Sondra Ray, founder of Loving Relationships Training

Here is a question from a client married to a consistently relapsing alcoholic husband, frustrated after years of marital therapy. Regarding the practical day-to-day experience of open-hearted compassion:

Dear Dr. Weiss,

“ How do you keep an open heart to one that deliberately does actions that he knows will wound you and yet goes ahead? God does not intend us to be martyrs or doormats. It is a conundrum I fear I will never solve. I know from experience it is so much easier to have compassion for the stranger in the hospital bed, the poor in other countries on mission trips and such than it is for the person you live with every day and who is the one who drives you crazy. The one who lets you down and lies and continues the same behavior over and over again.

Dr. Weiss: As you are undoubtedly aware, there is no simple answer other than to learn forgiveness. It is true that those close to us are our greatest challenges. In Internal Family Systems (see www.Selfleadership.org ) the person you are struggling with is called your ‘Tor-mentor.’ Although they seem to clearly be tormenting you they are also your greatest teachers in the attaining the very qualities you seek for your own peace, such as calm, clarity and compassion. Parts of you love your partner while at the same time you have other parts that are furious and hurt. You have managerial parts that want to get rid of him and other parts that remain hopeful.

You are already familiar with the idea that the greatest source of pain in life comes from the idea “If only he would change, I’d be happy.” Fortunately or unfortunately, the true value of forgiveness and openhearted compassion is not dependent on change in the other. It is your own spiritual learning curve; what I call ‘where the rubber meets the road. No amount of ‘acting as if’ can replace the decision to lead from the heart in life. It is a personal decision as to whether to open one’s heart to the world or shut down in cynical self protection. We often meet people who confuse cynicism with wisdom. Cynicism is the false belief that I will be safer encapsulated in protective coating than in trusting my own inner power of transformation. The benefits and the costs accrue only to you. Do I choose to represent the light of Spirit when I walk into a room? Am I willing to shine my own inner light as a demonstration that I already possess it? The choice is yours. And in that choice you can find personal power.

Cordially,

Mark Weiss, Ph.D. LMFT

Blog Talk Radio Interview with Dr. Mark Weiss

Watch the entire speach here

Mark Weiss

This is 10 minutes well spent…

I had a very dear friend named Georges. He originated Handy Dan Stores which morphed into Handy City Stores. As the company got larger, he hired a number of high powered executives who were more focused on the movement of money than they were in the kind of humanistic, hands-on approach that Georges was known for. He was also a spiritual seeker. When board meetings became too rancorous and oppressive, he told me that he would go to the rest room and as he stood at the urinal, he would look at a light directly in front of him and remind himself to center himself and return to a place of spiritual peace.

That made quite an impression on me even years after Georges had passed on. I was thinking of Georges the other day, coincidentally, as I was on my way to the men’s room. As I stood in front of the urinal, I glanced up and found myself transfixed by the logo on a box whose purpose was to sanitize and deodorize. The name of the company was Auto-San, which I translated into the purpose of my therapy practice as automatic sanity. I glanced at the bottom of the logo and was surprised to find the company slogan: “Heavenly Scent.” Now I was hooked. With a certain amount of squinting, I began to make out a tiny figure in the center of the logo. It looked like a young boy sitting cross-legged on a cloud. Even closer inspection (at this point I was longing for a magnifying glass), showed this young boy had a halo.

Like a pilgrim searching for the holy grail, I went back to my office and dove into the world of Google and finally discovered the location of Auto-San. It was on Bartlett Avenue right here In Memphis. After a number of calls, I learned that the president of the company had died but there were some people who possessed the original art work for the logo. After a brief business meeting, I was granted the right to use the logo in this article. Here it is:

I can’t help but think that Georges is looking over my shoulder, smiling his sweet smile, as I write this article.

