WHENEVER I MESS UP
my whole world collapses

PREVIOUS: FoC – Part 3


QUOTE: “Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision & gives us the ‘right stuff’ to turn our dreams into reality.” ∼ James Womack, founder of Lean Enterprise Inst.

2. RE-ENACTING (cont)
c. Fear of being trapped / d. F. of responsibility / e. F. of losing control

f. F of being vulnerable – To the WIC, C. to anything is leaving
oneself open to all kinds of danger. As long as the WIC is in charge of relationships (of any kind), it believes that letting someone in to see the ‘real us’ – leaves us open to being left alone again.

Of course the tragedy is that without enough Recovery, it is exactly that ego-state which chooses our relationships – always unsuitable, unfulfilling or outright dangerous – which inevitably does add to our suffering!

This fear leads to over-protecting ourselves, which can create a Double Bind – we’re damned if we pick someone to stay with (symbiosis), we’re damned if we keep everyone away (false boundaries).

g. F of the Truth. To the WIC, C. to our growth & Recovery means admitting we failed – somehow!  Also, it thinks we’ll have to feel all that pain – & then we’ll go crazy or die!
ACoAs are intensely resistant to admitting how traumatic our childhood really was, & how severely damaged we are as a result.
We love our family & don’t want to face how abusive & emotionally unavailable they were. Review DMs re. ACoAs. “Denial is not a river in Egypt!” (de Nile) says the pun. Denial prevents us from healing our wounds, which then keeps us from finding & keeping nourishing relationships.

One way this is expressed is seen in the chart.
When we continually act out either STAYER or LEAVER ‘position’, as a form of false protection, we know that our WIC is in charge. “Leaving” isn’t just about walking away.
It’s any form of being withholding, distant, ‘cool’, emotionally detached. Both groups are equally terrified of commitment, but it’s more visible in Leavers. C = Conscious // Un = Unconscious // FoA = fear of Abandonment //  FoC = fear of Commitment

h. F. of making mistakes. To the WIC, C. is not possible because we’ll never be able to ‘do it’ perfectly. 
☁︎ Punished / rejected continually, for things we :
— were never taught /  took too long to ‘get’
— simply too young to know / couldn’t possibly have known at any age
— were deliberately left out of /  had difficulty learning …..

So now we can’t take the chance of not knowing everything & being seen as ‘frauds’. If commitment means intimacy, then letting someone inside our defenses means exposing how imperfect we are, & then they’ll punish or leave us!

☁︎ Greed: Being deprives of so much growing up, the WIC now wants everything at once, & can’t tolerate being told NO about anything. So, when there’s a decision to be made among 2 or more options, we want to do them all, afraid to choose one & have to let go of the other(s), afraid of picking the wrong one & being disappointed – again

☁︎ Confusion: It’s not knowing our True Self at all or well enough to choose among options or possibilities – whether picking the right kind of mate, the right kind of career, the ‘right’ spiritual path, even down to the right kind of food, clothing & entertainment. It’s not being allowed to admit what we want or need. So many opportunities for making mistakes!

☁︎ Failures: Not having a Loving Parent & access to our True Self, we’ve already made many unhappy life choices – of friends, lovers, jobs, homes, hair cuts…. so we’re convinced we’re doomed to never do any better.
We keep forgetting (or don’t know) that our ‘picker’ has been a combination of the WIC & the PigP.
However, when those 2 ego states no longer run our life, we can choose better, & so can commit to safe, suitable PPTs.

NEXT: FoC – Part 5