|
Home
Sermon Archives
|
Initiating Change and Inviting Happiness:
A Journey Toward Self Acceptance
Delivered by Dr. Bethanne
Jacobson, November 12, 2006
At the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, New Bern, NC
As a psychologist, one of my tasks is assisting my clients in the process of change. For many, change is a process of undoing many of the beliefs that have guided their lives; beliefs about who they are “supposed” to be…..what they are “supposed” to believe….and what they believe to be true about themselves and their relation to others. It is about rediscovering and redefining who they are and it is about making life altering decisions about what they want their life to be like.
As I worked through my doctoral program, I was blessed to have wonderful, caring, and intelligent mentors and supervisors that encouraged my own self exploration, growth, and development. Their presence and self-awareness taught me more about the therapy process than years of textbook learning. They demonstrated how to be with a person who may be struggling against life long behaviors and attitudes. When I would say, “everything is fine”, they would look in my eyes and know that it wasn’t, and push until I achieved awareness. They were simply wonderful role models and guides throughout my journey. Much of this work was painful and I often had doubts and questioned, why, at the age of 48, I had decided to compete with students half my age, and many of them were the same age as my own children. What in the world was I thinking?! However, my mentors and supervisors did not allow me to play the victim role. They let me know that I could achieve whatever I believed I could achieve. I just needed to have faith. The role is now somewhat reversed as I accompanying my clients on their journeys and encourage self introspection, personal growth, and self-fulfillment.
At one point, I was introduced to the works of Don Miquel Ruiz, a Toltec Indian from rural Mexico. I was given one of his books as a gift from my supervisor before I came to North Carolina, and, I now keep several on my bookshelf to loan to clients as they go through their own journeys. Ruiz has written several “personal guides” to assist people in gaining personal freedom and inner peace. All of his books, particularly “The Four Agreements”, have influenced my practice, my personal journey, and my desire to help others to achieve joy in their lives. I have grown to realize the importance of “self love” and the importance of being able to accept being just good enough. As many of you know from my other talks, I also place emphasis on “forgiveness”, letting go of the past, and moving forward.
Today I am going to be making generalizations, which I know can be dangerous. If what I present does not apply to you then I will say you are very blessed. However, the vast majority of us struggle with feelings of guilt and shame, almost always related to the beliefs we hold about ourselves. Ruiz talks about these beliefs as agreements. Our agreements (both consciousness and unconsciousness) make up our belief system, and structure the way we live, love, and interact with others and with ourselves. Our agreements also influence the ideas we hold about our own self worth and value.
As we start today, I’d like everyone to take a moment to think about your beliefs, what you learned you are supposed to do, who you are supposed to be, how you are supposed to act, or what you are supposed to say. Think about both the positive and the not so positive. What are the unspoken rules/agreements you live by? What shoulda’s, woulda’s, or coulda’s do you hold onto?
I grew up in a lower middle working class family in southwestern Pennsylvania. No one in my family was college educated, and we didn’t own our own home. Both of my parents worked, so it was my role to do much of the cooking, cleaning, and ironing. My family, particularly my grandparents, held strong beliefs about relationships between people of different ethnicities, races, and religions. I didn’t work very hard in high school and really had no thoughts of going onto college. I went to church each Sunday, never drank or smoked, and had little aspirations for achieving more than my MRS degree. As a result, the agreements I held with myself, told me I was supposed to complete high school, get married, have 2 children, and remain in my hometown until I passed on. I followed through on all those agreements as long as I could and I became miserable.
As children, we don’t have the opportunity to choose our beliefs. Before we learn to speak our true nature is to be happy, to explore, and to enjoy life. Once we learn to use language, the people around us get our attention and begin to teach us about what is right and wrong, and we begin to develop a belief system. The child’s beliefs are passed to them from other people in their lives. And, the young child most often believes everything the adult says. As children we agree with them and our faith in them is so strong that the belief system controls all of our dreams of life. As teenagers we might have rebelled against them, but too often we were not strong enough or too scared to win the rebellion.
