14

I’m Gonna Hone My Imperfections!

Turning Stumbling Blocks into Building Blocks

The Chinese character for crisis is made up of two parts: danger and opportunity. Crisis tends to light a fire that can initiate positive action. Crisis allows people to dip deeply within, to open doors that have heretofore been closed, to breathe energy into new directions, to be creative out of necessity. If you experienced crises and trauma in childhood, you developed lifesaving strategies to help you get through those difficult years. You acquired special skills that may have been labeled as “bad,” or “useless.” However, the expertise you developed as a child can help you take better care of yourself as an adult and can be helpful in your work or personal relationships. These qualities may have come from existing in a crisis mode, but now you can offer yourself an opportunity to transform them into highly functional skills.

For instance, you know how easy it is to take things personally. Why not capitalize on this sensitivity? By being attentive and trusting the intuition you developed as a child, you can become exquisitely sensitive to people and situations around you. After all, the one skill most of us learned exceptionally well was putting out our antennae and “tuning in.” Observing, noticing, paying attention—these were our strengths.

Was this as true of you as it was of me? Did you, too, have highly developed eyes and ears? Were even the pores of your skin ultrasensitive to incoming signals? Think back for a moment to how much energy you put into noticing cues around you. Reading your parents’ moods—the way your mom sighed or the way your dad walked through the front door—was one way you learned to get through the day. Did you find your own way to take care of yourself in your family? What skills did you learn growing up? How did you come to learn them?

You may have discovered different ways to maneuver through some difficult times. Did you learn to play a specific caretaking role, such as the mediator, the placater, the scapegoat, the go-between, or the joker? These roles were important to the functioning of your family, and you had a job to do—fill that role. This provided you with an identity—you were needed. In fact, you may continue to see yourself this way, repeating the same function in your adult relationships. For example, one woman identified her role as “the garbage bag for the family. Being a scapegoat has been my job description for thirty-two years. I don’t want this job any more.”

In addition to your assigned role, perhaps along the way you developed certain adaptation strategies to protect yourself. If something threatened your well-being or your peace of mind, or if something felt like a life-or-death situation, you did whatever you had to do to survive as best you could. The trouble is, sometimes you did not just adapt to your situation, you may have overadapted. By the time you reach adulthood, these overadjustments aren’t always serving you so well.

You discovered ways to maneuver yourself through the difficult years of childhood. You developed certain strategies to protect yourself.

Maybe you put up barriers, building walls around yourself. I remember my wall very well; it was brick with turrets on top; no light got through. As an adult, as I learned to feel safer, sunlight began filtering through, and the wall began to come down, brick by brick. Did you build a wall, too? Do you remember what it was made of? Is it still with you at times? When does it come back?

Maybe you learned to space out—to emotionally “leave.” It’s as if in that moment you were not a part of time. In Unchained Memories, Lenore Terr describes this altered state of consciousness as “unlocking the gears and coasting a while on neutral.” When you were young and the physical or emotional pain became too great to bear, you probably didn’t think you had the option to leave the room, so you did the next best thing: you found a way to emotionally disconnect from the pain. There is a word for this—it’s called dissociating. You could watch from a safe place where you could protect yourself.

Maybe you would bring in an imaginary friend to discuss things, someone to confide in, someone who could protect you if you needed it. You might even still find yourself talking to that imaginary friend once in a while. Sometimes someone overhears you. Have you ever been standing in line and the person in front of you asks, “Did you just say something?” Of course you answer, “Who me?”

Unfortunately, other people didn’t seem to appreciate the usefulness of these skills you acquired. They didn’t understand why you would put yourself in the middle of family discussions, or why you joked around to deflect family arguments, or why you spaced out. Because these protective devices were seen by others as weaknesses rather than strengths, they took on negative connotations. Now, here you are an adult with a treasure chest of useful attributes, but you’re unable to gain access to them. In fact, you may see them the same way other people taught you to see them—as quirks, shortcomings, defects, weaknesses. How can you turn these stumbling blocks into building blocks? How can you repackage these undervalued traits into valuable assets?

