I wear a size 10, which I think makes me thinner than the average American woman, but it drives me crazy. I don’t think of myself as a size 10. My identity (and birthright) is somewhere in the 4/6 range. That’s who I am, a 4/6 who somehow slipped into a size 10 body somewhere in my 20s. And then again, in my late 20s. And again in my 30s.
My favorite little black dress, which I refuse to let go, is tagged a size 4. Will I ever get to wear it again? I would need to lose… let’s see… 60% of something, to go from a 10 to a 4.
And so I give you the psychological cruelty of American clothing sizes. Our brains know about proportions and ratios, and when we go shopping, and we’re fitting into 10s rather than the historically purchased 8s, our brains quietly calculate that we’ve grown roughly 25%.
This is clearly inaccurate, but that doesn’t matter. We’re smart. Our brains crunch the numbers and numbers don’t lie. We feel this inaccuracy as true. And it doesn’t feel good.
If this doesn’t apply to you, if you’re an American woman who doesn’t take any meaning at all from the number on your clothing tags, good for you. You’re either naturally and effortlessly fit or you have spent a lot of money on therapy. Either way, you’re not normal.
For the rest of us, it was part of our proper socialization. And it sucks.
Chico’s tries to skirt the size issue (no pun intended) by making their own sizes. Unfortunately, their sizes make the effects even worse. With 0, 1, 2 and 3 being all that’s available, your percentages get skewed even more.
In continental Europe, they’re more sensible. (That statement is true on so many levels, but I mean it as it pertains to this subject.) An American 10 is marked as a 38, 40 or 42, depending on which country you’re in.
A few American clothing companies are seeing the value in the European approach. Lucky Jeans are my current godsend. When I went from an 8 to a 10, god bless them, I was really only going from a 29 to a 30. I’d only grown 3%. That, I can live with.
I don’t know what the 29 and 30 are supposed to apply to, and it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s a moving target. Clothing companies want us to feel good when we try on their clothes, so they keep drifting the actual sizes downward, so that yesterday’s 8 is now a 6 and we get a little boost from feeling like we’ve lost 20% and so we buy it. Even though we haven’t changed at all. It’s called size inflation. Seriously, it’s not just you – the sizes keep changing.
How do we liberate ourselves from the tyranny of the numbers? First, catch yourself. Consciously calculate the percentage (“Hmm, 6 to 8, that’s a chunk”). Then remind yourself that it’s a trick, and it actually means your waist has grown an inch. One lousy inch!
You probably have the clock in your car set 5 minutes ahead to help you get places on time. Even though you know it’s 5 minutes ahead, it doesn’t matter – your brain still treats it as true, at least some of the time. This is similar, just reversed. Remember that the clothing tags are “set ahead,” and that an inch is no big woop.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Inner Children? Really?
The problem with psychology is that it’s highly abstract. In our attempts to be clear and relatable, we use a lot of metaphors that, well, are nearly irresistible to ridicule.
Like inner children. I mean… inner children?! Really?
But, hey. There is validity in the concept. When we have disturbing, confusing or mind-blowing moments in our childhood, we get stuck. A part of us stays in that moment, at that age, with that particular capacity to understand the situation. Then, when we encounter similar situations in the present, that fragment, that orphaned inner child, can pipe up and make us think and behave irrationally.
Such fragmentation… it's happened to me, it's happened to you.
This really disturbs some people, to hear that they are fragmented. Suddenly, overly dramatized crazy people from old crime dramas and horror movies come to mind and you can easily start freaking yourself out. But it's not like that. Our inner orphans aren't dangerous, so cut it out. It's normal. We’re all fragmented to some degree, except maybe the Dalai Lama. And Ira Glass.
OK, yes, there are extreme cases, the ones that Hollywood exploits, “multiple personalities.” They're rare, but they happen. These dear souls became this way as a result of severe abuse or torture in their formative years. And thank god for fragmentation, because they wouldn’t have survived otherwise. But non-extreme cases are walking around all the time, just like you.
For example, what are your pet peeves? What kind of little, innocuous things do people do that cause a wave of inexplicable rage to woosh through your body?
What little phrase or facial expression from your parent or sibling reverts you to 8 years old in a snap? What odor makes every bone in your body want to escape it?
