“I don’t know why I wait till the last minute to do things I want to do.”
This is what Tessa, a 35-year-old natural birth coach told me after a series of realizations that she only acts when there is a sense of urgency – propelling her to act in the moment, even though she knew all along that she wanted and needed to take the these actions.
What are Tessa’s desires and needs?
• She wants to own her own business helping women with the preparations during pregnancy for natural childbirth.
• She wants to earn enough money to save for possible health and retirement needs in the future.
• She wants to be able to buy a house with a yard for her future children to play in.
• She wants a husband whom she could rely on to make sound financial investments so that she could feel secure even if her business took down turns.
• She wants to be to hire caregivers for her elderly parents, when the time comes.
• She wants to travel and enjoy outdoor sports in her leisure time.
Tessa’s motivation to move towards her personal and professional goals were projected out onto a screen in the back of her mind. Having them there gave her some sense of navigating the world, but didn’t energize her to make them real.
Man wearing angel wings
Why not?
Because she was constrained by internal conflicts that threatened the loss of her image as a dutiful, sacrificial person.
If she went one way towards her business goals, she’d risk losing her goal to have a dependable husband who would ensure financial stability.
How I helped my client trade guilt for pride in self-care – make her aware of her motivation coming from guilt and fear, not desire
If she behaved like the loyal, obedient slave she would achieve the sense of belonging and care she craved. She might also attain the dependability on her husband making him the financial rock.
To do that, she would have to lose the wish to be a business woman, because making her own money conflicted with wanting to depend on her husband for being the bread winner. Shifting more towards one or the other induced guilt and brought her back to the bunker mentality of inertia, riding the wave until it dissipated.
Here are the ways I helped Tessa avoid the guilt that drowned her anytime she tried to resolve the conflict.
–First, it was raising awareness of her conflicted existence that kept her trapped. Here are the main conflicts and threats that maintained the conflicts.
1. Conflict between wanting closeness/belonging versus a need to achieve her authenticity and autonomy.
Tessa’s goals were in conflict with one another. Her need to achieve autonomy by owning a business conflicted with her need to be backed up with a financially secure husband.
Any attempts towards setting up the business made her feel that she was risking the chance of making her husband the financial cushion.
2. Threat of loss regarding the ‘good, upright, dutiful’ person – for example by:
losing her reputation as a good girl who does her duty, shows gratitude and reverence by taking care of family needs before her own.
losing the love that is conditional on being the dutiful, sacrificial girl who puts her husband first, just as she did before with her parents.
Losing her sense of trustworthiness and reliability that rested on the foundation of her taking care of others before herself.
Tessa felt constrained by the weight of the threat of loss. Any attempt to free herself and look into a business proposition drowned her in guilt – feeling selfish and cold hearted. The fear of loss resurfaced and put her back in her self-imposed prison.
How I helped my client trade guilt for pride in self-care – showing her how she paralyzed herself with guilt.
Reflecting the repeated occurrences of Tessa’s attempts to avoid guilt by feeling the pressure of being the ‘good dutiful girl’ enabled her to get a sense of what was preventing her from moving on her own goals. Every time she felt guilty for thinking about her own need for doing her own thing, I pointed it out. I showed her how she made herself feel bad and compensate by making herself even more of a slave.
How I helped my client trade guilt for pride in self-care – revealing the point of urgency that saved her from guilt
Deadlines were highly energizing and motivating for Tessa. They filled her with a sense of fear that if she didn’t act immediately, she would miss the chance to invest in a solid stock and make enough to hire caretakers for her parents when needed. She was terrified that if she didn’t agree to go to a mountain retreat for a meditative contemplation when the chance arrived, she would fail as a childbirth coach.
At these moments it was a now or never urge, coming from FEAR of loss – no do overs, no second chances, no reviews, or replays. In that moment fear trumped guilt. She dumped the guilt and acted on her fear of losing time sensitive experiences, propelling her into action.
Tessa realized that fear was her motivator and that it worked because it absolved her of guilt – pushing her into actions that she wanted – making it about survival of herself and her needs, rather than about her ‘goodness and sacrificial self.’
How I helped my client trade guilt for pride in self-care – shifting from guilt and fear to an attunement of her whole self.
Tessa didn’t like knowing that fear was her main motivator. She wanted to be motivated by a more positive fuel, but had no clue how to navigate the waters from one to the other. She insisted that she felt the full range of emotions, but that she kept them to herself.
Reactive Emotions versus Organic Emotions:
Tessa assumed that all her feelings came via reactions to what was said, or done to her – her experience of others towards her.
She had no clue that she had other feelings generated within herself that had little to do with the external world – such as a longing for sunlight, music, quietness, scents etc.
For all her life, Tessa had avoided tuning into her feelings lest they become overpowering and spoil her ‘good, sacrificial’ image. She relied on the extreme emotion of fear that she couldn’t control to move her along.
So, I encouraged her to notice and attend to sensations in her body that denoted feelings, such as upset tummy, dull aches, cramps, digestion problems etc. Very slowly I helped Tessa make the link between her somatic sensations and emotions, which she began to own and alert her to what was really going on inside her. In other words, who she was – not who she thought she ought to be.
Eventually she used these in the moment emotions to alert her to her needs and choose how she wanted to satisfy them. Fear receded. Guilt faded away and Tessa used her internal signals to help her co-opt feelings to fuel her actions. She acted then because it made sense, it was fulfilling and it didn’t compromise any of her goals. She didn’t lose anything, but gained authenticity, a sense of lightness and freedom which put into perspective the strait-jacket she had encased herself in.
You might also like:
Conflicting Secret Wishes and Motives Threaten Your Marriage Big Time
Fear of Letting People Down Makes you Let Yourself Down
What’s Your Style of Caring? Do you care about, care for or care through dependency?