Unfortunately, other people viewed these skills as weaknesses, and you probably did, too. How can you repackage these undervalued traits into valuable assets?

Transforming Self-Rejection into Self-Acceptance

Sometimes it’s hard to see past your own flaws. You may have missed out on the essential building blocks of childhood—things like self-esteem, self-assurance, or social skills. You may be saying, “I only have stumbling blocks. I don’t have any building blocks.” One way to try to rediscover some forgotten childhood tools is to visualize your real-life childhood building blocks. Were they wooden alphabet blocks? An erector set? Legos? Or Lincoln Logs?

Visualize taking them down from the shelf and spreading them around you on a table or the floor. Can you imagine what they felt like in your hands? How did you put them together? What was your step-by-step process of building? How did you select which pieces to use? What did you build? Did you make windows or doors? If so, how did you frame them? Did you cover your structure with a roof or did you leave it open to the air? Did you save the finished structure or put the parts away for another time?

What can you learn from recalling your building process? Can you transfer these skills over to how you approach tasks and problems today? Instead of undermining, you can practice bolstering, reinforcing, fortifying, buttressing, bracing, or shoring up your resources. In fact, you can be your own personal foundation architect.

Repackage Those Usable Skills

Jessica calls it, “honing my imperfections.” For years she believed she was a “freak” because she had been told she was “different” from other children, and her parents seemed embarrassed by her. Indeed she was different, because she was an old soul in a child’s body. “I thought my parents didn’t love me when I was extraordinary so I tried hard to be ordinary. I muffled my questions and comments, I stifled my creativity, and before long I seemed to lose my voice. Since it wasn’t okay to shine when I was a child, I became a lump of coal.

“It took years before I realized that a flaw or two need not keep a diamond from shining. I don’t think I’m weird anymore. There really is a certain charm to the way I do things, a sparkle. Pardon the pun, but I guess you could say I’m learning to respect all facets of myself.”

Another woman’s face lit up during a session. “I just realized I actually have skills from being an abused child that I can use in my real estate business. I can read people and their moods really well. I can size up people and situations. I’m flexible. I can get along with people. I sure learned a lot about looking and listening when I was a kid. I’m an expert!”

A client recalls how adept he was as a child at emotionally “leaving the scene.” “At the blink of an eye I was gone.” Now, when he finds himself getting immobilized in uncomfortable situations, he reminds himself that he has good skills in emotionally leaving and uses them to explore another option—physically leaving the scene. He’s able to tell himself, “I have a choice here. I know I can leave. I can excuse myself to get some fresh air, go to the rest room, or make a phone call. Then I can regain my composure, return to the situation, and be more objective.”

You may have grown up in a family where people didn’t communicate clearly; they talked in circles and expected you to “read between the lines.” What a lot of energy that skill took! But this know-how is very useful for hypothesizing; I’m sure you can find a way to use it creatively. Just remind yourself to not slip into old habits of presuming what other people might mean. Check it out instead.

It is useful to be able to selectively hold on to a few of those old ways of doing things. Just because you overdosed on it when you were younger, you don’t have to toss it all away. Some of it might be usable, in fact, quite functional. For example, one man grew up with parents that demanded perfection, and there was no way he could be perfect because nothing was ever good enough. He became overly critical, mostly of himself, but of others as well. Now he is transforming his natural ability at being exacting into a job he loves and is good at—he’s a senior editor with a big-time newspaper. He found a way to substitute the high price he paid as a child for a high-paying, satisfying profession.

I’ve benefited from childhood skills that I’d previously thought were absolutely useless to me. When I was a child and the emotional pain became too great, I’d “leave.” I got skilled at imagining I was somewhere else, usually the place where the walls and ceiling met. I became quite accomplished at this. Recently I had the opportunity to experiment with this skill in two very different situations—in a doctor’s office and on a TV talk show.

