"On Healing" December 2005

Posted on Mon, Dec. 26, 2005
Why not resolve to stop trying to change?
By Dan Gottlieb

New Year's is coming, so it's time to make those resolutions. What'll it be this year? Lose weight, quit smoking, how about get to the gym more often or become a better person? Of course New Year's resolutions succeed about as often as lottery tickets pay off.

New Year's Eve is the world's oldest holiday. It actually began with the Babylonians 4,000 years ago and took place in March when nature renewed itself. People even made resolutions back then. Early Babylonians' most popular resolution was to return borrowed farm equipment. They probably weren't successful either.

Two thousand years later, the Romans shifted New Year's to January. They named the month after Janus, the god of beginnings. It was said Janus had two faces, so he was able to look backward and forward at the same time.

OK, so it may be healthy to stop once a year and look back to see what we have done wrong and look forward to see what we could do better. But that could cut both ways. We could look back and feel guilt, regret or self-judgment. Or we could look back and see who we've harmed and try to make amends. We could look forward with hope and optimism, or we could set ourselves up for failure with unrealistic goals.

The thing that worries me about New Year's resolutions is that in today's culture, most of us are more clear about who we think we should be than who we really are at the core. In today's "be all that you can be" mentality, there is little time for honest self-reflection, or even compassion.

One of my teachers many years ago said the world was full of people trying to be filet mignon, when deep down we really know we are meatballs!

I recently worked with a man in his early 60s. Although quite successful by most standards, he had always felt insecure and self-critical. Like most people, he tried to hide his insecurity and pretended he was stronger and smarter than he really felt. At the same time, he spent most of his life trying to become a better person in hopes that he would lose his insecurity. So he promised to lose weight, quit smoking, stand up to his boss and be more assertive. None of this worked, so he felt even more insecure and self-critical.

Over time, he gave up trying to change himself and devoted his energy to understanding his own humanity. Recently he said that once he had stopped giving himself a hard time and accepting himself, he was much more self-confident.

Another happy meatball!

Old King Janus was pretty fortunate to be able to look forward and backward at the same time. But in the process of repairing the past and creating a future, we lose the present moment. Remember, regret and remorse are always about the past. Anxiety and even hope are always about the future. And most humans spend most of their time worrying about the past or future.

So how's this for a New Year's resolution: Take one year and stop trying to change yourself. Spend that year assuming that the person you are is the person you will always be. And if you are like most of us, you will soon discover that person, in many respects, is a meatball. Because ultimately, most of us are looking for peace of mind. And peace doesn't come when we've won a battle; peace comes when we stop fighting.

So for this year, stop fighting. If that doesn't work, next year you can promise to return the farm equipment or lose weight.

Posted on Mon, Dec. 12, 2005
Parent's anxiety can end a dialogue
By Dan Gottlieb

The bucolic hamlet of Lititz in Lancaster County is an unlikely site for a double murder. That's where 18-year-old David Ludwig is accused of murdering the parents of his 14-year-old girlfriend, Kara Beth Borden, after the two had stayed out all night.

While the mantra of many mental-health professionals is "parental involvement," these parents seemed to have had that covered. They provided structure and values in a lovely area.

Nevertheless, the children had very secret lives.

Children will always hold secrets from their parents, as well they should. It's part of forming their identity. But if parents can help create a safe, open environment - where problems and emotions can be shared - children will likely understand which secrets are all right and which are dangerous.

I don't know what kind of communication the Lititz families had. Nor do I know if honest discussion could have prevented this horror.

But I do know children shut down when parental involvement is driven by anxiety. Parents who push children to achieve or who impose rigid values often do so to assuage their own fear rather than meet their children's needs. And sometimes they do it from anxiety over their children's ability to care for themselves.

Such was the case with my daughter Alison when she was in fourth grade. After school one day, she told me that a girl on the bus had been bullying her. As a concerned parent, I jumped into action and notified the bus service, the principal, and the child's parents.

The next day my daughter was furious at me for embarrassing her. She said she wanted to try to handle it herself, but now she couldn't. "I'll never tell you anything like that again," she said. It may have looked like parental involvement, but it was really parental anxiety and it shut down communication.

I have given several lectures titled "How to Listen So Children Will Speak." It's the quality of our listening that creates a safe environment, not the quality of our speech.

Ideally, careful listening begins in early childhood. Yours! So by the time you become parents, you will have had the experience of being heard. And if not, you are at least able to understand and acknowledge your own emotions. If I understood and tolerated my anxiety when my daughter told me of her problems, I wouldn't have reacted so quickly without asking her what she wanted.

Often our children will test our ability to listen with a trial balloon; they will confide that their friend has tried pot or become sexually active. And then they wait. If we react with anger or launch into a lecture, they'll shut up. Who would feel safe to share secrets with someone like that? Would you?

Here's how to listen so children will speak. Before you talk, check in with yourself and see how you feel. Anxiety, exhaustion, external stress, and even physical hunger can harm your ability to hear. You cannot hear someone's heart unless you first hear your own.

Trust that whatever you think you must say can wait - if not a couple of hours, then at least until your child is done talking.

And listen. Listen to the words, to your reaction to the words, and to the person who is speaking the words. Ask yourself what they are feeling as they speak. And, finally, try to hear the message. There is always a message, and if you can't hear it, then you are missing a critical part.

Another important component is asking the right questions. It's just fine to say: "I feel angry or confused or helpless about what you just said. What would you like of me?" And then listen some more.

I learned from the mistake I made with Alison. Her sister, Debbie, was 15 years old when our family broke up. She started to cry when I asked how her life had changed. She told me how empty her life felt and how she no longer looked forward to her future. She felt very alone.

Any parent knows how painful those words can be coming from a child. I wanted to say a thousand things to make her feel better. But I sat quietly and held her hand, and we both cried. I knew that anything I said would have deepened her loneliness. Silent listening was painful for me, but it was just what she needed.

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