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- free your
true Self and reduce psychological wounds |
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Recovery From
False-self Dominance
Healing Steps
for Each
False-self Wound -
p.3 of 5
By Peter K.
Gerlach, MSW
Member NSRC Experts Council
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Continued...
This page and the next one provide more detail on how Grown
Wounded Children (GWCs) can re-duce six
toxic psychological wounds:
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A dis-integrated personality often led by a well-meaning
-
excessive shame and guilts;
-
excessive fears of "failure," success,
abandonment, emotional overwhelm, and the unknown;
-
excessive reality distortions like
denial, repression, fantasizing, illusions, pessimism, idealizing,
and projection;
-
excessive trust or distrust;
These five wounds can combine to cause...
See
this for how to assess whether wound-recovery is
needed.
Recovery
Goal 1)
Empower Your True
Self to Lead Your Other Subselves
The overall
Lesson-1 goal is to have
all
personality subselves learn
to trust the
resident true Self (capital "S") and a benign Higher Power to guide them in
calm and conflictual times. Your
false self is a group of short-sighted, impulsive,
well-meaning subselves that distrust or don't know your Self.
When they perceive danger, one or more
Inner Kids or Guardians subselves
disable your Self. This
is like several self-centered musicians each trying to lead an orchestra
by overpowering the expert con-ductor. Lesson 1 proposes using some form of
inner-family therapy to build
subselves' trust in the Self and operate like an effective team. Doing
this reduces all significant psychological wounds over time.
For specific requisites and
options for empowering your true Self, see
this.
Typical Recovery Steps
(Subgoals)
-
Identify all your active and
disowned (denied) personality parts, or sub-selves;
-
Learn which of them regularly
distrust and
your Self.
Combined, they form your "false self." Then…
-
One at a time, help these subselves to know, trust, and follow your
Self, other
Manager subselves,
and your Higher Power. By doing this, gradually…
-
Harmonize all your subselves
into an effective
team over time.
The end goal of recovery from false-self control is to live with
purpose, self-confidence,
awareness, compassion,
and
serenity.
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The next recovery target aims to reduce
excessive shame and
guilt to normal levels. These feel sim-ilar, but are caused and healed differently.
Recovery Goal 2a)
Convert
Excessive Shame to Healthy Self Love
For perspective and typical symptoms of this epidemic false-self
wound, read this. The objective here is to (a)
convert excessive (vs. normal) shame into genuine self-respect and self-trust
(non-egotisti-cal self-love, while (b)
nurturing equal respect and concern for other living things. Excessive
shame ("I am worthless, bad, and unlovable") and guilt ("I
break important rules – and am bad.") block self-love and
self-respect.
That promotes
self-neglect, relationship and
health problems, and
premature death. From childhood training,
one or more Inner Kids believe "I am worthless, bad,
incompetent, damaged, and un-lovable."
They often live trapped in the
past, endlessly reliving old shaming incidents. Because they feel they
are disgusting, inept, and worthless ("self hatred"), their frantic
instinct is to hide from (deny) conscious and public awareness.
When activated, these young subselves blend with your Self to flood you
with their feelings of shame. If other people see the external reason
for this ("At the party last night, I forgot my best friend's name!"),
some subselves feel embarrassed. Usually, a well-intentioned
Inner Critic
and/or Perfectionist constantly sternly reinforces these feelings
of badness.
A
Catastrophizer can amplify
them ("No one could possibly love me. I'll die alone, unloved, and
maybe homeless.") Other
work ceaselessly
to calm, distract, numb, and comfort your shamed part/s. Shamed and
shaming subselves are often the hardest to access and heal, and bring
the greatest relief. Such wounded kids and adults can be
(compassionately) called
shame-based.
Typical shame-conversion
recovery subgoals:
Identify
your shamed subselves and their Guardians, and confirm the presence
of an
Inner
Critic and
a Perfectionist and/or Moralizer who constantly
proclaim stern beliefs of failure and worthlessness.
Explore
whether any shamed subself or Guardian is stuck in the toxic past. If so, build
that subself's trust in your Self, your Higher Power, and other key parts
(e.g. your
Nurturer), and work to bring the sub-self safely into the present. See this
overview of
rescuing ("time travel")
as an inner-family recovery tech-nique.
Retrain
your Inner Critic to trust the judgment of your Higher Power and your Self
(recovery goal 1), and to switch her or his sarcastic criticism and
self-blame to constructive feedback. Option: evolve a
Bill of Personal Rights, and teach it to all your subselves.
Then learn
the communication skills of respectful
assertion
and empathic
listening,
and experiment acting assertively from your Rights. Expect and confront
inner and outer (social) resistance to these new values and behaviors – they'll
disturb insecure (wounded) people!
