Chameleons

Jul 22, 2012 | abandonment, anxiety, Blog, codependency, enmeshment, fear, inner voice, shame, Uncategorized

Chameleons are probably not a subject you would ever think I would blog about, right? No, I’m not taking a turn for veterinary science or lizardology. I mean, what is a therapist wannabe gonna say about chameleons or anything else in the wild kingdom? Today we are going to discuss a type of personality that has been termed “chameleon.”

Chameleons are lizards that blend in and adapt to their surroundings so as not to be readily seen. Do you know any people who seem to exhibit this kind of relating to others? Have you ever met anyone who could adapt to any situation and seemingly thrive in any setting? Maybe the chameleon is with someone who likes to be the center of attention at a party. They come out of their shell and become more outgoing to match the other person. Perhaps they are in a setting with a very somber group. They become quiet and subdued. Maybe in another setting the chameleon will act very religious or chaste, while the next moment becoming vulgar or mean.

Why do chameleons blend into their surroundings in nature? It is a defense mechanism. It’s no different in the case of the chameleon personality. An intense fear of abandonment or shame for example can cause people to adapt to whatever situation presents itself in order to preserve perceived connections with others. The chameleon doesn’t have a strong sense of self. They borrow the “self” or personality of others to gain attention and acceptance.

This is actually a lonely and anxiety-filled way of relating to others. What fears does the chameleon face? They fear being their authentic selves because they might be abandoned if the others find out who the chameleon believes they are on the inside. On the inside, the chameleon believes he/she is not lovable. They fear the aloneness and rejection they will face if someone sees them, really sees them for who they are, and doesn’t like what they see. Having these scary feelings…it literally feels like it would be worse than death. Therefore, adapting to situations by giving up “self” to be acceptable becomes necessary for their very survival.

When it comes down to it, they end up giving up who they are, trading peacefully living as the beautiful person they are on the inside, for the anxiety of trying to belong. The voice in their heads constantly tells them that no one will accept them for who they are. It is a private hell of their own making. They refuse to believe how breathtaking they are! (And not because they’ve earned it, but because they ARE.) Each person is a unique and beautiful creature, lovable for exactly who they are. Many of us don’t believe it. We tell ourselves the lie that all of the painful times we experienced anything that resembled rejection in our childhoods were reflections of how lovable we are. I would invite you to stop believing this lie.

If we look a little bit deeper…and if you see yourself as a chameleon, this feedback might sting a little bit…chameleon behavior is also actually controlling of others. Attempting to control others is about making your own environment safe for yourself. If I can control others, I don’t have to be afraid of them, right? So as a chameleon, I am going to attempt to control your perception of me, in essense attempting to force you to accept me and pay attention to me. When it comes down to it, this is an invasive way of relating to others. It is also ultimately a temporary illusion at best, because we can’t really control how others feel or think…not in the context of a healthy relationship, or with any kind of long-term efficacy. Eventually someone you are trying to “trick” will catch on, and the chameleon can be seen.

Taking the risk to love yourself for who you are is a dangerous and scary notion, but it is the truth, and it is the growth we must pursue if we are going to have a mind filled with peace and self-acceptance. We will also no longer need to control or invade others, making us safer for them to choose to connect with us. When you can accept yourself, you can give acceptance to others most freely too, not codependently or in a controlling way, and not in an unbalanced “I’m-going-to-trade-my-self-for-your-acceptance” way. Think about accepting yourself more completely, with all of your beautiful, breathtaking, and brilliant colors. Risk letting the world see who you REALLY are, because that authentic self inside of you is AMAZING!

Thanks for reading! Have a beautiful day!

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LSW is an individual, marital, and family therapist. She specializes in couples and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group and family counseling. Nancy serves the surrounding areas of Carmel, Westfield, Zionsville, Fishers, and Noblesville. E-Counseling available for residents of Indiana.



Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LCSW is a therapist at Peace Counseling Group, serving the greater Indianapolis area. Surrounding communities include Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Geist, Noblesville, Brownsburg, and Avon. For more information, please use the contact form or call Nancy directly at 317.605.7015.

Address: 9640 Commerce Drive
Suite 413 Carmel, IN 46032

Phone: 317.605.7015

Email:

nancy@peacecounselinggroup.com

Peace Counseling Group

Contact Me

What’s So Amazing About Grace?