Most of us have at least a handful of these sorts of triggers, ranging from intense dislikes to actual phobias.
If you don’t relate to this, if you feel neutral about all familiar objects & situations and always feel the appropriate amount of emotion and respond in mature & balanced ways, that is amazing. Good for you. You’re not normal.
The rest of us have an orphan infestation.
The thing about orphans – by definition, they’re abandoned. When we get stuck, when that part fragments and forms an inner child, the rest of us keeps going and abandons him/her. This is another psychological metaphor that can sound ridiculous: self-abandonment. But there it is.
We abandon ourselves when we subconsciously decide we’re not worth it. We’re too much trouble. Our needs are burdensome and invalid. We’re less-than everyone else. We don’t understand and we don't deserve an explanation. Our humanness is unacceptable. Whatever.
We do this a lot as children. We take the side of some real or imagined other that condemns us, or is annoyed with us, or who we just think is annoyed with us. It's part of proper socialization. We turn against ourselves, just for a moment. Boom. Self-abandonment. Fragmentation. Inner child.
It’s another thing we therapists live for – the healing process of reintegrating our lost parts. (Not everyone calls them inner children – that part’s totally optional.)
In that process of healing, one of the qualities we cultivate is dignity. Dignity is the opposite of self-abandonment.
Some talk about dignity as something that can be taken away, but it’s not really. It’s an inner state. A decision. Dignity is the refusal to abandon oneself, the refusal to take the others' side, the refusal to see oneself as less-than or not worth it, regardless of outer circumstances.
The tensile strength of our dignity can certainly be tested, and it can fail, if we're unfortunate enough to be pushed that far. Or, if we're unfortunate enough not to have developed much capacity for dignity, or any.
In the process of refusing to abandon, dignity also doesn't judge the other, or attack them or make them wrong for whatever they’re doing. People do what they do, and we don't have power over that. Dignity lets them do what they do, knowing they have no real power over us.
It’s in our power, individually and collectively, to cultivate dignity, to build it as a muscle. When you make a mistake, when you’re being criticized or laughed at, stay on your own side. Be humble, but stand your ground. It’s fine to laugh at yourself, as long as you aren’t feeling less-than in the process.
You'll feel better, and your orphans will be much better behaved. It's a nice win-win without much ado. Not bad for an abstract concept, I'd say.
Like inner children. I mean… inner children?! Really?
But, hey. There is validity in the concept. When we have disturbing, confusing or mind-blowing moments in our childhood, we get stuck. A part of us stays in that moment, at that age, with that particular capacity to understand the situation. Then, when we encounter similar situations in the present, that fragment, that orphaned inner child, can pipe up and make us think and behave irrationally.
Such fragmentation… it's happened to me, it's happened to you.
This really disturbs some people, to hear that they are fragmented. Suddenly, overly dramatized crazy people from old crime dramas and horror movies come to mind and you can easily start freaking yourself out. But it's not like that. Our inner orphans aren't dangerous, so cut it out. It's normal. We’re all fragmented to some degree, except maybe the Dalai Lama. And Ira Glass.
OK, yes, there are extreme cases, the ones that Hollywood exploits, “multiple personalities.” They're rare, but they happen. These dear souls became this way as a result of severe abuse or torture in their formative years. And thank god for fragmentation, because they wouldn’t have survived otherwise. But non-extreme cases are walking around all the time, just like you.
For example, what are your pet peeves? What kind of little, innocuous things do people do that cause a wave of inexplicable rage to woosh through your body?
What little phrase or facial expression from your parent or sibling reverts you to 8 years old in a snap? What odor makes every bone in your body want to escape it?
Most of us have at least a handful of these sorts of triggers, ranging from intense dislikes to actual phobias.
If you don’t relate to this, if you feel neutral about all familiar objects & situations and always feel the appropriate amount of emotion and respond in mature & balanced ways, that is amazing. Good for you. You’re not normal.
The rest of us have an orphan infestation.
The thing about orphans – by definition, they’re abandoned. When we get stuck, when that part fragments and forms an inner child, the rest of us keeps going and abandons him/her. This is another psychological metaphor that can sound ridiculous: self-abandonment. But there it is.
