To My Client, Print Article
Your message to me, as usual, deserves a lot of thought. First of all, I can tell that you
are making progress. So let's get more specific.
You start off with a comment about self-actualization. A good book which deals
with this subject is Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey, which
encourages you to imagine yourself at the end of your life, and then to think about
what you wanted to say to others that your life was about. The book provides
extensive suggestions about how to find these answers for yourself. The book makes
the point that effective people live their lives according to certain principles, rather
than according to specific relationships (such as husbands, children, parents) or life
tasks (such as work, earning money). With this book, you are expected to find your
own way, knowing that each person is different, and will therefore reach different life
goals. Often people who have searched their minds and hearts begin to learn
principles for living, such as 'we are here to learn,' to love, to seek truth, or to be of
service. We all know people who believe that their life purposes are to control
others, to manipulate, or simply to have as much fun as possible. We have to choose.
When we learn about our life's purpose, we must first learn that we are human beings
because we decide. The simple act of making a decision increases our selfhood.
That is why we must never regret a decision. No matter what the outcome of that
decision, the impact on our selfhood is what is most important in the long run. Of
course, making a decision means that we 'own' the effects and the ramifications of
that decision. No matter how difficult are the paths we find ourself on consequent to
the decisions we have made, the most important matter is simply that making a
decision was good for us. Part of the reason that our society has partially eliminated
institutions for the mentally retarded, the mentally ill, or the aged is that the lack of
decision and the privacy attendant to decision causes a personality deterioration.
People do not get well in such places. They slowly lose their sense of personhood,
empowerment and well-being. Note here that privacy is important to personal
empowerment, because without it we cannot fully create our own self-image or the
decisions that emanate from that point of view. At the same time that we need
privacy, we also need community, for it is in relationships that we experience the
feelings that increase self-knowledge and increase our capacity for authenticity with
others.
If decision increases selfhood, then an agreement is a joint decision between
two or more people. I notice that people who have a poor self-image, and who
lack a sense of selfhood, with its fortunate capacity for a healthy will-to-action, have a
serious difficulty making and keeping agreements. One way, therefore, to increase
our knowledge of ourselves as vital and competent people it to vow to keep all of our
agreements with ourselves and others. People who are recovering from
Codependency learn quickly to stop promising more than they can deliver. It is so
easy to say, "We are going to have lunch together one day," knowing full well that
we will forget to do this because we don't really have the time, or because it is not
really top priority for us. We make promises that are primarily wish fulfillments. We
want them to be true, but they are not. I teach all my clients, therefore, this saying:
"Healthy people make and keep agreements; addictive personalities make
promises and excuses."
The understanding of personal decision is not complete without a discussion of our
personal needs. That is where Maslow's Hierarch of Needs is useful.
When you look at the triangle, you notice that the areas at the bottom of the triangle
take up relatively more space than the very small triangle at the top that depicts self-
actualization. In other words, many needs must be met before a person will be able
to realistically address self-actualization needs. What I say to clients is: "If you were
on a street in the rain with no shelter, and you were hungry and naked, and a tiger
started running towards you, which need would you address first?" Most people
would see the logic of taking care of a basic safety need first, that is, of running from
the tiger. Many people satisfy their needs for safety, only to spend most of their lives
on issues of security, that is food, clothing and shelter. They never make it up to the
level of affiliation (what I call love, but is not really the same. It really is about
connection and participation with other human beings on a more general level).
Sometimes you notice that miliary families who move frequently have to take care of
the levels of security and affiliation over and over. In some cases they might get
stuck at those levels. They never get to the level of Recognition, which must be
fulfilled before one becomes "Self-Actualized". In many abusive relationships, a
spouse or parent deliberately causes another person to remain concerned with the
needs for safety and security. By doing this, the victim could never achieve enough
"Self-Actualization" to leave the abusive relationship. It is interesting to me to notice
that some teen-agers are able to reach all the way to the top of the hierarchy. Their
parents provide them with safety and security. School and church provides them with
Affiliation and often Recognition. Thus they are able for a short while to know what
it is to write, to paint, to organize activities, or do whatever turns them on as an
individual. Soon enough, they will be out on their own, forced to think about safety
and security issues for themselves and their families. They will probably not achieve
self-actualization again until they are at midlife, when many family and work tasks
are finally accomplished.
