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  It was worse for my brother, because he was a boy, and so my dad more closely identified with him. He was constantly berating him, telling him he would never amount to anything, that he was Peter Pan and would never grow up to become a man. The toll it has taken on my brother’s self-worth is devastating. But slowly I’m helping him understand that the things our dad did to him weren’t really about him at all—they were reflections of how our dad felt about himself.

  We’re all mirrors that way, projecting and seeing the things we don’t like in ourselves onto other people, then blaming them or attacking them for it. If you don’t like feeling needy, you will particularly hate neediness in other people because it triggers your feelings of vulnerability.

  Now you might think, I am not needy, and that’s why I dislike it in others. I never cry. I’m John F’ing Wayne. I take care of myself and so should everyone else. But if you pay attention, you will see that what you defend against so vehemently is the issue you are struggling with personally. You are so afraid of your own feelings of neediness that you bury them, repress them, and silence them—and then they creep out as projections onto other people. If you weren’t uncomfortable with feelings of neediness, you wouldn’t care when they express themselves in other people.

  As I hope you realize, the pattern isn’t about being needy only. It’s about any issue that triggers your insecurity and that you defend against. It’s because you identify with a feeling on some level, and seeing it in other people triggers your negative reaction. This rule applies to everyone! I guarantee it. And the only way you can stop the cycle is to become aware of your issues so you don’t project them onto other people.

  Conversely, understanding that the same pattern applies to the people who have hurt you can bring peace. Whatever happened to you was really about their issues, insecurities, life experiences, or lack thereof, not your shortcomings or deficiencies. If you don’t come to terms with your issues, then you are doomed to repeat them. As my mom says, the issues get handed down from generation to generation.

  My father was the youngest of three sons. He claims to have been nonexistent in his family, feeling that his parents negated and neglected him. They thought he was a “throwaway,” he told me, and they focused all their attention on their older sons and their daughter, the baby of the family. My dad was determined to prove his parents wrong and ultimately became a very rich man. His inner feelings of insecurity and worthlessness, however, never went away, because he never worked on them. Then when my brother was born, my father projected all those unresolved issues onto him. If my brother doesn’t come to terms with these feelings and resolve them within himself, he will most likely repeat this pattern with his son, and so on and so on.

  It’s up to you to break the cycle, for your sake and that of your loved ones.

  In some cases, we have to come to terms with the fact that we may be more evolved than our parents. I know, it feels slightly unnatural—they’re supposed to be the adults, they’re supposed to have all the answers, know all the pitfalls, be beyond all the mistakes. But most often they aren’t. Think of it like this. Imagine we are all computer operating systems. Sometimes your parents are Windows 95, and their parents were Commodore 64, but you’re OS X. And your kids will likely be something even newer, even better, something nanotechnological. Every generation builds upon the knowledge of the last, so it’s actually natural for us to end up more evolved than our parents, as painful as it might be to realize it.

  There are, of course, exceptions—my mom is one of them. But a lot of people I know end up as the adults in their relationships with their parents; although this scenario can be tough to take, once you accept it, it can also bring healing.

  Most of our issues stem from childhood, but if you are holding on to feelings of being wronged by something that happened more recently, you must open your heart and chart the territory that needs to be covered for forgiveness to occur at a transformational level. When you are truly able to gain an understanding of the person or people who wronged you, then you will stop internalizing their demons and letting their issues destroy your self-esteem and self-worth. Know that a life filled with compassion is a life filled with peace and power, and that will benefit both your physical and your physiological health.

  So this all sounds very Zen, right? Understand, forgive, be compassionate, blah blah … But how? Where to start? Forgiving can be so difficult, especially if the hurtful events you endured were ongoing and traumatic. For this reason, forgiveness will probably not come overnight. It will take time and patience.

  COMMIT TO HEALING

  Begin the process by making a commitment to heal; that is key. You do it by recognizing how pain and anger are sabotaging your happiness. Do your emotions keep you from being open with your loved ones? Do they drain you of valuable energy you need to focus at work? Do they create havoc for your physical health? Do they distract you from being productive?

  Now stop for a moment and think about all the benefits that would come from forgiveness. Imagine how it would free you energetically and emotionally to pursue your dreams. Imagine how your relationships would improve. Imagine how your performance would be elevated at work. And so on.

  Next, move on to understanding: not yourself this time, but the people who have wronged you.

  Whether it’s a parent, a significant other, a nasty professor, a jerk boss, or whoever, start by trying to comprehend who they are. Then investigate and inquire as to why they are that way. For example, my dad was angry, bitter, and critical. When I looked back into his past, and examined the dynamic he had with his own parents, I was able to see where these patterns came from.