We abandon ourselves when we subconsciously decide we’re not worth it. We’re too much trouble. Our needs are burdensome and invalid. We’re less-than everyone else. We don’t understand and we don't deserve an explanation. Our humanness is unacceptable. Whatever.
We do this a lot as children. We take the side of some real or imagined other that condemns us, or is annoyed with us, or who we just think is annoyed with us. It's part of proper socialization. We turn against ourselves, just for a moment. Boom. Self-abandonment. Fragmentation. Inner child.
It’s another thing we therapists live for – the healing process of reintegrating our lost parts. (Not everyone calls them inner children – that part’s totally optional.)
In that process of healing, one of the qualities we cultivate is dignity. Dignity is the opposite of self-abandonment.
Some talk about dignity as something that can be taken away, but it’s not really. It’s an inner state. A decision. Dignity is the refusal to abandon oneself, the refusal to take the others' side, the refusal to see oneself as less-than or not worth it, regardless of outer circumstances.
The tensile strength of our dignity can certainly be tested, and it can fail, if we're unfortunate enough to be pushed that far. Or, if we're unfortunate enough not to have developed much capacity for dignity, or any.
In the process of refusing to abandon, dignity also doesn't judge the other, or attack them or make them wrong for whatever they’re doing. People do what they do, and we don't have power over that. Dignity lets them do what they do, knowing they have no real power over us.
It’s in our power, individually and collectively, to cultivate dignity, to build it as a muscle. When you make a mistake, when you’re being criticized or laughed at, stay on your own side. Be humble, but stand your ground. It’s fine to laugh at yourself, as long as you aren’t feeling less-than in the process.
You'll feel better, and your orphans will be much better behaved. It's a nice win-win without much ado. Not bad for an abstract concept, I'd say.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Why Be Normalized?
As originally introduced, this column is about how normal some issues and neuroses are, based on our shared experience of proper socialization. So, what’s the point of that, anyway?
For one, I hope it helps defeat this insidious, irrational belief that if you’re normal, everything’s OK. Because if everything’s OK all the time, congratulations: you’re not normal.
Also, when you realize whatever you’re going through is normal, you can refocus, change your dilemma from “How can I not be having this experience?” to “How will I manage myself and get through this experience with the best possible outcome?”
This shift is incredibly powerful, freeing you from the cold shackles of avoid/deny/escape and into the green-green valleys of breathe/face/manage. From powerless to empowered. From fractured to whole. From victim to captain of your ship.
Sounds so simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy. Far from it. There are loads of compelling reasons why we haven't done this before, even though we've been told to do it, to [deep serious voice] “take personal responsibility,” by many voices over the years, starting with coaches and school guidance counselors.
For one reason, we were trained not to. Families have these silent, incarcerating rules that we’re programmed with from infancy, rules that go something like: your primary purpose in existing is to need your mom, thereby giving her a purpose. Or, you’re not allowed to know more, do more or make more money than your dad/older sibling. Or, we don’t expect much of each other, and if you fulfill your potential you’ll ruin it for everyone. Tragically, I could go on and on and on.
Also, we don’t know how! Someone says [deep serious voice] “take personal responsibility” – OK, but what the hell does that mean? If you haven’t had living examples around you, demonstrating how this actually looks in the real world, these words are meaningless. They might as well shout, “hoist the main” when you don’t even know you’re on a sailboat. And in fact, being admonished to do so usually makes us feel guilt and shame, which deepens the powerlessness, which makes it less likely we can shift in the other direction.
Finally, I don’t know about you, but to me, “take personal responsibility” didn’t sound like any fun at all. Didn't sound empowering. Didn't sound like it was in MY best interest, but rather in the best interest of this authority figure du jour.
The alternative, as it turned out, was less fun – trying to avoid difficulty, expecting others to “just know” what I wanted or needed, and abdicating responsibility ("I can't help it") for my circumstances and emotional states. No fun at all. It’s like being tossed around in the surf without a rudder.
This column is meant to be a rudder.
When you learn that that rogue wave that just crashed over you is normal, and that others have sailed through it – and sail through it all the time, even – then you know that sailing is possible. And you gotta know it’s possible before you can manage it.
Managing is part of the human condition. We wish it were about controlling and escaping and making things burst into flames just with the power of our minds, and at moments it is (except the burst into flames part), but managing is constant.
