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What is a healthy relationship?
Do they just happen? How can you avoid feeling the need to seek
approval from others? In the last Newsletter I said I would continue
to talk about how ACOA’s seek approval and affirmation at work and
in personal relationships. Growing up with alcoholism didn’t provide
us with an effective role model as to what a healthy relationship
looked like. Our models also included the movies and TV which gave
an unrealistic picture of meaningful relationships. Even Disney
wasn’t realistic, giving us Snow White, Cinderella, etc. usually
with the heroine awaiting her prince, hero, etc., which wasn’t a
very helpful role model.
The messages we heard and received as children are still around,
some you may be aware of and some not. Most ACOA's try to do things
differently—usually blaming yourself if the relationship is not
working out for you—not realizing what needed to change the was the
“message” you received as a child. If there are inconsistencies in
the relationship—warm and loving one day and rejecting the next—it
may feel more like what you grew up with—not knowing or feeling you
were loved. If the person is predictable, accountable and consistent
you may feel uncomfortable, unsettled, or bored. You may even start
a fight to stimulate some energy in the relationship.
Or maybe when you were a child your parent/s had such unrealistic
expectations—you could never measure up to those expectations—saying
to yourself “If I could only get it right”, “things would be
better.” You may be drawn to people who put you down but are also
dependent upon you. They need you. Through the years you may
continue to pick people who will use you. Being overly responsible
and believing you could fix the problem if you could only figure out
the right way to do so. You become a doormat without even realizing
it. This comes as a result of wanting approval and affirmation from
others.
Parents said: “I’ll be there for you—and then they weren’t. Whether
it was a promise to be at your game, graduation or other event—which
sets one up to not have expectations and therefore not be
disappointed. This causes you to not ask for what you want but
expecting your partner to know—or to read your mind. I can remember
a client that waited with anticipation for her birthday gift—oh, she
dropped hints or thought if he really loved her he would just know
what it was she wanted. Many disappointments later, she learned some
new skills—asking for what she wanted or she would show him what she
would like or sometimes she would get it for herself. She now knows
there are no mind readers or heroes that automatically know what she
wants.
You may have had to take adult responsibilities as a child—making
sure everything was OK. Wanting things to be more predictable and
stable—you thought you could do it all. You may still do this in
relationships at work and in personal relationships.
Janet Woititz’s book for ACOA’s talks of relationship
skills—intimacy, closeness and vulnerability—all of which contradict
the survival skills learned when we were young. Acquiring intimacy
skills requires a complete relearning process. This task may seem
monumental but with new options and choices you will have different
ways to respond.
Relationships at work often times are recreated as “family of
origin” with peers becoming “siblings” and supervisors becoming
“parents.” In a study by Woititz most ACOA’s reported feeling
inadequate on the job with feelings of inadequacy, being
underappreciated, boredom, and perfectionism, which create stress.
Also, stress comes from using energy to repress these feelings and
trying to keep other’s from discovering them. Of course, not knowing
how to handle these feelings and stress—the past is relived on the
job. ACOA’S have difficulty with boundaries—trying to parent their
supervisors and being enabled by their peers or they may enable
co-workers that don’t pull their weight under the guise of “we all
have to help out.” The inconsistency and unpredictability also play
out—having supervisors that promise something and most of the time
it doesn’t happen, or peers that expect you to do their work for
them. Most ACOA’s don’t want to make waves and will do the work so
the project can be completed, but are seething on the inside. Most
ACOA’s don’t realize the feelings and reactions they are
experiencing, are like the ones they had growing up with addiction.
Here is how it plays out with some professionals:
“I will make my family proud,” “having a sense of control” in the
classroom, the ER, etc. a need to prove myself led to over
extension, may be demanding, unrealistic, hard to please, capable
but lack self-confidence, may say to themselves “I’d been taught to
get my self-esteem from being smarter or better than everyone else
and by making my self liked by everyone.” They over extend and burn
out easily, or may have received the message “if you work very hard
–you will be rewarded” and some have no life outside of work. They
are at high risk for workaholism: “When I am at work I feel loved,
accepted, and respected and trusted; because of this I am committed
to what goes on—this takes all of my energy. This leads to burnout.
