In continuing the conversation about identifying causes of chronic internal anxiety....
Our patterns of adult relationships are deeply embeded in the way we are reared as children. In working with my therapist on identifying sources of anxiety within the context of primary family relationships we have found how this rang true with me. No big surprise. Everyone has this AHA moment about their family at some point in time. Some have a rude awakening and some have a so so I-dont-really-care attitude. After years of less than optimal interpersonal relationships my therapist and I are making a significant breakthrough in this area. We identified ways in which one of the most significant relationship in my life (which is with my mother) was a blue print for my interaction with others in my life. Well one would say "Oh so what's new and exciting about that" - well what is truly exciting about that is when you actually catch yourself with your pants down, so to say, acting within the scope of that first primary relationship. Many people are able to breakout of that protectice shell, but some like me find it to be a struggle at times. In my relationship with my mother - Love meant Complete Absorption and Complete Enmeshment. Anything else was in my viewed experienced as distant and rejecting. It was this way or not way .... Hence one falls short of developing true adult emotional self-sufficiency and tends to keeping viewing relationships as extentions of oneself. I feel my mother viewed me as an extention of herself. It felt protective and secure, but I could see where it was limiting as well. Keeping this blue print in mind, it is a very ego-centric view of the world and your self. So when other relationships such as the one with your spouse sometimes resists over-merging, over-enmeshment, and absorption - they sometimes present themselves as unfamilar, hostile and as a result are mis-read as rejecting. This is an area of anxiety that I feel I identified recently. Evidently therapy fees were well worth it today.
My first response to feeling like I finally understood some deep seated patterns of thinking an behavior, was anger. It went on for a few months, I realized the unhealthy ways of being and thinking about how they had affected me over the years. A part of me is still angry. My mother tends to view assertion of personal boundaries as rejection and it is frustrating in a way as boundaries are basically the framework that all adult relationships must adhere to.
This conversation touches on Attachment Theory in the multicultural context. It is a bit ironic as I worked on Attachment Theory as my research topic in my gradschool days and infact even co-wrote a journal article on it. Yeah I know hard to believe - as I feel I knew nothing about it then. Let me just say this clearly - I knew jack shit about attachment up until now ! When you develop a strong self-awareness of where you come from, why you do what you do, and why certain patterns in your life keep repeating themselves - you realize how much you need to work on yourself. This is true education as far as I am concerned. Development of emotional intelligency (or the EQ). Books and degrees mean little in comparison and only give you a sense of accomplishment that moves you forward commercially.
Now lets suppose I would take this information relay it back to my mother and tell her - "look mom we need to talk about this" - she would probably look at me like I was losing my mind ! I do need to remember that in eastern cultures inter-dependency is valued. In my family dependency was valued and infact enabled. So I feel if I said anything about trying to increase their insight about this pattern of upbringing will fall on deaf ears. Infact it will backfire terrible. I will be branded as ungrateful and "too alien and westernized".
So with that understanding - moving forward the effort to strike healthy adult relationships will be done more mindfully and with the awareness of how adult attachment patterns are influences by childhood attachment styles. Developing your own internalized understanding of how you want to navigate this world with new rather uncomfortable insights is upto you. We can either chose to hold onto the anger or let it go in a way that creates more compassion within ourselves.
I do want to stress on one point - with all the above being said - one must never forget Lao Tsu's spirit. Everything is what it is and nothing is truly right or wrong. People do the best they can and we just have to be grateful that they love us. With that being said - my mother is truly a remarkable woman who basically dedicated a large part of herself and her heart in raising me and making me capable and independent enough to even embark on a path of independence and self-discovery. So for that needless to say I am ever so grateful and blessed.
On that note - off to cooking dinner for my sweetheart in the spirit of mindfulness, gratitude, nurturance, and love.
Our patterns of adult relationships are deeply embeded in the way we are reared as children. In working with my therapist on identifying sources of anxiety within the context of primary family relationships we have found how this rang true with me. No big surprise. Everyone has this AHA moment about their family at some point in time. Some have a rude awakening and some have a so so I-dont-really-care attitude. After years of less than optimal interpersonal relationships my therapist and I are making a significant breakthrough in this area. We identified ways in which one of the most significant relationship in my life (which is with my mother) was a blue print for my interaction with others in my life. Well one would say "Oh so what's new and exciting about that" - well what is truly exciting about that is when you actually catch yourself with your pants down, so to say, acting within the scope of that first primary relationship. Many people are able to breakout of that protectice shell, but some like me find it to be a struggle at times. In my relationship with my mother - Love meant Complete Absorption and Complete Enmeshment. Anything else was in my viewed experienced as distant and rejecting. It was this way or not way .... Hence one falls short of developing true adult emotional self-sufficiency and tends to keeping viewing relationships as extentions of oneself. I feel my mother viewed me as an extention of herself. It felt protective and secure, but I could see where it was limiting as well. Keeping this blue print in mind, it is a very ego-centric view of the world and your self. So when other relationships such as the one with your spouse sometimes resists over-merging, over-enmeshment, and absorption - they sometimes present themselves as unfamilar, hostile and as a result are mis-read as rejecting. This is an area of anxiety that I feel I identified recently. Evidently therapy fees were well worth it today.
My first response to feeling like I finally understood some deep seated patterns of thinking an behavior, was anger. It went on for a few months, I realized the unhealthy ways of being and thinking about how they had affected me over the years. A part of me is still angry. My mother tends to view assertion of personal boundaries as rejection and it is frustrating in a way as boundaries are basically the framework that all adult relationships must adhere to.
This conversation touches on Attachment Theory in the multicultural context. It is a bit ironic as I worked on Attachment Theory as my research topic in my gradschool days and infact even co-wrote a journal article on it. Yeah I know hard to believe - as I feel I knew nothing about it then. Let me just say this clearly - I knew jack shit about attachment up until now ! When you develop a strong self-awareness of where you come from, why you do what you do, and why certain patterns in your life keep repeating themselves - you realize how much you need to work on yourself. This is true education as far as I am concerned. Development of emotional intelligency (or the EQ). Books and degrees mean little in comparison and only give you a sense of accomplishment that moves you forward commercially.
Now lets suppose I would take this information relay it back to my mother and tell her - "look mom we need to talk about this" - she would probably look at me like I was losing my mind ! I do need to remember that in eastern cultures inter-dependency is valued. In my family dependency was valued and infact enabled. So I feel if I said anything about trying to increase their insight about this pattern of upbringing will fall on deaf ears. Infact it will backfire terrible. I will be branded as ungrateful and "too alien and westernized".
So with that understanding - moving forward the effort to strike healthy adult relationships will be done more mindfully and with the awareness of how adult attachment patterns are influences by childhood attachment styles. Developing your own internalized understanding of how you want to navigate this world with new rather uncomfortable insights is upto you. We can either chose to hold onto the anger or let it go in a way that creates more compassion within ourselves.
I do want to stress on one point - with all the above being said - one must never forget Lao Tsu's spirit. Everything is what it is and nothing is truly right or wrong. People do the best they can and we just have to be grateful that they love us. With that being said - my mother is truly a remarkable woman who basically dedicated a large part of herself and her heart in raising me and making me capable and independent enough to even embark on a path of independence and self-discovery. So for that needless to say I am ever so grateful and blessed.
On that note - off to cooking dinner for my sweetheart in the spirit of mindfulness, gratitude, nurturance, and love.
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