recovery

Inventories – In the Beginning (Part 3)

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  birth treeI NEVER REALIZED
how much my infancy shaped me!

PREVIOUS: Inventories – In the Beginning-#2

See ACRONYM Page for abbrev.

 

2. NURTURE  (cont)

a. Wounded mother
All children are vulnerable to the feelings & expressions of their first caretakers, and will be severely affected by a Wounded Mother. Even if she tries to hide it, every day the infant absorbs her fears, worries, anger, overwhelm – as well as joys, interests, attitudes & reactions she may feel.
For many ACoAs, she was one or more of the following:
Presenting : –– demanding, ruthless, controlling
— self-hating, overwhelmed, with severe abandonment issues
— drunk, self-absorbed & narcissistic
— generally anxious, especially of parenting responsibility, often having to do it alone
OR:
bad moms— distant, emotionally cold, perfectionistic
— passive, flaky, irresponsible
— rageful, verbally, physical & emotionally abusive
— un-nurturing, unsympathetic, judgmental, cruel
Unhealthy Expectations:
— use child to make up for her own lack of love
— demand child be perfect, self-sufficient & NOT need much

b. Developing Child : At birth, the nerve cells in a child’s brain are not fully developed, growing & expanding continuously until about age 25.
The brain grows in complexity & therefore ‘intelligence’ – according to how much stimulation it receives. This includes a colorful & interesting environment, being talked, read & sung to, and any kind of beneficial movement – touched, held, massaged, played with….

• Because babies imprint (like ducklings) onto caretakers via emotions & the 5 senses, all helpful and hurtful events stay with us forever, some even after much ‘work’, in modified form.
For ACoAs, the wounding experiences need to be inventoried & slowly detached from as much as possible, but it’s not fair or realistic to expect them to all disappear, if only we “did it right”!brain2

PS: We know now that we never have to stop learning & growing – that brain plasticity is possible even into old age, if a person practices new & difficult tasks. In childhood it’s called Developmental Plasticity, which depends more on the effect of the environment.

🔸Early impressions – Infants don’t have verbal language, only emotional & physical signals for communication. They’re highly impressionable – hungrily absorbing all the sights, sounds & touch they’re exposed to.
Each child also has its own maximum threshold for how much activity it needs or can tolerate. Dysfunctional homes force on us too little or too much

🔹Not enough stimulus (of the right kind), so that some areas of the brain don’t form certain necessary pathways, leaving it deficient in whatever type of reasoning or understanding that were affected. This can cause the child to be sluggish in body & mind, always anxious, &/or lacking** fundamental info that will be needed later on to live a ‘normal’ life as an adult.
(**Some antidepressants, as well as Recovery activities, can build missing areas of the brain which were deprived in childhood)neglect

• Being neglected is as deadly as being over-controlled – such as being left alone too much, not nurtured, attended to, guided & included, OR allowed to do whatever the child want. We never get to learn boundaries, options & discipline.

It’s not unusual for ACoAs to have chunks of basic life know-how actually missing (lack of software), to the point of not having a clue about things other people take for granted – common sense, quick responses to crazy situations, the right things to say when confronted, making small talk….

🔶 This is different from info we do have but are not allowed to acknowledge and use. And neither of these states implies being stupid (faulty hardware), but only suppressed & can be reclaimed, or missing & can be filled in. REMINDER : child in orphanage
NO under-functioning ACoA is lazy or stupid, just TERRIFIED.

Some causes creating this debilitating fear :
• isolated, neglected & abused
• not being nurtured, taken care of & validated
• not provided with healthy role models to copy
• being given incorrect & insufficient information about how to function well in the world
PICTURE: “This child was left unattended for a whole day at a Chinese state orphanage. The makeshift play chair was more like a prison.” ~  Paul Myhill

NEXT: Inventory  – Beginning #4

Inventories – In the Beginning (Part 2)

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Screen Shot 2015-08-08 at 8.54.15 PM THE BAD THEY SAID ABOUT ME
– was NOT at all true!

PREVIOUS: Fam. Inventory – Purpose (#2)

 

NATURE
At birth we bring with us our inherited genetic makeup. This includes :
• PHYSICAL : mental & physical health (ADD, a strong immune system, depression, longevity….), brain & intelligence type
• PERSONALITY : our tastes & interests, talents, national characteristics, learning preferences, & emotional temperament

Because inherited components are multi-generational, even if our parents didn’t drink or use drugs but other relatives or grand & great-grandparents did, we will be subject to a variety of potential problems. Health problems, neglect (ignoring illness or injuries…) and direct forms of abuse (beatings)  – lead to loneliness, isolation & sometimes hospitalizations.health issues

It’s common for children from alcoholic families to have severe health problems = from our lineage, improper physical care, with mental & emotional stress.
There can be dental deficiencies, auto-immune sensitivity & deficits, predisposition for chemical dependency, asthma, anxiety & depression, overweight…. malformed or misaligned parts (cleft palate, club foot, scoliosis)….