Now how does that gibe with the Ante-Up Game? Notice that if safety needs are
never met in a relationship, then self-actualization, or even love, would not be
possible. Thus, in the principles given for the Ante-Up Game, it describes the
central two purposes of the process as being Safety and Engagement. Then
other virtues, such as respect for the other person, and a sense of timeliness, can
follow.
Put these two things together and you see the explanation of why you cannot feel
the quality of love that you want. Namely because the relationship has not been an
emotionally safe place for you to be. So my last communication with you was all
about taking control of the verbal exchanges between you and the person with
whom you are relating, so that safety can be achieved. Eventually, when you have
mastered the AnteUp Game, no person will ever be able to make you feel unsafe
again (unless of course they choose to use a weapon!). That is why it is so important
that you learn how to master this communication method while you are still relating
to a person who makes it difficult for you. I suggest that the next time a person asks
you "Why aren't you more affectionate?" you can respond by telling him that you still
do not feel that your feelings and life purposes are SAFE when you attempt
communication with him/her. Therapeutic relationships also are all about safety. If
you do not feel safe with your therapist (minister, friend, family member), then your
sense of selfhood will not increase in that relationship.
Notice also that in the AnteUp Game it would be perfectly permissible to give a man
a kiss at level one or level three. You need to learn how to communicate to your love
relationship that "a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh." They are not fundamental
to life, and they should stand by themselves as expressions of affection and regard,
without indicating that sexual intercourse will necessarily follow. Practicing this with
a partner is part of practicing the AnteUp Game. You do not need to allow a spouse
or romantic interest to make you feel guilty because you gave him a kiss, but did not
follow it with a complete sex act. He has to learn this, so do you. Otherwise, you will
always feel defensive. You will always feel that when you give a little, your partner
will demand a lot! In the future, he will have to earn a kiss by giving eye contact and
being friendly. But he has to do a lot more than that in order to earn "the whole
deal"! Note that this escalation of communication through both verbal exchanges
and body language is illustrated in the diagram on the Onion Theory listed in the
Table of Contents.
You say that sometimes "I find myself not wanting to bother". This is a symptom of
being in a relationship where people do not relate to each other according to the
principles of the AnteUp Game, with its emphasis on safety and engagement. Why
do people unlearn a communication that is effective and natural? Precisely because
they have been taught to depend on others for personal fulfillment.
Many men and women have a tendency towards dependency. They want a
relationship to be satisfying, but they believe that the other person should be
contributing more goodness, competency and perfection than they are presently
capable of providing. So all this person's energies are being spent trying to correct
and improve (and rescue) the partner. If only they would improve, then they would
be more dependable for you! They would be better guides, leaders and lovers, and
you could just depend on them for wish-fulfillment, personal satisfaction and
relationship simpatico.
Eventually you will deliberately work to learn these principles of the AnteUp Game
and its collateral principles, not because you want the relationship to work, but
because you want to be fully grown-up in all of your relationships. If another person
often controls the dialogue, then you have a lot of learning and practice and work to
do! You recently described a conversation in which you directed the process of
dialogue from an unsafe Level 6 content back down to a safer, more effectual Level
3. Now you have really got the idea. You can control the health, progress and safety
of any conversation (unless your cohort is willing to use physical power against you,
in which case you leave the relationship as soon as it is safe to do so). Thus the Ante-
Up Game is very empowering. All people involved are eventually uplifted by greater
levels of health and capacity for true empathy.
Sometimes a person will attempt to manipulate you into feeling on the defensive. At
that point remember the principles about System Theory and Boundaries, which
we discussed previously. (See the articles included in this section of the website.)
You are a person. You have space that belongs only to you. You have a right to set
limits on whether or not another person shares your space with you.
