|
Home
Up
Introduction
Need to Control
Intimidation
Idealism
Need to Fix
Caretaker
Powerlessness
Let Go
Detachment
Unconditionality
Overdependence
Manipulation
Helplessness
Suicide
Survival Masks
Self-control
| |
 Tools
for Handling Control Issues
Tempering Idealism
Content:
What is idealism?
Idealism
is the:
-
Holding
on to a set of beliefs which are a rigid system of the way life
is "supposed to be" or "should be".
-
Philosophical
foundation of a lifestyle in which you find yourself always "bucking''
the system at home, school, work, or in the community.
-
Belief
system you have adopted about how things "should be done'' which often
gets challenged by the way things are in reality.
-
Fantasy
or dream of how your life should be which often interferes with your
accepting the "here and now'' realities of life.
-
Underlying
motive behind your attempt to control people so that they meet your ideal
image of the way they should be, act, achieve, react, live, etc.
-
Set
of goals of how reality should be if it were perfect, a set of goals to
shoot for 100% attainment.
-
Set
of beliefs which if adhered to too rigidly often gets you into trouble with
authority figures in your life since you are apt to rebel against such
authority if the system is "not right'' and not in accord with your
ideals.
-
Block
which prevents you from playing the political game of going along with the
mandates of the authority which temper your beliefs and "should's''
about the ways things should be.
-
Set
of beliefs which, if held too rigidly, can open you to criticism for being
too "pie in the sky,'' non-pragmatic, or out of touch with
reality.
-
Blind
spot that can keep you off focus in your home, school, work, or community
life because of your disappointment about others not accepting or living up
to your ideals.
-
Mask
you often hide behind when you are unwilling to admit that you are
unmotivated, too lazy, or not interested in doing what is expected of you at
school, work, home, or in the community.
-
Underlying
current which prevents your healthy adjustment to a situation because it is
so out of "synch'' with the ideal way you think things should be.
-
Set
of norms against which you judge others and which gets you into trouble with
the others, especially if they are authority figures who don't meet the
"norm.''
What are the negative effects of being overly
idealistic?
If
you continue to be overly idealistic, then you could:
-
Experience
poor adjustment at school, on the job, or in the community because you could
become identified as a "gadfly,'' "rebel,'' or a person with a
"chip on your shoulder.''
-
Have
problems and get in trouble with authority figures who are not functioning
in a way you believe correct and you've let them know this.
-
Become
very depressed, despondent and despair over how imperfect life is at home,
school, work, or in the community.
-
Find
it difficult to fully accept anyone the way they really are and chronically
attempt to control them so that they can become the way they "should
ideally be.''
-
Resent
any attempts to help you recognize the rational, pragmatic, and political
strategies for coping with a "less than perfect or ideal'' life.
-
Find
that your tenure is short on any job with a boss and, after a series of job
failures, you might need to seek a job where you can be your own boss and
not have to deal with less than ideal bosses or employees.
-
Become
so hypercritical and controlling over all of the people in your life that
they shy away and become more distant and cool with you.
-
Become
the fall guy or scapegoat for any problems or trouble in the system at home,
school, work, or in the community as a means to quiet your outspokenness and
to lay the blame and responsibility for the problems on you.
-
Be
misunderstood, ignored, undervalued, rejected, non-approved, unsupported by
the people in your home, school, work and community systems.
-
Be
so frustrated in not being able to control people to meet your ideals that
you regularly experience anger, temper, and raging outbursts against these
people.
-
Turn
into a cynic or become fatalistic, hostile, pessimistic, and negativistic.
-
Be
so blinded by your "shining'' ideals that you forget others are free to
have their own opinion and become discouraged when you think no one is
listening to you.
-
Experience
a lowering of your self-esteem because you are not capable of living your
ideals in your life spheres.
How is over-idealism a control issue
Over-idealism
is a control issue because:
-
It
is your attempt to put the "locus of control'' in your hands to get
others to be the way they should be for you.
-
It
is at the root of your need to overcontrol situations, people, places, or
things in order to ensure that they come into compliance with your ideal
image of the way reality is supposed to be.
-
You
can resort to coercion, intimidation, or threats to get people, places or
things to come into line with the ideals you expect them to have.
-
It
often is at the base of your need to fix or be a caretaker because you see
something less than ideal or perfect and impulsively reach out to change or
care for it.
-
In
your need to politically espouse your ideal belief system, you can utilize
manipulation, conning, storytelling, promise making, favor swapping, and
bargaining to get people, places, or things into line with you.