++ We also inherited strengths which often showed up very early in our life – artistic or athletic abilities, a joyful nature, determination, intuitive insights, a desire to help, love of animals, of reading, of talking, of learning….
For some of us these natural desires never went away but we devalued them, while others of us had to deny or suppress them in order to survive. Inventories can help claim or reclaim those wonderful parts that were invalidated, made fun of or ignored

NURTURE
• We use the term loosely! But generally, studies have shown that the brain develops its patterns from the combination of all childhood experiences. Isn’t that obvious?
In terms of life-long survival, the purpose of good-enough nurturing is so we wouldn’t have to think about how to do every-day tasks, or how to respond to emergencies.

When programming is healthy, it frees people to participate smoothly in society, be creative & help others. They respond to their environment from equal parts instinct & upbringing.  (‘CDs: Info & the Brain’)

• For ACoAs, the irony & terrible unfairness is that the very mechanism humans have been given to make life kid-alcoholiceasier has been severely contaminated. So, our responses are mainly based in trauma & chaos, with not enough input from our natural instincts & inborn intelligence

Our family, & sometimes whole communities, dumped all their mental / emotional garbage into us, leaving us with the harrowing task of sorting out & cleaning up their mess – for the rest of our lives.❗️No child should have to carry the wounds our elders refused to deal with – yet that’s what we have to face & fix!

• This generated nuclear radiation-level emotions – mountains of fear, rage & deep hopelessness – which we had to deny, take out on ourselves & then on others. It’s made us feel unsafe internally with just about everyone, & externally unsafe for others to be around

Given our damage, it makes sense that now, when we’re under stress, we automatically revert to learned beliefs & Es, sometimes even with years of therapy & Program. In spite of all our ‘information’ about how neglected & abused we were, most ACoAs are stubbornly convinced we ‘choose’ to be bad, sick, angry, crazy & out of control…..

•  And why not? Beside our own narcissism (“Everything’s about me”), accused wronglywe heard these distortions & lies often enough. When we can’t get our life going or function like ‘other people’, we believe we’re lazy, incompetent, will never amount to much & will always fail!

• Some ACoAs start out with harder, rockier psychological soil than others (intense resistance to admitting being wounded) – making it tough but not impossible for Recovery to take root. But aside from severe physical / mental disabilities, NO under-functioning ACoA is lazy or stupid, just TERRIFIED. And this is only true as long as the WIC is allowed to stay in charge of our thinking – in place of the healthy Adult & Parent – which adds to our emotional distress.

However, as we develop the UNIT, we can put temporary regressions into perspective, knowing that “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical” & therefore we don’t have to fall into that deep pit of S-H & despair we’re all so familiar with

NEXT: Inventories – In the Beginning (Part 3)

Inventories – In the Beginning (Part 1)

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family portrait 

IT’S IMPORTANT TO KNOW –
where I come from, the pluses & the minuses!

 

REGARDING Family Inventories: We need to start at the beginning of our life – what was happening inside & outside that effected us.

Our CHILDHOOD
Doing inventories (charts in near-future posts) helps to become familiar with the patterns of thought & action burned into us as kids, so we can start to see why we think & act as we do in the present. Until this is clear we stay confused & full of self-hate, always asking “What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get anything right?”

We are damaged, not defective, so we can heal
Our early experiences do not have to condemn us to a permanent state of ‘dis-ease’. Under all the defensive layers every person has their own fundamental personality, housed in the Natural Child, who in ACoAs has mostly been ignored.

• Accurate inventories take into account that we’re the product of combined forces:
Nature: our genetics, & who we are natively, with a specific set of characteristics – mostly suppressed, but never destroyed
Nurture: how we were raised – the specific culture, language, religion & parenting style of our home & community (in Part 2)

EARLY EXPERIENCES
• Most people don’t remember their first few years of life, although a few do. In any case, all our early experiences, even those we lived through before we could talk, are still in our unconscious & in our physical body

If those circumstances were stressful or harmful – we need to clean them out by accessing them (as well as later-life trauma) in order to heal.
All the fear, anger, loneliness & desperation of our infant & toddler self may seem ‘forgotten’, which makes it hard for most people to acknowledge that such emotions ever existed. But they do remain locked in our nervous system, & affect us in subtle ways our whole life

• All our pre-verbal energy impressions (Es) are harder to access – but not impossible. The way to get at them needs to be visual & experiential, which includes dreams, drawings, visualizations & experiential therapies such as Gestalt, Primal & Core work Brain Gym….. Using these techniques helps us re-experience those sounds & physical sensations, even without having a complete ‘explanation’ for them

EXP: When one client was asked to picture her conception, at first she was resistant – how could she possibly know what happened? But with some deep breathing & quiet, she gradually formed an image of her parents lying side by side on a bed, as a small spark of light floated towards them – her life-force arriving!