When the dermatologist had to cut my cheek, I just knew I would either faint dead away or bolt off the table. I asked myself, “What would I suggest to a client in this situation?” The answer was easy: “Do some deep breathing.” So I did. As I began to feel in control of my breathing, I also began to feel in control of the situation. But because I used to faint around blood, I really did not want to be in the same room with that person cutting my face. So I let part of me stay there and be present and I allowed part of me to “leave.” Then I didn’t have to worry about the blood or feeling faint or any of it. The next day, the doctor called to ask me what I had done to be so calm on the table—he joked that he wanted to “bottle it” to sell to other patients.

Again, my childhood skills for leaving came to the rescue when I was taping my first network talk show in front of an audience. I was really nervous and wanted to bolt right out of there. So I kept one part of myself present, able to answer questions and be involved in the discussion, but I let the rest of me leave. Most people watching the show would never have guessed how nervous I was. They had no idea I was transforming an old, obsolete skill into something useful to me in the moment.

My choice of professions, social worker-turned-psychotherapist, was most certainly an outgrowth of my early caretaking experiences. The same is most likely true about other helping professions. Most of us got fabulous on-the-job training as children.

A woman I know refers to it as “trading on the adaptive skills of growing up.” As a child, she was the go-between, the link between members of her family. She also became very skilled as the family translator. This was no easy task in her family because the messages were so murky. She adapted by making sense of things for the others. By taking on this important role, she had an identity in her family—it gave her a sense of worth. She told me, “I was the ‘lightning rod’ for the family. But being in the middle like that was a huge responsibility. As far back as I can remember, I’d lie in bed at night worrying, trying to make sense of things, trying to figure things out. Sometimes I’d get frantic from worrying that if I didn’t do my job right, my family would fall apart. I guess you could say I was working overtime.”

As an adult her work reflected her childhood experience. She became so good at figuring things out that years later she figured out something that would benefit lots of people: She developed a program that translated highly technical language to the general public.

Edward also used to be the go-between in his family. He was the one who mediated the all too frequent family fights. He was the wise one, the one who could reason and help everyone see possible solutions. And what did Edward grow up to be? A top union negotiator. He’s recognized as one of the best mediators in his area. He’s calm, wise, careful, able to watch for cues from each person. He is a super problem solver. But he isn’t always able to solve his own problems. Recently, because of the stresses of his time-consuming job, his personal life began to overwhelm him. He felt insecure about dealing with day-to-day personal problems. He was becoming immobilized and withdrawing from family and friends. He finally realized he couldn’t solve his problems by himself and turned to therapy for some help.

Together we looked at how he could find ways to transfer his negotiating skills from one part of himself to another—from his “work compartment” into his “personal challenge compartment.” By learning to identify all the qualities that make him a good mediator, he could learn to “negotiate” with the various parts of himself. Now he checks in with each of the parts, getting their opinions, making sure he fully understands each position, and making sure each part feels respected by the others. He makes sure there is a kind of unionizing of all sides involved. He doesn’t feel so stuck anymore. Edward learned to borrow skills from one compartment of his functioning and transfer them to another. When he recently found himself in conflict over whether or not to accept a time-consuming work project, he wasn’t able to make a decision. In fact, he was immobilized by the ambivalence he was experiencing. So he checked in with both sides of the ambivalence, putting it all out there on the table. Then he could move forward.

“I always had to keep a pulse on what was going on in my family, just like I keep a pulse on my relationships now,” said Debbie. “I guess that’s the nurse in me.” And Joyce, had a similar experience. “If I stop managing, things would collapse—just like in my family of origin.”

One man learned at an early age to manipulate people in order to get what he wanted, because in his family it wasn’t okay to ask for something directly. He became skillful at handling his parents and good at strategizing; he would plan out how to take subtle, almost unnoticeable actions in order to get the results he desired. You might not be too surprised to learn that he’s a chiropractor now and gets paid to do manipulations five days a week.