  A contestant of mine was struggling with critical, judgmental parents. For years she believed that she was a “curse” and a disappointment to her family. When we took the time to look back at her parents’ lives and their childhoods, she was able to recognize that her parents came up in a very traditional, strict Chinese household. Her parents had never experienced much warmth or physical affection when they were growing up, so they had no point of reference or inclination of how to be affectionate and loving with their kids. By leaving China to come to the States, they had angered and disappointed their parents (my contestant’s grandparents). Her parents felt guilty for not living up to expectations. Then when they had children of their own, they projected those feelings of disappointment onto my sweet contestant; they would constantly berate her for not being “good enough,” because inside they didn’t feel good enough themselves.

  WORKING IT OUT

  WRITE IT DOWN

  Your first exercise is to write down all the attributes that upset you about the person you are trying to forgive. It could be greed, selfishness, cruelty—you name it. Fire away.

  KNOW YOUR HISTORY

  Next, begin looking into this person’s background. Examine how, where, when, and why these qualities might have developed in them. The greatest sociopaths of our time, from Hitler to Saddam, had horrific childhoods that molded them into the monsters they became. I’m not suggesting the person who hurt you is a genocidal maniac; I’m simply saying that behavior, good or bad, extreme or subtle, has an origin. You can argue nature-versus-nurture all day long, but the bottom line is that a person’s dormant ability to do harm will most often stay dormant unless catalyzing life events trigger it. So get your detective cap on, and research the background of your “offender.”

  But suppose you don’t have access to background information on this person. Let’s say it’s a boss, a teacher, or a new beau, and you don’t think they would be open to a line of questioning (joking—sort of), and short of hiring a private investigator, you probably won’t know much about why they are the way they are. In this situation, your best bet is to look at the present state of their lives and relationships to see if there is a behavior pattern of poor treatment of others besides you.

  For example, a friend of mine was dating this guy who was austere and shut down. She was convinc
ed that if she could be pretty enough, smart enough, and funny enough, she could open him up and make him warm and considerate. We didn’t know anything about his childhood, so we could look at only who he was today. We analyzed his professional relationships and his other personal relationships. We realized that he was austere and shut down with everyone in his life, not just my friend. He had a young son from a previous marriage who was struggling to connect with him. He was not close to his mother and often spoke of her negatively, in a belittling manner. While he was razor sharp in his profession and terribly successful, the line of work he had chosen required one to be “nonemotional” and fastidious. By analyzing his emotional dynamic in multiple areas of his life, my friend realized that his lack of emotion had nothing to do with her and everything to do with him. He was cold with everyone. Knowing that it wasn’t her shortcomings that made him distant gave my friend peace of mind.

  It’s your turn.

  Take a look at the present circumstance of the person who hurt your feelings. Do they hurt others in the same way? Is the crappy teacher crappy with other students? Other female students? Other male students? Has the cold boyfriend been cold with other women? Is the nasty boss an ass to other employees? Is there a pattern in their upsetting behavior? Again, the point is to understand the other person and their issues so you don’t internalize them and make them your own. (Chapter 6 is about understanding WHY you allowed yourself to fall into this pattern with an abusive person to begin with and how to change it so it doesn’t keep happening in your future.)

  DON’T TAKE IT PERSONALLY

  Now that you understand the person who hurt you, and hopefully why they hurt you, you can cast off their issues and not take them on as your own. This is a huge step forward.

  From understanding you must start to build compassion, as only through compassion can you find forgiveness. The literal meaning of compassion is concern and empathy for the sufferings or misfortunes of others. So that is what you are going to do.

  I want you to imagine yourself as the person who hurt you. See yourself walking in their shoes, living their life, feeling their feelings. This will allow you to recognize that the person who harmed you is more than just the person who harmed you. They are a full-fledged human being with feelings of their own, and their actions that harmed you came from their own confusion, hurt, and powerlessness.

  This exercise allows you to feel sadness for their misfortunes and to see your offender not as evil but as misguided and lost. With this empathy, you’re more inclined to find forgiveness and stop feeling angry and resentful.

  FORGIVING THE UNFORGIVABLE

  It is hard and painful to learn to forgive, but the only way out of the fire is through it; no matter what was done to you, no matter how terrible, you need to do this work to reclaim your power and your life.

  There are varying degrees of forgiveness. Forgiving your dad for not showing up at your soccer games is a whole different animal from forgiving a rapist or a child molester. I know. I’m not saying that I would be able to forgive a rapist, but I will put a question to you: what other option have you got?

  You can let yourself become consumed with anger and desire for revenge and eventually become a monster. You can internalize those feelings and become a permanent victim of life. Or you can let go, learn from the experience, and move on, wiser and stronger, with empathy and compassion that will improve your life and touch the hearts of many others. The hard truth remains the same: the only way to move forward is through forgiveness.

