The Life Scenarios We Choose

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

Who is writing the script for your life? Who decided how many children you will have and when will you get married? Where is this book of destinies? Who, with one stroke of the pen, doomed you to suffer alone or live with an unloved husband, rush from divorce to divorce or hunchback for a penny, saving the suffering?

Is there really this person who prescribed everything and even is - where?

Do not believe it, citizens - there is.

You have personally recorded from mudflows to mudflows. And even in what place will you cry and how exactly to purse your lips and what to say to your husband when he will stay late at work and on what grounds will you choose this very husband.

They wrote it down word for word when they stood in the wet sliders in the crib and watched dad say something to mom, and she turned away resentfully and lifted her chin up so that the tears that had come would remain in her eyes. But all the same, two treacherous rivulets flowed down my cheeks. And so mom wipes them with her sleeve and turns to the window, meeting your eyes on the way. “Remember, daughter. Guys are bastards. They will never understand us. They will not appreciate it. So just be patient. And she did not say anything at that moment. Even if she did, you would not understand a word. But she conveyed all her pain and conveyed the essence.

Or here - mom is making up, laughing, spinning around the room in new demi-season boots - beauty and only - you can drive with your girlfriends to dances. Grandfather came in. “Where are you going? You have children - do you have dances on your mind ?!” And my mother's doomed sigh and a repentant look. “Remember, daughter, with the advent of children, life ends. If you are a mother, then you automatically cease to be beautiful and desirable."

Night. Mom washes. In the yard he rinses the clothes and hangs them up, propping up the rope with a long spear. Dad is sleeping. Everyone is asleep. Mom came home from work, cooked, washed the floors, only the night was left to do the laundry. Outside the window, you can hear the booming sound of water gathering in a basin and a splash - one-two-three-stop-one-two-three-stop-one-two-three-spin. Shake and hang. “The female part is to work tirelessly. Everyone can rest, a man can sleep, and a woman has to wash, wash and cook. And tomorrow morning, run to work again."

But she, too, was little, our mother. And she received her lessons of fate. How my grandmother treated my grandfather. As she believed that he was "not her mind." And you need to marry just such a kind, but more stupid than you. Since it is already clear how to live with such.

“A man should … A woman should … A real mother … A good daughter … An intelligent girl … A well-bred child …"

How to live, whom to love. What is possible, what is not. Everything is written down and passed on in complete safety by inheritance from mother to daughter, from father to son

And we choose for ourselves a “half” that suits us according to our life scenario. Just the way it is necessary to suffer like a mother and live like a grandmother. Otherwise - how else? Do you know how?

Each of us has his own set of beliefs - in the form of a mythical Talmud - a set of rules, life principles - how to live. Carefully in a canvas rag, it is passed down from generation to generation to women through the female line, to men through the male. This Talmud in “digitalized” form is absorbed by us with mother's milk and passed on by us to our children. "Learn, girl, this is how you have to live." "Look, son, here it is a man's share."

And few of us in our lives think - why is this? Why do I choose just such men? Why am I building my life this way? Why is everything simple for some - both money and victories, but I need to suffer and search for myself all my life. Who gave me this directive?

Nobody gave it. They took it themselves. What happened was taken.

But if in the post-war years it was important for a grandmother to raise children, to hold on to a peasant with both hands and deny yourself everything, then you seem to have no need …

But the program is spelled out.

And the first step is to understand - what actually passed on to you by inheritance.

I will give an example of three life scenarios, perhaps among them, you will recognize yours

⦁ 1. The ideal family. "Everything must be perfect." It is important "what the neighbors say." A family raising medalists and perfectionists.

In any case, "save face". At the same time, it is impossible for someone to guess how hard all this is given. “So that everything is like people’s”, “so that it is not worse than others.”

High level of showiness and work for the public. “We have a good family. We just adore each other. We are the perfect couple. We have wonderful children.”

"Shushi-pusi-lapatusi, kitty, dear.."

Conflicts are smoothed out in order to preserve the appearance of a "wonderful family".

The price of this scenario: the constant need to keep the brand, meet other people's expectations, pushing personal interests and personal needs, endless lies to oneself and others.

Devouring yourself from within by the “inner critic”. Whatever I do, everything is bad, there is always something to dig into, always “not good enough”.

As a consequence, the development of addictions and psychosomatic diseases. Where do you need to merge the whole gamut of feelings that is kept inside behind the mask of correctness and well-being?

Questions to yourself:

If you recognize in this scenario a family in which you were brought up in childhood and according to whose attitudes you unconsciously began to build your life, then you can ask yourself a couple of questions to understand and see the whole picture:

“Why was it necessary to constantly prove your“worthiness”?

What was so shameful that it was necessary to hide? What did the grandmother, great-grandmother or mother try to “wash away” from? Why is the recognition and respect of society so important to you personally now?

Very rarely we remember the whole context, only echoes, fragments of memories and a feeling … “It seems that they were always afraid of something … They tried to hide something … We were somehow inferior, not like that. We had to prove that we are worthy, that we are like everyone else."

2. Alienated, disunited family

Where two people live their own lives. "My husband is a closed book for me." "I never understood him."

Each of the spouses, deep down, believes that they are doing the other a great favor by being with him. And this other should be very grateful that in spite of everything, he is still around and, in general, agreed to this marriage.

The spouses have a lot to each other. And an impressive list of grievances and deeply rooted grievances.

