I’ve Got flaws: So What!
I was very, very young when I first discovered the importance of people pleasing. Be funny, be smart, be cute as the dickens and never ever let them see you cry. Those were the rules and I followed them to the letter.

These rules and the objectives that went with them – to control the way people thought about me and to get included no-matter-what the circumstances – have, throughout my life, held me in good stead.

As a child, when I was a “good boarding school girl” everyone found me sweet and comforting. They came to me with all their problems and I was happy to be the campus mother surrogate. In college, I found my sense of belonging at the University of Wisconsin, through alcohol, drugs, and rock n’ roll and…well, you know the drill. After college I was the dramatic actress, wowing everyone with her profound interpretations and academy award style range. Finally, I became the best little sober girl in town - a fearless meeting speaker and constant twelve-step presence.

Along the way I was (in no particular order) a barmaid, a corporate executive, an editor, a secretary, an entrepreneur, a waitress, and a paid actress, among other things. Finally, I found my “real” niche when, in the eighties, I put it all together as a proactive, interactive, flamboyant psychotherapist/teacher and later a writer.

And through it all, I never lost sight of those early people pleasing objectives and rules. Both in the bar and in the boardroom, they have served me well.

So what’s my point here? Often we hear individuals denigrating their qualities by calling their developments “defects”. This, from my point of view, is a mistake. In fact, everything we ever do, every experience we ever engaged and every circumstance we encounter has offerings for us.

“What?!” you outburst! “The rage full violence, the desperate dark decisions, the oft-regretted lost years, the self-contempt, the mistrust, the tired old behaviors repeated time and again, the terrible relationships…. these have offerings?”

Yes. Yes. Yes.

What, for instance, have all those desperate, oh-my-God-what-if-you-don’t-like-me people pleasing experiences taught me? Well, for one thing they taught me how to…please people. A helpful ability if you want to get others to listen to you and if you long to experience true connection. Not a bad skill in our frantically disconnected world. Not a bad talent for an individual who has discovered her passion for Healing and contribution.

So here’s an idea just for a start: stop calling your assets defects. The question you want to ask instead is: Am I being run by my “developments” (sometimes known as Defenses) or are these developments running me? Begin by noticing how often you seem to repeat exact behaviors, express specific attitudes, or feel overcome by particular feelings. Keeping a journal helps. You will often find that what you imagine doing/thinking/feeling, and what you are actually doing/thinking/feeling is quite different.

Once you recognize your behavioral themes, it’s important to come to what I call: the So What! For instance, I’m a compulsive. I expect I will always be a compulsive. So what! The question is not: “Am I?” but rather: “Is my compulsive nature in service to me or am I in service to it?” In other words, what is my relationship to compulsivity? In my case, compulsivity fuels my stamina. I am a workhorse with an ability to tirelessly serve. I can get more done in a day than most people achieve in a week.

On the other hand, when I’m being ‘driven’ by my compulsivity I tend to forget my also need for recuperative sloth. Then I attend to it. Get completely lazy for a day. Such inactivity in my case is preventative – so my compulsivity won’t beat me to the ground, which it will if I let it.

All right, let’s say you’ve been able to recognize your relationship to your most obvious developments/defenses. Now, the second thing to do is: Examine your real INTENTIONS. At this point you’ll best be served by assuming it is YOU (albeit unconsciously) who’s devised things to be just the way they are.

The idea that you actually have to some degree chosen your path can be at first, incredibly alarming, but take a deep breath and stick with me here…eventually I promise this perspective will offer you unimaginable freedom.

For example: Are you alone? Start by assuming some part of you thinks this best (you won’t have to deal with the heartbreak of abandonment, and/or you will be able to maintain your ‘free spirit’ ways). Or: Are you broke? Maybe being broke offers freedom from certain responsibilities, or makes you the center of your worried family. Resist the temptation to think your “difficulty” offers nothing. Be flamboyant with the possibilities.

Accepting that you’ve been living your life on purpose is the beginning. Now, you can learn to like what you have, or decide to take the new actions or adopt the new attitudes that will lead to something else. Either way you win. The point is – since you have mostly created the life you have, you can create a new life too.

For my part, I will tell you now without hesitation: there is not one howsoever awful experience I have had or created that has not built the character I have today. Suffering has taught me Compassion. Self-contempt has taught me Modesty. Humiliation has taught me Humility. Rage flows through me now as Passion. Neediness has prepared me for Inter-Dependence. Refusal to Need has taught me Self-Reliance.

Absolutely it is true - I have never met a so-called defect I didn’t like. Perhaps you too could find a way to love those qualities, quirks and experiences that describe and define you.

Yep, we’ve got flaws. So what!

Tags: defense, rage, neediness, compulsivity, people-pleasing, boarding-school, defects, flaws, purpose, self-reliance.