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Break the [wounds +
unawareness] cycle and guard your descendents |
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Recover
from False-self Dominance
An Overview of
Recovery Goals for
each of the 6 False-self Wounds
- p. 2 of 5
By Peter K.
Gerlach, MSW
|
 The Web address of this
5-page article is http://sfhelp.org/Rx/recovery1.htm
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This
is the second of five pages overviewing recovery from
dominance and five
related psy-chological
The
first page
describes some initial perspective, the reasons for recovery, and the multi-year wounding phase of the process.
This
page overviews the recovery phase, pseudo recovery, and
starts a skeleton outline of the main recovery goals
for each of the six false-self
wounds. Page 5 provides seven recovery themes, symptoms of true recovery, and
available types of recovery help.
Recall that the
guidebook (Who's
Really Running Your Life?, by Peter Gerlach, MSW; Xlibris, 2002,
2nd ed.)
integrates the key
Web articles and work-sheets
on wound reduction.
Phase-two Recovery:
Healing
The
healing phase
begins with a traumatic
event or a series of events, which finally shatter or
weaken life-long protective
These
"trigger" events may include a relationship
bankruptcy, job los-ses, major
injury, disability, or illness; a death; abortion, "breakdown," and/or a child's
major distress. People in
12-step addiction-management programs call this
or
"hitting
the wall." Addicts who relapse are said to have hit a "false"
(preliminary, or pseudo) bottom or wall.
There are many
kinds of recovery triggers. Some are sudden and dramatic. Others occur on a
trip, watching a movie, taking a shower, in church or a confrontation, driving to a store,
reading, or in a sleep-less night. I recall one divorced, middle-aged addict
saying "I realized one morning that my life was just... gray, and I
HAD
to change." Approaching or experiencing middle age seems to make hitting the wall
more likely - perhaps from really accepting
the inevitability of limited remaining years and impending death.
Once a
recovering person begins to acknowledge their
and
to themselves and
others, they often experience a confusing period of searching, mood
swings, and disorientation. Lifelong attitudes and beliefs are no longer valid (e.g.
"My childhood wasn't as fine and 'normal' as I've always thought"),
and new
beliefs aren't clear or solid. This is typical of true
(core attitude) shifts.
Some
early recoverers pull into themselves (isolate) for a
period, others frantically seek companion-ship. Through "chance" (a
conversation, a book or TV program, a sermon...) they come across the idea of
recovery (a
necessary gateway to
full healing), or some version of "Adult
Child"
recovery. Something
"clicks," and they seek more information.
The next
elements of typical second-phase wound-recovery are wonderfully varied. They
can include
combinations of...
A
compulsion to learn -
reading self-help books voraciously
("bibliotherapy"), using audio or video recovery tapes, going to
recovery lectures, talking with others in recovery, asking
family-history questions of
relatives,
meditating,
A
growing feeling of "AHA!",
"rightness," or "centeredness" about
cascading new
personal awarenesses, without
being able to identify why; or starting to
their early
("I realized my Mom never said 'I love you,' or
hugged me."), and how those pro-moted GWC personality
traits,
beliefs ("I'll never amount to much"), and
behaviors.
Vague or compelling hope for a "better life" blooms.
And/or...
A
gradual thawing of emotional and physical
feelings frozen
for decades, and/or a validation of lifelong "unexplainable"
feelings - usually surges of
deep sadness ("depression"),
regrets, and
profound
This thawing can come in a rush or
in
unpredictable swells and spurts, over years. Growing conscious awareness of these legitimate
feelings and their prior repression can evoke intense feelings of anger at parents,
themselves, others, and/or God. Long-repressed
of lost childhoods, relationships, and life
opportunities begins;
As these emotions, senses, and awarenesses cascade, amplify, and
billow, typical people in early wound-reduction may start ...
Seeking
and accepting various kinds of
recovery help. These can include combinations of individual and/or group
therapy;
self-help (e.g. 12-step) groups; inpatient addiction-treatment and aftercare
programs;
communion and guidance; Tai Chi or meditation classes; dance,
massage, or art therapy; retreats and wilderness sojourns;...
All these experiences
add to a growing wholistic
of the original
deprivations, the old coping
behaviors
and their impacts, and a humbling, exciting visions of the person's true
Self and a possible
new truly-authentic lifestyle;
As old denials and repressions continue to dissolve in
this healing phase, people
in true (vs. pseudo) recovery confront a series of difficult
and social
conflicts. To keep healing inev-itably requires changing or replacing
toxic (wound-amplifying)...