Pre-Birth: All humanpregnancy stresss are affected, long-term, by positive or distressing events a mother experiences while pregnant. For ACoAs, our mother may have suffered one or more of these while carrying us:
• a major illness, accident or crime
• alcohol &/or drug abuse, food allergies, medications
• death of a loved-one, lengthy separations, divorce
• long-term fighting, or physical & emotional battering
• living thru a big move, natural disaster, war….

Birth: this is traumatic at best, but some of us also had:
• an especially difficult birth, causing us injury in some form, almost dying (breach, cord around the neck, not enough oxygen….)
• and/or our mother was given birthing drugs, which got passed on to the us directly, made us sluggish, prone to illness, chemically depressed, immune deficient …..

A possible result: If a temporarily drugged infant is at first unable to respond to the mother in its first few hours or days of life, an unhealthy parent will take it personally & reject her child at the crucial time they should be bonding. She will consciously or unconsciously blame the baby for the lack of connection & love she wants, which will create a life-long wound between them & often results in ongoing child abuse

NEXT: Inventories – Beginning #2

Family INVENTORIES – Purpose (Part 2)

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fam inventory 

LOOKING AT OUR DAMAGE –
ignorance is NOT bliss

PREVIOUS: Family Inventory (Part 1)

See ACRONYM page for abbrev.


2. LEGITIMATE EXCEPTIONS (Part 1)

3. PURPOSE
• Being trapped in unhealthy emotional/mental states (listed in 2b.) keeps us choosing or being chosen by people who are abusive or unavailable, and then staying with them because we compulsively blame ourselves for any pain they cause by their damage.

This happens because we keep using Self-Hate (S-H) to explain away someone else’s bad behavior (“It’s my fault / I should have / If only I had”… ), no matter how obvious it may be to others that we’re allowing ourselves to be victimized.

It’s useful to remember that all S-H is a defense mechanism. Its purpose is to ‘protect’ us from being fully aware of our childhood traumas & other abandoning experiences, but all it really does is add more pain to the original pile, by believing we caused our suffering

Of course it’s very important to do our own personal inventories (next post), but without a clear picture of our early life, much of what we end up writing is steeped in S-H & hopelessness. Therefore it’s imperative to first have an accurate understanding of all the relevant people we s-h alonegrew up with, because we absorbed their words, actions & emotions into ourselves. This absorption became our Introject.

Every person has one, but not everyone’s Introject is a PP (pig parent / accusatory voice) – only those of us who come from damaging families. Without enough healing (deep FoO work), this Harsh Voice is the only one the WIC takes as absolute gospel, the cruel guide we use to identify who we are, even tho’ it’s not our original voice AND is a complete liar!

• Proverbs 22:6 says: “Train up a child in the way he should go, & even when he is old he will not depart from it”.
Unfortunately, those of us from unhealthy backgrounds have absorbed a distorted, self-defeating programming – most obvious in our CDs, which include S-H.

This brain-wiring is so strong that it takes much effort & repetition to change – mainly because it’s kept locked in place by a great deal of emotional pain, which needs to be cleaned out. Most people don’t have the guts & patience to revisit & process old beliefs & emotions, even if that refusal causes havoc to themself & others.

• But for those of us with the willingness & proper support – we greatly benefit form carefully identifying what originally happened to us & around us. It allows us to understand – & accept – that our childhood suffering was caused by the damage already present in our caretakers, and therefore could not have possibly been our responsibility, nor our fault!

It bears repeating: This awareness (The 3 C’s: “I didn’t cause it, I can’t control it, I can’t cure it” – re. problems in OTHERS) will gradually lessen our need for S-H, as we stop denying the width & breadth of our own original loss in all 4 layers of PMES. This becomes a great victory over our dis-ease!

• All of our struggles to heal & flourish are contingent on outgrowing the toxic family training (via S & I), but before we can do it thoroughly we have to SEE what that training entails. We have to know which city we’re traveling from -and to- before we can book a ticket, yet ACoAs have a built-in denial system that makes it hard to know what state we’re in much less what city! We need a map & some guide books to our destination. Inventories help.

• Psychologists, Sociologists & Spiritual teachers tell us how important it to know ‘where we come from’, what our cultural & spiritual history is & how all of humanity is ONE.
Yet ACoAs have a painful sense of not belonging anywhere – no matter what environment we’re in. This is because our parents’ narcissism made it very hard to feel wanted & loved, only getting judgement & impossible demands. And we figure that if they didn’t take care of us properly nor want us exactly the way we were – then why would anyone else?

NEXT: INVENTOTY #3

Family INVENTORIES – Purpose (Part 1)

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LOOKING AT HOW IT ALL STARTED is not always easy!

