How many times have you said those words to yourself? Chances are, your answer is “Too often!” How many times have you identified exactly how you’re defeating yourself and vowed never to do it again? Too often? Relax. The first thing you should know is that you’re not alone. My patients have ranged from ordinary folks struggling to make ends meet to powerful tycoons who could buy and sell the rest of us; from the young and healthy to frail patients on their deathbeds; from the obscure to the famous; from honest citizens to hardened criminals. Every one of them has felt foolish because of self-defeating behavior, and every one has been unable to figure out how to change—or, if they did know how, failed to follow through. In some cases, people who exuded confidence and self-assurance on the outside were plagued by so much self-contempt that they felt undeserving of love and respect.
One of my patients was a world-renowned jazz musician. During the last months of his life, as terminal cancer dragged him slowly toward death, he was a tormented soul. Obviously, self-defeating behavior had not kept him from being successful; he was one of the most revered instrumentalists of his time. But some of the behaviors covered in this book had kept him from enjoying his success, from holding onto love and from finding peace when it mattered most. By holding a grudge, he had deprived himself of the love of his son; by waiting until it was too late, he was unable to make peace with the son before he died; because he envied others—in his case, classically trained musicians—he could not fully appreciate the esteem in which he was held; because he had unrealistic expectations, he bemoaned the fact that the sound from his instrument matched perfectly the music in his head only four times in his career (which was four more perfect moments than most of us achieve); and by holding it all in, he could not unburden himself of his deepest feelings.
The last words I spoke to him were, “Let it go, you did good.” He smiled weakly and his eyes watered. “Thanks, Doc,” he said. “I needed that.” I’ll never know if it made a difference.
This book was written to help avert such tragedies. If you are ready for change, it will help you find the conviction and direction to follow through. By following the advice in the chapters ahead, you will find that instead of defeating yourself you will be able to face difficult situations with dignity, wisdom, courage and even humor.
WHY WE DEFEAT OURSELVES
Self-defeating behavior occurs when we fail to learn the lessons that life tries to teach us. It represents the victory of impulse over awareness, immediate gratification over lasting satisfaction, relief over resolution. Self-defeating behavior invariably begins as an attempt to make ourselves feel better. It is a coping mechanism. When faced with a crisis, a threat or a potentially upsetting situation, we try to protect ourselves. We grasp for something that will reduce tension or keep us from getting hurt. The action itself seems logical and expedient at the time, and it might actually succeed in bringing about short-term relief. But that behavior invariably comes back to haunt us. Then we curse ourselves for being stupid, foolish or weak, when in truth we had simply lost perspective in the midst of a threatening or confusing situation.
As with most persistent patterns, self-defeating behavior usually has roots in childhood experience. When children confronted with traumas are given both loving support and patient, effective guidance, they tend to develop healthy coping mechanisms. As adults they tend to be resilient, confident and resourceful. Any self-defeating behaviors they have are relatively minor and easy to overcome. By contrast, children who are not loved, and are abused or neglected instead, feel unprotected and alone. Then there are children who do not lack affection and attention, but are not given adequate guidance. Although they might feel loved, they often grow up feeling incompetent and incapable, and therefore unsafe in the face of adversity. In either case, they reach for anything they can find to make their unbearable feelings bearable. The more anxious and alone or inadequate and incompetent they feel, the more tenaciously they hold to whatever thoughts, attitudes and behaviors bring relief. If they do not develop more effective coping mechanisms, the ones that bring relief solidify into self-defeating behaviors.
Naturally, there are fortunate individuals who, because of inherent strengths or the intervention of other adults, develop adequate ways to cope despite the lack of parental love and guidance. In most cases, however, they end up with stubborn self-defeating behaviors. People who were abused as children tend to get angry and strike out at the world. People who were neglected tend to feel defeated and withdraw from the world. People who were not given guidance tend to lack confidence and self-reliance. Each pathway leads to different forms of self-defeat.
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
“All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a simple lonely action.”
—JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Each of the forty concise chapters in the book addresses a common self-defeating behavior. If you read through the titles in the table of contents, you will no doubt recognize the ways you defeat yourself. Some will seem more relevant than others. But I suggest that you read the book straight through, from beginning to end, then go back and focus on the chapters that relate to your present concerns. Study them carefully and follow the advice they contain.
After this initial phase, I suggest you keep the book handy as a reference source. There are two reasons for this. First, as new situations arise, you might, like most people, find new ways to defeat yourself. Different chapters will suddenly take on new meaning and new importance. Second, you might need a refresher course from time to time; self-defeating behaviors have a way of cropping up long after you thought you’d seen the last of them. Positive changes in behavior have to be practiced repeatedly before they become second nature.
Each self-defeating behavior has its own character and its own solutions. At the same time, they have various features in common. Therefore, certain countermeasures are effective in every case. Whenever you find yourself in a situation that has, in the past, triggered a self-defeating impulse, follow these steps in addition to the recommendations in individual chapters:
The Five-Step Pause
Self-defeating behaviors are usually knee-jerk reactions. We act without regard for long-term consequences and without considering reasonable alternatives. The Five-Step Pause is designed to prevent that by increasing awareness. It is a way of returning your mind to the loop, allowing you to be reflective instead of reflexive, to act on intelligence instead of on impulse and consciously choose the best course of action.
Step 1: Increase physical awareness. Impulses begin as physical sensations. Stop and notice what you feel and where you feel it. In your stomach? Head? Neck? Chest?
Step 2: Increase emotional awareness. Try to connect the physical sensation to an emotion. Why do you feel tense? What do you feel angry about? What are you afraid of?
Step 3: Increase impulse awareness. Do the feelings you just noticed make you want to take action? What do they make you want to do?
Step 4: Increase consequence awareness. Ask yourself what the outcomes are likely to be, in the short run and the long run, if you take that action. Becoming conscious of the undesirable consequences of that action serves as a deterrent.
Step 5: Increase solution awareness. Ask yourself what alternatives you have. Which of those is likely to produce the best outcome? Picturing the good things that will happen if you act more constructively can serve as an incentive to change.
Focus on What You’re Gaining, Not What You’re Losing
No matter how destructive it is, a self-defeating behavior serves a purpose. And no matter how much you want to stop doing it, on some level you might be afraid of leaving it behind in favor of something new and untested. You wonder, what if the new behavior doesn’t work and things get worse? For that reason, a key to breaking the inertia is to shift perspective from what you’re giving up to what you’re gaining. Otherwise, even after you have made a solid commitment to change, you can easily revert to your self-defeating ways as so
on as you run into an obstacle.
Get Some Help
Since self-defeating behavior goes back to the childhood experience of being alone and defenseless, it is easier to overcome it in adulthood if you get support from other people.
The actual role your helpers play doesn’t matter. They can assist you directly, provide moral support or agree to hold you accountable for the changes you vow to make. What’s important is that you know you’re not alone. This will strengthen your confidence and determination.
Use Setbacks Constructively
Self-defeating behavior usually repeats itself. Despite your best intentions, when the same or similar situations crop up again, you might act reflexively and do what you’ve done before. If you have a setback, instead of beating yourself to death for making a mistake, convert your self-contempt into self-determination. Ask yourself what you would do if you could do it over again. Develop a plan of action for the next time the situation arises.
Reward Yourself
Each time you repeat a self-defeating behavior, you suffer a blow to your self-esteem. You see yourself as weak and undisciplined, unable to follow through on your higher intentions. On the other hand, each time you successfully overcome a self-defeating impulse, you gain a measure of self-respect. Take advantage of that feeling of pride. Rewarding yourself for a job well done will reinforce your new behavior and help you make the change permanent.
Refer to the Usable Insight
“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.”
—DORIS LESSING
Ordinary insights provide relief and better understanding, but they don’t necessarily spark action. Usable insights have a more practical and lasting impact. My patients find that the insights in this book inspire constructive change and remain in their minds long after they first hear them. One patient called them “the gift that keeps on guiding.” I recommend that you write down the insights that pertain to the behaviors you are working on and post them on the bathroom mirror or refrigerator door. The reminders will reinforce your new course of action.
“If you create an achievement, you create a habit.
If you create a habit, you create a character.
If you create a character, you create a destiny.”
—ANDRÉ MAUROIS
THE COMMITMENT TO CHANGE
This book will give you the inspiration, knowledge and skills to stop undermining yourself. But none of it will help if you are not committed to change. The mere fact that you’ve read this far suggests that you have the necessary courage. It’s not easy to admit that you get in your own way, and harder still to take responsibility for getting out of your way. You have realized that blaming your problems on other people, or on circumstances beyond your control, doesn’t make anything better. You understand that you alone have the power to change your life. That sense of responsibility is crucial if you’re going to beat self-defeat.
I urge you to remain steadfast in your commitment to improving your life. Look at yourself candidly as you proceed with the book. As they say in Twelve-Step programs, “make a searching and fearless moral inventory.” Your honesty, combined with the information and advice in each chapter, will give you the confidence and wisdom to leave self-defeating behavior behind and move forward to a more satisfying future. Instead of being your own worst enemy, you will become your own best friend.
Chasing After Love and Approval From a Parent
“Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.”
—OSCAR WILDE
A patient of mine told her mother she was seeing a therapist. “Terrific,” sniffed the mother. “He’ll try to convince you that you hate me.”
“No, Mom,” replied my patient. “I knew that going in. He’s trying to convince me that I love you.’