-
attitudes and beliefs (e.g. "It's OK for me to
work 65 hours a week," "I can skip breakfast with no
risk," or "There is no real God") with
Self-nurturing ones;
-
relationships -
e.g. with other
significantly-wounded
spouses, friends, employers, siblings, and parents; and ...
-
social memberships - e.g. working in a
low-nurturance
organization and/or regularly attending a toxic (low-nurturance) church,
club, or other group.
| Toxic
means any relationship, activity, thought-system, or setting that
consistently promotes major (a) mixes of personal
(of self and others), anxiety, confusion,
pessimism, anger, hopelessness, and
"failure;" and/or (b) unawareness of, distrust in, and
one's
Restated:
toxic means wholistically self-harmful and self-
|
As
typical recoverers uncertainly try
out these scary, exciting changes, the alarmed
and
subselves of other (wounded and unrecovering) people try to manipulate them back into their old ways of believing,
thinking, feeling, and re/acting. True (vs. pseudo) recovery rocks everyone's securities!
Permanently
reducing false-self dominance and
requires
hitting
That promotes con-verting lifelong beliefs
and rituals into new attitudes,
values, and activities despite inner
-
and often
c/overt social disapprovals. This can result in an
artful compromise: some personality subselves say "We must
change!" Others say "Never!"
To resolve this
the ruling subselves cleverly compromise by thinking, speaking, and
acting like a recovering person (superficial
but
not changing
core toxic attitudes or really trus-ting
their true Self to
One of my clients in pseudo recovery was a bright, articulate
divorced mother. She said proudly "I've read every self-help book on
codependence, 12-step recovery, spirituality, and toxic relationships
ever prin-ted." She could quote the authors and key ideas at great length,
and spent hours counseling others on healing.
Yet at 40, she was obese,
diabetic, in a codependent relationship with a terribly wounded, never-married
man, stuck in a depleting relationship with her (very wounded) mother,
living in poverty and often on welfare, and enduring the
rejection and social
of one of her two teen-aged daughters.
She
vehemently
insisted these all had other causes, and that she was in true recovery
from a very low-nurturance childhood. Her artful
subself
at work! Hopefully, aging, health threats, and accum-ulating pain and weariness will
help her hit true bottom, and finally free her Self and Higher Power to lead
toward true recovery.
Thousands of
12-step "Anonymous" and other
self-help meetings are full of such tormented
people who work to stop toxic compulsions,
and deny they're compensating by using another form of self-medi-cation (e.g.
addiction/s to food, work, tobacco, sexual gratification, Web surfing, shopping, or
gambling).
In AA, addicts in pseudo recovery are called
dry drunks. They've stopped using
alcohol to self-medi-cate, but haven't changed their "stinking thinking" (false-self
attitudes) and related harmful behaviors. Their words and actions
- i.e. they
have elaborate justifications and excuses for not "walking their talk."
Typical
wound-recovery is an organic (vs. linear) process. There are erratic periods of "no
progress" (which are usually nurturing periods of rest and
integration), regression to "the old ways" (reminders); con-fusion
(healthy change);
and doubt and/or aimlessness.
As these accumulate, there is a growing
acceptance that
true recovery from inadequate child-hood nurturance is a
ever-evolving spiral of attitude, values, and
behavioral changes -
an increasingly-satis-fying new lifestyle, and a continual becoming.
People who begin to understand personality subselves, wounds, and the need
for recovery can feel
by the apparent complexity and alien-ness of
these ideas. To offset this, consider this: "How do you raise a healthy
child? A day at a time." Personal recovery happens a day at a time by
patiently se-lecting
and working at a series of subgoals like those below.
What follows assumes that you have...
 Overview:
Six
Recovery Goals
Adult
recovery from a dis-integrated personality ruled by a protective false self can be described as the
multi-year process of...
-
becoming
aware of six false-self
their
symptoms, and their
and...
-
self-motivated work to
empower the resident true Self to retrain, educate, unify, and harmonize the
other personality subselves, with human and Higher-Powered help.
From this view, here's a bare-bones summary of
typical wound-recovery goals, based on
19 years' personal and professional study and experience.
This experience suggests using
("parts work") is an effective way to achieve these healing goals over time.
Other theorists, self-help authors, and clinicians aren't aware of this way
to heal, and use different recovery strategies.