In a sense, we become “trained” using a system of punishment and reward. We are told you are good when we obey (i.e. the reward). We are told we are bad when we don’t (i.e. the punishment). We develop a fear of getting punished and a fear of not getting rewarded. The fear of rejection and the fear of not being good enough is what drive us to do what we perceive others want us to do. Soon, we are so well trained we no longer need the authority figure telling us what is right or wrong. We become very good at being our own judge, using the morals that we have been taught in our family of origin. We punish ourselves when we don’t follow the rules and we reward ourselves when we do. We become programmed and we soon learn that breaking the rules hurt. The hurt can be as small as the look on someone’s face, and we are programmed to know what that look means. It means we have not followed the rules, and will not get rewarded. I had a client bring a 2 year old grandchild to a recent session and I was amazed how quickly he responded to a look of disappointment or pleasure on his grandmother’s face. His mood would quickly change based on how she responded. Her look brought him to tears and her kiss just as quickly brought him out of it. Our beliefs or agreements soon become an inner voice that never stops talking, judging, gossiping, and abusing us. As a result of the inner voice, we become victims. We carry the blame, guilt, and shame with us in our thoughts and self talk. Guilt about something we should have done and/or shame about something we did.
Unfortunately, we pay for our “mistakes” or errors in judgment over and over thousands of times long after the caregiver has stopped rewarding or punishing. Now that we are grown, our caregiver’s messages are just as strong, but they do not come from the caregiver, they come from within ourselves. We continue to be our own worst enemy as we continue to play the old messages over and over in our mind and thoughts. The beliefs are so strong, that even years later when we are exposed to new concepts and try to make our own decisions, we find that these beliefs still control our lives. The “woulda’s, coulda’s and shoulda’s become entwined in our daily responses. For the longest time, my own thoughts of leaving my hometown to make a life for myself were only a dream. Everyone always stayed. It was my role to stay and care for my parents and share the responsibility with my brother. To do otherwise was akin to abandonment and meant that I was a bad daughter and that I didn’t care.
Most of us spend our lives trying to satisfy other people demands. We have learned to live by other peoples views because of the fear of not being accepted and not being good enough. For myself, I sought to be the perfect daughter, someone my family could be proud of. Remember, I was went to church every Sunday, didn’t smoke or drink, and obtained my MRS degree at the wise age of 19. I was what my family considered “the perfect daughter”. As time passed, the guilt was enormous as I struggled to understand my feelings and a yearning to be something more. For to think about the desire for change, to think about leaving my families home town, and worse yet, to think about divorce was almost unbearable. After all, no one in our family had ever gotten a divorce, let alone leave our hometown. Attaining perfection in my families had become impossible. I was not the perfect daughter, I was wrong to want something more. I heard this message in the subtle comments, looks, and “supportive” advice of others. The message was clear. To change meant that I would not be what everyone else expected me to be, and that was not a good thing or a good feeling.
We all have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but too often we cannot accept and love ourselves. How then can we ask others to love us unconditionally when we can’t love ourselves. To love yourself is not narcissistic, it is about acceptance of the self, flaws and all. The rules, beliefs, agreements that we live by all do a very good job at preventing this self love. You will never measure up, you will never be good enough, and you come to believe that you have no power. Thus, you remain “stuck”. This search for perfection and the perception of powerlessness becomes part of the agreements that we make with ourselves. It entwines everything that we understand to be true about ourselves and everything we do to initiate change.
No matter what I have achieved …being the first member of the family to go to college, being an honors graduate from college, and now attaining doctoral degree and my dream of having my own private practice…. I still hear messages from parents, teachers, clergy, and peers, that question and/or ridicule something about me, who I am, what I can or can’t accomplish, what I didn’t do, or how I wasn’t good enough. But, I am doing that to myself. The messages of others are no longer present in my everyday life. I am the child who listened to everything the adults said without question. So, each time an old message comes up and I listen, I have chosen to believe what the old messages say. Thus, I remain my own worst enemy. Those old agreements tell me I’ll never measure up. I will always be the lower middle class working girl who wasn’t quite smart enough, rich enough, pretty enough, or good enough daughter.
Most recently, when I failed to pass the psychology exam the first time, after years of hard work, I wanted to give up. I was embarrassed to face my coworkers. The old agreements took over, I felt stuck, I didn’t even want to try a second time. I tried to convince myself that it wouldn’t make any difference, and I could still do my work without the psychology license because I was licensed as a counselor. Thankfully, with the help of my spouse and several other very dear people, I was able to regroup and recognize that there were good reasons for my not passing. Our son had passed away only a few weeks earlier. Concentrating on an incredible 6 hour exam was an unattainable task. No one expected anything from me. It was my own belief system. But, my thoughts were that I should have succeeded regardless of the circumstances. Sounds like the Superwoman complex to me!
