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, cutting, purging, 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.
If you’re one of these people, you’ve an excellent reason to run: You’re afraid of who you are.
Or worse, you’re afraid to discover that there’s nothing “there” when you look inside.
Or maybe what you do find is so awful that you could not possibly go on living if you looked at yourself.
The good part of this is that you’re choosing to live.
But – you’re choosing a fake life in which something – addictions, mental illness, numbness keeps you too distracted to look closely at yourself.
You’re not fully alive but at least you’re alive.
The bad part of this is that if you’re not fully alive what’s the point?
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 God 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. God 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.
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 be; 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 their loved ones.
Every one of them is scared.
The fear is totally understandable since they actually believe the messages that said 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 five-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 for the five-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.
So the difficult job of self-exploration can be approached the same way: Just do it.
But of course, it’s always easier with someone guiding you through it. And I have a killer method for guaranteeing to create iron-clad self-love instead of self-loathing.
With that, 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.
Or it won’t be. People may have made mistakes. Welcome to the club. But none of that makes them bad. Even if they hurt someone with evil intent in the throes of anger. Most of us have been there. It’s not a permanent blemish on their soul.
To the contrary, in the process of self-exploration they discover how silly it was to conclude all these awful things about themselves – and they can laugh.
They laugh from a genuine place of happiness and the release of all the worries and fears that were blocking them from living a true, complete, zestful life. It’s quite liberating.
Try it. Try me! Book a free call to see what my 12-week intensive group and personal coaching program with 1:1 and joint therapy is like and how it can help you feel like a big burden was lifted.
A key component of it is called Self-Validation. Won’t it be nice to really know yourself rather than a mask that covers what you’re afraid to know? https://drdeb.com/book
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