May 5, 2012 | anxiety, Blog, boundaries, codependency, cut-off, divorce, enmeshment, faith-based living, forgiveness, grace, shame, Uncategorized

What’s So Amazing About Grace? is actually the name of a book authored by Philip Yancey. Back when I was going through my divorce a few years ago, it was extremely important to me to be able to leave it without any leftover resentment or anger. I didn’t want any residual bitterness or unforgiveness to continue hurting my heart. To that end, I did an intensive study on grace and forgiveness, including reading Yancey’s book, among several others. I think that grace and forgiveness are important concepts to understand when working on presenting concerns in therapy practices such as anger management, codependency, and anxiety. One of the things I liked best in Yancey’s book was this list of qualities of forgiveness. He states that forgiveness:

Halts the cycle of blame and pain.
Loosens the stronghold of guilt in the perpetrator.
Allows the possibility of transformation in the guilty party.
Is not the same as pardon…you may forgive the one that wronged you and still insist on a just punishment for that wrong. If you can bring yourself to the point of forgiveness, though, you will release its healing power both in you and in the person who wronged you.
Has it’s own extraordinary power which reaches beyond law and beyond justice.
Places the forgiver on the same side as the party who did the wrong. p. 103

The simplest way I can think of to define grace is ”forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve it.” Forgiving someone who deserves it is easy; they are sorry, repentent, their heart has turned, and you can sincerely believe them when they say that they will not do it again. Forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve it is extremely difficult. They are not asking for forgiveness, they may not care that they hurt you or may be straight-up oblivious, or they may be justifying their hurtful actions. You may even know quite well that, given the chance, they would make the same decision to hurt you again.

The difficulty in forgiving someone who doesn’t deserve it comes with the message we think we’re sending to the other person if we forgive them. We think we’re saying “it’s OK what you did” and even further, “go ahead and do it again.” Um, NO! What they did was absolutely NOT OK, and it is absolutely NOT OK for them to do it again! Continuing in this mindset that forgiveness equals saying it’s OK will keep anyone from forgiving. The truth is: Grace is a paradox. It requires that I get on the side of my enemy, not by defending their actions, but by defending their humanity. The attitude we have sometimes is “Forgive and the atrocities will repeat themselves.” But the opposite is true. Don’t forgive, and they will repeat themselves.

Other things that may keep us from forgiving is the notion that we are giving up our right to “get even.” If we forgive, we don’t get to pass judgment or inflict retribution. This is a black and white over-reaction where we see the other person as “all bad.” That’s cut-off (a.k.a. negative enmeshment). We may think that if we seek just consequences for someone who has hurt us that we haven’t truly forgiven.

As Yancey says though, this is a myth. Forgiveness does not equal pardon. We can still have rock solid boundaries with someone who has hurt us. That may even include a “geographical boundary” as Cloud and Townsend would say in their book Boundaries, because that person who hurt you is unsafe. We can say “what you have done is not OK, I will have a different relationship with you from now on with good boundaries, but I can forgive you in my heart so that I do not keep the negative connection with you alive in me.” Can I respond to this event by not accepting the painful behavior, perhaps even requiring just consequences; but also by not denying the humanity of the other person?

In any relationship…in a couple, between friends, with co-workers, in families…anywhere, hurts are inevitable. We are imperfect folks, and we will hurt others and they will hurt us. What we do with those hurts is what counts. When you hurt someone, can you humble yourself and apologize, or do you need to justify what you did? Deep shame feelings may cause people to be unable to admit they’ve hurt someone. Do you care for others’ feelings, or trample them to your own end? When someone hurts you, can you forgive them? Do you need to have a good boundary with them…meaning, can you protect and insulate yourself from them without attacking their worth has a human being? If you can’t bring yourself to forgive, ask yourself what the payoff is. What do I think I have to give up in order to forgive?

Check out Phillip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace?. It really helped me let go of resentment and bitterness years ago, and is still doing so today. The world has recently given me several huge opportunities to forgive people who’ve hurt me badly and not asked for forgiveness. I will be having strong boundaries with them, but I’ve also chosen to see them through the eyes of grace, because I want to be forgiven when I screw up too…and oh, honey…I do, holy cow. I try very hard to give what I want to receive, and treat others the way I want to be treated. The peace in my heart that comes from letting the negative connection go (lack of anger and anxiety) and developing good boundaries (no more codependency) is always worth the effort.

Thanks for stopping by. I’ll close up with a quote from What’s So Amazing About Grace…

“The world thirsts for grace. When grace descends, the world falls silent before it.” ~Philip Yancey

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LSW is an individual, marital, and family therapist. She specializes in couples and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group and family counseling. Nancy serves the surrounding areas of Carmel, Westfield, Zionsville, Fishers, and Noblesville. E-Counseling available for residents of Indiana.



Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LCSW is a therapist at Peace Counseling Group, serving the greater Indianapolis area. Surrounding communities include Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Geist, Noblesville, Brownsburg, and Avon. For more information, please use the contact form or call Nancy directly at 317.605.7015.

Address: 9640 Commerce Drive
Suite 413 Carmel, IN 46032

Phone: 317.605.7015

Email:

nancy@peacecounselinggroup.com

Peace Counseling Group

Contact Me

Who Gets Your Gold?

