“I WILL NOT FALL DOWN!”

I have a three year old friend. One day, when she thought no one could see her, she was climbing a piece of furniture while declaring loudly, “I WILL NOT FALL DOWN!” In reality, the probability of her falling was high, but she seemed pretty convinced that just announcing that she wouldn’t, at the top of her lungs, would be protection enough from such a thing. Perhaps she was impatient with the pace at which her body was growing able to do what she wanted it to do, and she thought maybe this announcement would make it all happen faster. Or perhaps she doubted the wisdom of her parents who told her that climbing this piece of furniture is forbidden and dangerous, and wanted to find out for herself.

This made me think of how many times we adults do a similar sort of thing. It could be that we are saying “I WILL NOT GET INTO ANOTHER BAD RELATIONSHIP!” or, “I WILL NOT OVEREAT AGAIN!” We think these announcements protect us from our actions, hoping that we won’t make unwanted, painful choices anymore. So, we swear off unhealthy relationships, until that irresistible but not-very-nice person ends up in our bed. Or we go on one of the countless diets out there, only to snap and binge. This erodes trust in our abilities to stick to the goal of these announcements.

Making those announcements is like making a promise to ourselves that we often can’t keep. Rather than doing this, we can be a little kinder to ourselves. In therapy, the point isn’t just to remove “bad” behavior. We are in these habits for a reason. If we are attracted to people who treat us poorly, we probably learned that we deserve that treatment, and so it is familiar. Rather than focus on avoiding that bad relationship, we can focus on that injured part of ourselves and give it the real love that it needs. Eventually, we won’t tolerate being treated poorly, and the attraction toward those who would mistreat us will dissolve. Similarly with food- when we are bingeing, we are trying to feed a neglected part of ourselves that was starved at some point. Just taking the food away only makes us feel more starved. Rather than focus on the food, we can learn to feed and love our starved parts. All of this takes time, and our inner three-year-old may get impatient, but this sort of change and growth is slow.