Sometimes personal questions make you feel unsafe. They violate your space. They
create stress chemicals in your brain. They create a legitimate need to either fight for
your space, or to run from the offender. Fortunately, the AnteUp Game gives you
tools for doing this gracefully and effectively. If a person in your life keeps asking for
information they are not entitled to, tell him/her that you will tell him about your
day only if he/she seems genuinely interested (Ante Up Game level 3), but you
certainly will not accept being quizzed about your daily activities, as that violates
your rights and makes you feel unsafe. When we share with one another, we make
very personal choices about what we reveal. If we are comfortable sharing with
another person, we feel joy! If we feel stressed, then we can back up and use the
AnteUp Game to share at a simpler and less dangerous conversational or physical
level. Some people are so invasive that they will not respect physical barriers, such as
closed doors, including the bathroom or the bedroom. Remember that personal,
physical space is a Safety issue, not an Affiliation issue (back to Maslow's Hierarchy).
We must have the safety of privacy before we will feel like the intimacy of coming
together for affiliation. Obviously, a person who cannot respect ordinary physical
boundaries, such as the bathroom door, will be unlikely to be able to respect
boundaries of space that is primarily intellectual, emotional, decisional or relational.
You described to me a relationship tactic which involved handing your partner a
written note, instead of a verbal comment. This is a good strategy when it is
important to maintain the interaction at no higher than Level 3 until such time as
there is increased safety. For such reasons, people in conflict and serious
misunderstanding might very well use letters, notes, emails and even book exchanges
to communicate in such a way as to increase both safety and time to absorb new
information.
You also described times in which your partner does not respond to things you say,
things that matter to you, or times that he says things to you that do not relate to
what you said. This lack of comment is important. A lack of response, or a response
that does not relate to what you said, is defined as being a Discount. The discount
makes it appear that your comment didn't happen, or that it did not matter. Discounts
are highly dangerous to personal emotional health. They are the most destructive
interactions that occur between people. This is because the victim slowly begins to
learn that their words to not matter and eventually they themselves begin to say
words that do not relate realistically to the situation at hand. Emotional illness,
characterized by a form of meaningless babble, can result, if this kind of contact
occurs too often with a victim who is successfully isolated by an abusive personality.
Read Shakespeare's King Lear for an example of multiple discounts leading to insanity.
Therefore, if a partner indulges in the discount, turn your body physically away from
such exchanges the best and fastest way that you can. By so doing, you talk to your
own unconscious mind. You say to yourself, "I saw that, but I don't agree with it, or
buy into it." Do not say to the offender, "You did not answer me." They know full
well that they did not respond. Use your body silently to respond, because it has the
effect of setting limits on this dangerous and unhealthy behavior. If turning away
results in violence, then you know that you need a serious exit from this relationship.
Sometimes a person tries to confront you about your own personal goals. You use
the AnteUp Game to protect yourself from this invasion. If dialogue between two
people is constructive, then sharing about one's plans comes natural and feels good.
If on the other hand, you feel stressed, tense, intimidated, or uncomfortable, then
direct the conversation towards lower, safer levels of the AnteUp Game.
One of the important principles about relationship includes the choice to be in a
relationship or not. If all the people in your life learn to be healthy, satisfied, self-
directed, and personally fulfilled, it will still be true that you will choose the people
with whom you want to share your own personal space. Occasionally, you will
achieve health, while simultaneously achieving greater distance, if that is what you
want. In other words, you do not have to prove wrong-doing by another in order to
distance yourself. In fact, by some strange paradox, unhealthy people are likely to
stay together, because they are still trying to fix the other one, because they feel
needed, or because they are afraid of leaving. In other words, another person should
not have to fail in order for you to have permission to distance yourself, and pursue
your own personal interests and life style.
Why would a person need another person to fail in order to have permission to direct
their own life? Again, this seems to involve a problem with self-development. Who
can give you permission to be a person and to live your own life according to your
own personal values and needs? Is it some form of dependency and unrealistic
expectation that makes you want permission from someone else? Think hard on this.