Jan 8, 2012 | abandonment, Blog, boundaries, codependency, cut-off, inner voice, making changes, Uncategorized

Thank you for stopping by the Waiting Room today! I just made my favorite cup of coffee, Wild Blueberry with cream and 2 sugars, and I have a topic all ready to go so let’s get to it. I wanted to pose a question I’ve been thinking about for discussion today: Who gets your gold?

I have my colleague here at Family Tree, Kathy Henry LCSW, to thank for this particular analogy. She has taught me so much about this subject, for which I am SO grateful! First, let me explain what I mean by “gold.” What I’m talking about is my love, my strength, my caring, my feelings, my gifts, and my heart: those things that I give to those with whom I am in relationship, the very best parts of me, my relationship gold.

So Kathy and I were discussing my own relationship woes one particular day a few years ago, and she looked at me and said, “Nancy, you are still giving your gold away to those who don’t take care of it.” What? How could that be, I wondered? After all, I was giving my love and strength to my relationship with my significant other, how could that possibly be the wrong place to give? Aren’t I supposed to look there to have my needs met, and give that relationship my “everything”, no matter what?

Now I need to apologize for answering my own question in such a frustrating manner, “yes, and no”, but I will explain what I mean. Yes, your primary love relationship should get the firstfruits of your earthly gold-giving, but only if it remains safe to do so! What if the wounds in the heart of your beloved are such that they take your gold and throw it away, or reject it altogether? What if they choose to not care for your feelings, and don’t treat the gift you have to give them with gentleness and gratitude? What if they give you crumbs of love in return? If this is the case, they have not shown that they can be trusted to be safe keepers of your gold. (This doesn’t make them a bad person, by the way; it means they are wounded, like you!) When this happens, though, it is important to protect that deep, sensitive “self” inside of you that is hurting so badly! So no, it is not about giving “no matter what” until you’re exhausted and resentful. That is codependency and not having your own voice. Love is unconditional, relationships are not.

At this point I need to give a few points of clarity so you don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I am not talking about becoming selfish. I am talking about discernment: good boundaries and choices. Swinging too far to the other side of this would look like, “It’s all about me and what I want.” Not so much. It is about you loving yourself, not in a narcissistic way…but in an accepting way. It’s also not about focusing on the other person and what they are doing or not doing. This is all about how you truly, humbly, and beautifully accept yourself as a wonderful, loving creature…and then treat yourself as such, having good boundaries with anyone else who doesn’t. Oddly enough, when you accept yourself fully, you can then truly give that unconditional love to others, insulating yourself with good boundaries instead of isolating yourself with painful walls. Recently, I heard someone describe their new-found ability to do this as feeling “like Neo in the Matrix…I can dodge bullets!” What an outstanding analogy! That’s exactly how it feels!

There’s something else I need to mention…and that is that you are not being victimized by a gold-robber! You chose the lunkhead you’re with so that he/she could hurt you just the way you are being hurt. When we realize what is happening, it causes us to grow! It’s God’s, nature’s, the Universe’s (whatever you want to call it) way of growing and healing us. We finally begin to learn what we have not previously known, how to choose safe people, value ourselves, and love and protect our gold so we can teach people how to treat us and have safer relationships. That gold thief is the best teacher you’ll ever have! The reverse is also true, you are their best teacher and will help them grow, too! I am also not talking about relational cut-off. This is not about leaving angrily because you’re not getting what you want/need. That is still focusing on your partner to fill you up instead of working on yourself from the inside. Once you get that going on, you can love someone without cutting off OR losing yourself, and have boundaries without being critical and invasive.

Those people who won’t love, respect, and take care of your feelings need to either change their behaviors, or fall out of the immediate vicinity of your system. You may need a “geographical boundary”, as Cloud and Townsend would say in their book, Boundaries. That said, it is for you then also to treat others as you would like to be treated, and not ask for too much. Make sure you’re not looking to other people to make you feel good enough or worthy of love. That’s your job. And make sure you’re not asking one person to meet ALL your needs. No one on earth can be everything you need.

My deepest gratitude goes out to my best friend Kathy, for showing me what it feels like to have a safe relationship with someone who takes care of my gold.

If you would like to read another article on a similar topic, I recently read this and it is excellent. It’s entitled ”You Never Marry The Right Person”: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/relationship/features/27749-you-never-marry-the-right-person

PS…half done with my Masters!!!! Thanks for stopping by!

Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LSW is an individual, marital, and family therapist. She specializes in couples and marriage counseling, individual counseling, group and family counseling. Nancy serves the surrounding areas of Carmel, Westfield, Zionsville, Fishers, and Noblesville. E-Counseling available for residents of Indiana.



