Why do we live a lie?
When reviewing the past in a therapeutic context it will be important for you to view your relationships and your life events realistically. We often tend to view the past from a fantasy-driven perspective in which the world is a fun-filling and flower-strewn haven in order to make us feel better about our untoward experiences in the hope of living happily ever after.
The reason for believing in a fantasy life is because, as children, we need to behold the world about us as a play-packed place – free from trouble, worry and trauma. We need to see our parents as perfect because they are the only people who will bring us up. In the interests of ensuring survival, consequently, a child will need to regard his/her parents as magical and beyond reproach. Mother Nature has designed things that way in order to ensure the survival of the whole species.
If your parents are well-meaning and caring, then all will be well for you. If not, then distress may be in store for you in adulthood. When you see the world in infancy through rose-coloured spectacles, teenage rebellion will often emerge aggressively when the scales fall from your eyes and you see your parents, carers and guardians for what they really are – small-minded, preoccupied and uncaring, for example. In later life, of course, you may tend to carry on the childhood-dependency tradition by making excuses for those family, friends and acquaintances who are actually less than somewhat. And, therefore, you remain unknowingly in an infantile state. And unhappy as a result of all this inner turmoil.
Case-study example
A client sought therapy because she felt let down by those about her. The client, for instance, felt that all her relationships had turned to dust – however hard she had tried to keep a partnership together.
The client was asked to review her childhood and, when the question was posed, she claimed that all was well. Her parents had provided for her, sheltered her and funded her university education. So what was wrong? Further investigation revealed that the client had regarded financial provision as generous but, in fact, money had actually been a substitute for affection from her parents. That is to say, the client had viewed her childhood from a logical standpoint until she realised that much of her young life had been devoid of affection.
The client now proceeded to list all those occasions when her parents had emotionally neglected her. The client sited numerous occasions when her mother had been emotionally distant and even remote. Her father, moreover, was so interested in his career that he almost forgot that he even had a daughter. The client’s parents only seemed to reprimand her when she became a nuisance but not praise her, reward her or show affection towards her when it was needed – as was her birthright. The client’s parents, in other words, had let her down but she could only acknowledge this fact after therapeutic investigation in adulthood. Bringing her past into the present for inspection under the non-judgemental therapeutic microscope meant that the client could now see her young life and its consequences maturely and realistically rather than childishly. The client could now be honest with herself and not engaged in self-deception characteristic of her inner child. The client thus began to stand on her own two feet and to carve out her own destiny free from the impediment of protecting a dream.
Help for yourself
If you would like to have an honest look at your life without the pretence of childhood idealism, then please seek the assistance of a practitioner who can help you to address your unhealthy and inhibiting tendencies. Visit the “Find a Practitioner” page of the JMHT website (www.jmhypnotraining.co.uk) in order to help yourself to overcome this imbalance.
Jacquelyne Morison
Jacquelyne Morison Hypnotherapy Training