Because in reality no one will give you permission. Other people are busy living their
own lives and pursuing their own ideas about personal fulfillment and happiness.
They don't have time to give you permission to create your own life. Paradoxically,
any person could design a program for your life, including me. But then it would not
be yours. It would be me who would be satisfied. I would succeed in creating the
world I want for myself, and I would place you in it, in just the spot that I designate
for you! Maybe you learned as a child to put other people's needs and wishes above
your own. But remember, even Jesus wanted the people who asked him for help to
be able to state clearly what they wanted. I believe that succeeding with learning the
tools of the AnteUp Game will make you stronger, so that you can better talk to
yourself!
About the sex life of a married couple. It is absolutely true that couples who produce
seratonin and endorphins in each other's brains have better sex. Fear is the antidote
to happy sex. That is why it does not occur in the midst of war activity, and why we
try to use fear to stop adolescents from experimenting with it. Again, you will never
have the sex you want as long as basic safety issues are in the way. That is the reason
that in the AnteUp Game sexual activity is at Level 6. Even female bears require a lot
of aggressive and safe foreplay before indulging in sex. All of the activity between
her and her partner take time, and they indicate to both of them, "I am playing, I am
safe, I am involved, I am assertive, and I am serious." Furthermore, one of the things
that partners enjoy with each other is that grown-up, self-confident people who feel
safe never mind asking for what they want!!
The next time someone is pressuring you to open the bathroom door, say "Please go
away. I need my privacy." Other women have to do this too. The thing that matters
is that he must comply with your wishes for your space. But if you say no words to
others in which you define your space, then you will lose the rights to control your
life.
Sometimes a person will try to manipulate you into feeling and acting affectionate. If
they say, "You are not affectionate," then respond with truth. State clearly that you
are not feeling affectionate, and that you are NEVER affectionate with anyone unless
you feel safe with them.
Regarding stress chemicals in the brain: most of the time, when my clients leave my
office, they say that they feel better than when they came. That is at least partly
because the feeling of comfort and safety made the seratonin in their brains work
well, and so they were able to relax. It is also because the client is beginning to learn
how to make his/her own choices, and thereby to learn to determine the course of
their own life. They are beginning to learn what works and does not, and so they are
beginning to enjoy a sense of clarity about many issues involving health and
personal progress. The therapist is just there to help a process, not to determine the
life goals of the client. And all of this happen through the careful and judicious use
of the AnteUp Game!
You described a time when a person helped you to feel defensive and off-balance, so
that you had difficulty responding at that moment. When you read in my book,
Fortresses to Build and to Destroy, you notice the times that as a young person I
sat "in stunned silence." This happens when a person has behaved in a way that is
unpredictable, inconsistent with normal expectations of kind behavior, devious,
belittling, manipulative and seemingly purposeless. In such cases, the person's goals
are exactly what you describe, that is, to knock you off balance, to put you on the
defensive, and to make you feel uncomfortable or incompetent. Such moments are
times when the AnteUp Game is supremely helpful. It is at such points that one uses
the Therapeutic You Message, as described previously.
By the way, manipulative comments that are directed at your weaknesses,
inadequacies, failures or flaws are additional ways to invade your boundaries,
weaken your resolve, deflate your sense of self-direction, and decrease the likelihood
that you will grow and thrive as a person. When people hurt us in this way, we might
find ourself wanting to change their attitude towards us. But why should we do that
for them? Why do we need them to see our point of view or understand our
feelings? It is nobody else's job to agree with our feelings or our goals, just as it is not
our job to convert them to our way of thinking. We all must learn to think for
ourselves, and to take responsibility for our own choices and actions. This may not
lead to peace with other people, but it will lead to greater health and personal
satisfaction in the long run for everyone involved.
Another way to look at this is to think about mutuality of benefits in our
relationships, especially in our agreements with one another. Our goal with people is
to have 'win-win' agreements, and to avoid 'win-lose' agreements (zero sum games).
