Tag : Story

How to be Up in a Down World

Posted by docapc at 7:44 pm

When I was a young boy my father gave me Norman Vincent Peale’s book The Power of Positive Thinking and told me that after I finished the book I could move a tree if I believed I could. I read parts of the book and was admittingly a bit puzzled. I understood the point about being positive but didn’t quite understand how I could actually make myself think positive and move mountains. The instruction book seemed to be missing although I liked the concept.

   In today’s culture we are bombarded with self help books, motivational speakers and CD’s providing instructions of how to be and remain positive. I don’t think anyone denies the value of being positive but most of us who follow the simple instructions aren’t quite able to maintain this positive state as easily as we are instructed. What is the missing ingredient?

                                       Awareness of Your Story

   Negativity is almost always based on inaccurate interpretation of reality. One of my group therapy clients joined our sessions due to being overly stressed and struggling with self consciousness about his self image. Two aspects of his life embarrassed him greatly, the blue collar town he grew up in and the so-called mediocre college he attended. Over time he let us know of his embarrassment. After several months of sessions he has learned that his perception of his inferiority was a distorted view he needlessly carried with him for several years. As he unraveled his negative story so did others. One woman talked of not being pretty enough, we determined this perception was not true. Another woman thought she didn’t speak well, not true. A few of the men talked of thinking their balding hairlines make them unattractive, not true. One man talked of his superior intelligence, also not true. Whether distortions about oneself are positive or negative the truth must be discerned in order to remain positive in life. You can’t be positive with consistency if you’re not dealing with reality. The foundation of your sense of self has to be solid and stable. Distortions create road maps that take us to the wrong destination with the wrong people.                            Over the years of doing group sessions I have heard these types of stories over and over again. The emotional distress of negative thinking is profound and if you don’t become aware of where your biases originated you are doomed to continue living in the prison of pessimism.                                

                                       The Truth Expands our Vision

        Knowing the truth about who you are is a process that can’t occur quickly or without significant effort. Just trying to think positively won’t work for long if your old story is embedded in your psyche. It takes time, patience and persistence to change negative views to more realistic perspectives.

    First we must become aware of our biases; of course we need other objective rational people to help us come to accurate conclusions about ourselves. Then the hard work begins. We have to change the view we established early in life for the new view we have come to learn as adults. We were quite impressionable as young people; taking in the views of others later in life is not easy even if the feedback we are receiving is complimentary. It takes time and trust to come to believe that the negative views we held about ourselves may have originated through our relationships with biased caretakers, coaches, teachers and other significant authority figures as well as peers.

       Eventually, with courage and determination, the new view replaces the old negativity and we are finally in a position to live our lives with a positive, realistic view of ourselves. The truth has freed us from the past once we integrate new information in our heart and mind. I emphasize heart as many of us know that our negativity is not rational but it persists as it is recorded deep in the emotional parts of the brain. Change means we have to re-arrange ourselves emotionally as well as intellectually, which is why it never occurs quickly or easily. We can understand without changing. Change has to be an active process involving behavior, intellect and emotion.

    Once we have done this work the negativity in our environment and in the world has far less impact on our outlook. When we are at peace within we can tolerate the chaos around us without being effected in major ways. We have reached a state of calm allowing us to tolerate the stress outside of us without becoming overly stressed ourselves. We have then become models for balanced living.

Our Wake-Up Attitude is Pre-Determined

Posted by docapc at 7:08 pm

I was listening to a client this morning tell me that every day when she awakens her first thoughts are always anxious. She immediately thinks of the problems she must face. Her tension is visible in the mirror as she washes her face and her perspective has already become narrowed as anxiety produces worry. Worry limits her ability to view problems objectively which in turn causes a panicky state as she walks out the door to face the day. 

                                              How Come I’m so Negative?

I asked my client how she was awakened as a child. “Oh my God is was horrible, my mother would try to be kind for a few minutes but sooner or later she would start with all this tension, telling us were already late, we have to hurry and eat, she would be grabbing clothes out of the closet and talking so fast I just wanted to hide under the pillows”.