One woman grew up in a family where “everyone was allowed to get away with murder, and I just stood helplessly by. I lost my voice; I couldn’t speak up.” Now she’s become an expert on capital punishment and makes speeches about prisoners’ rights.

Another man began to realize how his childhood experiences affected his present response to building his business. He grew up in an unpredictable household; the chaos and violence threw him off balance. As a result, taking the risks necessary for building up his business was nerve-racking for him. Together we looked at how much he knew about handling unpredictability—how much he learned as a child about keeping his balance and taking charge in the face of crisis—and how skillful he has become at going from crisis to crisis. Why not use this know-how in making a success of his catering business? And he did.

Sally also grew up in a chaotic, unpredictable family. She watched her mom and dads violent fights all the time. Several times she almost got hit by flying dishes. So at an early age she learned to be watchful, keeping her eyes and ears open so she and her little sister could get out of the way. She learned to anticipate these fights and plan ahead; it was a matter of personal safety.

Now Sally uses this ability in her work. She is one of those fabulous waiters who miraculously appears out of nowhere the minute you even begin to think you might want something. In addition, she supervises the rest of the staff easily because she is so adept at anticipating problems in the busy and popular restaurant.

Sally’s early experience of learning to anticipate her mother’s moods is more than helpful in her current relationship. It’s no surprise, of course, that her partner is pretty moody. Fortunately, that early practice adds to her ability to notice when her partner needs some personal space. And Sally “stays clear”—not out of fear as in her childhood, but out of respect.

Allison also developed a keen eye. She noticed everything going on, but because the family was so secretive and presented a facade of perfection to the world, she wasn’t allowed to comment. “In fact,” she says, “if I noticed things, it blew their cover, and they’d say I was imagining it. If I tried to ask questions they’d silence me by calling me stupid. That’s how they negated what I noticed about them. My keen eye got me into trouble back then but now it’s like reclaiming the defect.” It is this very same ability to observe fine detail that makes her a talented photographer.

There are times, however, when Allison’s focus on detail causes problems in her relationship. “It’s the old ‘forest for the trees’ cliché,” she says. “Sometimes I get so caught up in the specifics I can’t make connections to the bigger picture.” Because her partner sees things from a global perspective, they seem to be on different wavelengths, missing each other’s point of view. When she told me how she sometimes creates collages from her photos, we were able to form a plan. She agreed that collage-making is a skill that involves creating an integrated large picture from a lot of smaller photos. How does she do it? She selects the photos she wants to use, experiments with their placement, all the while keeping her keen eye on the overall effect she wants to create. Why not borrow from this skill, creating a new perspective in negotiating with her partner?

Perhaps, like Sally and Allison, you too learned to be watchful as a child and were good at noticing cues around you. Paying close attention to your parents’ moods was a way you could try to protect yourself. Sometimes it may even have seemed like a matter of life or death to you. Just as in the examples above, you were probably great at things like watching, anticipating, planning, strategizing, or mediating.

Since you’re already good with your eyes, why not practice another form of watchfulness? Try substituting the old “watch and fear” with “watch and learn.” For example, what about going to a park or cafe or some other public place and observing the interactions of people around you, sort of like the way you might watch other people at a formal dinner table when you don’t know which piece of silverware to use. You might learn new behaviors—how people show openness to talking to each other, how people show interest in each other by smiling, how people nonverbally make a statement that they want to be alone.

Substitute the old “watch and fear” with “watch and learn.”

Watch Yourself

Okay, so here’s the deal: By transforming these talents you learned as a child, you can learn to take better care of yourself as an adult. You already have impressive training for noticing cues. Now, instead of watching everyone else for cues, why don’t you practice watching yourself? Practice giving yourself this kind of attention and intention. When you have your own attention, see how much you can learn about your strengths.

