Here are 4 categories of people running away from themselves:
- People addicted to one thing or another – alcohol, drugs, gambling, porn, shopping, working exceptionally long hours, explosive anger/rages, lying, or cheating.
- Schizophrenics, Narcissists.
- Those who are emotionally cut off but not to the degree that they would receive a diagnosis.
- Those who refuse therapy, coaching, or even self-help when their spouse begs for it.
Each of the people for whom these categories fit has an excellent reason for their fears: They’re afraid that what they will find will get to the core of their very identity and cut it to ribbons.
Or worse, they’re afraid to discover that there’s nothing “there” when they look inside, or what is there is such a huge indictment of themselves that they could not possibly go on living if they looked at it.
The good part of this is that they’re choosing to live. They’re choosing a fake life in which something – their addiction, their mental illness, their numbness, or doing everything but look inside – keeps them very busy and distracted. They’re not fully alive but at least they’re alive.
The bad part of this is that they’re not fully alive so what’s the point?
This is an enormously serious question because, really, what is the point of a non-life? True, one is alive. But so what? Are we not here to do something? Weren’t we created to leave some sort of stamp on the world? And to enjoy it? To truly wake up every day being grateful to have another chance?
Every person in the categories above functions more or less well. They hide their addictions, their craziness, their emotional vacancy, their hidden self-loathing, and no one knows. They go to work, possibly doing very well in that arena, and no one would guess.
What is it they don’t want to discover? Here is a random list of things people have said:
- At the core, I’m no good. I “know” I’m good, but at the core, I feel like I’m not.
- I’m a bad person. The list of good things doesn’t outweigh my list of bad.
- My parents rejected me so I can’t be good.
- I’ve suffered so much; the fact that G-d gave me this means He doesn’t like me.
- My own mother/father beat me/left me/put me down so I know I’m a piece of garbage.
- To this very day – I’m an adult – my parent screams disgusting things at me; I am worthless.
- I had a bad childhood and now I have a bad marriage. G-d is punishing me for the evil that I am.
- Even my kids have turned against me. Everyone hates me. Why would I look inside?
Now, most people who are severely cut off from themselves would not even say these things. These statements – or something like them – have come from people who were reluctantly willing to look inside. Those are the brave ones.
People in my four categories haven’t made these pronouncements, at least not at first.
Narcissists will say they are “fine,” for example. There is nothing wrong with them. Please don’t mention feelings to them, or your need to believe you’re talking to another human being as opposed to the wall. They’re not listening, they’re not connected, they’re not attuned, and they don’t “care.” All that is their phony façade. The reality is they’re scared to look and find that their hype is built on a foundation of quicksand, forever sinking.
Schizophrenia is a blatant agreement that reality is not the place they want to go; it – and especially their own Self within “it” – is not for them.
Then there are the regular people without any kind of discernable diagnosis who simply want to remain emotionally cut off – from themselves especially, but also from those that want the most to know them better and deeper.
Every one of them is scared.
The fear is totally understandable since they actually believe the messages – spoken or implicit – that got them to agree to how horrible they are. Their parents surely did not mean to brainwash them, but that is exactly what they did. And they did a top-notch job. Their children are stuck in a world of hidden self-loathing – which they generally deny with a laugh, saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Then why don’t you want to engage in self-reflection?
Oh, I don’t want to.
Like the kind of conversations I might have with my three-year old grandson:
Me: “Why did you think that was funny?”
Him: “Because it was funny!”
The very lack of logic betrays the problem. (Not of the three-year old; that’s normal.)
The Solution
I have found a simple solution to things that are ultra-difficult. Like flossing. I wasn’t in the habit of doing it, so getting into that habit has been a challenge. I mean, there’s an extra minute to add on to daily chores. Sheesh.
I found that if I turn off all inner debate and just mindlessly reach into the cabinet for the floss thingy, the rest follows. It’s that first step that’s difficult and the way to overcome it is to just turn off inner arguments and just take the first step in the right direction. As soon as you start discussing the pros and cons with yourself, you lose. Guaranteed.
This is particularly important because what you will in fact experience in this self-exploration process is quite the opposite of painful. All that no-good, bad, evil, horrible, empty, worthless stuff is not there. It just isn’t. You, like any other human being, may have made mistakes. Welcome to the club. But none of that makes you bad. Even if you hurt someone with evil intent in the throes of anger. Most of us have been there. It’s not a permanent blemish on your soul. To the contrary, in the process of self-exploration you discover how silly it was to conclude all these awful things about yourself – and you can laugh.
You laugh from a genuine place of happiness and the release of all the worries and fears that were blocking you from living a true, complete, zestful life. It’s quite liberating.