There came a time in early childhood when we realised that not everything we did remained as cute as it once was, and some things even earned downright disapproval -- either tacit or overt. We began to encounter moments when certain responses from us to our perceived environment were no longer being admired by people we loved, especially our parents. And we couldn't understand why they changed toward us, but we figured it had to be that there was something "wrong" with us.
Which put us in a bind.... the threatening things and situations were not changing. The crises they triggered within were still very much there for us, but our responses were not approved of by people we not only loved nearly and dearly, but upon whose support we relied for sheer survival. So we solved that problem by suppressing our natural responses. We became "ir-response-able", in order to survive.
Which put us in an even deeper bind..... in trying to please others by suppressing ourselves, we generated an internal, emotional cocktail of despair, separation, grief, frustration, anger, jealousy (especially if we had siblings)..... all of which also had to be suppressed. We were definitely not allowed to get angry, frustrated or jealous with our parents and siblings -- how could we? We loved them! We were toting an ever-growing grab-bag of separating emotions, that we didn't feel we had a right to, and had no legitimate way of putting them where they belonged. We dealt with the pain of that, firstly by numbing ourselves to it, reducing our awareness and sensitivity; and later by taking it out on ourselves. We became accident- and illness-prone.
This growing pustule of internalised, accumulated resentment, frustration, anger, anxiety, despair, grief, etc. lies perilously close to the surface, ready to pop at the first sign of experiencing threat or offence. And when it does, we'll pay it out on any unfortunate who happens to be handy -- as long as.... 1) that person is not the real, legitimate target of our resentments and fears; and... 2) that person can't fight back and do serious damage. One of the reasons why relationships encounter difficulty is because most of us go into them without first resolving the unfinished business from our first and fundamental relationship -- the one we have with our parents. We carry over our stuff from there to taint every other relationship we'll ever have. Our poor spouse, our bosses, family members and any others we give emotional authority over us cop buckets of stuff that belong to our Mum or Dad. And they wonder what they've done wrong! (They're doing it, too, in their lives, but they don't make the connection either.)
What was once child-like, innocent, confident Being-ness became perverted years ago into self-rightness and self-importance. Self-confidence and self-awareness got lost. We mislaid our ability to respond appropriately and began reacting like emotional robots.
FROM UNDERDOG TO TOPDOG
We become what we resist.
[I vowed I would never become like my Dad. Never!.......... Well, the big difference between him and me is that I can talk and write about it. For that alone, I'm grateful to Mum]
As crises arise in our personal daily dramas, the reservoir of resentment, frustration, insecurity and hostility generated by, and accumulating from a lifetime of "irresponsible" reactions to our parents and subsequent authority figures waits, ever ready to fire us up.
In the past, though, we were always "the losers" in our tussles with our parents and rellies. Always. They were always bigger and wiser and more all-knowing than we were. In our reality, they still are, until they get so frail that we eventually feel brave enough to treat them like children. But that's the flip side of the same dynamic: we still secretly feel like "losers", towed around by our resentments of them.
But with others, it's different. Now we have grown up. Now we're bigger and older. Unless we absolutely have to, we're not going play "loser" any more; now we're going to play the apparent "winner". We switch from "underdog" mode to "topdog" mode -- the mode we learned from our parents. We become what we've always resisted. And we "do" our parents better than our parents ever did! WE become what we resist.
When an Underdog becomes a Topdog, he becomes a worse topdog than the old one ever was. That is, until we meet a bigger topdog, when we immediately flick back into resentful Underdog mode..... (Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir! [I'll get you for this!])
What's more, we think it's normal to be this way. Everyone else is doing it, too. We hardly know, or consider the possibility of any other way. We've lived so long with it, we think we NEED the anger, the self-pity, the self-importance, the frustration, the resentment and all the other stuff in order to survive! Internally and externally there always seems to be something we need to stand against, to struggle with, to go to war on, to change...
And we wonder why so many of us die of cancer! We even go to war on our cancers.
What's eating you?
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