Realizations Inc

Vol. 6, No. 2

It started out as a lovely midsummer's-day picnic. Tension leached out of shoulder and sinew as our little group meandered through the redwoods, their towering majesty reducing our conversation to mere whispers. Around an ancient wooden table, in view of an equally ancient footbridge spanning a miniature waterfall, I helped myself to a generous serving of luscious in-season strawberries. Smiling in anticipation of the first tasty bite I noticed her empty plate. We've misrouted the strawberries, I thought, and quickly reached out to rectify that oversight.

“No, no thank you,” the woman responded politely. “None for me. I'm punishing myself today.”

Fork hanging in midair, my mouth fell open so far my chin hit the plate. “You're what?” I gasped as I did a quick reality check. Yes, it was the 21st century. I couldn't have heard her correctly. Her comment sounded straight out of the dark ages!

“Punishing myself,” she reiterated. “I didn't finish the laundry last night.”

A few questions revealed that Lacy had not finished the laundry because her list of chores was completely unrealistic. It would have taken three people two days to complete everything!

It turned out that Lacy had been raised in an environment where every action was quickly labeled as good or bad, positive or negative. Retribution for bad/negative actions was swift. Even though her caregivers were dead, she'd replicated that childhood model in adulthood and regularly deprived herself of food and other healthy pleasure for even small infractions.

“I think my mother's mission was to keep me very busy,” she continued by way of explanation. “She was always telling me that idle hands are the devil's workshop.” Obviously, Lacy had been following someone else's mission.

Since she'd shared information about her rigid religious household I risked asking, “What about injunctions such as thou shalt not kill? (Misguided deprivation of necessary food can interfere with one's health.) Or vengeance belongs to God? (Assuming a personal role of judge, jury, and hangman can be quite dysfunctional.) Or even love your neighbor as yourself? (We tend to treat others the way we treat ourselves and would she condone this model for others?) Unfortunately, rhetoric of that ilk had been much less forthcoming!
“Don't you punish yourself?” she asked, blushing. Her voice was an interesting combination of bravery and timidity.

“Not anymore!” I replied. It was true. “I spent far too much time and energy in past years doing just that,” I went on. “Beating myself up for:

• Choices that didn't turn out as hoped
• Others' errors for which I took inappropriate responsibility
• Failing to achieve all my goals in a timely manner
• Myriad shoulds, shouldn'ts and oughts that were all too happy to bang on my door.

“And that's in addition to all those simply human mistakes. The occasions when stemware slips from my hand, a lamp crashes to the floor, green split-pea soup spatters the stove, or my feet trip over something that surely wasn't there a moment before.” I chuckled, shook my head, and repeated, “No, I don't punish myself!”

She rested her elbows on the picnic table, chin in hand. “But,” she began, her voice trailing off.

“What does your punishment achieve?” I asked. “Does it guarantee that the laundry is finished next time?” As a matter of fact, she allowed that it didn't.

“But discipline,” she persisted. “Discipline is so important, isn't it?”
“What's your definition of discipline?” I asked. It turned out that she'd confused discipline (to train or develop by instruction) with punishment (suffering, pain, or loss inflicted as retribution).

iscipline can help us to mature and become the person we were designed to be. Self-flagellation can drain our energy and move us toward illness and addictive behaviors.

“But I make so many mistakes,” she moaned with a huge sigh. At that, several in the group burst out laughing and gradually joined in the conversation. It got quite lively, actually.

“Mistakes are a sign that we're human,” said one.

“The one who makes no mistakes doesn't normally make anything,” contributed another.

“Wasn’t it Eleanor Roosevelt who said, learn from the mistakes of others; you can’t live long enough to make them all yourself?” a third queried. “I’ve learned more from my mistakes than ever from my successes!” a fourth offered. And “True success in life likely consists of making mistakes and learning from them.”

At that we digressed to the topic of healthy guilt (we recognize a mistake and know we can choose a different behavior in the future) and false guilt (an expectation that either we can do things perfectly or that we must beat ourselves up for being a mistake). By the time I’d enjoyed the last morsel of my strawberry shortcake, an emerging gleam in Lacy’s eye signaled the possibility that she might be willing to explore this vicious cycle in a new light. “I’m going to make a list of the ways in which I punish myself,” she said deliberately. “Then I’m going to assign each event to one of those two categories: healthy guilt or false guilt.”

“I’ll bet the false-guilt list will be much the longer,” her cousin said. “Just imagine the energy you’ll have when you tear it up!” We all applauded, even more enthusiastically when Lacy reached for a helping of strawberries!