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Tag: acceptance

10 Four Antidotes to the 4 Dysfunctional Rules?

Published by Brian on February 4, 2024

#1 Everyone limps a little and few have a simply sweet life. It is okay to have struggles, problems and face-plant failures–this is the common human experience.

#2 Healing takes time, and some things take a long, long time to heal. Some people get over deep trauma and bad failures quickly; some take years to overcomes wounds and breaks.

#3 It is okay to walk with a limp, and not try to fake it. If we accept ourselves as we are and not as we should be, then we are where we are, we are what we are and we live inside our own skin the way it is.

#4 Hang on to those around you, warts and all. Accept them as they are, not as they should be. There is grace by association and healing among accepting friends.

*****

Some comments on the 4 Antidotes above:

#1 Being a recovering perfectionist is way freer and way more fun that being a compulsive perfectionist who has to have it all together. Life is easier, we learn a lot more and we’re more likeable when we like ourselves as we are. Maybe related is this factoid: children learn language(s) way quicker than adults because they are not afraid to make mistakes trying. Adults have much slower new language acquisition because they are self-conscious about making mistakes.

#2 “Get over it quickly” (Dysfunctional Rule #2) is for people whose solution is submersion of their true selves, denial of what has really happened, pretending everything is okay when it is not. They expend a LOT of psychic energy suppressing things instead of letting them come to the surface. Some people do just quit smoking the day they decide to do so, yes, but almost everyone else has to quit an average of seven times to actually, finally quit smoking (maybe). Alcoholics and other addicts who have learned to overcome do so by acknowledging the problem is not yet solved no matter how long they have been at it: they are “recovering addicts” not “recovered addicts.” Ask any of them–the distinction is important to their ongoing healing. Some things take a long time to heal. Often scars will remain.

#3 “Fake it if you can’t get over it” (Dysfunctional Rule #3). What a dark place to live, in dishonesty and shame.

#4 Much power of a “Twelve Step Group” like AA or Gamblers Anonymous is finding a group of others who not only accept you as you are, but really understand the struggles and failures you face because they face them also. Group honesty is powerful, when combined with tenacious and relentless acceptance and tender and gracious care and commitment to stay walking together with one another, no matter how rough the road gets, no matter how hard a bump in that road one of you may hit.

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08 “What is WRONG with you?!!!”

Published by Brian on February 4, 2024

The reason radical self-acceptance is so essential to staying on the path to humble self-honesty is that there can be so many voices around us that make it sound like it is unacceptable to be who we really are, faults and all.

The question that inspired the title of this entry and the address of this website came from a student who was in a class I was teaching years ago. It was more of a declaration than a question: what is WRONG with you!?! She barely knew anything about me, but she wasn’t used to someone who had turned his back on faking good.

One absolute rule of dysfunctional families is this: don’t have anything wrong with you. This absolute command drives self-honesty away, and fuels denial and self-deception. We are groomed to fake good, pretend and rationalize and excuse inexcusable things around us.

The story of the emperor’s new clothes is a metaphor about this dynamic. Everyone pretends the emperor is not naked in his imaginary “new clothes,” and they go out of their way to fake good with him. The little boy who says, “You’re naked!” violates the most important command of faking good and punctures the lie by simply stating the obvious.

Many of us grew up in such dysfunctional families where the first and great command is “Don’t have anything wrong with you!” Many communities and churches and groups are formed around this same unspoken command that everyone conforms to and upholds.

Radical self-acceptance and humble self-honesty free us from this oppressive command, and free us from the pressure that can be brought to bear on us by the scowling eye and sharp tongue and constant condemnation of those still faking good around us.

What is wrong with me? A lot, probably more than is worth taking time to talk about. How about discovering first what is good about me? I have some charming and redeemable features that can be quickly learned. 🙂

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03 The Trail Goes Back A Long Way Behind Us All…

Published by Brian on October 11, 2020
Sometimes you have to walk more than a mile in someone else’s moccasins to truly understand them.

No one has a simply sweet life. Most trauma survivors have problems that others see as too complex, too hard to understand, too messy to deal with. What others think of us is sometimes none of our business because they have not been through what we have been through, and they don’t understand it.

The truth is BEHAVIOR MAKES SENSE. That is, if we really understood what someone has lived through, then how they are acting would be completely understandable to us. Messy? Yes, and complicated too. Maybe only a god could really make sense of us and accept us like this, but I can at least try to be a little more humble in my assessment of others, a little less harsh in my judgment of them, a little more patient in trying to understand them, a little more kind in my assessment, a little less shallow in looking at how things appear instead of taking the time and effort and patience to understand what things they say and do really signify.

Maybe you are not ready to be that unconditionally accepting of the flaws of other people, so how about trying it on yourself first? What if you completely accepted yourself as a person with a lot of problems and flaws as well as a person with some good qualities and promise? What if you stopped feeling ashamed of what you have done, habits you have and quirks you carry? What if you told yourself, “My behavior makes sense. I act this way for a reason, and “If they only knew what I’ve been through, they would get me instead of judging me”?

What if, for a moment, you said hey, the road goes a long way back behind me. I would not gladly again choose to go through some of those things, trust some of those people nor do many of the things that I did. But, that is now water over the bridge…uh…water over the dam and under the bridge (well, let’s face it, a lot of things in our past can feel very overwhelming, like floodwaters swamping a bridge).

Life is a play you can’t rehearse. Sometimes it just comes at you too fast. Sometimes other people hurt you bad. Sometimes you let yourself and others down. 20-20 hindsight doesn’t help do anything other than cultivate shame or guilty gazing at your own behavioral belly button.

Today, I am going to forgive myself and accept myself as I am, without shame, guilt or self-condemnation. I’m going to try to accept myself like God accepts me. I’m not going to worry about what other people may think or say or do. Yes, I have fallen down many times, but today I choose to get up and start walking anew. There are lots of places yet to travel, things to see and people to meet. When I fall down, I’m going to get right back up and keep going, even if everyone can see me limp.

And, I am going to remember that all the help of heaven is with me and following after me: “Surely, my goodness and my mercy will follow you all the days of your life” (God, Psalm 23).

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