Find True Self Through Relationships

The basic idea is quite simple. You discover who you are by enduring pain! You are in a close relationship and things get difficult. If you stay with "it" and do not escape, either to your partner by dissolving yourself, or out of relationship, then you will be forced to get to your core self and find who you are! Fascinating idea! From my experience, this can be much more painful than it sounds. But for me, who have been on the search for a way of finding my essense, this seems worth trying.

It is inevitable and necessary that intimacy occur without trust and affirmation from your partner. Other-validated intimacy is nice when you can get it. But when you don't, you can attempt to rise to the occasion and validate yourself. Trying---and succeeding---to validate yourself when your partner does not validate you isn't as improbable as it might seem. In Chapter 12, we'll discuss how infants by age three months do the equivalent process for themselves. Being out of synch with their caregiver stimulates their ability to regulate their own emotional equilibrium. This forces you to draw upon what is solid within yourself. Intimacy involves your ``relationship with yourself'' as well as your relationship with your partner. If you're strong enough (sufficiently differentiated) to master your own anxieties and maintain your position, you will feel better about yourself. This is self-validated intimacy, which is part of the process of increasing your differentiation. In other words, it's a circular process: differentiation is both the basis for, and the result of, self-validated intimacy. Self-validated intimacy is the means to two ends: becoming more of a person and developing a more resilient  intimate relationship. ---p.119, Passionate Marriage

Birthday Present

Yesterday, Thursday, was my birthday. Thursday is Sima's baking day and she is quite busy, so she has invited a few friends for this evening.  Yesterday, I went to office to meet a couple of students. I was planning to go some place with a friend at work, as typical of Thursdays. I was excited. Things, however, did not work out and my friend turned out to be busy. I was disappointed. I usually get angry and frustrated in such situations and leave with bitterness and resentment. Yesterday, I deviated from my typical behavioral pattern. I stayed in the office for a little while and finished some work, then went and chatted with my friend a little. When she asked about my birthday plans, however, a wave of self-pity washed over me and I finally came back home disappointed and sad. Hugely disappointed and depressed. I even cried for a while because I felt rejected and hurt. Nevertheless, I did not take my anger out on my friend, as much as I could. More importantly, I avoided taking it out on Sima. I was able to differentiate between myself (and my emotions) and other people in my life.

Could I have managed the situation better? Possibly. But I felt that by deviating from my typical pattern of behavior, I initiated a good change. Small steps.

Today, Friday, I was still depressed in the morning. After breakfast, I did some work. But then I decided that I had done a good job in handling my disappointment and for that reason, as well as my birthday, I deserve to give myself a present!

I stopped work and went to play tennis at noon. It was alright. I got angry in the middle of the game and also managed to injure myself. Something inside my rib cage tore while I was practicing serve. (I had had a feeling beforehand that I would injure myself today.) After tennis, I decided that I need more attention from myself.  I went to a Thai restaurant nearby (Thai Chili) and had lunch alone. (Sima was busy all morning.) I got Pad Thai and it was not very good either. Then I went to the Atlanta Coffee Roasters and got a cappuccino. I stayed there a couple of hours, reading, smoking (outside). watching people passing by. The cappuccino was very delicious, but overall it was a lonely afternoon.

Nothing special happened today. An ordinary day. I had a few hours all by myself. I tried to treat myself well. I did not super-enjoy any of those activities. But it was important that I did it for myself, as a gift, no matter how good or bad the gift turned out to be. Most importantly, I did not do any of these activities in anger or despite. It was not an act of revenge, punishment, or sulking. It was an ordinary day, an ordinary birthday present from me to myself. Happy birthday old boy!

Escaping Pain?!

It becomes more evident to me that as long as we look for perfection in life, as long as we try to avoid the inherent pain of living, we cannot go beyond a certain level of self-awareness and self-realization. Here is an interesting exposition of the idea in the context of psychotherapy:

Becoming more differentiated is possibly the most loving thing you can do in your lifetime---for those you love as well as yourself. ...

The problem is, becoming more differentiated isn't easy. The many small steps toward core transformation involve more than a self-indulgent search to ``find yourself.'' ....  No one ever wants to differentiate. You'll probably do it for the same reasons most people do: differentiating eventually becomes less painful than the alternative. ...

... We've promised ourselves paradise through self-knowledge: love, sex, and transcendence will be easy once we know ourselves and our partner. But that's often when you need to soothe your own heart and calm you own anxieties to take care of yourself. That's what differentiation offers. ---pp.73-74, Passionate Marriage

Reflected Sense of Self

When a person is emotionally undifferentiated, his or her overpowering needs for togetherness can feel like a burdensome neediness to be loved and accepted. Many people who feel this way attribute it to having had an insufficient emotional connection with their mothers or fathers. ... In lots of cases, however, their emotional hunger is caused by the presence of a compelling connection that is an emotional fusion. ---pp.58-59

When we have little differentiation , our identity is constructed out of what's called a reflected sense of self. We need continual contact, validation, and consensus (or disagreement) from others. This leaves us unable to maintain a clear sense of who we are in shifting or uncertain circumstances. We develop a contingent identity based on a ``self-in-relationship.'' ---p.59

Differentiation is more than what sets us apart from others---it determines how far apart we sit. Highly differentiated people have strong emotional bonds. They don't require physical distance, infrequent contact, or totally consuming careers to maintain their separate identities or moderate their reactivity to others. They're not indifferent to others---just the opposite. They can choose contact with others out of deep liking, without being compulsively driven toward them or away. ---p.64, Passionate Marriage

Reminder

This is a follow-up on my last four posts [Fusion?!, Break Through, Living through, and Joy and Sorrow]. I am feeling ecstatic tonight. I have a hope that all I went through in the past few three years is finally paying off. I risked everything: I risked my job and in fact lost my current position at gsu. I risked my marriage but so far have saved it. I went through nights of endless pain and frustration, and got very close to leaving everything and ending my life. But I feel good tonight!

I know it sounds premature and childish. But I want to keep a record of what I am feeling tonight. I reminder for later on, when another storm of disappointment, frustration, and depression seems to be taking everything away. That there are good moments. And there may be some hope at the end.

Tonight, I feel like the following poem from my dear friend, Hafez:

دوش وقت سحر از غصه نجاتم دادند         واندر آن ظلمت شب آب حیاتم دادند

بیخود از شعشعه پرتو ذاتم کردند             باده از جام تجلی صفاتم دادند

چه مبارک سحری بود و چه فرخنده شبی     آن شب قدر که این تازه براتم دادند

بعد از این روی من و آینه وصف جمال        که در آن جا خبر از جلوه ذاتم دادند

من اگر کامروا گشتم و خوشدل چه عجب     مستحق بودم و این‌ها به زکاتم دادند 

هاتف آن روز به من مژده این دولت داد       که بدان جور و جفا صبر و ثباتم دادند

این همه شهد و شکر کز سخنم می‌ریزد      اجر صبریست کز آن شاخ نباتم دادند

همت حافظ و انفاس سحرخیزان بود          که ز بند غم ایام نجاتم دادند

Shajarian and Zolfonoon:
		http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXxrrnpe1Fs