Are you driving yourself crazy with dumb mistakes, "what was I thinking?" comments, and other lunkheaded moves? Martha Beck offers a no-fail strategy to get you back on the right track. It's not like I'm shooting myself in the foot," said Whitney. "It's more like I'm using my entire body for target practice. With guns in both hands."
Whitney's problems began when economic chaos hit the advertising company where she was an editor. As Whitney cut redundant prose from ad copy, her company cut redundant workers all around her. Whitney herself had always been a perfectionist who loved her work, but after the downsizing, her performance nose-dived. She began to forget meetings, sleep past her alarm, accidentally forward highly personal e-mails to her boss. On the day she absentmindedly shredded a presentation she was about to deliver, Whitney came to see me.
"Do I have early-onset Alzheimer's?" she asked desperately. "Maybe ADD? A brain tumor? It's got to be something medical."
Meanwhile, another client of mine—I'll call her Olga—was going through something similar in her relationship with her husband. "Jack is my life," she told me. "I couldn't go on without him." Yet Olga made as many stupid mistakes at home as Whitney did at work. "I forget I've promised to pick him up after work," she told me. "When he says he needs space, I follow him around begging him to talk, and when he wants to be close, I shut down. What's wrong with me?"
Maybe you've had an experience akin to these, a truck-with-no-brakes run of errors and foul-ups that wreak destruction in your life despite frantic efforts to regain control. In the midst of such madness, it can help immensely to know that there's a name for your pain. You may be using something psychologists call a counterphobic mechanism, a tendency to slide toward, not away from, something you fear. Those of us who use plain English might call it self-sabotage—and it can ruin your life. As counterintuitive as it might seem, these subconscious reflexes can be helpful. In these officially Troubled Times, it behooves us all to be aware of them and use them consciously and skillfully.
Anticipation, Anticipation Is Making Me Late…
"One of my theories," says the evil Count in William Goldman's classic story The Princess Bride, "is that pain involves anticipation." He then leaves the captive hero, Westley, chained next to the Machine, a torture device the Count has promised to use on Westley later. An albino dungeon-keeper offers Westley a way out. "You deserve better than what's coming," he says in a moment of compassion. "Please let me kill you. You'll thank me, I swear." Only Westley's superhuman fortitude keeps him from accepting.
The Count's theory about anticipation is right on the money. And self-sabotage is the mind's way of accepting the albino's offer. Like Whitney or Olga, we may screw up in precisely the places we want most to succeed, not realizing that we're subconsciously trying to force a resolution, to stop the anxious feeling that's hanging over our heads, to lose the job rather than continue to worry about a pink slip. To resolve the situation, we must first recognize that we're using counterphobic mechanisms. And that means punching through denial.
Denial Strategy #1: "Fear? Ha! What Fear?"
When I suggested to Whitney that she might be courting job loss precisely because it was her worst fear, she laughed.
"Fear? Me? No, absolutely not," she said. "I mean, I'm sorry so many people are getting laid off, but my job is safe as houses."
This struck me as an odd choice of idiom in an era when demented mortgage practices have triggered worldwide economic catastrophe. I also noticed a crimson blush creeping up Whitney's neck. Paging Dr. Freud: Dr. Freud to the floor, please.
"What if you keep shredding presentations and sending your boss e-mails about yeast infections?" I said. "What if these screwups keep getting worse?"
The blush faded abruptly; now Whitney looked pale. "Honestly, I don't see how that's possible," she muttered. "Um, could you excuse me for a second?" She pulled out her BlackBerry and peered at it anxiously.
"You seem nervous," I commented, watching her thumbs go to work.
"Well, of course I'm nervous!" Whitney snapped. "The whole damn country's falling apart—who isn't nervous?"
"So," I said, "suppose your company folds. What would you do?"
"That won't happen."
"I'm not saying it will; I'm just asking you to imagine it."
"I don't want to!"
