Wonderful/terrible

Love is a wonderful terrible thing.

Wonderful because it connects us to others in the ways we most need to be connected.

Terrible because that connection leaves us horribly vulnerable.

You can’t love someone and protect yourself emotionally. Not really.

Real love means hurting when the other person hurts, and being subject to all sorts of doubts and disappointments, disillusionments and frustrations.

And yet many people I know try to make love safe.

They try to control the other person’s feelings, or viewpoint, or behavior.

They operate out of their heads, hoping to keep their feelings buried and beyond danger.

Or they hedge their bet, limiting their emotional commitment in the hope this will keep their vulnerability manageable.

These tactics always fail.

Because you can’t love someone and protect yourself emotionally.

And because you can’t protect yourself without the person you love noticing.

And because, by its nature, love is a wonderful terrible thing.

 

And because, by its nature, love is a wonderful terrible thing.

* * *

Now on YOUTUBE:

the new trailer for

MONKEYTRAPS (THE BOOK):

click here.

(THE BOOK) Chapter 22: Lessons and rules

So the first thing to remember about Plan A is that we learn it and follow it unconsciously.

And the second thing is that every Plan A has the very same goal:

Control over emotional life.

Do this, it tells you, to be safe and avoid pain.  Do this to win love and acceptance.

This becomes clearer when you examine the lessons and rules which are Plan A’s component parts.

I, for example, grew up in an alcoholic family.  Alcoholics are addicts, and as noted earlier, addicts are people who can’t handle feelings.  So I spend my childhood with people who reacted to my feelings with hurt and guilt, anxiety and anger.  And the Plan I evolved (essentially the same Plan evolved by every kid in that situation) reflected all that.

One important lesson was, “Feelings are uncomfortable at best, dangerous at worst.”  This lesson grew into a rule: Feel as little as possible.  Think your way through life instead.

Another lesson was “You’re responsible for other people’s feelings.”  This grew into a second rule: Never be yourself around other people.

These two lessons were the foundation stones of my Plan A.

They also called my inner monkey into being.

Bert was born to take control of my chaotic emotional life.  He set out to accomplish that by doing things like burying his feelings, developing an acceptable image, and becoming painfully oversensitive to the emotions, perceptions and opinions of others.

Interestingly, it was Bert who convinced me to become a therapist.  Attending to others’ feelings while disguising my own seemed a natural fit to my original Plan.

Little did either of us suspect that becoming a healthy therapist would mean I’d have to outgrow Bert and develop a Plan B.

(THE BOOK) Chapter 4: Chameleon

Controlling is hard to spot, and even harder to talk about.

Several reasons for this:

(1) It’s automatic and unconscious, like blinking or the beat of a heart.  You can make yourself aware of your own controlling, but it takes effort.

(2) It’s normal.  You do it all the time.  Everyone around you does it all the time.  So controlling behavior fades into the background of awareness, like a chameleon blends into its surroundings.

(3) We use stunted language to describe it.  We apply the verb control to wildly different behaviors, to our handling of everything from feelings to finances, foreign trade to cholesterol, termites to acne.   We almost need to construct a new language in order to adequately describe this chameleon we’re looking for.

Let’s try to do that, then.

 

We’re forming two online study/support groups for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time; one is for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work.  Both groups will be small, six members at most, and meet weekly. Fee is $50 per session, and group members may purchase Monkeytraps (The Book) at half price. Interested?  Write me: fritzfreud@aol.com.

 

 

 

(THE BOOK) Chapter 2: Controlling

The urge to control is part of our hard wiring.

Why?

Because it is wired into us to

..~ seek pleasure and avoid pain,

..~ imagine a perfect life (one that meets all our needs and makes us perfectly happy), and then

..~ try to make those imaginings come true.

The word controlling covers all forms of this imagining and trying.

Our trying may be large (building a skyscraper) or small (killing crabgrass), complex (winning a war) or simple (salting my soup). 

It may be important (curing cancer) or petty (trimming toenails), public (getting elected) or private (losing weight), essential (avoiding a car crash) or incidental (matching socks).

I may inflict my trying on other people (get you to stop drinking, kiss me, wash the dishes, give me a raise) or on myself (raise my self-esteem, lose weight, hide my anger, learn French).

All this involves seeking some form of control.

We’re controlling nearly all of the time.

We control automatically and unconsciously, waking and sleeping, out in the world and in the privacy of our thoughts.

From birth until death.

The only time we’re not controlling is when we can relax, and do nothing, and trust that things will work out just fine anyway.

How often can you do that?

x

 

We’re forming two online study/support groups for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time.  One group is for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work.  Both groups will be small, eight members at most, and meet weekly. Fee is $50 per session, and group members may purchase Monkeytraps (The Book) at half price. Interested?  Write me: fritzfreud@aol.com.