Imagine taking a step or two away and walking alongside yourself. What do you notice? How are you moving? Do you have energy? Are you tense or are you relaxed? What is your breathing like? Are you really breathing? Are you smiling? Could you be happy? Are you clenching your jaw or your fists? Does this mean you are angry? Practice tuning in to yourself. Practice using your skills at noticing. You might be surprised at how many cues you take in. Noticing yourself and your actions is the first step to changing behavior. How can you even begin to change something if you are not aware of it?

By walking alongside yourself, you can be more objective about yourself. You can begin to notice small changes and learn from them. One of the most important questions you can ask yourself is, “What is different this time?” or “How did I do it differently?”

Noticing your actions is the first step to changing behavior. How can you change something you’re not even aware of?

Survey the Past

Taking it a step further, a good way to transform crisis into opportunity is to survey the past and ask yourself, “What can I learn from this that I can use in the present and perhaps carry into the future with me?” This attitude allows you to develop a new approach to life in which you see things from a different perspective and make new choices.

A client and I were working together to see what skills he had carried over from childhood that could be put to use now. He visualized a blackboard divided in half. On the left was the section he called “The Past,” which was completely filled with information from childhood. On the right was the section labeled “The Rest of My Life,” which was a blank slate. He couldn’t see any usable skills from the past to bring into the present and future. When I asked him to ask the blackboard what it would take to be able to fill up the right side, he immediately had the answer. “First I need to know what my needs are in order to gain access to the rest of my life. I’ll make another section and call it ‘Needs.’ I’ll put it in the middle. Once I list my needs, I’ll discover opportunities.”

It’s useful to rethink the ways we think about ourselves. This involves modifying the words we use to portray ourselves or our feelings. For example, earlier I spoke of the difference between shame and embarrassment. Feelings of shame may be an automatic response, a habit. Feeling embarrassed doesn’t carry the emotional charge of feeling ashamed. Try thinking of a situation as embarrassing rather than shameful or humiliating. Often a feeling of embarrassment is all that’s warranted. The situation doesn’t call for any more than that. Try repeating to yourself, “I’m only feeling embarrassed.”

In the same vein, if you make a mistake you don’t have to tell yourself you’re a failure. Okay, so you screwed up—maybe you misspoke or made a misstep, a miscalculation, an omission, an oversight. But this doesn’t mean you’re a freak or a failure. You don’t have to wrap yourself in unwarranted innuendo. There’s almost always something to learn from the experience. Remind yourself that there is no failure, there is only feedback.

As we saw in chapter 13, relabeling can work wonders. Another way to make use of this ability is to practice relabeling your emotions. Relabeling your emotions provides another opportunity for change. For example, you could relabel “feeling anxious” as “feeling excited.” You’ll have a much different outlook if you’re excited by anticipation than if you’re anxious about your performance. Can you think of it as “creative tension”?

You could also think about relabeling “defective” to “vulnerable.” Vulnerability is much more versatile. And it can be a strength when it includes openness, honesty, and caring sensitivity. What about relabeling “nosy” to “curious,” “sneaky” to “astute,” “obstinate” to “tenacious,” or “difficult” to “spirited”? You get the idea.

One of my favorite relabeling stories is about a college student who experienced himself as defective because he was too shy to join class discussions or ask questions. He never said a word in class. If the class was expected to give oral presentations, he’d make sure he was “out sick” when it was his turn. He came into therapy because he was torturing himself with worry that the whole class was aware of his silences. He wasn’t sure which situation was more mortifying: speaking or not speaking.

I wondered if perhaps he was safeguarding his thoughts in class—after all, he was a very private person. Maybe he was keeping his best thoughts private and taking his time until he felt ready.

He considered this for a week then returned to the next session with an observation of his own. “That reminds me of a story my parents used to tell about my childhood. I didn’t walk until I was eighteen months old I’d just sit and watch people, waiting until I was ready. Then, when the time was right, I stood up and walked. I never tottered, never lurched, never stumbled. I just walked!” Once he recognized he had his own style of doing things, and once he began to think of himself as “private” rather than “shy,” something happened. Three weeks later he stood before the class and gave a required short report. I guess he was ready.