"Seriously, what will you do if you lose your job?"
The dam burst.
"I've worked my whole adult life for this job!" Whitney cried. "And it's not like I can get another one these days. Have you seen the news? Every day it's worse—more unemployment, more foreclosures. People just like me are living in tents! My stocks are practically worthless." Whitney began trembling. "I can't lose my job," she whispered. "It'd be the end of the world."
So that cat was out of the bag. Like so many people right now, Whitney was stuck contemplating the Machine of unemployment. But she'd shoved this intense fear out of her conscious awareness, so her subconscious mind had built a counterphobic mechanism to kill the job and end the agony. "You'll thank me," her inner albino was saying. "I swear."
Denial Strategy #2: "But That's the Last Thing I'd Want."
For Olga, the problem wasn't that she was unaware of her biggest fear. Quite the contrary. She couldn't answer a telemarketer's call without blurting out her dread of losing Jack. She discussed it endlessly with Jack himself.
"I won't let him talk about anything negative—negative feelings, bad experiences in the past, even movies he doesn't like," she said. "I love him so much; I can't let negative energy into our relationship."
Of course, this bizarre practice ensured that Olga's marriage was focused entirely on negative energy (our lives tend to revolve around the things we're trying not to do). It also meant Jack had no way of processing the countless indignities Olga kept inflicting on him.
"You do understand you're making Jack's life completely impossible?" I said, with my patented anti-tact.
"I know!" Olga said, sobbing. "It's another thing I've done to drive him away, but I can't live without him!"
"So what'll you do if he leaves?"
More sobs. "I don't know; I've never dared think about it."
"If you don't think about it, you're going to have to live through it," I said. "So start thinking."
"Well," she sniffed, "I'd have to learn to live for myself, I guess. I'd have to be independent, to be…" Her voice trailed off, and her mascara-smeared eyes opened wide. "I'd be free," she said.
Whoa, Nelly! The fear she'd been hiding was an even bigger surprise to Olga than Whitney's was to her. Olga's real fear wasn't that Jack wanted to leave her. It was that she wanted to leave Jack.
By Martha Beck@www.oprah.com
Whitney's problems began when economic chaos hit the advertising company where she was an editor. As Whitney cut redundant prose from ad copy, her company cut redundant workers all around her. Whitney herself had always been a perfectionist who loved her work, but after the downsizing, her performance nose-dived. She began to forget meetings, sleep past her alarm, accidentally forward highly personal e-mails to her boss. On the day she absentmindedly shredded a presentation she was about to deliver, Whitney came to see me.
"Do I have early-onset Alzheimer's?" she asked desperately. "Maybe ADD? A brain tumor? It's got to be something medical."
Meanwhile, another client of mine—I'll call her Olga—was going through something similar in her relationship with her husband. "Jack is my life," she told me. "I couldn't go on without him." Yet Olga made as many stupid mistakes at home as Whitney did at work. "I forget I've promised to pick him up after work," she told me. "When he says he needs space, I follow him around begging him to talk, and when he wants to be close, I shut down. What's wrong with me?"
Maybe you've had an experience akin to these, a truck-with-no-brakes run of errors and foul-ups that wreak destruction in your life despite frantic efforts to regain control. In the midst of such madness, it can help immensely to know that there's a name for your pain. You may be using something psychologists call a counterphobic mechanism, a tendency to slide toward, not away from, something you fear. Those of us who use plain English might call it self-sabotage—and it can ruin your life. As counterintuitive as it might seem, these subconscious reflexes can be helpful. In these officially Troubled Times, it behooves us all to be aware of them and use them consciously and skillfully.
Anticipation, Anticipation Is Making Me Late…
"One of my theories," says the evil Count in William Goldman's classic story The Princess Bride, "is that pain involves anticipation." He then leaves the captive hero, Westley, chained next to the Machine, a torture device the Count has promised to use on Westley later. An albino dungeon-keeper offers Westley a way out. "You deserve better than what's coming," he says in a moment of compassion. "Please let me kill you. You'll thank me, I swear." Only Westley's superhuman fortitude keeps him from accepting.