Identify
subselves who promote a core attitude of self-neglect ("I don't
deserve to be healthy, happy, and fulfilled.") A common Guardian is a
Saboteur ("Oh, come on –
another slice of cake won't hurt!") Another is an
Addict who pairs up with
your reality-distorting
Magician ("You are not
addicted – you can quit any time. Don't sweat it.")
Work with them to
grow a new attitude of high-priority self-care, while caring selectively for
key other people. Widen the inner-family influence of your powerful Nurturer subself.
As recovery progresses and inner team harmony grows, this pro-health
attitude builds among all subselves. Option: use your subsel-ves' ability to
change their roles to retrain a subself to become or assist your Health
Director or equiv-alent.
Patiently
help your shamed subselves to change their toxic beliefs to genuine
self-acceptance, respect, appreciation, and compassion – i.e.
non-egotistical self-love. This is a
core-attitude
change. I have wit-nessed this life-changing transformation, over time, in
many Self-directed clients in true (vs. pseudo) re-covery. Inviting your Higher Power to guide and help can be a
powerful assist.
Develop an effective
inner-family strategy to (a) avoid or (b) identify and assert limits with
(confront) shaming people. This step often results in reducing or ending
some toxic relationships with significantly-wounded
people.
It can also cause major
shifts away from shaming religious beliefs, practices, and environments ("You
are an evil, unclean sinner by nature. Only a gracious God can save your
soul from damnation.") Excessive shame seems to be one of the two
taproots of
codependence (relationship
addiction).
Recovery Goal 2b)
Identify, Reduce, and Avoid Toxic
Guilts
Guilt is
the normal emotion
kids and adults feel when we (or someone) believes we've broken an important
rule - i.e. a should (not), must (not), cannot, have to, or ought not. False selves feel and pro-mote unwarranted, excessive (toxic) guilts.
That's partly because those misinformed subselves are still using their
early caregiver's rules, vs. their own. Guilt feels like (and can amplify)
shame, but is caused and cured differently.
The overall recovery goals here are
to...
-
grow self-awareness of
(a) healthy vs. toxic guilt, and (b) an effective
way of releasing guilts. Then...
-
review your inventory of childhood
shoulds, ought-to's, and musts ("rules"), and...
-
upgrade them to fit your
current adult self and values. Then...
-
convert old misplaced, unwarranted,
or exaggerated guilts to normal healthy levels, and work toward selective,
genuine (vs. pseudo) self and social forgivenesses. Finally...
-
learn to
protect your inner family reliably against other people who try to
manipulate you via guilt. ("If you really loved me, you'd know what I
needed. I shouldn't have to ask you!")
Many of us have an overactive
Guilty Child subself. Do
you? S/He reacts to outer criticisms and the Inner Critic's ceaseless
(distorted) judgments ("You shouldn't have …") by disabling your
resident Self. That infuses you with the Child's guilt feelings and
related thoughts – e.g. "I (broke a rule) – I did some-thing really bad,
or wrong." Such thoughts and feelings often feed your
Shamed Child's rigid belief that "I'm
a bad, stupid, worthless, flawed, unlovable person."
Your Shamed Child and Guilty Child may be the same subself or individuals. I have never met a
survivor of childhood neglect without these influential
parts. They cause several Guardian parts to be ceaselessly vigilant and
active, like your Perfectionist, Catastrophizer,
Critic, and
Magician (reality distorter.) Other common devoted Guardians are the
Addict, People pleaser, and the Numb-er (Anes-thetist).
Typical
guilt-conversion subgoals:
Learn
(a) what healthy guilt is, and why it's useful;
(b) how guilt differs from shame, (c) how guilt is created and
maintained, (d) what real (vs. pseudo)
forgiveness is, and (e) which subselves infuse your Self with toxic
guilt feelings and thoughts.
Methodically
re-examine the old (childhood) rules
that cause your Inner Critic and Perfectionist subsel-ves to burden your Guilty
and Shamed Inner Kids
and other subselves ("Never get angry with Dad!"), and…
Assess
whether your Guilty Child is trapped in the past. If so, evolve a
plan to bring her or him to live in the present with your other subselves.
See this overview of
rescuing ("time travel") as
a practical inner-family recovery technique.
Gradually
convert subselves' outdated "shoulds" and "oughts"
to current ones
that fit you, your environ-ment, your new (harmonious) personality, talents,
limits, and
priorities, and your unique life. Then…
Work
patiently to (a) accept
full responsibility for your life,
and forgive (b) your self and (c) other persons who have been significantly
hurt by your (false self's) past choices and actions. As you do, (d) learn from
these incidents and this process over time.