“How will I manage myself and get through this experience with the best possible outcome?” This is it – this is what taking personal responsibility looks like. Ask yourself that question, and answer as best and as honestly as you can. It isn't nearly as heavy as those old voices made it sound.
The good news is, this little course correction makes a huge difference in where your life is going and how enjoyable the journey will be.
Hoist the main!
For one, I hope it helps defeat this insidious, irrational belief that if you’re normal, everything’s OK. Because if everything’s OK all the time, congratulations: you’re not normal.
Also, when you realize whatever you’re going through is normal, you can refocus, change your dilemma from “How can I not be having this experience?” to “How will I manage myself and get through this experience with the best possible outcome?”
This shift is incredibly powerful, freeing you from the cold shackles of avoid/deny/escape and into the green-green valleys of breathe/face/manage. From powerless to empowered. From fractured to whole. From victim to captain of your ship.
Sounds so simple, but simple doesn’t mean easy. Far from it. There are loads of compelling reasons why we haven't done this before, even though we've been told to do it, to [deep serious voice] “take personal responsibility,” by many voices over the years, starting with coaches and school guidance counselors.
For one reason, we were trained not to. Families have these silent, incarcerating rules that we’re programmed with from infancy, rules that go something like: your primary purpose in existing is to need your mom, thereby giving her a purpose. Or, you’re not allowed to know more, do more or make more money than your dad/older sibling. Or, we don’t expect much of each other, and if you fulfill your potential you’ll ruin it for everyone. Tragically, I could go on and on and on.
Also, we don’t know how! Someone says [deep serious voice] “take personal responsibility” – OK, but what the hell does that mean? If you haven’t had living examples around you, demonstrating how this actually looks in the real world, these words are meaningless. They might as well shout, “hoist the main” when you don’t even know you’re on a sailboat. And in fact, being admonished to do so usually makes us feel guilt and shame, which deepens the powerlessness, which makes it less likely we can shift in the other direction.
Finally, I don’t know about you, but to me, “take personal responsibility” didn’t sound like any fun at all. Didn't sound empowering. Didn't sound like it was in MY best interest, but rather in the best interest of this authority figure du jour.
The alternative, as it turned out, was less fun – trying to avoid difficulty, expecting others to “just know” what I wanted or needed, and abdicating responsibility ("I can't help it") for my circumstances and emotional states. No fun at all. It’s like being tossed around in the surf without a rudder.
This column is meant to be a rudder.
When you learn that that rogue wave that just crashed over you is normal, and that others have sailed through it – and sail through it all the time, even – then you know that sailing is possible. And you gotta know it’s possible before you can manage it.
Managing is part of the human condition. We wish it were about controlling and escaping and making things burst into flames just with the power of our minds, and at moments it is (except the burst into flames part), but managing is constant.
“How will I manage myself and get through this experience with the best possible outcome?” This is it – this is what taking personal responsibility looks like. Ask yourself that question, and answer as best and as honestly as you can. It isn't nearly as heavy as those old voices made it sound.
The good news is, this little course correction makes a huge difference in where your life is going and how enjoyable the journey will be.
Hoist the main!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
An Antidote to Mean Girls and Other Crazymaking People
Communication takes place on many levels. What someone says is not always what they mean, and in certain cases, it can overwhelm us with stress and paralysis. In other cases it’s just annoying. Really annoying. Luckily, there’s an antidote.
Here’s the classic, psych-101 example of what I’m talking about: a mother, in a moment of feeling resentful and repulsed by her 4-year-old, says, “Come give mommy a hug.” Her words say that she wants closeness, but her tone and body language say, “don’t touch me,” and the shot clock is on. The child must formulate a response, and quickly.
This is called a double bind, and it’s one of the most stressful states we humans experience. It’s crazymaking, literally. You know that feeling when your brain just can’t compute something, and you feel like you’re short-circuiting? Like that. When it happens when you’re a kid, it can throw a wrench in your emotional development.
The child in this example will usually (albeit reluctantly) hug the mother, and thus begins a lifelong habit of ignoring the non-verbal communication.
Unfortunately, double binds are common in normal families. An easy example is the absurd but still operational dictum of “do as I say, not as I do.” Then there are the times when they say something is good for you, when really it’s just good for them.
