Freeing from the web of conditioning
Freeing from the web of conditioning
a short essay
I recently saw this short essay on a friend’s Facebook page, written by an anonymous author and it didn’t sit right with me.
I chose to let another’s paradigm change my path….I betrayed my values in order to fit in and incurred self-harm as a consequence…I could have chosen to leave the situation but I did not trust myself to succeed elsewhere…I chose cowardice…I choose to blame others for my pain…I blame them for not rescuing me when I was capable of leaving the harm…I eventually settled in and refused to stem my own bleeding hoping the perpetrators will eventually see my wounds and hurt from shame…..but they never see me….I am unrecognized…inconsequential ……..my suffering is my choice…
- anonymous
There’s a troubling trend in wellness and spirituality-informed mental health and healthcare communities of espousing the following beliefs:
My suffering in my choice.
I was free to leave a toxic situation but I chose to be a coward instead.
I am the cause of and maintain my own issues.
Healing also means taking a look at the role you play in your own suffering.
I see this poem as another example of self-harming narratives because the author seems to believe that they had other options to choose from rather than the actions driven by their socialisation and programming from within their family of origin, and reinforced by their social groups, educational and other institutions. Healing won’t happen when we continue to flagellate ourselves for our conditioning.
You heal when you acknowledge and accept that you (we) are a creature of habit, because your survival and so-called success depended on it and you now have an opportunity to use your known patterns as evidence for what can be reprogrammed in gentle, progressive and self-nourishing ways.
A reframed version:
I choose to see that I was socialized from birth to assimilate into another’s ideal and be used as a resource and emotional supply to always look after their needs.
This prevented me from ever coming to know myself, my needs and values because I had internalized those of others in order to survive in my environment.
I have only known to assimilate into the dominant family, educational, friend group, community, training culture and workplace culture and this has harmed me, except the familiarity of these relationships never allowed me to know this as harm.
The betrayal by caregivers and other authority figures along the years have made it difficult to trust trustworthy people and most importantly, repair the effect of betrayal on my ability to trust myself. As a result, I have gravitated toward people who enabled me to re-enact my familiar patterns of trusting untrustworthy people to seek their approval and acceptance as evidence of my value and importance as a human being.
This has only reinforced the pattern of betrayal that has made me realize that the only person who must see value, significance and worth in me, is myself.
I choose today to identify the patterns that are underpinned by beliefs, rules and expectations that are no longer realistic because they keep me stuck in this web of suffering. I choose today to make myself matter, to learn about my needs and to develop skill and capacity to meet them in nourishing ways.
In doing so I will start to gravitate toward others who share the same values and ethics so that we can slowly, methodically, progressively co-liberate from this web of suffering.
-Nathalie Martinek
Remember to check out my practical guides for spotting narcissistic traits in others and how to respond while preserving your wellbeing. Start here and see where it takes you!
Please share this work with others who you think will benefit from it and consider gifting them a subscription to this work.
Thank you for reading, sharing, commenting and supporting my work,
Nathalie Martinek, PhD
The Narcissism Hacker