Intentionally avoid new
guilts. Evolve an effective way to identify and confront people who
try to inflict guilt one you. Anyone come to mind? Learn effective
awareness, assertion, and listening
skills, and use them to
declare and enforce your evolving Bill of
Personal Rights. If necessary, reduce or end relation-ships with people who
chronically "guilt-trip" you, with compassion, vs. blame. Such whiney,
controlling, and/or critical people are usually ruled by a false self, and
don't (want to) know it.
Pause and notice your thoughts and feelings.
Is your Self
your personality
right now, or are some other subselves?
Along with empowering your true Self, converting excessive shame to self
love,
and converting major guilts, the next wound-reduction target is…
Recovery Goal 3)
Identify and Reduce
Excessive Fears
Reflect for a moment on your favorite
fears. How have they been
shaping your relationships, finan-ces, dwelling, and health? Try to complete
this sentence, until you run out of inner responses: "I'm often afraid
(or 'worry') that ________; and…" (Repeat this until nothing new "comes up.")
The overall recovery goals here are to...
-
Develop clear awareness of your
current anxieties and fears, and...
-
learn to
use them to guide
current life decisions and fill
and...
-
Evolve an effective way of reducing
exaggerated or groundless old fears to healthy levels, and/or safely letting
them go for good. ("I used to fear traveling in strange places.
Now I enjoy doing so, selectively, because I'm learning to trust myself (my
true Self) in unexpected situations.")
Fear is a natural survival reflex
that helps you avoid injury, pain, and death. Individual personality
subselves vary widely in what they fear, why, and how
intensely. Your Self and
subselves can have
healthy protective fears and anxieties. Significantly wounded people have
and
subselves who are
excessively scared of mixes of...
Social criticism,
rejection, and abandonment. The usual underlying (infantile,
unconscious) primal
terrors are aloneness, hysteria, powerlessness, and death;
Loss
of internal
and external
control – i.e. fear of
the unknown, and of lethal overwhelm (loss of personal "boundaries" and
Self-leadership due to emotional flooding – inner-family chaos);
Intense
emotions
(emotional overwhelm and loss of control) - and thus excessive fear of
bonding, loving, intimacy, conflict - and excessive fears;
And your subselves
can fear...
Success
and/or "failure"
(in someone's opinion).
Often, well-meaning Catastrophizer, Worrier, and Cynic/Doubter subselves keep your insecure (untrusting) subselves
anxious. They may be aided by a Magician part who protectively distorts reality, and a
Numb-er who mutes or anesthetizes "unsafe" emotions.
Often the Critic heaps scorn on
other subselves for "being a wimp / scaredy cat / doormat / coward /
lily-livered, / "weak" / yellow / timid / …", which inexorably nourishes
young subselves' excessive guilt and shame.
Typical toxic-fear
recovery subgoals, using
inner-family work
Learn (a) the surface symptoms that mask repressed fear, and (b) the
difference between healthy and toxic anxiety and fear.
Identify which subselves feel each of your major fears (above). If
any are Inner Children living in the traumatic past, evolve an effective
rescue plan, and bring
them into the (safer) present time.
Validate and affirm each scared subself's feelings and beliefs, and
promote honest dialog between them, your Self, and other parts like your
Nurturer and
Work
patiently to have your scared subselves begin to trust your Self's
and other
abilities to avoid most real
danger, and manage unsafe situations effectively.
Respectfully
retrain your Catastrophizer,
Worrier, and Magician subselves to (a) trust your Self
and a benign (vs. vengeful, demanding) Higher Power, and to (b) stop
scaring other subselves.
Retrain
your
Inner Critic, Preacher,
and
Perfectionist to stop shaming other subselves for being afraid, and stop
insisting helpful emotions like anger, guilt, anxiety, or sadness are "negative" or "bad."
They help to identify current primary needs!
Retrain
your protective Numb-er subself
to trust all subselves' ability to safely tolerate feel-ing, and then to permit
(a) feeling all emotions fully and (b) expressing them
appropriately as they happen.
Identify any subselves who fear other subselves ("Keep that
nut locked up. She's going to kill us!"). Convert that to
cautious trust, over time. As inner-family understanding, respect,
cooperation, and
trust in your Self's leadership grow, such fears will shift to tolerance
and trust, and eventually to affection and appreciation.
Investigate
possible connections between
terrified young Inner Kids and their Guardians, and any
chronic physical symptoms you experience - e.g. cramps, muscular tics or
spasms, migraines, asthma, insomnia, "digestive problems," ulcers,…
Isolated or mute subselves can promote such symptoms in a desperate
attempt to be noticed, attended, and comforted.
Work with medical professionals to reduce these as your inner harmony
grows, inclu-ding letting go of dependence on prescription or other
chemicals. A growing number of re-cent books testify to the very real
power of your mind to cause and heal physiological ail-ments. See, for
example, titles by Larry Dossey and Dr. Bernie Siegel, and this
article.
Continue with three more wound-recovery goals.
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Updated
December 03, 2011
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