    Rita’s mom was chronically late, relatively unprepared for the day herself, and usually worried she would be late for work so she unintentionally passed her anxious, worrisome ways onto her children as their eyes first saw daybreak. Rita learned from this habitual pattern that each day ahead should be approached very carefully, something was going to go wrong and you should always be prepared. This worry made her mind speed, and her ability to calm herself was non-existent. She was prescribed Ritalin in those days because her teachers thought her concentration was poor, her ability to attend and focus seemed to be neurologically programmed, and medication was seen as the answer to this dilemma. Needless to say Rita never realized in her teens that she was not necessarily a child with ADD, but was rather a child being programmed for worry and negativity.

                                           Can Worry be changed to Optimism?

  The answer is yes, but not without hard work. The first step is to identify, as Rita has, the origin of this conditioned way to beginning the day. If we were awakened to an environment of worry, anxiety, neglect, inattention, anger, irritation or any other negative emotional state we are carrying that habitual behavior with us today. We need to be very focused to turn our old embedded thinking pattern around so we can begin each day with an open, appreciative attitude.

  Rita is a single mom, waking her 8 year old daughter with the tension she herself brings into the world every day. She then gets irritated with her daughter, just as her mother did with her, when she doesn’t obey her commands immediately. She starts to worry about being late for work, about forgetting something like her daughters lunch etc. When this tension filled process ends she is on her way to work in a state of mind that assures difficulty focusing, difficulty remembering and difficulty being able to perceive with an expanded view.

    I asked Rita what she hoped would have been different in her own family experience. “ I wish my mom could have been affectionate, hugged me in my bed, a little kiss, soft words easing me into the day, I just wished she could have made me feel secure, made me feel like everything would be ok, sent me off with a smile rather than with that worried look of hers”.

                                              Changing a Habit means Changing Behavior

 I could have told Rita to exercise, mediate and eat nutriously to start her day, all valuable means to calmness. However Rita’s longings gave her the answers she was looking for, the most important variable to change. If she begins doing what she wished for she will not only change her daughter’s story but in the process she will change her own. We change by doing; it must be an active process. It is never easy; Rita will have to train herself to approach her daughter differently every day for some time before it will feel natural. One thing I know: if this new beginning makes Rita and her daughter happy it will continue and become a natural way of being.

                                                       Arthur P. Ciaramicoli, Ed.D., Ph.D.

Matters of the Heart aren’t Rational

Posted by docapc at 7:10 pm

       When I was studying at a psychoanalytic institute many years ago I heard the saying “we all marry parts of our mother and father”. At the time being a single man I thought this idea was a bit extreme. Now after 30 years of treating couples and from my own personal experience I can say it is not so farfetched. Of course it stands to reason that we are attracted to what is familiar, particularly familiar behavior. People often wonder why they pick people to love who ultimately present them with the same conflictual issues they experienced in their families. It seems paradoxical but in fact it makes good sense. We return to the scene of the crime whenever we have not resolved old issues, whenever we don’t understand how our emotions regarding love developed.

   Babies learn to love their parents without knowing if they are beautiful, handsome, intelligent, rich or poor. It is not an intellectual exercise. The memories of these early experiences, when we are cognitively not able to discern what appropriate behavior is and what it is not, are recorded deep in our psyche without our awareness. We remember experiences based on feel far more than experiences based on fact.

                                             But Love Should Make Sense!

    Intelligent people often become disturbed because they falsely believe that because they are intellectually quite capable they should be able to pick the right love partner. Not so I am afraid. Bill Clinton by all accounts is quite intelligent, has a highly developed capacity for empathy, yet he had an affair with an intern in the white house. We all know quite capable people who seem to make ridiculous choices in love relationships. When we fall in love all reason goes out the window. Why? Because matters of the heart are not governed by reason. Until we understand the story we created in our minds about ourselves and love early in life we are governed by those initial experiences.

