Dear Shlomo,
I come from a family of high
achievers, and I don’t seem to be able to do what they do. I always fall short
and then get angry at myself. This makes me really tense and anxious, and I end
up sleeping a lot because I am so worn out from being so angry at myself.
Yaakov
Dear Yaakov,
Let’s start from the beginning.
As a child, you were raised by your parents and influenced by your older
siblings. You witnessed the standards they held for themselves and understood
the standards they set for you. It was almost inevitable that you would feel
bad when you fell short of those standards.
The thing to understand is that
everyone has an internal parent inside of them. The internal parent has
standards and expectations for how you should behave and think and feel. The
question is how you handle it when you fall short of those expectations. How
does your internal parent respond? Since your internal parent is a construct of
your actual parents, if your parents were critical, you will be critical of
yourself. If your parents struggled with self-love and acceptance of
themselves, you will struggle with these as well. There is only one solution,
and that is to begin to change the way your internal parent talks to you.
Every parent has standards for
a child, but a healthy parent will respond with compassion when the child falls
short. The healthy parent will come up with ways to help the child succeed. The
healthy parent will try to understand the child’s needs and help the child
develop a plan to succeed based on his nature. As it says in Mishlei, “Educate a child according to
his way.”
(A caveat: As always, I want to
emphasize that any analysis or advice is not intended to be a blame-the-parent
exercise. As parents, we do the absolute best we can. However, the reality is
that both our strengths and weaknesses are often inherited by our children.)
This is what you need to begin
to do for yourself: You need to adjust your internal parenting methods so that,
when you fall short, you talk to yourself in a kind, compassionate, and understanding
way. You will help yourself make a plan so that you can come closer to success
the next time. You will not expect the child to be perfect. You will emphasize
progress rather than perfection.
How appropriate it is to discuss
this concept during the month of Adar, which includes Purim and our confrontation
with Amelek. It is known that Amelek is the same gematria as safek
(doubt). The Torah says that Hashem’s throne is not complete until Amelek is
destroyed. That is because Amalek represents the internal voice of self-defeat.
It is the internal voice that tells the Jewish people and each individual that
he is not enough, that he should not believe in himself, that he should doubt
himself, even that he should hate himself.
Believing this message, G-d forbid,
takes away a person’s energy and makes him stressed and depressed. Fighting
Amelek is hard. It requires you to do some internal re-parenting. May we all be
zocheh to fix our inner parent so
that we can empower ourselves to be the healthiest, strongest Jewish people
that we can be.
Shlomo Schor is a trauma therapist located in Pikesville,
Maryland. If you have a question for this column, feel free to email him at shlomo@schorcounseling.com. To learn more about Shlomo, check out his website www.schorcounseling.com.
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