-
It
often can blind you to the uncontrollables or unchangeables in your life so
that rather than admit to powerlessness and then let go of them, you
conversely work harder to change and bring them under control.
-
When
you find it difficult to detach from others, it is often your idealized
image of the way you are supposed to act, be, or behave that keeps you
emotionally hanging on to these people.
-
It
is often a barrier to your ability to gain self-control over your life
because your idealism blinds you to what is reasonable, realistic and
achievable for you in your life.
-
Behind
your need to gain control and power over other persons, places, or things is
the idealistic image or fantasy of the way your world is supposed to be and
how only you have the answers to bring your world into synch with this
image.
-
You
are willing to sacrifice your own resources, energy, spirit, physical
stamina or health in order to get your ideal image of the way life is
supposed to be actualized in the lives of the people, places, and things
with whom you come into contact.
-
It
encourages a lack of moderation or compromise in your efforts to control
others so that you can feel sane in an ideal world and at peace with the
ideal way in which people should treat you.
What irrational thinking results in over-idealism?
-
They
should know what they are supposed to do.
-
Life
should be perfectly in line with what has been promised when we were
encouraged to live a good life, work hard, and treat others fairly.
-
The
goals of the organization should always be the goals of every member of the
organization.
-
We
should always act, think, and feel like everyone else who is a member of
this group, family, school, work site, church, or community.
-
It
should be easy to make friends in a situation which I have freely chosen to
join because everyone in the situation should be just like me.
-
They
should be as committed to this goal, job, or target behavior as I am.
-
Everyone
should be as sincere, trustworthy, and honest in their dealings with me as I
am with them.
-
If
I have been willing to make these sacrifices for them, they should show
their appreciation to me for this.
-
They
should work as hard as I do.
-
They
should be as generous, giving, and caring as I am.
-
They
should know how I feel about them, what I want from them, and what I need in
my life.
-
They
should appreciate me for what I do around here.
-
People
should be nice to one another around here if we are going to be successful.
-
Everybody
should fit in with everybody else around here in order for us to reach our
goals.
-
Arguments,
disagreements, and differences of opinions should not occur around here.
-
Everybody
should be as clear and precise about our goals here as I am.
-
If
I am here for you, you should be here for me.
-
You
should respect my work just like I respect yours.
-
They
should only hire, appoint, or select people for this job, task, or
responsibility who are appropriate.
-
Everybody
should put in an honest day's work for an honest day's wage.
-
I
should do everything perfectly in order to meet my standards so as to
encourage others to follow my example.
New ways to reduce impact of idealism in your life
In
order to reduce the impact of idealism in your life you need to follow these
steps:
First: Identify in which life spheres your idealism creates problems
for you. The life spheres are:
Then
for each life sphere follow the next steps.
Second: Identify the ideals, the "should's'' and the "must do's''
which create problems for you.
Third: Identify what controlling behaviors result from your idealism.
Fourth: Identify the non-productive or negative behavioral responses you
receive or witness which arise from your idealism.
Fifth: Identify the irrational beliefs, the should's, must do's,
or perfectionistic tendencies at the base of each of your ideals which create
the problems for you.
Sixth: Take each irrational belief, should, must do, or
perfectionistic tendency and identify a healthier, more rational, and more
realistic alternative substitute which will tone down your ideals.
Seventh: Do anger work and
other emotional-release work to get your
emotional and feelings life more integrated into your new, more rational,
healthy and realistic thinking.
Eighth: Identify new, more politically reasonable, realistic, and
rational behaviors which will encourage your success and happiness in each
life sphere.
Ninth: Implement the new, politically sound behaviors and
monitor the effect they have on the people in each life sphere.
Tenth: Reward yourself for being more rational, realistic,
healthy and politically sound, for your new, less idealistic behaviors. Use
positive self-talk to remind yourself that:
-
There
is only one person in life you can change or control. It is you!
-
You
don't always have to be the most perfect, most ideal, or best achiever in
order to achieve success in life.
-
Things
don't always have to go your way in order for you to feel happy and
successful.
-
It
is OK for you and others to experience failure or mistakes, It is not the
end of the world.
-
Perfection
is not always possible in this lifetime. The only perfect being is God.
-
It
is OK to accept the political realities of life to survive around here.
-
If
it comes to the point where I can no longer survive around here, it would
be healthier for me to leave the situation than to stay and be destroyed.
-
If
I stay around here knowing that it will eventually destroy me, then it is
my own choice and I can no longer complain about it.