So, how then do we move forward, gain power, and then as the Army slogan says………..Be all that we can be? That is a very tall order and not one that I believe anyone will ever fully achieve. But it is one that I found was worth tackling and I use Ruiz’s - Four Agreements as a guide. Ruiz’s Four Agreements are difficult to even imagine achieving. But, I always believe that growth occurs through reaching for goals and striving to achieve. Besides, once you achieve them………….what do you do next?!
Let me take a moment and go through the agreements………….
#1 BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD…….Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love. Let me read a short exert from Ruiz’s book that I believe best explains the impact of our words.
PG. 34 – The Four Agreements
When we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement and it becomes part of our belief system. The only way to break agreements is to make a new one based on truth. Truth is the most important part of being impeccable with your word.
#2 DON’T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY………Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering. You are never responsible for the actions of others. So often when I do marital therapy one of the difficulties will be related to the attitude one spouse perceives the other to have. Somehow they feel that it is something they have done to cause the other to have an “attitude”. There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally. When you truly understand this and refuse to take things personally, you can hardly be hurt by the careless comments and actions of others.
#3 DON’T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS…….Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness, and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. This is the key to successful relationships. The lack of communication leads to misinterpretation and the making of assumptions, and ultimately suffering. We make assumptions about how people interact without even thinking about what they may be experiencing or have experienced in the past. A smile or the lack of a smile when we greet someone, first impressions, and making the assumption that your partner should know what you are thinking and feeling, are just a few examples.
#4 ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST………Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstances, simply do you best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self abuse, and regret. A good example of this is Forrest Gump. He didn’t have great ideas, but he took action. He was happy because he always did his best at whatever he did. He was richly rewarded without expecting any reward at all. Taking action is being alive. It’s taking the risk to go out and express your dream.
So, how do you bring about change and begin implementing these Four Agreements into our lives? Change begins with awareness. It begins with recognizing and saying to yourself, ”This is enough!” Change requires an awareness of the agreements that you hold and want to change. If your stuck, ask a close friend/confident to work with you. Change requires an awareness of all the self limiting beliefs you hold that make you unhappy. Make the choice to declare war on the old agreements and work toward adopting Ruiz’s Four Agreements. Break the agreements that make you suffer and don’t continue to be a victim.
Change also requires forgiveness. We must forgive those who we feel have wronged us, not because they deserve to be forgiven, but because we love ourselves so much we don’t want to keep paying the price by holding onto past hurts. First we need to forgive our parents, our brothers, our sisters, our friends, and our higher power (who for some of us is GOD). You must also forgive and accept yourself. Once you forgive yourself, the self rejection in your mind is over and you begin to accept yourself just the way you are. Forgiveness is the key to your freedom, power, and courage. You will know you have forgiven someone when you see them and you no longer have a strong negative reaction. You will hear the name of the person and you will have no emotional reaction. When someone can touch upon what used to be a wound and it no longer hurts, you know you have truly forgiven.
Change requires you let go of fears and take risks. You have inside you the power to create a new reality that is free from the fears that make up your current agreements. Let go of your fears and give yourself permission to express your dreams. Our fears take us in many directions……
Imagine a life without the fear of expressing your dreams. Ask for what you need, and say yes or no to anything or anyone.
Imagine life without the fears of being judged and controlled by others. You no longer have to behave according to what others may think. You don’t have the need to control anyone, and no one controls you, either.
Imagine yourself living your life without judging. You don’t have the need to be right and make everyone else wrong. You can respect yourself and everyone else, and they respect you in return.
Imagine yourself living without the fear of loving and not being loved in return.
Imagine living your life without being afraid to take a risk and to explore life.
Imagine that you love yourself just the way you are.
You are asked to imagine these things because they are all entirely possible! But in order to experience your dreams, you must be willing to change. Change can be frightening and it requires being willing to take risks. Even more so, it requires letting go of the old agreements that have caused years of anxiety and pain. I have a print on my office wall that I often refer to when working with clients on the process of change. The inscription reads “The gap is so wide between where I am and where I want to be…………but, because of all that I may achieve, I will close my eyes and leap!”
|