PREVIOUS: Personal Responsibility-#1

See ACRONYM page for abbrev.

QUOTE re. the need for S & I
“It is not possible to live too long amid infantile surroundings, or in the bosom of the family = without endangering one’s psychic health. Life calls us forth to independence, & anyone who does not heed this call because of childish laziness or timidity is threatened with neurosis.” Carl Jung
🎯
DEF: INVENTORY – To evaluate & make an itemized report of abilities, assets, or resources. To take stock of one’s life and accomplishments.

1. IN 12-Step TERMS
a. Doing our 4th Step – to write out as many of our qualities as we can – both positive (gifts) & negative (defects), as well as a list of all actions throughout life (to identify our Being and our Doing)

b. Taking someone else’s inventory – a big no-no, & for good reason, when understood correctly, is an unhealthy defense mechanism. This can mean recounting someone’s faults to all who will listen, or using a sharp tongue to tell someone off who we’re angry at.

NOT doing this is a valid rule in general for everyone, & specifically – geared toward addicts & co-dependents, because:
• we copy our parents’ habit of always finding fault with everyone & everything else, instead of owning our own thought & emotions (likes & dislikes….)
• of the compulsion to blame others for all our woes, instead of taking responsibility for our part in any situation (but not in the form of S-H)
AND
•  our character defect of using any upset as an excuse to gossip
•  our fearful avoidance of dealing clearly & honestly with anyone we’re currently having a problem with, using the Adult ego state
• the fear-driven habit of avoiding very hard decisions, making small or major changes, leaving toxic people, standing up for ourselves …..

2. LEGITIMATE EXCEPTIONS to this rule :
a. Re. Safe People: To identify the healthy characteristics we find in positive role models, which we then can look for in everyone we associate with, so we can ‘Go where it’s warm’ – toward people who are reasonable (T), kind (E) & functional (A)

b. Re. Unsafe People: to break thru our denial.
ignoringACoAs deal with abusers – either :
• by having thick blinders on, denying the character defects & emotional damage of unhealthy people, while only see our own flaws – even where they don’t exist. OR
• by being terribly judgmental & critical of everyone – including ourselves (S-H), while not trusting anyone with genuinely good qualities. BOTH types tend to shy away from healthy people!

That way we can be angry at anyone for not giving us what we want & need, just like our parents, but stay with them so we don’t have to notice of the many ways they abandon us, & then face having to do something about it (leave?)
AND we can stay loyal to the dysfunction, continuing to long for but never receive the love & acceptance we believe we’re not allowed.

✳️ As we know, people tell us something about themselves all the time – their pluses & minuses – which we miss all together & could see if we paid attention, knew what to look for, & be willing to respond appropriately
OR we do notice but ignore or excuse. Then it bites us in the butt later!

Sadly, as kids ACoAs were brainwashed to deny much or all of our experiences, intuition & perceptions, so it’s particularly necessary to do this type of inventory for all of us who:
• are genuinely ignorant of, or in deep denial about, the harmful effects that addicts & other damaging people we spend time with (family, lovers, bosses, friends…) have / have had on us

• are surrounded by unhealthy communities (family, religious, social, work….) where everyone is continually bombarding us with a distorted reality about us, themselves & the ‘right way’ to do things

• are by nature so idealistic that we only want to see the good in others, as a defense against the dangers of life, to our great detriment
• know there’s something wrong with certain people & situations in our life, but are not allowed to believe our intuition & knowledge.

NEXT:  Family Inventory – Purpose

S & I needs a Heathy EGO (Part 2)

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strong identity 

THE STRONGER MY EGO –
the healthier I am

Previous: S & I – EGO (Part 1)

SITE:  “Defense of the Ego”

 

From EGO PSYCHOLOGY –
Throughout childhood, Ego develops in sequence, from a combination of :
• our innate & inherited qualities  flowers
• having our basic needs met
• identifying with others (copying admired adults)
• interpersonal relationships
• studying & learning
• mastering development tasks
• effectively solving problems
• successfully coping with life’s challenges

✶ The healthy ego exists for a legitimate purpose, an integral part of spirituality & totality of Being. Removing the ego is like removing your right hand & only keeping the left one

BASIC COMPONENTS of the Healthy Ego
For ACoAs & all other wounded people, the following qualities are what we can strive for as we heal. The stronger these are, the better our self-esteem. ‘Ego functions’ are the means by which people successfully adapt to the world:

🍂 Affect Regulation – The ability to maintain or increase positive emotions & a sense of well-being, while minimizing or regulating stress feelings & defensive states.  Able to manage all types & intensity of Es, without being overwhelmed by them.  It’s the result of the growth, development & links to our emotional brain (limbic system), based on early experiences with parents

🍂 Defensive Functioning  – Automatic psychological processes that make us aware of internal or external dangers & stressors.  It appropriate use of our defense mechanisms, those developed in childhood & more mature ones (projection, intellectualization, rationalization…), which guard against powerful identity-threatening feelings (panic, hate, rage…) that get stirred up

🍂 Impulse control – (opposite of impulsive or compulsive acting out)
The ability to choose when & how to act – for short or long-term gains when moving toward a specific goal – allowing us to wait to get something we want.  Helps prevent immediately acting on aggressive &/or sexual wishes, & not developing physical symptoms from repressing those desires (actual ailments, obsessions, hypochondria….)