You, too, might try to shed some of those old labels and rewrite new ones for yourself. Disidentify with the old images and be open to new ways of seeing yourself. One way you can practice relabeling previously identified “weaknesses” with strengths is through visual imagery. Do you remember the scene in The Yellow Submarine where the cartoon characters of the Beatles were running back and forth across the hall, from room to room? Using a similar idea, visualize two sets of rooms on each side of a hallway. You can close your eyes if you want. The rooms on one side of the hallway all contain behaviors that have been previously labeled as “Not Okay.” Think of these rooms as storage areas, containing every possible type of storage container—closets, shelves, bins, boxes, and file cabinets. Imagine yourself rummaging through these strengths, seeing what is usable, and desirable. Give yourself several minutes to sort through, and select these strengths, noticing their shapes and colors. Perhaps you will choose one, then refold it and put it away for now, moving on to another one because you like its energy better. Let this be a process of sorting, choosing, and selecting. Some traits you will decide to take with you, some you will decide to leave behind. You’ll find each trait has an energy all its own. Try borrowing this energy you have found and admired, and walk with it across the hall to another room, bringing it to another part of yourself that can appreciate it and make use of it. In this new space you have made for it you might discover this energy begins to change, transforming into something even more useful and precious to you.

Recovery is recovering something you already have. Sometimes we overlook our assets. We forget how solid and strong our underpinnings are. We forget how much we have to fall back on, to work with, to use in new and different ways. It’s like giving a new look to a worn sofa by recovering it in a new and vibrant fabric. Perhaps you can recover yourself in the same way.

Recovery is recovering something you already have.

Sometimes this means looking at skills that already exist in one area of your life and transferring them to another area. Doris provided a good example of this. As soon as I heard her message on the voice mail at work, I knew she was “in charge” there—not at all like the picture of helplessness she painted when she described her relationship with her teenager. So we identified her work skills: managing, listening, responding, defining, problem solving. Then she began borrowing from that quite capable “work compartment” of her life and transferring those skills into use at home with her daughter. Things got better.

But things don’t always consistently stay better. We all backslide once in a while. Try not to get thrown by stumbling blocks that occasionally appear in the form of overreactions. Can you begin to think of old behaviors as old friends? After all, they grew up with you. And like old friends, they may come back to pay you a surprise visit once in a while.

Think of old behaviors as if they are old friends paying a surprise visit once in a while.

These occasional visits are markers, reminders of how far you have come along your road of changing. My clients and I call it the “Oh Shit Thing.” It comes from a story one woman told me: She got upset with herself for taking something personally and slipping back into an old overreacting behavior. When she realized it had been nearly four months since the last outburst, she was actually delighted. “Oh, shit,” she said, “Here it is again. Well, I used to do this every day!”

Think about taking two or three steps forward and one step back. Sometimes that’s the only way to achieve progress. There you are, moving along into some new behaviors and out of the blue, you get whacked on the head with an overwhelming feeling or overreaction that flares up like a match. Sure, it seems like you are taking a step backward, but remember, once you do a new behavior, it’s added to your repertoire.

Each time it feels you’re taking a step backward, remember it’s the backward motion that could propel you forward into new behavior.

So a step backward won’t take long to recover from, because you’ve already visited that new place and you can get there again easily. Also remind yourself that each time it feels you are taking a step backward, it is the backward motion that could propel you forward into new behavior.

This process is like having your own tool shop with each tool hanging on the wall, carefully outlined, so it’s easy to get to it when you need it. One man said, “I can make a special tool after the fact. Each time, I ask myself, ‘What did I learn from this experience?’ and the next time it’s hanging on the wall waiting for me!”