Two people are like two ships, each of which sails its own course and develops in its own direction, and by and large, lives its own life.

Conflicts are not allowed, so as not to kill each other, claims and grievances are hushed up. "He must understand everything himself."

It seems to people that they live together for the sake of children or for some other global goals. In fact, they just don't know how to do it differently.

In their understanding, it is he who should be different, and then I can be happy. All their thoughts in the relationship are directed at how he should change so that I can be satisfied.

After all, it was he who had so many flaws, and I, out of my stupidity, nobility, or a sense of duty, agreed to live with him. And these thoughts are directed to each other from both sides.

Initially, the marriage is perceived as unequal, and the partner as unworthy. And I am like one who descended to him.

People avoid closeness and openness. Being honest is very vulnerable. In this case, you will need to turn your attention to yourself for the first time and substitute yourself under the attacks of your partner. And this is very uncomfortable. There is a lot of shame and personal pain there. The deep pain of a wounded child. And pain from unjustified expectations, disappointment about unfulfilled hopes and wasted time.

The best strategy that partners choose is care and avoidance.

Care for children, for work, for hobbies.

Avoidance of intimacy, conversation, the need to stir something up and decide something. At times, they just let off steam, which does not lead to anything. People never reach the depths, then everyone hides in their own burrow out of grievances and personal affairs.

The price of this scenario: life with a stranger. With someone who does not understand you, but you do not understand him. You can live in such a relationship for 20 and 40 years.

In coldness, misunderstanding and resentment. People try to escape into obsessive hobbies and addictions. And since it is impossible to satisfy their needs openly, they often choose the psychosomatic way of solving problems.

Questions to yourself: If you recognized your parental family in this description and your relationship is now also similar, then you have already taken the first step - you are thinking. We looked at the completely familiar to you and the ordinary from the other side. So there is a chance to get out of alienation.

3. A cruel, closed family. The family is behind a high fence. A man usually drinks in such families.

Often in such a family, the roles are distributed as follows:

The husband is the “aggressor” - the sadist, the wife is the “victim” and the eldest child is the “rescuer”.

But it may be different, depending on who is the boss. A sadistic grandmother can also be an aggressor. To our deep regret, one has to realize that a girl who grew up in such a family, as in the previous scenarios, simulates the same system in her life, becoming a “victim-rescuer”.

If in the previous scenarios, aggression pushes and is often considered unacceptable in a relationship, then in this case it manifests itself with all its power and rage.

The family finds both external enemies and internal ones. It exists in some kind of endlessly hostile world where it is necessary to survive at any cost. “There are freaks and goats all around! “There are those who are guilty of all mortal sins. They can be “Ukrainians”, “Russians”, Chuchmeks, “chocks”, “amirikosy”, “pido..y”, “officials”, “goons”, etc.

The inner enemy, as a rule, becomes the child. All the hatred and rage for the "defiled" parental life merges on him with impunity. And it is this child who saves his distraught parents throughout his childhood and adolescence.

A couple, a man and a woman, are dancing their dance of "aggressor and victim". Where a woman every time unconsciously provokes a man into a new circle of violence.

Circle of Violence:

An incident, a sadistic outburst … "remorse", requests for forgiveness, gifts … "honeymoon" … growing discontent … "click" - provocation of the victim … and a new circle.

The price of this scenario: beatings, isolation, the need to constantly lie, the development of addictions and diseases in both children and adults, as ways to somehow satisfy their needs.

Questions to yourself: Like all other scenarios, this mode of relationship is laid down in childhood. And for two, this can become the only “correct” way of relationship between a man and a woman. Where a woman extorts, then rakes it off, then gets her ransom and follows again in a circle.

If you realize that you are living in such a family, then the first step can be awareness and acceptance of what you get in such a relationship. And the second - are you willing to risk these benefits in order to gain freedom.

Each of these scenarios can overlap and be combined with the other.

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Once it is bitter to realize that what I considered to be my principles and what I believed in as the ultimate truth - all this is not mine. That everything that I built my life on, all my rules and beliefs, turned out to be just a sick story of my mother, and even not my mother, but my grandmother. All that I have remained faithful to is just a conclusion that my mother made in her twenties. And which I absorbed as the only correct way to live.

Can you trust men? Can you love them? Can love for a man be put above love for a child? Do I have the right to my personal time, to my space? Am I still a woman, even if I am a mother? Do I have to become a great specialist or is it enough for me to be behind my husband's back? How can I make money and is it possible at all, or is it indecent? Can I love someone other than my husband? And can I love at all or is it a bliss and not the time, it is necessary to build BAM, raise children, save the country, make a career, earn money?

All these questions, to which I was looking for answers in myself, had already been asked by the history of the women of our family before me, and I had to take them as truth.

Over time, I learned to distinguish where I am and where I am, what is mine and what is not mine. What would a “normal, correct woman” do, as “wrong,” and what would I do.

I want to rely on myself. I am grateful to my mother and grandmother for their experience and life. But I want to rely on myself.

And you?

**

All of these scenarios have one thing in common - they lack intimacy

Being in a close and sincere relationship is a big risk. But this is the only way you can feel another person and experience the happiness of presenting your living self.

*****

The following materials were used in the article:

Training by Alla Babich "Getting rid of shame - the way to inner freedom"

Programs of the Moscow Gestalt Institute "Trauma and PTSD Therapy"

Personal and professional experience with clients.