-
It
is better to keep my idealistic and perfectionistic attitudes to myself
than to inflict them on others who have no desire to become like I want
them to be. If I cannot live with this reality, then it would be better
for me to leave the situation than to inflict others with my rigidity,
irrationality, unhealthiness, and over-controlling, ``better-than-thou''
attitudes.
-
I
am responsible for my own life and happiness. I am deserving of my efforts
at making my ideals more realistic so that I can be successful around
here.
Eleventh: Continue
to implement more realistic, less idealistic, and less perfectionistic behaviors
in all of your life spheres. Continuously monitor how you are allowing your
ideals to control your life and the lives of others.
Twelfth: If you fall back into an overly idealistic state in one or more of
your life spheres, return to the first step and begin all over again.
Steps to temper idealism
Step
1: In your journal answer the following questions in order to
assist you to work on tempering your idealism so that it is less of a control
issue for you.
A.
How do you display idealism in your behaviors and actions in life?
B.
What are the negative effects of over-idealism in your life?
C.
How do you use your idealism as a control mechanism in your life?
D.
How do you feel about idealism being singled out as a control issue in
your life? How valid is this concept for you?
E.
How do you feel about the idealism of other people in your life? Do you
feel they use their idealism as a control issue?
F.
How does their idealism and your idealism clash or conflict? What types
of problems does this cause for you?
G.
What irrational beliefs or unhealthy thinking leads to or results from
your over-idealism?
H.
For how long has over-idealism been a problem for you? When was your
idealism greater? Lesser? More of a problem? Less of a problem?
I.
How have you dealt with your problems arising from over-idealism?
J.
How do you feel about ``shoulding'' yourself or others to be, to act, to
think, and to feel in ideal ways?
K.
How badly are you suffering in your life from the negative consequences
of your idealism and how badly do you want to change this?
L.
How willing are you to "play the political'' games in life in order
to survive?
Step
2: Once you have done an assessment of the impact of over-idealism in
your life, then answer the following questions for each of your life spheres.
Take each of the following life spheres one at a time and complete all of the
questions in your journal before you go on to answer the same questions for the
next life sphere.
The
Life Spheres Impacted by Idealism
A.
What are the ideals in this life sphere which create problems for you?
B.
How do you try to control other people in this life sphere by your
idealism?
C.
What are the negative results of your controlling through over-idealism?
D.
What irrational beliefs or perfectionistic tendencies are at the root of
your problematic ideals in this life sphere?
E.
What healthier, more rational, and more realistic alternative beliefs in
this life sphere would temper your problematic ideals?
F.
What angers you in this life sphere about letting go of your overly
idealistic ideals?
G.
What new feelings do you need to experience in this life sphere in order
to let go of the old ideals and accept the new, healthier, more realistic and
more rational ideals or beliefs?
H.
What new behaviors do you need to develop in this life sphere as a result
of tempering your idealistic thoughts and emotions?
I.
What "political games'' do you need to play in order to survive in
this life sphere once you have tempered your idealism?
J.
How likely are you to successfully survive and be healthy and happy as a
result of your new, "less idealistic'' oriented behaviors and playing the
``political games'' in this life sphere?
K.
What alternatives do you have if, by being less idealistic and more
political in your actions, your life, security, happiness, and success are still
threatened and/or at risk?
L.
How willing are you to let go physically of your active involvement with
people, places, or things which threaten your survival in this life sphere?
M.
How willing are you to admit the need to "quit'' a person, place, or
thing in this life sphere when to stay would result in hurt, pain, and suffering
for you?
Step
3: Once you have analyzed each of your life spheres for new, more
tempered thinking, feeling, and actions, then you need to implement the new,
tempered ideals, less controlling, more realistic, more rational beliefs, and
healthier behaviors in each life sphere.
Step
4: Monitor the impact these new behaviors have on the people in
each life sphere.
Step
5: Reinforce your efforts at tempering your idealism.
Step
6: Keep implementing more politically sound behaviors in each life
sphere.
Step
7: Walk away or quit any people, places, or things in your life
spheres who continue to be a threat to your survival or existence even after you
have tempered your idealism.
Step
8: If you fall back into allowing your idealism to control you or
others, then return to Step 1 and begin all over again keeping in mind that:
-
Life
is
-
a
little sunshine, a little rain
-
a
little loss, a little gain
-
a
little happiness, a little pain
-
not
all sweet, nor all sour
-
now
a weed, now a flower but
-
a
goodly average of sunshine and shower.
|
Coping.org:
Tools for Coping
with Life's
Stressors
Coping.org
is a Public Service of James J. Messina, Ph.D. & Constance M. Messina, Ph.D.,
Email: