Category: self-acceptance

How to be more like you

Posted in Buckminster Fuller, philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, self-acceptanceLeave a comment

My title for this post is ironic. How could I possibly know who you are or how you should be “more yourself”?  But surely you’ve known some people who sincerely believed that the world would be a better place if other people were “more like them.” When people think this way, they are probably not  referencing the “self'” that is known to others – warts and all –  but rather an idealized, cherished self-image. I believe that all of us have a cherished self-image that doesn’t necessarily coincide with the consensus image of ourselves as others know us. When you hear someone say something about you and your reaction is “I’m not like that!”, you’ve probably identified a piece of your cherished self-image.

Attachment to this cherished self-image is especially strong in people who have tried throughout their lives to live up to others’ expectations of them – parents or extended parental entities  such as church and culture. Many of us are taught how we “should” or “shouldn’t” feel in this or that situation. This attachment can also be strong in people who have tried hard to shape themselves in reaction to “parental” expectations, i.e. “I refuse to be who my parents (or the church or the State) want me to be.” I’ve known quite a few parents whose cherished self-images kept them from seeing that they were dealing with their own children in just the same dysfunctional ways that their own parents had dealt with them. When you’ve sworn to yourself, “I’ll never do that with my children,” it’s often hard to recognize when you do.

Each of us – even those with low self-esteem – is the hero of our own personal drama, because we all live at the center of our perceived world, and none of us can be completely objective about ourselves. Our “heroic self” may wear the mask of the conquering hero or the rescuer or the wronged victim. But this heroic self is just as much an artificial construct as any image of ourselves projected onto us by others. I remember an epiphany I had as a young man. Seeing my reflection in a mirror, I thought “That’s who they think I am!”

One’s true self isn’t a thing, fixed and immutable, but is best seen as an evolutionary process, a work in progress. Buckminster Fuller put it this way: “I seem to be a verb.” Rather than trying to nail down some finished portrait of one’s self, I think that it is more helpful to have a picture in mind of who you are today, in the here-and-now of your experience and behavior. Your actions, not your thoughts, ultimately define you as the unique person you are.

A concept that was important to me as a psychotherapist was authenticity. In studying gestalt therapy in grad school, I became aware that many of my habitual behaviors were what gestalt guru Fritz Perls called “phony.” I was a people pleaser, always trying to guess what was expected of me in each situation and to behave in ways  that were attempts to please or impress the people around me. I realized that I wanted everyone to like me – even if I didn’t especially like them. But, to the extent that I was phony, if someone seemed to like me, what they liked was my act, not me.

I knew that if I was going to be a good therapist, I had to become more spontaneous and authentic – even if that meant that some people wouldn’t like me or approve of my actions. I stopped making phony excuses for myself, like saying “I really have to leave now,” when I really just wanted to leave. I stopped rehearsing for social occasions such as parties. I learned to walk into a roomful of people with an “empty mind,” primed for spontaneity. I wanted to get to know the person behind the masks that I wore. Some people may have seen me as blunt or curt, or even rude, as I worked on becoming “more myself.” I knew that not everyone liked me, and that was okay. The work that I did on myself enabled me to help therapy clients to identify and confront their own inauthentic behaviors, and to work on changing them.

Gestalt therapy is especially effective for working with people who want to discover their authentic selves. Some gestalt techniques (which I described in a prior post) serve to unmask phony roles that people play, leaving them bereft of their usual defenses, and open to sudden insights. Fritz Perls is perhaps best known for what is called the Gestalt Prayer: ” I do my thing and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you and I am I, and if by chance we find one another, it’s beautiful. If not, it can’t be helped.”

More about authenticity, and the related concept of congruence, in my next post.

 

Overcoming homophobia, Part 2

Posted in psychology, psychotherapy, race relations education, self-acceptanceLeave a comment

By my thirties I was already quite comfortable around gay people socially and professionally, and aware of many of the issues they faced, living in a homophobic society. But the final breakthrough in working to eradicate the vestiges of my own homophobia occurred when my older brother, Lindsay, came out of the closet. Now his homosexuality could become part of the weave of our lifelong ongoing dialogue. Things not previously apprehended about my brother fell into place.

Lindsay has told me that as early as age five, he knew that he was somehow different from most other boys. He grew up to be masculine in his demeanor, with no distinctly effeminate mannerisms. In high school he dated (though not much) and played football. It would take him many years before he admitted – even to himself – that he was gay. He preceded me by two years attending The Citadel, the Charleston military academy that was my father’s alma mater. He had an Army contract. While in graduate school, he went to a counselor and asked what he could do about his feelings of attraction to men. He received the rote -and ignorant – prescription “Find yourself a good woman and marry her.” Back in those days, homosexuality was still considered a psychiatric disorder, and many counselors believed that the cure was a good heterosexual marriage – if you really wanted to change.

I believe that Lindsay tried his best to become heterosexual, and that if he could have chosen, he would have chosen to be straight. He served in the Army, married a good woman, and fathered two children. He loved his wife in his own way, but knew he was living a lie. Sensing something amiss in their relationship, she persuaded him to join her in marital counseling. Lindsay finally confessed to the lie he was living. She was devastated, and filed for divorce soon afterward.

Lindsay called me in Beaufort, where I lived at the time, and asked me to drive up to our parents’ home, in the Charleston area. He had things to tell us. The four of us sat around the kitchen table, and he admitted to everything. He totally understood his wife’s feelings of fury and betrayal, and wouldn’t contest the terms of the divorce. We hugged one another and cried. Lindsay was afraid of our father’s judgment, but Dad came through. He allowed as how this was going to take some time to sink in, but said exactly what Lindsay needed to hear at that moment: “You’re still a man and you’re still my son, and I love you.”

Lindsay has been openly gay for decades now, and lives with his life partner. He still regrets what he put his ex-wife and kids through, saying “I found a good woman and messed up her life.” He came out in the local press  as a gay graduate of The Citadel – to my knowledge, the first ex-Citadel cadet to do so. At alumni gatherings some classmates were initially guarded, but most came around when they saw the he was the same old Lindsay they knew back then. My love for my big brother wasn’t influenced in the slightest by his revelation. I felt a little dumb for not having figured out on my own that he was gay, but he’s the same person I’ve known all my life. Now I fully understood that sexual orientation isn’t a lifestyle choice, but a part of who you fundamentally are. Homosexuality is a normal sexual variation, not a deviation.

I now recognize that I grew up in a racist, homophobic society, and that this has had consequences in my life. My father was less racist and homophobic than his own father, leaving me with less mental trash to discard. The first step in overcoming learned prejudices is to own them and examine them. Having biased beliefs about race or sexual orientation doesn’t make you a bad person, just someone with issues you need to examine and outgrow. It’s not who you love, with regard to gender or sexual orientation, that matters; it’s how you love. Being a sexually responsible but sexually active person means practicing safe sex with consensual partners who are capable of giving consent, and not using people sexually. Love is a natural sweetener, if not always a necessary ingredient.

Just as I’ve had to deal with the racist notions and memes I was exposed to in my youth, in order to understand and overcome any residual racist reflexes, I had to recognize the homophobia that still exists in our culture, in order to understand and rise above it. I take no pride in being either white or straight, because I had no choice in the matter. But – because black people have been told by so many that they’re inferior – if I were black, I’d embrace the Black Pride movement. Because of all the shaming and discrimination aimed at gay people, I fully support the Gay Pride movement as a corrective to intolerance.

Being openly gay isn’t easy when you have to deal with haters; but it’s so much better than having to live a lie. Living in the closet inevitably takes its emotional toll, and some closeted gay people end their own lives rather than coming out. Lindsay describes his own coming out as both a liberation and a “homecoming.” Gay and proud, he says he knows that there will always be homophobes, but he no longer fears them.