That story comes as close as anything to capturing the complex feelings between adult children and their parents. Almost everyone I see in therapy has conflicts with a mother or a father, and these invariably affect their relationships with spouses, offspring, colleagues and friends. Some are angry because they feel deprived of parental approval or love. Some are frustrated because their parents don’t understand them and won’t even try. Some resent their parents’ attempts to control them, while others resent their indifference. And almost all of them feel guilty for not appreciating those who sacrificed so much to raise them. As time slips away they become increasingly anxious. It’s no wonder so many attempts to get what they need turn out to be self-defeating.
Because of your parents’ own upbringing, they are often incapable of giving you what you need emotionally. If you keep chasing after what they can’t give, and if you make your sense of worth dependent on getting it, you will never feel worthwhile. Instead, your futile efforts will create animosity and resentment in you and frustration in your parents. Actually, unless you are the rare son or daughter who articulates your needs clearly, your parents probably don’t even have a clue as to what you want from them. All they know is that you’re displeased—and that bewilders and saddens them.
In many cases, what you do not get from your parents is precisely what your parents never received from their own. Because it is hard for them to give what they haven’t received, they end up mimicking their own upbringing or perpetuating the deprivation in other ways. The key to breaking the family cycle is: act as your parent’s parent, in essence becoming your own grandparent. Give to your parents what they never got. By tapping into their hidden yearning, you might just free them to give you what you need.
“The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears.”
—FRANCIS BACON
Carolyn, a 50-year-old client, had a meddlesome mother who always disapproved of her daughter’s choices. “She won’t stop treating me like a child,” Carolyn complained. “I want to cut her off, but I just can’t do it.”
Carolyn wanted what we all want from our parents—unconditional love and acceptance—but her desperate attempts to get it had the self-defeating effect of distancing her from her mother. I reminded Carolyn that her mother had been raised during the Depression by parents who were forced to work long hours. Like other neglected children, Carolyn’s mother grew up feeling ignored. Hence, when she became a mother herself, she went overboard, becoming so involved in her daughter’s life that she tried to control it. “The sad thing about both of you,” I told Carolyn, “is that neither of you really had a mother.”
When she realized that she and her mother had both suffered in childhood—her mother from being neglected, she from being overly controlled—Carolyn was able to let go of some of her bitter feelings. Realizing that her mother’s controlling nature was a misguided attempt to be close to her daughter allowed Carolyn to be more receptive. The less she pulled away, the less her mother pushed. Before long, her mother’s critical comments ceased. Instead of yelling, the two women began to talk to, and eventually with, each other. Their three remaining years turned out to be sweeter than the previous fifty.
This insight works especially well for men who long to hear their fathers say the magic words, “I’m proud of you, son.” Men who, as kids, did not have the admiration of their dads feel a gaping deprivation; those who did have it long for sweet boyhood moments they can never recapture. That is why, if you want to see a grown man cry, get him to talk about his father.
One memorable patient, a rock star I’ll call John, had driven himself to succeed, largely in an effort to win his dad’s approval. But nothing—not the gold records, the money, nor the acclaim—could get his father to express his pride directly. I advised John to be his own grandparent, but he was too proud to act on the insight. Then his father had a stroke. John was called upon to help care for him. After a few days of nursing this once strong man, the son’s heart began to soften. As he helped his father dress for his seventy-sixth birthday, John said, “Well, another yea
r older, another year wiser.”
“Another year older anyway,” sighed his father.
John was stunned. His father had never uttered a self-deprecating word in his life. As he watched him struggle with his shoelaces, John recalled that the old man had been raised by siblings and had been more deprived of paternal affection than John himself. When his father finished tying his laces, John said, “Nice going, Dad, I’m proud of you.”
The father’s eyes welled with tears. He whispered words that meant more to John than a roomful of Grammy Awards: “I’m proud of you, too. You’re a good son.”
“First we are children to our parents, then parents to our children, then parents to our parents, then children to our children.”
—MILTON GREENBLATT, M.D.
It takes courage to be your own grandparent. You have to be willing to give what you might sorely need yourself, with no guarantee of a return. However, it might be your best hope for getting the love, pride and acceptance you have always wanted. At the very least it will help prevent the anguish that a patient of mine expressed so well: “What eats away at me is not the love I didn’t get from my mother, but the love I never got to give because I was so angry.”
USABLE INSIGHT:
If you want what you never got from your parent, become your own grandparent.
TAKING ACTION
Think of something you never received from one of your parents, and that you feel you still need. (The most common responses are pride, love, comfort and acceptance.)
From your knowledge of your family, determine whether your parent is likely to have received it from his or her parents.
Imagine a specific situation in which you could sincerely give it to your parent, and visualize yourself doing so.
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