As I’ve mentioned before, parenting is the staggering and thankless task of socialization, and it often involves enforcing rules and structure on kids that the parents don’t buy into 100% themselves. So mixed messages are part of the territory, part of the family's secret code. Sometimes it’s mild but trips us up anyway, and sometimes it’s severe but we don’t get tripped up by it. We’re individuals. There’s no accounting for it.
Either way, some of us grow up and get out into the world, and we’ve been programmed to ignore the non-verbal communication. It becomes unconscious. So even if someone says, “I’m not making fun of you,” when clearly they are, we can feel inexplicably obligated to behave as though they are telling the truth. We bow out and let them off the hook, grumbling to ourselves, when really we want to say, “Yes, you are, you hateful harpy, and you’re not fooling anyone with this airheaded damsel crap!”
That’s what we really want to say, but our brain is busy rebooting and we can’t speak, and the snappy retort doesn’t come to us until ten minutes or an hour or a day later, at which point we replay the situation over and over in our minds (but this time, we win).
Some of us are lucky enough to have an aptitude for spotting inconsistencies among the levels of communication, a.k.a. indirect communication, and some of us (like most therapists) have had specific training in it. It takes practice, but once you can spot it, it’s extremely helpful in navigating human interactions.
Between my aptitude and training, I’m exceptional at it, but I’m not normal. Perhaps I can help you be less normal in this area, too.
The first step is spotting it. It takes some time to develop your radar. At first, it happens in hindsight. You remember something about an interaction that just didn’t quite make sense, and you realize there were mixed messages. Oh, what a relief it is. You’re not crazy! After a while, you start to notice when it’s actually happening. Be patient, it's a process.
The second step is assessing whether a response from you is expected or appropriate. When your drinking buddy asserts incessantly that he wants a girlfriend, but he overcriticizes and pushes away every woman he meets, well… there’s no shot clock. You’re not on the hook to call him out on it, unless he asks, or unless you have that kind of relationship. Or unless you’re fed up. You’re allowed, but you’re not under pressure to respond. This is important.
Finally, when you’ve spotted it in the moment and a response is expected from you imminently, the shot clock is running. It’s time to administer the antidote.
The antidote to indirect communication is direct communication, i.e. when words and tone and body language all say the same thing, and nothing is left under the radar.
For example, with that mean-girl co-worker, you address both the words and the non-verbal messages in your response to her: “You say you’re not making fun of me, but it’s obvious from your energy and tone that you are, and I don’t appreciate it.”
In a perfect world, that 4-year-old would be able to say, “You know, Mom, I hear you say you want me to hug you, but you also seem repulsed by me, so I’m not sure what to do.”
(Can you feel a sense of wholeness and completion when you read these responses? It's a beautiful thing, direct communication.)
It isn’t easy to be this direct. It feels risky and confrontational. It takes courage, and it also takes vulnerability. It means showing your cards when the other person isn’t showing theirs.
And, there are consequences. This kind of integrated response will often send an indirect communicator scrambling to justify their non-verbal communication.
“No, I’m not making fun of you, it’s just that I think it’s funny, that thing you do – I like it!”
“Of course I want you to hug me, I’m just tired and fed up with grown up stuff you don’t understand.”
Whatever. Don’t buy it. Sometimes they’re earnest – truly unaware of the mixed messages – and sometimes they’re just manipulative little pills. It can be infuriating when they believe their own rationalizations, but as long as you aren’t snowed by it, that’s what matters. You did your part and communicated with integrity, and you get to walk away clean.
This isn’t about being right – this is about saving your own sanity. So that when your drinking buddy says, for the thirtieth time, “I just want to meet a woman who’s normal and sane; is that so much to ask,” you’re not annoyed. You can just smile into your pint and continue watching the game, unruffled.
Here’s the classic, psych-101 example of what I’m talking about: a mother, in a moment of feeling resentful and repulsed by her 4-year-old, says, “Come give mommy a hug.” Her words say that she wants closeness, but her tone and body language say, “don’t touch me,” and the shot clock is on. The child must formulate a response, and quickly.
