to give. As children, you figure out what you have to do to get their love. When they're happy with you, you feel good. When they're displeased with you, you feel bad. Additionally, children are very egocentric as they grow up — they only see
the world from their perspective. That's why when parents divorce, kids think it's something they did. Here's another example: when a younger sibling is born, the older child may have some normal jealousy and negative thoughts about the new "intruder." If the baby were to die, the older sib may believe it was his or her negative thinking that caused it. Those situations and the accompanying feelings get wired into your bodily memory as a survival mechanism to help you cope in the future–you don't have to relearn every experience.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Mindfulness and the Art of Choice"
by .
Copyright © 2010 Karen H. Sherman.
Excerpted by permission of Loving Healing Press, Inc..
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