Making Choices

I realized recently that there is a developmental piece of the recovery process—i.e. the process of becoming a separate Self—to which I’ve given too little focus. This recognition came about after I invited my elderly parents to come to Fairfield to live with me and they accepted my invitation.

A number of people have responded to my news with comments like: “Oh no! How can you even think of doing that?” and “That doesn’t seem like you at all.” and “Are you sure you’ll be happy doing this?” These reactions have made me think about the work I do helping people individuate— helping them identify and speak up about their feelings, and take care of themselves and honor their own needs—and I realized that there’s something that comes after individuation and self- actualization. I’m not sure what to call it, but it involves saying “yes” to choices or commitments even when we know there will be discomfort, pain and difficulty for us if we do. It’s about making a choice because we know it’s the right thing to do.

Becoming a Self—emotionally separating from our families of origin, choosing what we believe and value and choosing how we live based on our own inner guidance rather than on what is expected of us—is vital to our growth, to our wholeness as a person. It is absolutely essential that we learn to distinguish between who we are as individuals and whatever rules we learned to follow automatically because we internalized the do’s and the don’ts, and the should’s and the ought’s of our childhoods.

Becoming a Self is the work of a lifetime and well worth the effort, but it isn’t an end in and of itself, although I think our culture has turned it into one. We have become a me culture. What I want, whatever will make me feel good or happy is promoted and encouraged all around us. It drives advertising and sells ever newer, bigger and more expensive merchandise. The me culture exacerbates our feelings of malaise—our general dissatisfaction with life as it is. It also reinforces looking outside ourselves for happiness, satisfaction and worthiness.

I think it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the point of detaching ourselves emotionally from our internalized rules and values is not necessarily to get rid of all the old rules and values, but rather to enable us to exercise choice. The knee-jerk following of internalized rules does not allow us to freely choose our actions. When we feel we have no choice, we do things out of fear of disapproval, punishment, or even abandonment.

I have begun to think of the development of Self—of conscious choice—as a dance. In the beginning we are dancing in lock-step—not only following those to whom we give authority over us but even trying to guess what steps they’ll want us to take next. Little by little as we begin to individuate, we begin to dance away from those authorities. We start making up our own steps and dancing to our own music. At first, while we are learning, we most likely will move back and forth, creating our own dance, then following someone else’s lead again, and then back to our own steps once again, as being a Self becomes more familiar and less frightening. This is a scary but exhilarating process and for some of us it is the first time in our lives that we experience our personal power.

But power all by itself corrupts, and that’s why there has to be another part to this individuation process. We learn to dance alone in order to be able to come back into relationship and dance again with partners—parents, spouses, life-partners, children, friends, co-workers, employers, employees, with our communities, with the world of humans, the world of animals and the world of nature. The difference is that now we’ve come to know and can say what our boundaries are, and we can hold onto them.

The point of becoming a Self isn’t to become an isolated island of self-will. The goal is to achieve a state of emotional detachment which allows each of us to function in relationships as a whole person—caring and loving, but not attached to a specific agenda or outcome. This is a real challenge and requires much practice, but it is utterly possible.

Coming back to my own decision, I realize now I had been unconsciously moving toward it for several years. My parents live an hour away from me and two hours from my only sibling. Seven years ago they sold their home of thirty-four years and moved into an apartment. Happily, their next-door neighbor is a kind and generous woman who has been a thoughtful, caring, and most helpful friend to them, for which I am very grateful. My mother has had one hip replaced and will probably need a second. My father suffers from congestive heart failure and has other illnesses as well. The hour distance between us has been prohibitive to my being as available to help them as I would like to be.

Despite the fact that my invitation appeared to others to be spontaneous, it was the product of my growing frustration over not being able to be physically there for them enough. Is it like me to do such a thing? Absolutely. This is a decision of the heart made possible by years of practice identifying my boundaries and limits and being able to articulate and honor them in the kindest possible ways when I need to. Will I be happy? Clearly, I am making a commitment to be an intimate part of my parents’ final years. Will I experience happiness? Of course I will. Will it be difficult? Of course it will. Will there be sadness and pain? Without doubt. The bottom line, however, is that I’ll know I’ve followed my heart’s lead and given back a just a small bit of what they’ve given me in my lifetime.

Upon hearing about my plan, a friend of mine responded by telling me she had recently been called on to go to Florida and be with a good friend while the friend’s father was dying. She told me her friend had given up her job and sold her home in Texas three years ago, in order to return to Florida and live with and care for her father, who was ill. Nancy also told me that at the time many people who knew her friend thought she was making a terrible mistake, but that on the day of the father’s funeral, the friend had told Nancy how very grateful she was that she made the move and that she wouldn’t trade those three years with him for anything in the world.

I think this is what having choice is really about. Knowing we are able to say no, but also being able to say yes; being able to freely choose something we know may be hard and painful and, perhaps, exhausting and even traumatic because our heart tells us it’s the right thing. When we choose instead of grudgingly doing something because we think we must do it, we enter into a whole new existence. This kind of choice may involve actions like publicly taking an unpopular stand, giving away a substantial part of our incomes in support of a cause, giving time in our busy lives to help someone or to work on be-half of something we value, or doing without something we covet in order to help someone we love or to help the planet. I have a client, a wonderful woman, who has begun to make these kinds of choices in her life. When she tells me about them, she identifies them as being an integral part being “a grown-up.” Personally, I think she’s right. ?

© 2000