Mark Weiss, Ph.D., Seeker-at-large

It is rumored among Marriage and Family Therapists that on the wedding night, there are at least six people in the wedding bed: the bride and her parents and the groom and his parents. We carry our parents into the bed unconsciously…their values, their relationship styles, their attitudes toward money, sex, parenting and life in general. Oh what a tangled web we weave! We are driving fast and furiously into the future while looking into the rear view mirror. We say things like “He treats me just like my father did.” But we don’t really get the true import of what we are saying.

The familiarity that we feel at the beginning of relationships, that sense of comfort and excitement, often shifts into familiar dread, entrapment and abandonment. We forget that the root of ‘familiar’ is family. We are patterns marrying patterns. You trigger me into familiar reactions which trigger you into familiar reactions which trigger me into familiar reactions, etc. I often ask my clients “Are you having this relationship or is the relationship having you?”

The pattern becomes even more complex and sticky when we drag in the memories and traumas associated with past love/hate relationships. We have the mistaken notion that sharing past relationship experiences with our current lover makes us closer, when it may actually create separation. All we’re doing is telling stories which confirm our past failures or confirm the inadequacy of the current relationship. Carolyn Myss refers to this kind of sharing as ‘woundology.’ I tell you my stories of failed relationships, then you tell me your tales of torture and victimhood. “My mom wouldn’t let me have Oreo Cookies.” “Oh yeah, my mom wouldn’t let me have Ho Hos.” “We suffered equally. Let’s get married.”

Comparisons are more damaging than helpful. If I am far better than your last abusive husband, it is like my being the smartest guy in prison. There are no relationship failures.There are only learning experiences, lessons to be learned and carried forward. Before you invite a relationship ghost into your conversation, think twice…three times. It is often a bell that can’t be unrung.

The resolution of these ‘issues’ is an inside job.  Learning to listen compassionately to one’s inner world, the parts of us that are in conflict and  the parts that have been exiled from our conscious mind is the first step to freeing ourselves from historical trauma and fears.  The process of going inside is relatively simple.  The greatest barrier to doing it is that we keep ourselves distracted out of the fear of what we will find.

The Twelve Step program in all its forms is the fastest growing spiritual movement in the western world. Last year, Time magazine reported that over fifteen million people were involved in ongoing Twelve Step programs and anticipated exponential growth. Spiritual abuse, the process by which religious dogma and concepts were used in our childhood as punishment and shaming devices, is probably the greatest block to receiving the healing power of a Higher Power in our lives.

The Twelve Steps refer to “God as we understood him” and therein lays a critical issue for many recovering people. If in childhood we experienced abuse, abandonment, loss and shame (and all of us did on some level) and have associated that pain with God, then our ability to access Higher Power as a healing resource is severely damaged and we tend to move superficially through the Steps, perhaps being able to maintain sobriety but never being able to get the “juice”, the loving, tender gratitude that could be derived from our spirituality.

The use of religious dogma to enforce social control is as old as history itself, but only with the explosion of awareness of family dysfunction have we been able to isolate the part religion can play in the breakdown of self-esteem in children and the subsequent effects spiritual abuse plays in the cycle of addiction. Children are told “You made Jesus cry by disobeying me.” “God is keeping a checklist of your bad behavior and you can’t ever erase it.” “Do what I say or you will burn in Hell.” From an adult level we can understand that these are symbolic statements, but to small children these statements are literal and are internalized as true.

For many adults who were physically and sexually abused as children, there is an internalized message that emerges out of their extreme powerlessness and pain: “God has abandoned me.” Even more potent and self-damaging is the message, “God is punishing me.” When such a person is asked in Twelve Step work to turn it over to God as we understand Him, he is literally being asked to surrender to a force he perceives as dangerous and harmful. It is often a powerful revelation for these people to consider that they survived their abuse because their Higher Power was there to support them. This reversal of thinking may be a first step in the renewal of a spiritual source of inner strength that allows them to face their pain and move through it to health.

