The Important Role Qualities Can Play in Your Life
BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT
Explore how we often struggle to solve a problem when it could be more easily resolved by developing a simple quality of the human spirit.
He sat in my office week after week describing a life that was clearly not working. First there was a brief affair with his wife's sister. Then there was the on-again off-again reconciliation with his wife, generally off because he wouldn't follow through on agreements. Next would come the fear that he would have to file bankruptcy because of overspending, often on items he didn't need. His weight and blood pressure were too high. And on and on and on the litany continued.
The family history was horrendous, with a father on welfare who sexually abused five out of the seven children (both girls and boys, though my client wasn't one of them) and a mother who admitted to setting one of their rented houses on fire. And that was only one of four times a house in which they lived burned to the ground!
Trained as a systems therapist, I knew his background played a significant role in who he was and why his life didn't work. Consequently, I used genograms and an explanation of dysfunctional family patterns in addition to pulling out all the tricks of the trade to help him revisit, re-experience, and reframe his childhood so he could "heal the inner child of his past."
Then one day, as we were talking about his latest attempt to circumvent his landlord's attempt to collect the rent money so he could purchase some new stereo equipment, he came to the realization that he didn't know how to tell the truth. "Fabricating my way through life is my modus operandi," he acknowledged with a grin.
But it was a look that said he wished he didn't have to live that way.
That's how we came to discuss what it means to have integrity, to adhere to an ethical code, to face each day with honor and truth in all he did. Taking a page from family systems, it was easy for him to see that he didn't have a chance to learn about integrity in the circumstances under which he grew up. After all, he had a father who didn't maintain boundaries with his children, which is certainly the consequence of not having integrity, and a mother who burned down at least one house, which demonstrates a total lack of integrity in maintaining the agreement she had to keep the rental property in reasonable shape.
He became intrigued with this quality, since he'd always been puzzled by how others seemed to get along just fine with telling the truth all the time. "Well," I said, "It's like this. Telling the truth makes life a lot simpler. And since your life is certainly so complicated it doesn't work the way you want, you might consider giving integrity a try. You've already taken the first step by acknowledging that you aren't truthful. The next step is discovering if you are willing to practice honesty at every opportunity."
The look on his face was a marvelous mixture of emotions. While there was relief that perhaps he didn't have to continue replaying his early life, there was also hope that if this approach worked, he might actually resolve many of the problems he experienced week after week. Yet overlaid on these reactions was the question of how to practice something he knew little about.
My advice to him, as it usually is in such cases, is to begin with a phrase that would reinforce his intention to change, while at the same time acknowledging that he didn't yet know how to practice the quality that had been missing in his life. Therefore, I suggested he begin by saying, "While I haven't known how to have integrity until now, from this point onward I will practice integrity at every opportunity." And practice he did. The very next week he came in to report that he got a call from a collection agency about unpaid back bills for his pickup truck. Rather than lie and say he sent it two weeks earlier and that they must have lost the check (a statement they might have actually believed because he was quite good at fabricating the truth, having practiced the skill for a long time), he admitted that he hadn't paid the bills and would be sending a payment that day. Then he actually put the check in the mail.
The consequence of taking this new approach, he said, was that he didn't need to remember to whom he told what, a problem that can get pretty sticky if one chooses to lie all the time.
Therapy didn't continue for long after that time because his life began to turn around. There were times, of course, when out of habit he would be halfway through a lie and he'd have to find a way out of the maze he was creating by not having integrity. But all in all, he did a very good job in a reasonably short period of time because he was committed to adding this important quality to his life.
When he came in periodically for a "check-up" session, we sometimes talked about other qualities he might need, but for him the primary one that was most needed had been integrity.
Ever since that time I've stressed the need for clients to develop the qualities of the human spirit that are missing in their lives. This doesn't mean we shouldn't acknowledge the impact that early experience can have in shaping who we are. It is simply that I've found a focus on qualities to be as effective as many other techniques in effecting change, not only for others but for myself as well.
© Copyright 2001, Arlene Harder, MA, MFT |