Nancy Eisenman, MSW, LCSW is a therapist at Peace Counseling Group, serving the greater Indianapolis area. Surrounding communities include Carmel, Westfield, Fishers, Geist, Noblesville, Brownsburg, and Avon. For more information, please use the contact form or call Nancy directly at 317.605.7015.

Address: 9640 Commerce Drive
Suite 413 Carmel, IN 46032

Phone: 317.605.7015

Email:

nancy@peacecounselinggroup.com

Peace Counseling Group

Contact Me

I’m The One! (or How to Stop Fighting)

Mar 28, 2011 | Blog, codependency, counterdependency, cut-off, divorce, respect, Uncategorized

A couple of months ago, I went to a therapist training seminar for Imago Relationship Therapy. This is the theory proposed by Harville Hendrix in his books “Getting the Love You Want”, “Keeping the Love You Find,” “Receiving Love,” and “Giving the Love They Need”. They are good reads…I totally recommend them. I had the pleasure of hearing lectures from Dr. Hendrix himself for one of the days of the seminar. He said something that resonated with me, and I thought I’d share.

Dr. Hendrix was discussing how in the womb we are connected, to our mothers and the universe. Then that connection is severed. We are born without any psychological walls into an imperfect world. We then learn, from our first experiences in this world, to disconnect with others….that everyone is here to serve us! We cry and we’re changed, cuddled, fed, burped, or whatever. Our every need is met by someone else, and for the most part, pretty promptly! We learn to see others as objects to meet our needs. We learn to be self-centered. We learn that it’s our world, and everyone else just lives in it…to serve us! We learn to objectify people instead of connect with them.

Through adolescence, we start to take care of ourselves some, but as little as we can get away with, usually. Eventually, we may learn to take pretty good care of our physical needs. Some of us even become very other-centered in our actions; but, are we really selfless? Even being other-centered many times has selfish motives underneath: we want to be loved, accepted, looked-up to, good enough for God, etc. Many people stay quite openly self-centered throughout their lives, too. We see others as objects, there to meet our needs.

This happens in particular in our marriages. We find someone who matches the (usually worst) characteristics of our primary caregivers growing up, someone who will be specifically ill-equipped to meet our deepest needs, and then we try to squeeze blood from the proverbial turnip. Deep down, we really haven’t given up the idea that the other person’s mission in life should be to meet our needs. That’s why we get married, right? “Now we’re together, so start coughing-up the need-meeting!” We also believe that after 20-30-40-50 some years on this planet, that we have the absolute truth, and best way to live, figured out. How I see the world is the right way to see it!

Dr. Hendrix described this attitude like this, he said married couples see each other as if “You and I are one, and I’m the one!” Isn’t it the truth! After all, I know who my lover is down deep, how he/she should act, how they should meet my needs, how they feel about me, and the best way for us to live together….”WHY CAN’T HE/SHE JUST SEE THAT I’M RIGHT?!!” Come on, you’ve said that one, at least in your head, admit it. “If he would just do this for me…” “If she would just…then I would be happy, and our lives would be great.” Right? Now let me ask you this…what would happen if you were to say…”If I would just…”? Think about that one for a minute. (You are the only one you can control anyway.)

Have you ever answered a question about how your spouse thinks or feels and been dead wrong? That’s because we project what we believe onto our spouses, sure that we are right, and they look at us like we have no idea who they are. We all do it, until we learn otherwise. Being able to realize that there are TWO people in the relationship, each with different world views, and developing a healthy curiosity about our spouse’s world/reality is the first step out of fighting hell. Fighting is really about going to war over which one of your world-views is going to win out as “the way we do things in our family.” I’m the one, so we do things how I want, and we meet MY needs! Get with the program, lover! We are all still two-years-old when we act like this. If you are not collaborative with your spouse, and instead attempt to annihilate their world-view to conform to yours, you will succeed in living in fighting hell until you kill your marriage/relationship.

Being able to accept that the other person has a different world view than you do is essential, as is defending it as valid. (Yes, defend THEIR world view as valid! Try that one on for size.) You probably don’t know them as well as you think. Find out. Be curious about them. Avoid negativity like the plague. Invite them to share how they REALLY think with you. Be open. Be vulnerable. It’s not easy. Digging in our defenses will not create changes in our relationships. It will pour cement over things the way they are. It’s a paradox. Acceptance and curiosity will invite collaboration, safety, love, connection, AND changes. Sounds good, doesn’t it? It is. Give it a try.

I could go on and on about this (I already have)…but I’ll stop here for today. Try being curious next time you’re about to fight with your lover. See what their world view is all about. After they pick their jaw up’n off the ground, you will have a MUCH more productive chat! They may even be curious about your point of view. Wouldn’t that be something! Who’s going to be the one to drop their defenses and be vulnerable first? Can you say, “I’m the one?”

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great week!