                                              Returning to the Scene of the Crime

     Let me give you an example. Recently I began working with a woman in her mid-thirties who was referred to me because her marriage was falling apart. She called shortly after her husband was arrested for a DUI, driving under the influence. She is an attractive, intelligent woman who one would think would have been able to choose a good life partner. Marie’s husband by all accounts is an active alcoholic. The irony that troubles her most is that when she met Paul she was determined to pick someone unlike her father. Her dad, who she loves dearly, is also an alcoholic. She has tried to rescue him throughout her life; he has never accepted treatment, refused to go to AA and to this day remains active and a constant worry for Marie. So why would she return to the scene of the crime if alcoholism caused her so much pain?

                                              Matters of the Heart Bring us Back in Time

   We return to our past behavioral patterns that were emotionally hard wired if we have never worked on understanding our story and resolved past conflicts. Today Marie realizes she denied the extent of Paul’s drinking because unconsciously she was returning to the past in an effort to emerge with a different result. She could never facilitate her father becoming sober but with her rescue mentality she felt, and I accent “felt”, she could finally be effective in saving a man in distress. She had always been the one trying to help her dad, and even today she is the only one of three sisters who remains in contact with her dad.

                                      Everyone has a Unique Love Story

   Marie’s story is fairly straightforward and not complicated to understand. However many of us have more complicated stories that result in confusion in terms of who we choose to love. Make sure you spend time getting to know yourself in relationships with others before you make love choices that could bring you back in time in an unfortunate way. It’s complicated for sure but when you’re in empathic relationships with rational others, when your able to give and receive feedback openly we are all in a position to learn a great deal about the story we carry forward to new people.

        If you are interested in learning more about this subject please read chapter 7 in The Curse of the Capable, Learning to Read Between the Lines-Intimacy.

                                                Arthur P. Ciaramicoli, Ed.D., Ph.D.

Change Your Negative Life Story

Posted by docapc at 12:41 am

I try to teach my clients and those close to me that negativity is a learned perspective. When we are growing up we are all exposed to views of the world that are not objective or reasonable. Anthony, one of my group clients grew up with parents from two different countries who met in Europe during the last world war. Even though they have been living in the United States for over 50 years they still consider themselves to be suffering from prejudice from American neighbors and former co­­‑workers. Anthony grew up hearing Americans are greedy, selfish and biased against all foreigners. His parent’s pessimism pervaded much of their thinking and he was often told to shy away from anything unfamiliar. Basically their view of life was to take no chances and never stray from family as “outsiders” could not be trusted. He realized as time went on that his parents assertions were mainly based on their own insecurities and unwillingness to trust.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Despite knowing this reality as an adult he has remained an untrusting person, very afraid to take chances and afraid that he will be ridiculed if he reveals his true nature to anyone. His first wife eventually left him as she could no longer tolerate his unhealthy attachment to his parents and his un-willingness to make friends and socialize.

      Anthony, interestingly, is a member of one of my group sessions where 4 of the 10 members were born in other countries and all immigrated to the states in the last several years. Anthony was initially surprised that these individuals did not experience the bias he expected. In fact three of them were recruited by American companies, helped to find housing and were graciously received by their colleagues. They had difficulty of course, adjusting to a new culture but none spoke of the bias that Anthony had been taught to experience. It wasn’t just the fact that members from other lands had a different experience that eventually made the difference in his world view.

        What changed his pessimism into a reality based view of life?                                                     First and most importantly he developed trust in myself and group members. As he said “I can see and really feel how you all care about each other, at first I thought you were all playing a role but over time I realized you were complete strangers at one time, from all over the world and now you have come to truly like and respect each other, you’re like a family of friends”.

        Eventually, based on this established trust, Anthony was able to systematically examine his views of life and their accuracy. He essentially was able to obtain a consensus view based on objective feedback rather than the hard wiring he adopted from his family. This is the critical juncture for change. We can only change our old story by having the courage to take in objective feedback in the present. I have seen this process result in profound changes in many lives. It is not simple or easy, it requires the courage to change based on your faith in the well meaning of others trying to help you move forward in life while leaving the biases of the past behind. Anthony and many others who are truth seekers, what I call “spiritual learners” arrive at a place of comfort within and with others that is truly life saving. One of my previous blogs describes the “spiritual learner” concept and chapter 16 in “The Curse of the Capable-With an Open Heart and Open Mind-The Spiritual Learner” is a more complete reference for you as well.