Behavioral patterns laid into your nervous system are the essence of your life view. Until you become aware of them and their effect on your day-to-day life you cannot connect with the core of you really are. Being around your family usually will precipitate a massive resurgence of these patterns. BTW, any time you are anxious or angry you are in a patterned behavior.

As these family patterns are so familiar it is very anxiety-producing to change or even think about changing them. Your family feels the same way. All parties involved have a vested interest in having you remain unchanged – regardless of how miserable you might be. “Misery loves company” is not a joke.

Paraplegic

I had a patient who became paraplegic after spine surgery at an outside institution. He had multiple medical problems associated with his paraplegia in addition to suffering chronic pain in his back and legs. Working through the phases of the DOC project had resulted in a significant decrease in pain. Unexpectedly, his bipolar disorder of over 40 years disappeared and he was able to discontinue his medications. The key was addressing his deep anger.  The transformation was dramatic. He felt happier in a wheelchair than when he was bipolar and walking.

“I don’t want to see you”

I had been seeing him monthly for several years. We had entered the goal-setting phase of his rehab. He was interested in interacting with other wheelchair-bound people to help them cope with their disability. He purchased a laptop computer and started pursuing his dream. Then he called my assistant and told us that he was not going to be seeing me anymore. My first response was to wonder what I had done to upset him. He had truly been an inspirational person. I gave him a call to ask why he no longer wanted to see me.

Thanksgiving

What happened was that his family from the East joined him for Thanksgiving. Instead of being excited and supportive of his transformation, they destroyed him. They told him that there was no use in reaching out to other paraplegics. They also bluntly reminded him that he had been diagnosed with a bipolar disorder since he was 12 years old and that the disorder is incurable. Finally, the family instructed him to stop seeing me.

The family environment that contributed to him becoming bipolar was now focused on keeping him that way. His deep changes were upsetting to his family because there was a major redefinition of roles taking place. He had been the sick one. If he could create this depth of insight and healing, why couldn’t they do the same? When he was in his own familiar patterns, which were based on anger, he could not see his anger or theirs. He saw it as clear as day. He had not been chronically angry for over a year and was moving forward quickly. To now see the people you love live in anger was extremely distressing.

Family Patterns

Family patterns are passed down from generation to generation.  From birth to age 12, your family environment is “downloaded” into your brain. It is your database for the rest of your life and also your frame of reference. What are your patterns?  Are you being held back by your own patterns that you cannot recognize?  Are you unconsciously making sure that the people close to you maintain a certain familiarity, even though it may be destructive?  Do you have control issues?  Do you feel controlled?  (For more on this, you might want to check out My Interpretation of Hoffman.)

Wake up. Your life will not improve until you become aware of your behavioral patterns and the impact they have on those around you.  If you are chronically angry, you cannot see anything clearly.

I had a great discussion with him and he continued to see me for about six months. The phase of breaking free of his family patterns was challenging. In order to break free, he had to first recognize that he was trapped. He was undertaking a significant step, one that I’ve talked about before in “ Anger: The Continental Divide.”

Personally, I had never understood how strongly these family patterns could hold you down.  I thought his family would have been ecstatic. He was happy for the first time in his life. His family was not. The crab bucket

Back into the abyss

I am rewriting this story after about a year. For about six months his mood and pain were great and rehab was moving forward. The anger returned for reasons that are unclear. He was never completely the same after that Thanksgiving holiday. He did quit seeing me, his anger consumed him. His pain returned and his mood turned black. I don’t know all of the issues that pulled him back into the abyss but his family was a significant part of of it.

What effect is your family having on your journey? Are they your cheerleaders – or not?

Pain Rules the Roost

NH, BF

The post Breaking Loose – Not Quite first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Breaking Loose – Not Quite appeared first on Back in Control.

The initial download to your brain

There are many theories about how an infant and child acquire knowledge.  My thoughts are that your brain is an empty slate that is downloaded from the environment. During your first couple of years of life, you have no say in what is put into your nervous system. Around the time your consciousness emerges around three years of age, you have little awareness or skills to deal with the automatic responses to your environment. The term I learned from the Hoffman Process was “patterns.”  Anytime you are anxious or upset you are in a pattern because something in the present connected to something upsetting from the past. Until you become aware of your patterns programmed in by your family, you are at the mercy of them

These patterns play out as you move out into the world. You either adopt a given pattern or you reject it. The problem is that either way you are a reflection of your parent’s patterns and they are not you. You are not living connected to who you are – “your authentic self.”

Passing on of patterns

If one or both of your parents are disabled you might rebel and become a super-achiever or become disabled yourself. Either way you are not running the show. Your family patterns are. Of course your parents had similar experiences with their parents and so on. Until you become aware of the impact of your family’s programming on your nervous system you cannot live your life on your terms.

Did you graduate from high school with your dream to become disabled??

I am aware that the vast majority of people on disability hate being on it. You are under the control of a person (claims examiner) or system that is depersonalized and unresponsive. In addition to the frustration of being in pain you have also lost control of your life. However, the deep, familiar family patterning of being disabled may be an even stronger force.

Breaking Loose?

Additionally, if you decide to break loose (and it is doable), often some or all of your family will not let you. I used to think that family members would be ecstatic to watch a sibling or offspring become pain free. Many of them are, but many are not. First of all, you are challenging their paradigm of who you are. This is particularly true if you are dependent on that sibling or parent. You are challenging their role as a “caretaker”.  Second, as you get better it calls them out. You are doing and have done it – getting better. What about them? Why are they not pursuing the same path?

Triggers

Another huge problem is that your family is the deepest source of your “negative “triggers”. It was in this environment that your negative patterns were created and it is not possible to be around your family without these being set off on a regular basis. The eventual goal of the somatic work with the DOC project is to “de-engergize” them, but initially you often need to put distance between you and your family. Eventually you will be able to enjoy your family at a much deeper level.

The holidays

I was reminded of this problem in a very profound manner a couple of years ago. I had worked with a severely disabled gentleman who had a marked decrease in pain and improvement in his quality of life as he worked with the DOC project. Every holiday was a disaster as his family overtly reminded him that he was “not normal” nor ever would be. Finally about a year ago he caved in and descended back into his familiar anger patterns. His life is now more miserable than ever.

The crab bucket

I ran across a metaphor I am sharing with you from Wikipedia. Crab fishermen never need to put a lid on the bucket of crabs they have trapped. As soon as one tries to escape several other crabs will grab onto it and pull it back into the bucket.

Why be successful?

There have been multiple surveys showing that if a given person is successful that few others are truly happy for their victories. They become jealous and backbiting. How often are you excited by another person’s success, especially if they are a close friend? Why do we instinctively jump to the thought, “Why not me?” From elementary school on, being different or unique, either in a positive or negative way, is grounds for being bullied. Wouldn’t it be much more enjoyable and interesting to celebrate differences?

Breaking loose from your family and its patterns is one of the biggest obstacles on your road to a fulfilling and pain free life. What is your role in preventing others close to you from being successful?

The post Escaping Your Family – The Crab Bucket first appeared on Back in Control.

The post Escaping Your Family – The Crab Bucket appeared first on Back in Control.