Chicken block? No wait...
Hi Mike,
I hope you can help me out. I checked out your website and I found the info useful especially about texting. Well, here is my real problem. Whenever I get close or serious with a guy, I push them away. I don’t know what my problem is. I can handle going out to clubs, and with other couples, but when it comes time to meet the family, I make up excuses. I even make up excuses not to hang out the next day even after spending the night. I don’t want him to make me breakfast I just want to leave. I was with someone on and off for 3 years and still couldn’t get pass this point. I could hang out but not on that level. It’s cool but I back down. I even passed up going to weddings with the guy or family outings and never invited him to mine. I want to be normal but I just don’t know how. Right now I am not seeing anyone but I was involved with someone who was a really good guy. He wanted me to go with him all the time and asked me on trips and even to dinner but I always gave an excuse. I got along well with him and wanted to get serious but I couldn’t. Please help.
Btw, I love your facebook pics. They are awesome.
Thanks again!
Karen
Sometimes I get a good feel for someone just over an email and sometimes I don’t, this was one of the later. I had to gather a little more info… I looked at Karen’s facebook pictures briefly. Then I called her on the phone for about 15 minutes. Since I didn’t record it you will have to take my observations on faith!
From facebook:
Karen is blond and attractive
She is often with the same blond in many of her pictures
In every picture with this girl (there were a lot!) Karen’s expression was very passive compared to when her friend was not there.
From the Phone:
Karen is very very talkative and friendly, she sounds like she is mid 20’s but is late 30’s.
She doesn’t like to answer questions directly and instead likes to weave stories around things.
She has parents that divorced when she was younger.
Karen’s does not have any positive married couples in her life
Karen apologized readily and was very quick to accommodate me rather than herself
Karen admitted that her friend is very much in her business
Karen has a hard time saying, no
Okay!!! Ready for this?? Karen??
Just like Jeanette there are some simple things and some more complex ones. Lets start with the simple.
Karen, like most of us comes from divorced parents. This divorce also happened right at the time she became interested in the opposite sex. The divorce was ugly because her father was an alcoholic. Her close friend recently went through a divorce and Karen admits that everyone she knows is divorced or unhappy! What could her view of marriage be??? Pretty fricken bad! Karen’s fear of relationships is so aggressively rooted that she can’t even handle flirtation with the possibility of a serious relationship! Why? because marriage or a serious relationship will only lead to separation and misery, why even bother.
I reject your rejection!
Karen appears to be a social chameleon. I didn’t catch this at first but towards the end I realized that she was an overly accommodating person busy trying to please. A lot of social chameleons don’t really like who they are when they can’t blend into the background. I didn’t ask her about this but I would wager a guess that Karen feels if the guy really got to know her he would reject her. So she is rejecting them first. (Karen I didn’t ask you about that, so let us know if I am off or not.)
Karen’s “friend”
After looking at pictures and asking Karen more about her friends. I became suspicious that one particular friend is part of the problem. I asked her “who is the blond in so many of your facebook pictures?” she answered immediately. “that’s Lynn, why… you want to date her??” and then laughed a bit painfully. It was not easy to pull it out of her but (and I hope I didn’t form my own beliefs in her mind, easy to do with pleasers) she admitted that she was in the shadow of her friend. It took about five minutes of stories about what her Lynn does to piece the picture together. One story was how Lynn jumped on Karen’s facebook page, responded to a bunch of guys and then got angry when Karen told the guys it was not her. Can someone say… Controlling???
Cock block!
I think Karen’s friend is a large block inhibiting Karen’s moving forward in relationships and life. Her friend has always stolen the lime light and GOD FORBID Karen has something she can not have. I believe this is another factor keeping Karen in her box, she wants to grow but anytime she does her friend gets uncomfortable/upset and Karen “the pleaser” ducks back in the box and into back into her friend’s comfort zone. Karen’s friend Lynn is a huge life/guy block and must be removed or severely limited for Karen to grow.