Once you practice a new behavior it’s added to your repertoire.

In the introduction I described how old behaviors are like a slow-motion version of trick birthday-cake candles in the way they seem to die down for varying lengths of time, then unexpectedly flare up again. I remind you of that image again here, in the hope that after reading this book, you can better understand how these flare-ups can be useful. I hope you can see the possibilities for taking the best part of them, transforming them into new skills, and using them in creative and resourceful ways. Rather than letting your history lead to negative reactions, let it become a positive resource to you.

Redirect Your Energy

One final suggestion: There’s no doubt you are a master of being supersensitive to your world and taking things personally. Why stop there? Why not use this information in order to take better care of yourself? You can redirect the energy you spend on watching others for cues and give it back to yourself in the form of quality personal attention.

This is how to go about it. Early in the book I defined taking things personally as taking information as if it were directed at you (even though it might not have been). Why not make an effort to really get to know yourself by directing energy to yourself—noticing your own cues, honoring your intuition, and getting to know and appreciate yourself? Why not personalize things so they work for you in your own unique way? In other words, try taking yourself personally. You’ve spent years paying far too much attention to your “inner censor,” why not turn your attention to respecting your “inner sensor” for a change? Why not hone your imperfections, recognize your vast resources, and explore new ways of engaging with the world around you? By opening up your heart and mind to all aspects of your world, you are taking things in—in a personal and intimate way. This, too, is taking things personally.

Instead of worrying about your “inner censor,” why not put your energy into developing your “inner sensor”?

One woman, trained in massage, knows about unblocking energy and moving it around. Whenever she wants to move from a negative place into a positive place, she visualizes a honeycomb. The energy takes the form of warm, thick, sweet, amber-colored liquid, constantly moving through the interconnected tunnels. As the energy flows, a wondrous transformation takes place. She notices how the negative messages of childhood take on new qualities as they flow from space to space. As the energy changes from life-depleting to life-sustaining, it provides sustenance, allowing room for her needs and wants, and encouraging clear boundaries. Then the energy develops new vitality, permitting choices and enhancing good communication. And it keeps on moving, flowing.

Moving and flowing. That’s the answer, isn’t it? Whenever you feel helpless, afraid, immobilized, dazed, numbed, or stunned, when it becomes hard to think or act, try to move. Move your fingers or your toes. Try to get some energy flowing. Once you do even a small amount of movement you are no longer stuck.

Suppose you find yourself feeling like a scared little child again, sitting paralyzed on the sofa. Maybe it seems like you’ve been living in a cartoon, things don’t seem real to you, you’re not a part of time. If you can remember to move your finger back and forth, then your arm, you have just made a choice to reconnect with your body. Another way to reconnect is to self-soothe. By gently touching yourself, stroking your hand or your arm or your shoulder, you activate energy. You have just brought time back into the picture.

Once you create an option you won’t feel so stuck. Once you open up just a little, and let the energy flow, you are empowering yourself. As you develop a stronger sense of who you are, you’ll find you won’t tend to personalize messages as much. With a more defined sense of yourself and adequate self-determination, you can embrace an environment that begins to feel welcoming and accepting. And this energy will spread, growing into self-acceptance and creativity, filling you with a new experience of yourself in relationship to others.

Follow the Signposts

So let’s review ways to go about transforming self-rejection into self-acceptance: not an easy task for sure. Hopefully, in the preceding pages you have discovered some new perspectives and ideas that can help you take one step at a time, along your path. Here are some signposts to use in your journey. Feel free to photocopy this list and put it up on your refrigerator or mirror.

•   Ask yourself, “Am I taking this personally?”

•   Ask yourself, “Am I trying to read someone’s mind?”

•   Ask yourself, “Am I expecting someone to read my mind?”

•   Remind yourself that certain beliefs may have seemed true in childhood but they are not true now. Try to disidentify from them.

•   Make sure you’re not blowing things way out of proportion by catastrophizing or overgeneralizing beliefs about yourself.