🍂 Good Judgment –  (NOT being judgmental). Forming the best opinions & decisions, by objectively considering, comparing & evaluating known info —> while resisting peer pressure & our own emotions. Allows us to act responsibly, which includes identifying our options, anticipating & evaluating likely consequences, & choosing appropriate actions in each circumstance

🍂 Object Relations  – how the The Self relates to other people (Subject to Objects) in the unconscious, based on internalized images of our actual parents (or parts – like mother’s breast), as well as images we create about others (ogre, angel…).
When emotionally healthy, we have the capacity for mutually satisfying relationship – seeing ourselves & others as whole three-dimensional ‘objects’. We can form emotional bonds with others, instead of only focusing on ourself

🍂 Reality Testing – The ability to distinguish between what’s going on in our own mind of thoughts, feelings, fantasy & distortions from objective facts AND the external world – in order to act in a way that shows an awareness of accepted social norms & customs. By imaging, labeling & organizing our observations, we can make sense of them & put into mental files so we can make decisions about their “value,” as potential threat or benefit….
A reality test uses ‘reality-indicators’, that help us come to grips with practical, in-the-present facts. A way for the mind can determine whether an experience is happening now, or is remembering a previous one

🍂 Synthesis – (opposite of Splitting), the most basic ego function : stringsynthesising together succeeding moments of experience into a single preserved ‘event’, allowing all ego functions to be used. It means to be internally congruent – without different parts of ourself being in conflict (‘UNIT’ = PP vs HA, LP vs WIC…)

This organization & unification allows us to think, feel & act in a consistent way. Meshing (not enmeshment) a healthy ego identity with personal & group identity gives us a framework for successfully operating in the world

🍂 Thought Processes – 2 states of the thinking mind (vs. emotional):
a. Primary – ‘primitive’, imaginative style, during altered states of consciousness, not in the Ego’s control, from wishing, day-dreaming, night-dreaming, fugue states —> all the way to psychosis, & may include some loss of motor function

b. Secondary – normal waking consciousness of adult humans – the stable Ego’s work to minimize free-floating mental energy. It’s been called ‘inhibited’ or ‘bound’ because it is guided by the ‘Reality Principle’ (delayed gratification). This gives the ability to develop & hold logical, coherent, abstract thought. Also, to make appropriate decisions, use cause-&-effect thinking & be goal-directed.  (MORE...)

NEXT: Negative Benefits – #1

S & I needs a Heathy EGO (Part 1)

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confidence 

A HEALTHY EGO –
allows me to flourish

PREVIOUS: Healthy S & I – #2

SITES : “Ego Psychology”  / / Trans4mind

See ACRONYM page for abbrev

EGO: The way Spirit has of expressing its uniqueness, so without Ego you as an individual would not exist. Therefore they go hand in hand. It’s “the Individuated consciousness of Infinite Being…. and a distinct personality apart from universal consciousness”, says Enoch Tan, in Dream Manifesto

To successfully S & I we need a HEALTHY EGO.  It’s the source of our overall physical, emotional & mental health, in relationship with ourselves & to others. Modern psychologists often replace EGO with “confidence, self-esteem, self-awareness”.

➼ It’s unfortunate that most people misuse Ego to mean ‘arrogant, self-centered, conceited, limiting’…. & therefore a bad thing! Since it’s almost always incorrectly equated with the real problem of adult narcissism, its original meaning has been forgotten. We hear this in 12-Step programs, therapy, ‘spiritual’ literature, even famous people – talking about the pitfalls of ego, such as ‘Oprah’s Lifeclass: The False Power of Ego’

These labels are not correct. The ‘character defects’ being referred to come from our PP or WIC aspects. Neither of those internal ego-states have healthy egos!  Wounded people are said to have damaged egos, split-personalities have multiple egos & psychopaths have fractured egos. NOT having a strong, clear ego causes us to be victims or absers!

