ALL I’M DOING IS BEING OBEDIENT
so what’s the problem?

PREVIOUS: ACoAs & RISK – #1

POSTS: ‘Book-ending’ with the IC
✦ ‘What to DO when confused’

✦ ‘Weak Decision making styles
✦ PROCESS

RISK AVERSION is a preference for a sure outcome — over taking a gamble for an outcome with higher or equal expected value
⎖ Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman wrote, “For most people, losses loom larger than gains, so that the fear of losing $100 is more intense than the hope of gaining $150″

⎖ Columbia University’s Tory Higgins, from 20 years of research, suggests that we see goals as opportunities to provide a benefit. People are either :
⛔️ Prevention-focused, more risk-averse, to maintain the status quo & keep things running smoothly, BUT will embrace risk when it’s their only shot at returning to their status quo
OR —
💢 Promotion-focused, less risk-averse, to make progress & end up better off, with the potential for richer gains

IMP: To be able to risk – appropriately – everyone needs to have :
a. a True Self to make healthy choices, so we don’t need to keep procrastinating as a way to avoid any losses
b. a realistic ability to trust – in ourself, in process, as well as in a safe Higher Power

FAMILY TRAINING
We are all the products of our heredity & our early experiences. We interpret our upbringing thru the lens of our basic personality. But our orientation to Risk is colored by how our parents reacted to people & life events
UNDER-RISKERS
ACoAs see the world as always being dangerous – no matter the reality – IF :
• one parent was particularly risk-averse AND we identified more with that parent
• they were depressed & not very functional
• we were constantly told not to trust ourselves AND we learned to not thrust our care-takers, with good reason!
• most adults around us were too scared to go towards new & better people/places/things
• they didn’t protect us from other crazy, abusive & dangerous adults….

EXP: One ACoA’s cold, abusive mother often told him that the world is a jungle, a survival of the fittest – the weak (him) are eaten by the strong (her) & no matter how big you think you are, there’s always someone bigger & badder who will get you! Naturally he grew up to be very timid.

For ACoAs, this style is T.E.A. resistance & withholding
MENTAL – NOT:
• speaking up for ourself, asking for our needs or preferences, protecting the Inner Child
• asking for help, making calls, talking to unfamiliar people
• asking Qs when unsure or confused
• responding to a Q when we know the answer

EMOTIONAL – NOT
• being willing to feel all Es & deal with our damage (“You’re only as sick as your secrets”)
• opening up emotionally in the right way, in order to have positive intimacy in relationships

BEHAVIORAL
As all kinds of self-deprivation, not only with food but in many other areas of life ($$, love, career, self-care….). We prevent ourselves from accepting & absorbing many of the good things available to us, because of S-H, from the belief that we don’t have a right to prosperity & peacefulness.
But the deeper reason for not risking much is to keep the fantasy / demand that someone else will eventually rescue us from having to grow up & be responsible for ourselves. It includes —
NOT:
• avoiding people who are needy, users, leaches, abusers
• leaving a bad or outgrown relationship, OR rarely or never being in a good one
• having an adequate (or any) support system
NOT:
• having an adequate salary to live comfortably (under-earning), or not greatly increasing your income
• pursuing a career passion or vocation which has been a long-held dream, taking classes to expand your world, ‘following your bliss‘
• starting over, somewhere else that’s more suitable to you
NOT:
• trying out new foods, changing personal style of clothes or hair when appropriate (with age…), improving your living conditions
• looking for new, better or easier ways to do things ……
• learning & then doing something creative, & showing it off

NEXT: RISK AVERSE #2