| Change 6 | |
| "Dear Dr-Rick,
I never feel excitement. Sometimes I
"act" excited, just so people don't think I'm odd, but
inside, I feel little. I really dislike this about myself
and I think it restricts me from feeling the good in my life.
Comments would be most appreciated.....Thanks."
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Fear of Enjoyment: The Big Fist Theory |
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Hi,
I think you have a really good point. As a
result of painful disappointments in childhood, many people
decide to not get excited in order to diminish the pain when things
don't work. The benefit is less disappointment, but the
cost is as you noted. I think it is worth learning to choose
to feel more of all feelings, the positive and negative, once we are
adults and have more choices about where and how we live.
A variation of this is the 'big fist theory,' which
is that we will suffer exactly because we first feel good, as if one
causes the other. It's kind of like our memories of
"getting in trouble." Imagine a child who does
something natural for a child to do, but is then punished. Or
perhaps a lot of things went wrong, and it started to seem as if it
were inevitable. Of course this is not true. Really,
pleasant times and painful events usually
alternate in life. This happens no matter what
we do. Fortunately, we can have significant influence on
the proportions of each by our efforts, and sometimes we can't.
Either way, we will get the whole show. Enjoyment and pain
will alternate, and we do not cause the pain purely by virtue of
enjoying the pleasurable times. If we give up on joy because
we will eventually cry again, we are offering to pain much more than
it can take from us on its own. Again, I think it is worth it
to learn to stay open to both the heartaches and the joys.
One way to change from the "big fist theory" is to reconsider the purpose of pain. We often think of pain as a punishment that makes us losers. Again, this may be exactly what we were taught as kids, as in "I'll teach you a lesson." Well, maybe it was the wrong lesson. Psychological pain is like physical pain -- it makes us move. So, every time we hurt, we are not punished (in the parent-child sense) as much as motivated. Think of the word "e-motion," which conveys the point. You could call it "emotivation."
In my work, I continually rely on painful experience.
Few of us are inspired to make changes until we are uncomfortable. I
find myself frequently suggesting that "Comfortable equals
stuck." Accordingly, one expression goes,
"When the pain of where I am exceeds the fear of where I'm
going, then I'll move." This fits my daily experience,
how about yours?
Thanks for writing,
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| -- Dr-Rick Blum | |
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