Not knowing what is the norm—leads to over doing and over proving,
giving more than I had to give.”
Others may have received messages like: “In order to be a member of
this family you have to play by their rules” or “I must continue to
fail or I will not belong” or “It is better to be a loser than to be
cut off from the family.” Making changes in these messages will be
challenging as the old tape of worthlessness is at odds with the new
tape of worthiness.
Most ACOA’s are self reliant—no one showed them the way out of their
struggles.
Don’t allow the disease to win! (Yes, the disease of addiction is
still running your life.) Without challenging these childhood
messages they will continue to run your relationships. How can you
change this from happening over and over, again and again?
A loss of power develops—giving, control of oneself to the other
person. How to change this—how to be personally powerful and keep
that power, how to be active instead of reactive, how to be
responsible and accountable without allowing other’s to “guilt” you.
You can decide in advance not to stay stuck. Perfection keeps one
from trying something out. Be willing to try things out. You can
learn from it.
Some ways to make your life less stressful is to ask yourself: Are
requests appropriate? How can I do less? Is it part of my job
description? Ask for what you need.
You may be wondering—what is a healthy relationship? Claudia Black
describes in her book Changing Course, ten characteristics that make
up a healthy relationship: Respect, honesty, realistic expectations,
trust, autonomy, shared power, tenderness, time, long-term
commitment, and forgiveness.
In Rockelle Lerner’s book Living in the Comfort Zone, it states: in
adult lives we re-enact our childhood events. We will go from
relationship to relationship or job to job looking for a healthy
relationship and unless we are willing to explore the old
messages/tapes we grew up with we’ll continue doing the same thing
over and over again hoping for a different result. We need to find a
comfort zone that will allow us to relate from a place of
empowerment, not neediness. Creating a comfort zone means that we
can cease the habit of reaction that prevents us from learning the
priceless wisdom of our lessons. It is best not to indulge in self
criticism as it is detrimental to our being and keeps us rigidly
entrenched in our suffering. Lerner’s closing paragraph is very
meaningful, “Conducting our lives with conscience and dignity, we
will not stand by and tolerate violations to ourselves or those
around us. We honor the sacredness in all living things, and we are
mindful of this in all our relationships.
We must have clear boundaries, something most ACOA’s weren’t taught
as children.
Lerner states a healthy well-established boundary is an internalized
limit, physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual that enhances
a sense of identity by implanting more deeply the precious knowledge
that one is a separate human being.”
Black elaborates in her book on some of the skills you will need to
learn: asking for help, expressing feelings appropriately, setting
limits, saying no, validating yourself, initiating, asking
questions, negotiating, problem-solving, taking charge, listening,
and playing. We sure didn’t grow up with these basic skills and
instead of manipulating or misinterpreting situations, we now know
or understand there is another way. As you practice these new skills
that old sense of urgency or needing to get it right may return and
just know this will pass as you integrate these new skills into your
life. I also must add when you get into new situations the old
reactive behaviors may return—be aware that you are still
learning—be patient. It took the first 20 years of your life trying
to get it right, and now you are living the rest of your life being
who you truly are.
Janet Woititz wrote a wonderful little book called Life-skills for
Adult Children. In it she discusses 12 skills ACOAs can explore to
enhance their relationships: Making contact with others, expressing
feelings, active listening, asking for what you want, giving others
what they want, solving problems, asking others to change their
behavior, handling criticism, establishing and defending boundaries,
fighting fair, ending conversations, ending visits, and ending
relationships.
“The greatest discovery of any generation is that human beings can
alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” Albert
Schweitzer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Visit Sheila's website
www.empoweringacoa.com [or copy/paste
this into your browser www.empoweringacoa.com]
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