  The wisdom you’ll gain from understanding and forgiving brings new responsibility—the responsibility to acknowledge the poor choices you have made and to choose differently. Choose life. Which leads us, conveniently, to our next topic: taking responsibility.

  WHO’S THE BOSS?

  BEING ACCOUNTABLE

  Okay, so you have achieved awareness of the issues that lead you to sabotage yourself in the same repetitive, self-destructive ways. You’ve identified the roots of these issues and cast off the shackles of self-loathing through understanding and forgiveness. Now it’s time to take the final empowering step: evaluating the choices you’ve made in response to your hardships and asking yourself how they’ve brought about your current status. Stop blaming anyone or anything for your situation or your problems. When you blame others, you are essentially saying that you are powerless over your own life, which, I’m sorry, is bullshit. You are not a victim of life but a participant in it, and you have to accept full responsibility for your life—the good, the bad, and yes, the ugly—in order to regain control.

  Responsibility isn’t about blame. There’s a big difference between blaming yourself and taking responsibility for your choices, your mistakes, and your present reality. Blame is useless and serves only as a way for you to beat yourself up and wallow in negative feelings. Taking responsibility is about empowerment, acknowledging your capability to change things, and moving on from your current situation to something better.

  You may be thinking, But life really has dealt me a bad hand. It’s really not my fault that my life sucks. Just hold on a second. I’m not saying taking responsibility means controlling all the things life throws at you—none of us can do that. And there are times when we are victimized. Allowing yourself to accept that reality frees you to release any guilt or shame you might be carrying for tragedies and hardships that befell you in the past.

  There comes a time in adulthood, however, when you need to take responsibility for how you allow these tragedies to affect you and for how they form you. You can control your reactions to life’s less-than-perfect moments to affect an outcome that is favorable to you. This goes for situations, circumstances, people, and things.

  Something horrible may have happened to you, but you always have a choice in how you respond to it. You have the “Why does bad stuff always happen to me? I’m never going to find happiness” option, and the “This sucks but I’m going to learn and evolve from it, examine what role I played in it, and ultimately it will help me become the person I’m supposed to be” option. Guess which one you’re going to choose from now on?

  Once you become conscious of and take responsibility for how your choices have led you to where you are right now, you can bring a new consciousness to the choices you make going forward. You can choose life, love, and happiness over anger, pain, and sadness. Just as important, you can choose power, focus, and success over helplessness, self-obstruction, and failure. It’s up to you whether you let that bad relationship keep you single forever. It’s up to you whether to let someone’s criticism damage your self-esteem and keep you from piping up with an idea you believe in. It’s up to you whether you sit home and worry about being out of work, or whether you take proactive steps to find a new job, or even a new career path, and change your situation. I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

  What Choice Did She Have?

  Shay is a girl I had the amazing good fortune to work with recently. She grew up on the streets, literally. Her mother was a heroin addict who shot up in front of her all the time. She would lock Shay in a closet while she turned tricks to support her habit. Sooner or later Shay landed in the foster care system and was in and out of one home after another, completely powerless over where she ended up or who took care of her. By the time I met her, in her late twenties, she weighed 476 pounds. Her past had crushed her to the point that she was literally committing slow suicide by eating herself into an early grave.

  Now, there is no question here—Shay was a victim. Growing up, she was subjected to just about the worst that any child can experience. Her sick mother exposed her to horrible dangers and couldn’t give her the basic love and care that every child deserves and needs. She was the victim of an archaic and bureaucratic foster care system. As a kid, she had no power to control or change her situation. She was definitely a victim of circumstances, and her life was pure hell.

  But even someone like Shay, who is haunted by a childhood full of pain and fear,
now, as an adult, has to recognize her role in getting to where she is now. She has to accept that it was her choice to use food to abuse herself the way she was abused as a child. Are her actions understandable? Hell, yes. But can we change them through awareness, forgiveness, and self-empowerment? HELL, YES.

  See, the flip side of realizing that you’ve made bad choices is understanding your power to make good choices. By taking responsibility for letting herself reach 476 pounds, Shay has been able to get herself down to 250 pounds. She finally understands that she has the power now. She has the choice to become a permanent victim of her horrendous childhood, living out those patterns of abuse and neglect until she kills herself, or to open her heart to the process of grieving, move through all that pain, and gain strength from forgiving those old wounds. She can move on and build her life on her own terms.

  No one could possibly leave a past like that totally behind; it’s just not that simple. But by taking responsibility for her current situation, Shay is able to see she has the choice to build something positive now, even on such a painful foundation. She has lost more than 200 pounds and is healthy, living happily in California with her husband and thriving at working with children, a job she loves.

  THE PERFECT STORM