Wait And Take

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

How good it is to be able to read!

Don't bother your mom

Don't shake your grandmother:

"Please read, read!"

No need to beg your sister:

"Well, read another page."

No need to call

No need to wait

And you can take

And read!

V. Berestov

If you take all the money in the world

and divide them equally among all, then soon they will again find themselves in the same pockets, in which they were before.

Jim Rohn

I have always been interested in this phenomenon about the relationship with money, put in the epigraph. And money is just one example of how people build their lives and get comfortable in life. And they do it in very different ways: someone who lives in a beautiful mansion overlooking the sea, and someone in a one-room apartment overlooking the trash can …

You will say that this is luck, fate, coincidence of circumstances, etc., etc. I will allow myself to disagree with you. It is obvious to me that the main reason for the different quality of life is not all of the above circumstances, but some personality traits, thanks to which this ability appears - to attract money, achieve success, realize oneself and, in general, arrange one's life for oneself.

I regularly observe this phenomenon in my psychotherapeutic practice. When working with clients, I can clearly see two of their positions in relation to life. I call these positions: Wait and Take.

Clients with the position Wait build a passive relationship with their life. They prefer to rely on others in life, expecting that someone will give them something. This position in life is fraught with inevitable disappointments: If they give it, then it is not so. If so, then it’s not that. If then, then not so much. If so much, then not when you need it. If when needed, then not that …

The list of "ifs" here can be continued indefinitely.

In addition to disappointment in such a position, there is inevitably resentment - against others who are not sensitive enough, attentive, understanding, quick-witted, empathic, caring, etc.

People with a Wait attitude tend to manipulatively build relationships with others. They designate their desires unclearly, with the expectation that the other person (if he really loves!) Must necessarily guess what, how much, how and when to give. If there are failures in this difficult quest (which is inevitable), then this is always a reason to doubt the truth of the love of a loved one.

They themselves often do not understand very well what they want, what they love, what they can. Their self-image is often diffuse and contradictory.

It is convenient to wait on one side. This means not making a choice, and what is important is not taking responsibility for it. On the other side - if you don't make a choice, then you deprive yourself of the opportunity to choose … And then you have no choice but to wait for someone to do it for you, and then there are many expectations, demands and claims to this other. And this inevitably leads to dependence on him and powerlessness in front of his own life.

Clients with the Take position build an active relationship with their life. They, as a rule, know themselves well - their desires-possibilities-abilities. They tried sometime in life to take something themselves and appreciated this opportunity. They appreciate the opportunity to choose, they know how and love to do it. They understand that no one will choose you better than you yourself. They have learned to rely on themselves and believe that responsibility is a commensurate payment for the opportunity to choose. They build creative, dialogical relationships with others and with their lives in general.

The differences between the two people described above are very important to me. They, in my opinion, clearly represent two different subjective worlds - child's world and adult world and clearly show the direction of the growing up and therapy journey as a growing up project. Often, behind the complaints, symptoms, endured by clients in therapy, I see a deeper problem - the problem of a failed growth path, a failed attempt to switch from the Wait mode to the Take mode.

How does the transformation of identity take place from the Wait position to the Take position?

This question is very difficult, and the answer to it lies in the life experience of a person, in certain conditions, in the specific relationships of his loved ones, which contribute or hinder this miraculous transformation. I will refer to some examples describing the phenomenon of this transformation.

I really like Abdula's monologue from the movie "The White Sun of the Desert". I quote him often

“Before his death, my father said:“Abdula, I lived my life as a poor man and I want God to send you an expensive robe and a beautiful harness for a horse”. I waited for a long time, and then God said: "Get on your horse and take whatever you want, if you are brave and strong."

In my opinion, this short text reflects a deep process of transformation of a person's identity from the Wait attitude to the Take attitude (in the text - take).

These are already two completely different people - two different Abduls. There is an abyss between them. One is passive, driven by fear, unable to make choices, actions, ready to only wait, the second is brave and responsible, taking what he wants himself.

Unfortunately, using this example, we cannot trace the dynamics of the transformation process of the hero's identity, those events-experiences that motivated him, accompanied and supported him. We do not know what happened during this period in Abdula's life. What events launched the process of identity transformation in him. How did he manage to do it. It remains only to fantasize.

Another example of such a transformation I found in the story of E. Hemingway "The Short Happiness of Mr. Macomber." Here is this piece of text:

But now he likes this Macomber. An eccentric, really, an eccentric. And he probably won't give himself any more instructions. The poor fellow must have been afraid all his life.

It is unknown how this started. But it's over now. He did not have time to be frightened of the buffalo. Besides, he was angry. … Now you can't hold him. … There is no more fear, as if it had been cut out. Instead, there is something new. The most important thing in a man. What makes him a man. And women feel it. There is no more fear.

Macomber's face was beaming.

“Really, something has changed in me,” he said. “I feel like a completely different person.

“You know, now I’ll probably never be afraid of anything again,” Macomber said to Wilson. “Something happened in me when we saw the buffaloes and chased them. As if the dam had broken through. Great pleasure.

Hemengway describes the transformation of the identity of the previously cowardly and dependent on his wife Mr. Macomber - the main character of the story - through the act of committing him to face his fear. He managed not to get scared while hunting for buffaloes and overcome his fear and change - to become a different person.

I agree with Hemingway. In my experience, the main obstacle preventing a person from breaking through to the “Take level” is fear. Fear that keeps from choosing something new, fear of change, fear that makes a person give up creativity - this indisputable criterion of life - and again and again "draw the old, familiar picture of oneself and the old, familiar picture of the world." Fear, usually so beautifully rationally disguised by a person with the Wait attitude under stability. But, as Professor D. Leontiev beautifully put it: “Maximum order at the cemetery. Order and stability are the main mantra of necrophilia."

How to overcome fear? How to allow yourself to be? How do you allow yourself to take what you want? All these questions are just derivatives of one main question: how to live your life. To answer it, the volume of this article will definitely not be enough. In addition, each time this question will "bump" into the specific life story of a particular person, and then the answer to this question will have to be looked for anew each time. And with each person you need to find that barrier that keeps him in the "trap of stability." This is exactly what happens in therapy.

You can only outline the main strategic lines of work. They, in my opinion, are as follows:

Deal face to face with fear. Recognize it. Honestly tell yourself, "I'm scared." I'm afraid to take risks, change something in my life, choose myself, be sincere, live the way I want … just Live! Stop hiding behind various "curtains": the idea of stability, life circumstances, responsibility for the lives of others, etc. Admit to yourself that you do not need to hide behind responsibility for others, and save them, but it's time to save yourself. Take responsibility for your life.

Sometimes a good healing condition for overcoming fear of change is the opportunity to face another much stronger fear - existential: psychological fear not to be born, fear not to live your life, fear not to live, but to live out the remaining time of life. To meet and be afraid of this, and to risk overcoming the fear of losing what you now have, and who you are now, to try to change something in your life.

To understand that everything that you so stubbornly clung to was "peel", "curtains on the windows", "screensaver on the screen." Because by losing all this, you gain your true self and your life. You acquire the ability to make your life, creatively transforming the possibilities of the world for yourself!

Love yourself and the rest will catch up!