The Count's theory about anticipation is right on the money. And self-sabotage is the mind's way of accepting the albino's offer. Like Whitney or Olga, we may screw up in precisely the places we want most to succeed, not realizing that we're subconsciously trying to force a resolution, to stop the anxious feeling that's hanging over our heads, to lose the job rather than continue to worry about a pink slip. To resolve the situation, we must first recognize that we're using counterphobic mechanisms. And that means punching through denial.
Denial Strategy #1: "Fear? Ha! What Fear?"
When I suggested to Whitney that she might be courting job loss precisely because it was her worst fear, she laughed.
"Fear? Me? No, absolutely not," she said. "I mean, I'm sorry so many people are getting laid off, but my job is safe as houses."
This struck me as an odd choice of idiom in an era when demented mortgage practices have triggered worldwide economic catastrophe. I also noticed a crimson blush creeping up Whitney's neck. Paging Dr. Freud: Dr. Freud to the floor, please.
"What if you keep shredding presentations and sending your boss e-mails about yeast infections?" I said. "What if these screwups keep getting worse?"
The blush faded abruptly; now Whitney looked pale. "Honestly, I don't see how that's possible," she muttered. "Um, could you excuse me for a second?" She pulled out her BlackBerry and peered at it anxiously.
"You seem nervous," I commented, watching her thumbs go to work.
"Well, of course I'm nervous!" Whitney snapped. "The whole damn country's falling apart—who isn't nervous?"
"So," I said, "suppose your company folds. What would you do?"
"That won't happen."
"I'm not saying it will; I'm just asking you to imagine it."
"I don't want to!"
"Seriously, what will you do if you lose your job?"
The dam burst.
"I've worked my whole adult life for this job!" Whitney cried. "And it's not like I can get another one these days. Have you seen the news? Every day it's worse—more unemployment, more foreclosures. People just like me are living in tents! My stocks are practically worthless." Whitney began trembling. "I can't lose my job," she whispered. "It'd be the end of the world."
So that cat was out of the bag. Like so many people right now, Whitney was stuck contemplating the Machine of unemployment. But she'd shoved this intense fear out of her conscious awareness, so her subconscious mind had built a counterphobic mechanism to kill the job and end the agony. "You'll thank me," her inner albino was saying. "I swear."
Denial Strategy #2: "But That's the Last Thing I'd Want."
For Olga, the problem wasn't that she was unaware of her biggest fear. Quite the contrary. She couldn't answer a telemarketer's call without blurting out her dread of losing Jack. She discussed it endlessly with Jack himself.
"I won't let him talk about anything negative—negative feelings, bad experiences in the past, even movies he doesn't like," she said. "I love him so much; I can't let negative energy into our relationship."
Of course, this bizarre practice ensured that Olga's marriage was focused entirely on negative energy (our lives tend to revolve around the things we're trying not to do). It also meant Jack had no way of processing the countless indignities Olga kept inflicting on him.
"You do understand you're making Jack's life completely impossible?" I said, with my patented anti-tact.
"I know!" Olga said, sobbing. "It's another thing I've done to drive him away, but I can't live without him!"
"So what'll you do if he leaves?"
More sobs. "I don't know; I've never dared think about it."
"If you don't think about it, you're going to have to live through it," I said. "So start thinking."
"Well," she sniffed, "I'd have to learn to live for myself, I guess. I'd have to be independent, to be…" Her voice trailed off, and her mascara-smeared eyes opened wide. "I'd be free," she said.
Whoa, Nelly! The fear she'd been hiding was an even bigger surprise to Olga than Whitney's was to her. Olga's real fear wasn't that Jack wanted to leave her. It was that she wanted to leave Jack.
By Martha Beck@www.oprah.com
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