 

 

(THE BOOK) Introduction

 

Want to trap a monkey?

Try this:

(1) Find a heavy bottle with a narrow neck.

(2) Drop a banana into it.

(3) Leave the bottle where a monkey can find it.

(4) Wait.

The monkey will do the rest.

He’ll come along, smell the banana, reach in to grab it.

Then find he can’t pull it out, because the bottleneck is too small.

He can free himself easily.  He just has to let go.

But he really, really wants that banana.

So he hangs on.

He’s still hanging on when you come to collect him.

And that’s how you trap a monkey.

.

.

Want to trap a human? 

Try this:

(1) Place the human in an uncomfortable situation.

(2) Wait.

The human will do the rest.

He or she will try to reduce their discomfort by controlling the situation.

The harder they work to reduce their discomfort, the more uncomfortable they’ll get.

The harder they try to escape their discomfort, the more trapped they’ll feel.

And that’s how you trap a human.

 

 

This is a book about control in general, and psychological monkeytraps in particular.

A psychological monkeytrap is any situation that temps us to hold on when we should let go — to control what either can’t or shouldn’t be controlled.

The world is filled with monkeytraps.  

As is the emotional life of every human being.

I learned this from practicing psychotherapy.

Therapy also taught me four truths:

1. We are all addicted to control. 

2. This addiction causes most (maybe all) our emotional problems.

3. Behind this addiction lies our wish to control feelings.

4. There are better ways to manage feelings than control.

I call these the Four Laws of control, and they structure the four parts that follow:

Part 1: Addiction is about the idea of control, and how it structures our lives and choices.

Part 2: Dysfunction is about the most common ways control addiction makes us (and those we love) sick and miserable.

Part 3: Emotion is about the real reason we try to control people, places, things, and ourselves.

Part 4: Alternatives is about moving beyond control addiction to healthier ways of responding to discomfort.

I plan to publish the first two parts online for free.  Then I’ll offer the entire book for sale in spring 2015.

Since this is a new way of looking at people and their problems, chapters will be kept bite-sized and spaced out, to give you a chance to chew on each idea as it emerges.  

Chapters you want to reread will be archived on the page titled Monkeytraps (The Book).

Feedback and questions are always welcome.

.

.

Finally:

You may be used to thinking of control as a solution, not a problem.  

Fine.  Read on.

You may not think of yourself as a controlling person.  

Also fine.  Read on.

You may never have tried redefining your emotional problems as rooted in your wish for control.  

Terrific.  Read on.

A client once described his first Al-Anon meeting as “like a light coming on in a dark room.  Suddenly I could see all the furniture I’ve been tripping over all my life.”

That’s just what we’re going for here.

Welcome to the light switch.

* * *

We’re planning an online study/support group for readers who want to explore these ideas with me in real time.  Also coming, a group for therapists who want to integrate these ideas into their clinical work.  Both groups will be small, eight members at most, and meet weekly. Fee is $50 per 90-minute session, and group members may purchase Monkeytraps (The Book) at half price. Interested?  Write me: fritzfreud@aol.com.

 

 

 

Leaf

11/13/12 (Tuesday).

I’m blowing leaves down the driveway when I notice Henry raking the leaves on his lawn. 

I think that’s his name, Henry.  We’ve exchanged maybe ten words since he moved in.  

Four years ago. 

So I’m surprised to find myself thinking of offering him my leaf blower.

Surprised, then annoyed.  Since the impulse makes me uncomfortable. 

I’m shy.  I don’t do shit like that.

“Why even consider it?” I ask myself. 

But I know why.  It’s what Chris said to me the other night on the way to a family gathering.  She knows  family gatherings make me nervous.  

“Get your Buddha on,” she told me.

I knew what she meant.  Stop being scared of people.  Stop avoiding them.  Stop taking them personally.  Detach.  Relax.  Breathe.  Practice what you preach. 

“Shut up,” I answered.

But now I sigh and switch off the blower and coil the endless orange cord around my forearm and walk it over to Henry, who is plainly startled to see me but covers it nicely.

We chat.  While I’m talking with him I’m talking to myself. 

“Practice,” I say. “This is practice.” 

And, “You don’t practice enough.” 

And, “You don’t practice what you preach.”

And, “But maybe you’ll start.  Maybe this is you turning over a new leaf.” 

Eventually Henry declines my offer, which is a relief (since now I don’t have to come back to collect the damned blower), and I walk home feeling both virtuous and silly. 

There was nothing to be scared of here, and I knew that going in, and  was scared anyway. 

I’m sixty-two now.  Scared for sixty-two years. 

“Will I die this way?” I wonder.

Then a last thought comes as I walk back up my clean driveway and into my house.

“How to handle feelings isn’t just a human problem,” I think. 