Use this page to gain an overall sense of the process. Use the next two pages and linked
articles for more detail on reducing each wound.
Note two possible attitudes about recovery:
1) the goal is to
reduce (vs. "cure") two to six stressful psychological injuries (glass half
em-pty), or
2) the goal is to gradually convert each wound into it's
opposite - e.g. to convert excessive shame into genuine non-egotistical
and
excessive
into genuine self-confidence and
(glass half full).
Which attitude feels better to you?
Though excessive shame and guilt are treated as one wound here (because they
feel similar), they're caused and reduced differently. The main recovery
goals are broken into common "sub-wounds" to make recovery targets more
manageable. In addition
to the goals outlined below, effective wound-recovery
also requires intentionally learning how to use effective-communication
basics and skills
at the same
time.
Bold links lead to more detail on typical symptoms and recovery goals
of each wound.
|
Psychological Wound |
General
Recovery Goal |
|
1)
Reduce
false-self dominance.
Freeing the res-ident
to lead and
harmonize other person-ality
over time improves all the condi-tions below. This wound may be described as "un-consciously living from a
false self, and believing it to be "my (true) Self." |
Using some form of
(a) iden-tify all personality
and who leads them,
(b) persuade them to trust and follow the
resident
true Self, and (c) harmonize all
subselves into an effective team, over time.
The end
goal is to live authentically from one's
in all relation-ships and situations. |
|
2a) Reduce excessive
-
core feelings of personal worthlessness,
"badness," incompe-tence, and unlovability.
These thoughts and
feelings are usually caused by a
subself, and several devoted
who
work to soothe and protect this volatile young personality part. |
Patiently meet and introduce the
Shamed Child/-ren to the resident
subself, and see if
the Kids need to be rescued from
the toxic past. Pesuade the
and related
Guardian sub-selves to
reduce (and rephrase) self blame, and reduce or end shaming settings and
relationships.
Experiment with intentionally promoting your feelings, needs,
and opinions
and prais-ing your own achievements as you would other people's. Respectfully
confront and retrain any subselves who want to discount
and self
appreciation. See goal 5a. |
|
2b)
Reduce
-
choosing or accepting
low-nurturance and/or harmful settings, relation-ships, and activities (e.g.
little exercise, and avoiding medical care)
as normal
and OK (re-ality distortion) despite harmful or painful results.
This is
often caused by a Shamed Child
("I don't matter; I don't deserve good health, success, or a nurturing
environment"). Another cause may be one or more young or Guardian subselves
over-focusing on immediate gratification ("Ice cream now, exercise later!") |
Subselves'
old self-harmful attitudes, values, and choices gradually change to
spontaneous
choices, as subselves learn to trust (a) the Self's judgment and
leadership, and that (b) good things happen from living by a
Bill of Personal Rights.
Increasing true-Self
leadership reduces the personality influence of
shamed and self-indulgent Inner Children.
|
|
2c)
Reduce excessive
- intense thoughts and
feelings from subselves perceiving that we've broken (someone's) rules - i.e.
should (not)s, ought (not)s, cannots, and must (not)s.
Often excessive guilt
(and shame) comes from tireless
and
subselves. |
Learn to value moderate
guilt. Then authorize
yourself to evolve a Bill of Personal Rights
to help replace outdated life-rules with your own.
As you do, encourage your
subselves to use your
rules to regulate guilts. Intentionally reduce old
guilts via this rule-editing, re-doing,
and for-giveness, and practice use your
Rights and effec-tive-communication
to minimize new
guilts, as you reduce old guilts.
|
|
3)
Reduce excessive
of rejection,
criticism, abandonment, the unknown, emotional
(and thus of intimacy and conflict), success, and
"failure."
Excessive
(vs. moderate, normal) fears are caused by one or more
and atten-tive
subselves. |
Patiently grow your Guardian
subselves' trust in your true Self, a nurturing ( vs. judgmental, punitive) Higher Power, and reliable people to
provide enough security over time.
Shift the care of the Scared inner
Child/ren to the empathic
(Good Parent) and related
subselves.
|
|
4)
Reduce
distortions -
blindly trusting abu-sive, selfish, or
indifferent others, or distrusting "safe" others. A stressful
variation is reflexive Self-distrust (excessive self doubt). Another
is rejecting or distrusting a loving, responsive Higher Power. |
Identify
which subselves cause this wound (e.g. a well-meaning
Conser-vative,
and/or
| |