•   Walk alongside yourself. Notice as much as you can. Observing gets the flow going and opens up space for choices.

•   Keep reminding yourself that you have choices.

•   Empathize—put yourself in the other person’s shoes.

•   Hypothesize, but don’t analyze, pathologize, or therapize.

•   Practice making eye contact.

•   Practice saying “thank you” to compliments.

•   Don’t presume—check things out with the other person.

•   Check in with yourself about your boundaries; Whose feelings belong to whom?

•   Remind yourself there is a difference between needs and neediness.

•   Practice asking yourself what you want or need each day and from whom you want it.

•   Practice asking directly for what you want or need.

•   Ask about the other person’s needs.

•   Remember that allowing vulnerability is a strength. It’s very different from feeling vulnerable.

•   If you’re uncomfortable in a situation, you can leave—taking a time-out is just fine. Even counting to ten helps a lot.

•   Ask yourself, “What’s different this time? How is it different? What can I learn from this?”

•   Try rejecting rejection. Just ignore it for a change.

In writing this book I wanted to replicate the same process I use doing therapy. I wanted to gather information and present it to you so things would begin to fit together in new and different ways.

In the course of doing therapy, my clients and I work as a team, interweaving the “then” with the “now,” by first recognizing the problem, then looking for its source, and ultimately doing something about it. The best way I know to convey this process is by using one of my favorite metaphors—reweaving a tapestry. Approaching psychotherapy is much like looking at your life experience as if it’s a tapestry. Through the ages tapestries have been used to tell colorful stories. There is the Bayeux Tapestry, depicting the Norman Conquest, and the Unicorn tapestries from the fifteenth century with their background of a thousand flowers. The tapestry of your life tells a unique story as well.

As you survey it, you’ll find many sections are intact, solidly woven, and sturdy. But it’s not perfect. Some parts most likely became worn over the years, perhaps a little frayed. There are some weakened places here and there, maybe even a few holes. It would be a shame to reject the whole tapestry because part of it is tattered or torn, when in fact, much of the surrounding areas are durable and vital. Even though a few holes might be bigger than others, they can all be filled in, they’re all restorable.

Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. Sometimes it seems like an overwhelming project. But all you have to do is to locate one small piece of thread and follow it. It will lead to others. It’s a matter of gathering together the stitches, a little here and a little there, connecting those parts of yourself, restoring form and order. And while you’re at it notice the colors and the textures, too. Discovering and reclaiming parts of yourself is similar to gathering in different colors; you can choose a blue or a gold or a red or a purple or a green. Your experiences of growing up in your family of origin are like the various textures, all contributing to the character of the overall arrangement. Remember, too, that the energy can also be directed outward. Each thread is capable of linking you to other people, forming an interlocking pattern.

Most importantly, you don’t have to put that tapestry together in exactly the same way it was before. Now you have options. Here is an opportunity to redesign the tapestry of your life experiences. You can choose to work from the center to the perimeter, filling in spaces and adding a new border if you want. Or you can work from the outside toward the center, choosing to add blocks of new color or new texture. You can even add a different pattern to the center. You can weave in the ability to recognize what you need and even the capacity to ask for it. You can intertwine the art of empathizing. You can add a sense of clearer boundaries. You can incorporate some self-confidence and self-acceptance. You can take yourself seriously by honoring your uniqueness, by reminding yourself that this is your tapestry and you can reweave it any way you want. And as you gather in those strands, reclaiming parts of yourself, giving them form, shape, color, texture, richness, and vibrancy, you will be gathering energy toward your heart. Use this renewed energy to notice how the edges of your tapestry touch the world around you, and how you’re touched in return.

As you continue to weave your tapestry, acknowledge and honor your past as well as your present. This enlightenment can be used as a resource to help you make choices along the way that broaden your experience of life. As one of my clients said, “I’m working hard to accept life on life’s terms and accept myself in the process.”