NOTE: AA’s 3rd Step says: “Made a decision to turn our will & our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him”.
In this context, the focus is on the word will. What will? Who’s will? ACoAs are afraid of this Step because it feels like volunteering for slavery to yet another authority figure – in this case the “ultimate” one.
It’s one reason why so many of us reject all religious or spiritual connection, or are drawn to paths that don’t include a specific God-person. The WIC is still functioning from the feeling that “God is an alcoholic parent” & therefore unsafe

• Before Recovery (& even during) ACoAs don’t have actual free will – no matter how headstrong, arrogant or genuinely accomplished. As long as we’re still run by the Toxic Rules, our will is not our own, controlled by the Negative Introject, which the WIC is passionately devoted th-1to.
So, the point of S & I is to find & express our True Self, by no longer obeying the PP.

• A NORMAL (healthy) EGO is the ‘eyes’ we use to see the world.  IT IS the :
🌱 aspect that lets us become strong, loving, valuable, contributing members of society, both at work & in relationships – the foundation for “emotional intelligence”
🌱 adult / reality part of ourselves, the “I” that chooses what to think, feel & act
🌱 part that’s separate from our own thoughts, & from the Self of others
🌱 natural capacity for attention, concentration, memory, motor coordination, language & perception.  It is NOT something to get rid of!

• According to Freud, EGO functions on the Reality Principle, ‘sitting’ mainly in the pre-conscious & conscious, but its strong ties to the id means it also interacts with the unconscious. (id = socially or spiritually unacceptable desires)

Ego is the part of the ‘psychic apparatus’ that works to achieve a balance between the id’s anti-social wishes & our personal standards, via the superego.  It prevents us from automatically acting on id-urges, while working to satisfy them in realistic & appropriate ways. This is done through a variety of defense mechanisms, in 4 levels, from worst to best: —-> Pathological, Immature, Neurotic, Mature.  (MORE…. )

Healthy Ego mediates conflicts between the demands of the:
• id – the chaotic, impulsive, unconscious part of us, which is instinctive & totally unreasonable (young narcissistic child)
• superego – the incorporated values of family & society which become our own Conscience & Ideal Self (Loving OR Bad Internal Parent)
• reality – the current social & physical environment

EXP: If someone cuts you off in traffic, the Healthy Ego :
✨ prevents you from chasing down the car & physically attacking the offender (altruism)
✨ tells you that reaction would harm you & the other person, which is unacceptable (identification), that —
✨ there are other more appropriate ways of venting frustration, & is in control of your choices (sublimation)

Psychologist Kit Yarrow says: “A person with a healthy ego is able to see their flaws, learn from their mistakes and forgive themself. They allow others to know them, rather than only see their surface. Because they do – they feel loved. They act purposefully rather than react emotionally to stressful people & situations.”

NEXT: S & I – Ego, (Part 2)

S & I : Healthy Individuation (Part 3)

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S & I recoveryAS I WORK AT RECOVERY
I find out more about my True Self

PREVIOUS: Healthy I (Part 2)

POSTS:  PROCESS = ACoA version / vs / Recovery

CULTURALLY – Most people are wounded for one reason or another. Few have has a genuinely safe, truly nurturing childhood, especially in their first 10 years.
In his 1942 writing, “FEAR of FREEDOM”, psychoanalyst Erich Fromm deals with humanity’s reluctance to be alone – the lack of Individuation leading to our fear of isolation, & the resulting appeal of authoritarian regimes, such as Nazi Germany.
Fromm suggests that most are so afraid of freedom they find ways to minimize the fear by creating dogma & rituals that seem to provide a sense of security – whether for individuals or whole societies. (MORE…)

Authoritarianism: This personality type includes sadist & masochist elements. They need to have control over others to impose some kind of order on their world, but will also yield control to a superior force (government, religion…) from a person or abstract idea

Destructiveness: Although there are similarities to sadism, Fromm argues that while the sadist needs to have control over something or someone, the destructive personality wants to destroy anything it can’t control

Conformity: This happens when people unconsciously incorporate the over-all beliefs & Cognitive Distortions of their society, then believe it’s their own – so they can avoid genuine free thinking which would provoke anxiety

The PROCESS
If we can accept that we have our own specific lessons to learn, we’ll welcome them instead of complaining.
Lessons come in ever tighter circles until we’ve completed them, so knowing the stages of growth & accepting the spiral nature of self-healing (book), can help to appreciate our hard work & recognize successes

1. Develop awareness – notice what isn’t right in the quality of our life & relationships. It’s best to have a non-judgmental, observer’s point of view & friendly curiosity about ourself. This helps avoid triggering old patterns which originally formed as self-protection.
It’s imperative we don’t slip into S-H when we see these patterns again, to not add more pain, especially if we thought they’d already been ‘fixed’. No more salt in the wounds, please!

process2. Choose an alternative – this is an action step, but without aiming for perfection in any part of our life. It’s finding healthy opposites to break the trance of following the Toxic Family Rules, which can be a surprising & wonderful experience.