Okay… I am not psychic (even though Karen asked if I was, kick ass…!) but I think the majority of my observations are true. Here is the problem though… So what??? Will this change things? I really hope so but the road is not going to be easy for Karen.
Truth does not equal change
Change is possible but the brain seems to stiffen after age 30-35. This means that Karen has to put out some serious effort to really make change stick (God… try teaching English to anyone over 40…. Not easy…)
I gave Karen homework to stimulate a bit of change in hopes that some success might lead to her seeking more out. I asked her to focus on something called priming. Here is an example of how powerful priming the mind can be. This is a synopsis of Malcolm Gladwell’s experiment in the book blink, one group of African American students took a test and they scored, lets say… 80% then the same group was given another test but had to indicate their race before taking it, from this one thing the test results then dropped a good 10%. Whoa…!!! this meant that the test takers had negative bias again their own race and their subconscious behaved accordingly. This priming of the subconscious mind is exactly what Karen has been doing her whole life. She is sounded by examples of how relationships fail. For Karen to even consider change, her subconscious needs some opposite priming. She needs to see some successful relationships before she can relax enough to try one on her own. In week Karen will call me and tell me about 2 relationships she has found that are successful, lets hope she finds some!
Reprogramming the mind
Karen’s subconscious is programmed with many negative beliefs about herself and about relationships. Just like me, you and the neighbors. The question is, can we really change and how does change happen if ever?? A new but soon to be favorite author of mine Dr. Joe Dispenza, specializes in this kind of change. Dr. Joe says that change is possible but because of the addictive need too revisit past programming it is often never realized. However if we do manage to facilitate an extended change in belief, the new neurons formed will actually cannibalize the old neurons and leave us never again able to fire the old pattern. Is changing difficult? Dr. Joe says yes but those new positive neurons are permanent and now positively addictive, very worth the effort.
Want to learn more about change? Here are some books I recommend.
Joe Dispenza’s free podcast in the apple store
Feel the fear and do it anyway
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
So why is this post not as interesting to comment on?
i wonder….
Mike another great post and in fact in shun some light for me, and I finally get it.
Appreciate you sharing the story here, look forward to more.
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Ok, I know you don’t want to make things complicated, but I gotta dig into the pysch research you cite here. The end of the critical period (the point after which it’s harder to learn language) and the ability to change other cognitive behaviors aren’t necessarily related–unless you’re a staunch neo-conservative male
(True story–male neo-con brains appear to be more rigid in brain scans than liberal brains of either sex, according to a study by the University of Illinois department of psychology, with the result being that liberal minded people seem to be able to change their thoughts and behavior fairly easily no matter their age). I think it’s too easy to say the brain gets rigid–there are so many factors that figure into this and no one outcome is true for the majority of the population–it’s usually some combination of brain biology, sex (of the person, not the act itself!!!), social and physical environment, and upbringing…. It might not be so hard for Karen to change as the work you cite implies…. I agree that she needs to be aware of going on in her own head if she wants a different relationship life, though. That’s true for all of us!
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@tom I am curious!? what do you get now??
@Sarah
Hey sweetie,
The two of us actually talked about this on the phone and we only disagree over semantics. Let me clarify what I mean about the brain hardening at certain ages. It is just like age and weight gain, by no means is mandatory! I personally plan to attack Chinese this year and I am over 35 so… it really is up to the user whether or not they allow their brain to stiffen.
Good morning Love–thank you for clarifying! Yes, we do agree (and thank you for the challenge on the phone–I needed a good argument to clear my foul mood!) We don’t want to scare Karen into thinking this is too tough! The hardest part for her, I’d bet, will be getting out of Sis’s shadow and using her perfectly good mind to decide what she wants and then following through on it!
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guess I’m exclamation point happy this morning–it’s gotta be the sun. it *finally* came out today. Forgive the over-excitement
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I spent the day at the beach! Jogged 6 miles in the sand. So nice to be able to do that sometimes.
Wow…at your post (though jogging 6 miles is also impressive)!
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