This is called a double bind, and it’s one of the most stressful states we humans experience. It’s crazymaking, literally. You know that feeling when your brain just can’t compute something, and you feel like you’re short-circuiting? Like that. When it happens when you’re a kid, it can throw a wrench in your emotional development.
The child in this example will usually (albeit reluctantly) hug the mother, and thus begins a lifelong habit of ignoring the non-verbal communication.
Unfortunately, double binds are common in normal families. An easy example is the absurd but still operational dictum of “do as I say, not as I do.” Then there are the times when they say something is good for you, when really it’s just good for them.
As I’ve mentioned before, parenting is the staggering and thankless task of socialization, and it often involves enforcing rules and structure on kids that the parents don’t buy into 100% themselves. So mixed messages are part of the territory, part of the family's secret code. Sometimes it’s mild but trips us up anyway, and sometimes it’s severe but we don’t get tripped up by it. We’re individuals. There’s no accounting for it.
Either way, some of us grow up and get out into the world, and we’ve been programmed to ignore the non-verbal communication. It becomes unconscious. So even if someone says, “I’m not making fun of you,” when clearly they are, we can feel inexplicably obligated to behave as though they are telling the truth. We bow out and let them off the hook, grumbling to ourselves, when really we want to say, “Yes, you are, you hateful harpy, and you’re not fooling anyone with this airheaded damsel crap!”
That’s what we really want to say, but our brain is busy rebooting and we can’t speak, and the snappy retort doesn’t come to us until ten minutes or an hour or a day later, at which point we replay the situation over and over in our minds (but this time, we win).
Some of us are lucky enough to have an aptitude for spotting inconsistencies among the levels of communication, a.k.a. indirect communication, and some of us (like most therapists) have had specific training in it. It takes practice, but once you can spot it, it’s extremely helpful in navigating human interactions.
Between my aptitude and training, I’m exceptional at it, but I’m not normal. Perhaps I can help you be less normal in this area, too.
The first step is spotting it. It takes some time to develop your radar. At first, it happens in hindsight. You remember something about an interaction that just didn’t quite make sense, and you realize there were mixed messages. Oh, what a relief it is. You’re not crazy! After a while, you start to notice when it’s actually happening. Be patient, it's a process.
The second step is assessing whether a response from you is expected or appropriate. When your drinking buddy asserts incessantly that he wants a girlfriend, but he overcriticizes and pushes away every woman he meets, well… there’s no shot clock. You’re not on the hook to call him out on it, unless he asks, or unless you have that kind of relationship. Or unless you’re fed up. You’re allowed, but you’re not under pressure to respond. This is important.
Finally, when you’ve spotted it in the moment and a response is expected from you imminently, the shot clock is running. It’s time to administer the antidote.
The antidote to indirect communication is direct communication, i.e. when words and tone and body language all say the same thing, and nothing is left under the radar.
For example, with that mean-girl co-worker, you address both the words and the non-verbal messages in your response to her: “You say you’re not making fun of me, but it’s obvious from your energy and tone that you are, and I don’t appreciate it.”
In a perfect world, that 4-year-old would be able to say, “You know, Mom, I hear you say you want me to hug you, but you also seem repulsed by me, so I’m not sure what to do.”
(Can you feel a sense of wholeness and completion when you read these responses? It's a beautiful thing, direct communication.)
It isn’t easy to be this direct. It feels risky and confrontational. It takes courage, and it also takes vulnerability. It means showing your cards when the other person isn’t showing theirs.
And, there are consequences. This kind of integrated response will often send an indirect communicator scrambling to justify their non-verbal communication.
“No, I’m not making fun of you, it’s just that I think it’s funny, that thing you do – I like it!”
“Of course I want you to hug me, I’m just tired and fed up with grown up stuff you don’t understand.”
Whatever. Don’t buy it. Sometimes they’re earnest – truly unaware of the mixed messages – and sometimes they’re just manipulative little pills. It can be infuriating when they believe their own rationalizations, but as long as you aren’t snowed by it, that’s what matters. You did your part and communicated with integrity, and you get to walk away clean.
This isn’t about being right – this is about saving your own sanity. So that when your drinking buddy says, for the thirtieth time, “I just want to meet a woman who’s normal and sane; is that so much to ask,” you’re not annoyed. You can just smile into your pint and continue watching the game, unruffled.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