“It’s the human problem.  And all the others come from that.”

* * *

  

       

 

Monkeytraps, and how to spot them

(Steve and Bert wrote this one together:)

Steve:  One reader writes,

I like your blog, but it’s a little scary, since before this I had no idea how controlling I am and how many problems it causes me.

What I want now is to learn to be more aware of my controlling, to keep the idea of control at the surface of my mind and to understand how wanting to control things drives how I react and what I do and say.

Got any tips on that?

Bert:  Good question.

Steve:  She wants to learn how to spot monkeytraps.

Bert:  Yeah.  You should remind everyone what a monkeytrap is.

Steve:  In the East they trap monkeys by placing fruit in a weighted jar or bottle with a narrow neck.  The monkey smells the fruit, reaches in to grab it, and traps himself by refusing to let go.

A psychological monkeytrap is any situation that triggers you into compulsive controlling — i.e., into holding on when you really should be letting go.

Bert: And yes, we have tips on how to spot them.

Steve: Here’s the first:

Notice where

you’re uncomfortable.

We’re controlling whenever we need or want to change some piece of reality (instead of accepting it as it is).  And we’re most likely to want to change realities that make us uncomfortable.  So it makes sense that our discomfort zones are where we’re most likely to get monkeytrapped.

Bert:  I, for example, can’t stand rejection.  So it’s with people I think might reject me that I tend to be most controlling.

I do it in all sorts of ways: hide feelings I think might upset them, pretend to agree when I really don’t, laugh at their stupid jokes, avoid confronting behavior I dislike, try to read their minds, and so on.

Steve:  Tip #2:

Notice where

you’re stuck.

Stuck as in not learning, or healing, or growing — struggling with the same damn problem over and over again.

Bert:  Same example.  Working hard at controlling people’s reactions to me is a monkeytrap because it

(a) stops me from being myself, which

(b) prevents me from ever getting accepted as myself, which

(c) keeps me chronically scared of rejection.

In short, a dysfunctional merry-go-round.

Steve:  Right.  You know you’re monkeytrapped whenever you find yourself doing, over and over and over again, what doesn’t work.

And why do you?

That brings us to Tip #3:

Notice where

you’re scared.

Unhealthy controlling is driven by anxiety.  We stay monkeytrapped because we’re scared to do anything else.  Often even the thought of giving up control in such situations is enough to scare us silly.

Bert:  Like me telling my mother-in-law her breath stinks.

Steve:  Uh, yeah.  Great example.

So if you want to spot where you’re compulsively controlling, look for the three clues: discomfort, stuckness, and fear.

* * *

The tribe: Expectations

 

Most people feel anxious in group without really understanding why.

1

2

member 1

3

4

1=

2=

Personally I think it’s because, on some deep level, the group reminds us of our family of origin.

1

2

member 2

3

4

5

 

2=

And we expect it to treat us just as our family did.

1

2

member 3

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4

1=

2a

=

So tell me.  If this group were your family, what would you be expecting now?

1

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member 4

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4

1=

2=

therapist 5

1

2

To get hit.

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4

5

6

1=

2=

1

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3

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5

1

To get humiliated.

3=

\

 

therapist 7

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2

To be told to shut up.

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5

1=

2=

1=

therapist 8

1

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3

4

To be ignored.

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4

1=

2=

Pink?  What would you expect?

1

2

member 9

3

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5

1=

2=

therapist 10

1

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3

All of the above.

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5

1=

2=

Jeez.

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member 11

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6

1=

2=

So you all have good reason to feel anxious in this room.

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member 12

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5

1=

 

2=

But I have to ask Pink:

1

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member 13

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5

1=

2=a

 

How’d you work up the courage to even come here?

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member 14

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5

1=

2=

therapist 15

1

2

3

Two beers, half a pizza, and a Vicodin.

3

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5

6

7

* * *

  

Group therapy. 

In Hebrew. 

“Hello, this is Fear Management. 

“My name is Moni, and I too have a phobia. 

“I have a fear of shouting. 

“You know, a, h, h, h, exclamantion mark, ‘ahhh’!

“At this point I suggest we all tell about ourselves…” 

 

Excerpt from the Israeli TV show “Ktzarim”:  Five troubled people (that description includes the group leader) meet for group therapy.  In Hebrew with English subtitles (2:22).

 

* * *

 

Overheard at the House:

Eventually, and every time, I used to drive my current partner insane with my hang ups and he broke off the relationship….

So I decided only I could change and needed to put my – sorry to be blunt – infantile behaviour aside and choose blind trust, no matter the outcome….

Result: I came to accept that my life is my life and not dependent on anyone else for survival or safety – and in a way I was going to be alone, with or without a partner: it’s part of the human condition….

 

Come. 

Join the conversation. 

Monkey House.

Because we’re all monkeys on this bus.