Switching to a better action (or non-action if called for) often brings up emotions of fear, guilt & shame, even anger, or sometimes feeling hopeless & suicidal – so be prepared to get the needed support

3. Practice what we learn – over & over.  Patience and Process are not our favorite things, but ARE the main ways we get better at anything – from sports & the arts to emotional, mental & spiritual growth. As long as we actively work to Individuate, we keep getting new info about ourself, which is exciting!

EXTERNALLY
The whole process of Individuation is the archetypal soup which all humankind is swimming in, the container that holds all our aspirations, dreams, fantasies, sense of vocation, successful ventures & wrong turnings (Marathi Culture 🔽)

Because it’s a universal human need, the physical expressions of Individuation Stages toward wholeness are found in all cultures, all eras, & in many forms:

• Artistically, in the seemingly simple “Oxherder” pictures of Zen Buddhism or the cryptic, alchemical pictures of the Rosarium Philosophorum
• Architecturally, in the labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral or the Bollingen tower that Jung built

• Esoterically, in the Greater Trumps of the Tarot cards, or the pseudo-scientific, symbolic system of alchemy
• Musically, in Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute or in Beethoven’s Fidelio

• Mythologically, in the ancient story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu, or the Sumerian myth of Inanna and Ereshkigal
• Playfully, in the many ball games played around the world

• Poetically, in the spiraling journey of Dante’s Divine Comedy, or Hermann Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, about the life of the Buddha
• Spiritually, in the Jewish Kabbalah, or the sayings and parables of Jesus of Nazareth, such as, “Whoever would seek to save their life will lose it; but whoever would lose their life will preserve it.”   From: “Individuation – the Process of a lifetime”

NEXT:  S & I needs a healthy ego – #1

S & I : Healthy Individuation (Part 2)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , , , ,

freedomSELF-AWARENESS IS GRADUAL
and worth every step

PREVIOUS: Healthy I. (#1)

SITE: “The Way of Individuation”, by Jolande Jacobi, in article by Martha Blake

Review: ‘Autonomy & Attachment’

See ACRONYM Page for abbrev.

Field-INDEPENDENT (F-I) – having a reasonable amount of S & I  (opposite of Field-dependent = F-D)

HEALTHY / normal : Individuation is inner-directed, mainly providing a sense of identity & value from our own unique nature, not just from heredity & social training, nor from how others see us.   People become F-I gradually, finding out what they think & how to act, based on rigorous honesty, staying awake (mindfulness) & self-evaluation

• Being internally motivated gives overall psychological & physical health : (T.E.A.)
T: improved conceptual & creative thinking, superior memory recall
E: pleasant emotions (& ability to handle painful ones)
A: enhanced performance & willingness to engage in a wide variety of tasks.

There’s a significant correlation between F-I and IQ. The most original, creative & outstanding people ‘march to their own drummer’, but expressing one’s highest potential isn’t limited to an elite group – it’s available to all humans with the courage of their convictions

CHARACTERISTICS
• Our True Self is a combination of F-I & F-D, grounded in self-esteem. Introverts are more naturally inner-directed, but most do not have a healthy Self. So Introversion & being FI are not synonymous

• While Extroverts are naturally outer-directed (not other-directed like F-Ds) they need to be emotionally healthy to be F-I . Since that comes from having good boundaries & permission to have all ones needs, it doesn’t limit or undermine the degree of Individuation anyone can achieve

• F-Is have the ability to focus on details in their environment in spite of the clutter of background ‘noise’, & can extract what they need from non-relevant items within the field (as in: “pick the item in this picture that doesn’t belong”).

• They’re able to create structure even when it is not inherent in a given situation, tend to be more efficient at retrieving items from memory, framing current experiences & info in the based on prior knowledge

• They learn more effectively by screening out distracting information, focusing on a task. Often favor natural sciences, math, engineering – but not exclusively.  ALSO, they can step back to see the whole forest (background) not just the tree in front of them

• F-Is have successful relationships with others in many different settings. They don’t wait to be chosen but are pro-active about who they want to interact with, & how. They can stay or leave, depending on what’s suitable for them, or not, rather than by people-pleasing (= passive) or being controlling (= aggressive)

STAGES
Individuation is the development of the mind / spirit, which matures in much the same way as the physical bjoin oppositesody.  It unites opposites in ourselves – good & bad, light & dark, male & female. A number of Jungian psychologists list this process into 4 stages, each with its dangers to be avoided, & each with rewards:

• Becoming conscious of the Shadow
Facing our ‘dark side‘ – things we’ve repressed or ignored. Just as the Persona is what we present to the world, so Shadow holds all the things we want to hide from others, but mainly from ourself

• Becoming conscious of the Anima or Animus
This has to do with sexual wholeness.  Anima is the ‘inner femininity’ of men & Animus the ‘inner masculinity’ of women. Jung (1978) wrote that they represent “functions which filter the contents of the collective unconscious through to the conscious mind”, coloring the Ego’s perception of Self & others in many different ways

• Becoming aware of the Archetypal spirit
This is about uniting matter & spirit, body & mind – facing both the good & evil we’re all capable of.  It’s also about liberating us from our same-sex parent.  For men the archetype is the ‘Wise old Man’, & for women the ‘Magna Mater’, the great earth mother.