The power of our thoughts about God or Higher Power may shape every perspective we have about ourselves and the world. For example, take a look at the perspectives about God listed below and see if you identify any of them as your own:

God is fear; God as dysfunctional parent(s):
Our parents are the first image we have of God. They are all-powerful and if they are angry people, we see God in that way. We seek adult relationships that overpower us and generate massive resentment and we rebel against any religious authority.

God is love; God as healthy loving parent(s):
We look to our higher power as a nurturing and guiding resource. We are able to receive love and strength from the internalized spirit.

God is fear; God requires our suffering:
We have to earn God’s love through our suffering and pain. Life is a struggle. We sabotage ourselves in order to make life harder. The more we suffer, the more we earn spiritual points. No fun.

God is love; God supports our celebrating life:
Experiencing our Higher Power is an act of joy. Sharing that joy with others is part of our spiritual path. Enlightenment is “lightening up.”

God is fear; God is a punisher:
We are afraid to give 100% to life because we are afraid to make mistakes. We fear God’s punishment which limits our ability to risk.

God is love; God is rewarding and encouraging:
Spirit teaches us mistakes are simply learning devices. We experience gratitude for every step we take in growth.

God is fear; God is abandoning or non-existent:
We experience ourselves as alone in the world, unable to trust. We have trouble bonding or joining with others. We are often self-blaming or feeling betrayed. We expect people to leave us.

God is love; God is always present and loving:
We feel safety and inner support. We give love as a demonstration that we have received it. Since we have received love we are easily able to give it. The more we give the more we have.

God is fear; God is judging and evaluating:
We feel bad, not good enough or that something is wrong with us. We will never be able to earn God’s love. We are damaged and cannot be fixed.

God is love; God is accepting and forgiving:
We feel worthwhile and valued. We are willing to risk and more able to make amends.

God is fear; God is Ineffectual:
Our picture of God is beautiful, but God is 8 million miles away. God cannot be a source of strength because God is too far away. We experience people as distant and not supportive. Everything is working but me.

God is love; God is powerful:
We feel in constant communication with a Higher Power that supports and strengthens us. Our relationships empower us as well. We can stand up for ourselves.

God is loving; God is joining:
Our spirituality is reflected through the quality of our relationships with others.

Healing Our Relationship to Our Higher Power

The first step in healing our relationship to our Higher Power is to admit our negative thoughts about God and religion and attempt to understand the dynamics that led to these thoughts. Sometimes we may recognize family patterns that made us bitter toward religion or God. It may relate to the death or abandonment of a loved one or some crucial and painful trauma. It may have simply been the sense of emotional remoteness we experienced from the adults around us. Disillusioning experiences with organized religion, church politics or religious school may have contributed to our dissociation from our own spirituality.

The second step is to recognize the impact of these thoughts on our ability to access spiritual help in our lives. By holding on to resentment, we are blocking ourselves from experiencing the ascension attitudes of acceptance, forgiveness and gratitude, attitudes which uplift and enlighten us. If it happened in the past, it is not the event that is hurting us now, but the thoughts we are having about it. It is the meaning we are giving the event. We can make a choice to see it differently. We may need therapeutic assistance to feel the feelings associated with the origins

Dr. Mark Weiss received his Ph.D in 1971 and has been a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist for over thirty years. He recently served on the Board of the Tennessee Association of Marriage and Family Therapists.

Dr. Weiss has led over 500 business workshops and has done in-depth coaching for hundreds of executives at Savin Corporation, International Paper, Holiday Inn, Promus Corporation, The Peabody Hotel and many others.

For many years, Dr. Weiss has committed his practice and life to the attainment of self-awareness and peace. His techniques include a gentle but powerful approach to personal growth, combined with a sense of humor and warmth.

Dr. Weiss is also known as Doctor Scat – a more than 30 year passion for singing and playing jazz music has earned Dr. weiss his nickname – Read more on Doctor Scat’s Webpage