• Becoming conscious of the Self
Jung (1977) called this final step ‘self-realization’. Jacobi (1973) wrote: “For the conscious personality, the birth of the Self means a shift in its psychic center, and consequently an entirely different attitude toward, and view of, life”.  (MORE….)

NEXT: S & I – Healthy Individuation (Part 3)

S & I : Healthy Individuation (Part 1)

dmtorbi 12-step, ACoAs, al-anon, Alcoholics Anonymous, alcoholism, coaching, mental health, Problem-Solving, Psychotherapy, recovery, self growth, self-help , , , , , , , , , ,

healthy S & I 

THE REAL ME –
is unique but not alone!

PREVIOUS: S & I  – Separation

SITE: “Extroverts & Introverts…”

 

INDIVIDUATION
• Individuation is the ‘normal’ search for our True Self – our essence & goal of life.  In the past, mystics called it : the ascent of the soul, the alchemy of the soul, or enlightenment. Carl Jung believed that the nature of humans is to constantly develop, grow & move toward a level of completeness, which can only be done from the inside (opposite of co-dependence).

It’s the progressive development of our own voice, throughout life by trial & error, involving many successes as well as failures & frustrations.
Just like Separation – Healthy Individuation includes keeping our attachment & connection to others (children & parents, mentors & protégés, friendships, mates….) without enmeshment or fusion, in a delicate balance

• Putting Self-Actualizing needs in the foreground, Individuation is to ‘own’ at least 51% of ourselves, by having combined Ego & Shadow, & therefore freeing ourself of the Superego’s tyranny (Negative Introject).
The rest – 49% – is made up of heredity + all our family & social experiences, traditions & religion.
And, because Individuation is ongoing, there’s a periodic need to return to earlier developmental stages – to heal deeper & deeper layers of unfinished business. At the same time, the truer we are to our Real Self, the more INternally motivated we become

•Successful Separation & Individuation requires an intact Ego – the center of our conscious awareness. While providing a sense of uniqueness, the Ego lets us know that we’re just like all other humans – part of a larger whole.

In Jungian terms, the Self is the main archetype in the Collective Unconscious, needed for order & organization, unifying different aspects of personality. Therefore it’s of a higher order than Ego – made up of both conscious (ego = public face) & unconscious (shadow✶ = primitive impulses such as selfishness, greed, envy…..)

✶ Shadow :  For Jung, both constructive & destructive forces exist in the human psyche, requiring psychological integration. To become fully actualized – at the top of Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs”- we have to be aware of & accept all our parts.
NOTE:
Ironically, for ACoAs, much of what also gets shunted off into our Shadow are the good parts of ourselves which were not accepted or allowed in our family & society! Having normal human needs such as wanting attention, intense emotions, our own way of thinking & doing things, being heard & respected…. were punished or so controlled that we end up forgetting them OR hating ourselves when they surface

• Jung believed that we don’t suddenly make a conscious decision to free ourselves from the herd, with its well-worn paths, in order to go our own way – ie. to Individuate.
Instead, the deciding influence is an irrational factor he called “vocation – like a law of God from which there is no escape”. It’s the Ego’s response to a call from the unconscious to express our core self , whether we like it or not

• Based on personal & professional experience, he concluded that Individuation happens in the second half of life, when people reach their goals & suddenly find themselves facing an unknown possibility or unexpected upheaval.
This turning point usually is a crisis in mid-life (not necessarily something bad), that upsets the status quo, causing a shift in perspective :
new way– a financial failure    – health problem
– broken relationship or death
– change of residence or profession
OR
– a message from powerful dreams & fantasies, creating —
– deep yearning or “call” to change direction
– profound self-doubt, loss of meaning or religious conviction
– questioning everything previously held as important, valuable or precious

• Then the essence of the personality moves from Ego toward Self, trying to form a new center. Parts that were ignored or under-developed (interests, talents, characteristics, experiences, issues…) may ‘suddenly’ want to be acknowledged
What was:
– fragmented now strives for unity  – broken now yearns for wholeness
– neglected now seeks expression   – formless now starts to take shape

While these changes can be very surprising & uncomfortable, shifting the ground under us, we intuitively recognize they fit our deeply truth

PS: Many psychologists now argue that while Individuation may be a natural outcome of age & experience, it can also be brought on sooner by deep therapy, but it’s mainly considered a life-long journey, which starts soon after birth.

MASLOW's needs

NEXT: Healthy Individuation (Part 2)