The reason for this is that people will not keep their agreements if they feel that they
were disadvantaged during the process. Similarly, it is important in our negotiations
with other people that we direct our energy towards the aspects of the other person
that they most like about themselves, that is, towards the most positive aspects of
their self-image. If we do that, they will feel that they negotiated from a point of
strength, and they will keep their agreements. This takes humility on our part,
because we may not agree with their self-assessment. We may not believe that they
are 'always right,' or that they are 'just trying to help.' Our humility comes from our
understanding that we all are inadequate, and we all hang onto our self-esteem by
the most fragile of threads. So if we want others to relate kindly to us regarding our
own self-image, then we must similarly do as much for them.
By contrast, when people want to play win-lose games with us, they do so because
they want to get the upper hand. They want to feel superior. That is why they
belittle us by focusing the maximum attention on our weaknesses and flaws. When
people invite you into win-lose games, you will notice that you feel uneasy and
unsafe. That tells you to be careful to use the principles of the AnteUp Game.
Sometimes you can use a Therapeutic You Message to provide them with a mirror of
their behavior. Sometimes you can 'Ante-Down' to a safer level. But if the
interchange includes a Discount then handle it the way you handle all discounts.
Turn your head away and disengage.
You might think that it takes too much time and energy to "AnteUp" with people who
denignate as undeserving of attention. In fact, these are precisely the moments that
you need to remember to use the AnteUp Game. In such cases, keep it at Level 1 and
2. Be safe, and feel competent without being unkind in the process.
Sometimes people misunderstand the AnteUp Game and think that they have a duty
to "Up the Ante." This is incorrect. There are many relationships where the game
process remains at 'Match,' of even 'No play.' There are also very good relationships
in which because of the timing of the conversation, that a Match is better than to
pursue higher levels of intimacy. Remember that 'the name of the game' is safety and
engagement. Then you will know whether to increase levels of intimacy or not.
Remember also that you are only using a game to relearn what would have been
natural if faulty learning had not bent your mind and relational habits in a wrong
direction.
Finally, in conversation, watch for cognitive distortions. There is a handout of ten
common thinking distortions on the website, in the Happiness Now section, listed as
Recovery. These ideas paraphrase some material from a book, Feeling Good, by
David D. Burns, M.D. When you notice cognitive distortions in your thinking or in
conversation, direct your mind towards truth. Use the AnteUp Game (probably Level
3) to agree with any truth that was spoken in the conversation, and do not respond
verbally to the cognitive distortions of others. If you do this over time, then people
who talk with you will gradually improve their truth-telling capabilities and
inclinations, because they will not be rewarded with energy and attention that is
directed at cognitive distortions. On the other hand, if the cognitive distortions are
occurring in your own mind, then use self-talk to correct yourself. State clearly to
yourself what you just said in error, then answer to yourself, "I don't believe that any
more!" This begins the healing of negative programming in your mind left over from
faulty childhood learning. This takes a lot of time and energy. But then, it is your life
and your health that is at stake. Good luck learning all this wonderful, life-enhancing
stuff! You will be so proud of yourself after you have mastered it. Moreover, you will
be a truly useful human being, contributing much value to the lives of other people.
Nancy Carter, LCSW
Your message to me, as usual, deserves a lot of thought. First of all, I can tell that you
are making progress. So let's get more specific.
You start off with a comment about self-actualization. A good book which deals
with this subject is Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey, which
encourages you to imagine yourself at the end of your life, and then to think about
what you wanted to say to others that your life was about. The book provides
extensive suggestions about how to find these answers for yourself. The book makes
the point that effective people live their lives according to certain principles, rather
than according to specific relationships (such as husbands, children, parents) or life
tasks (such as work, earning money). With this book, you are expected to find your
own way, knowing that each person is different, and will therefore reach different life
goals. Often people who have searched their minds and hearts begin to learn
principles for living, such as 'we are here to learn,' to love, to seek truth, or to be of
service. We all know people who believe that their life purposes are to control
others, to manipulate, or simply to have as much fun as possible. We have to choose.
When we learn about our life's purpose, we must first learn that we are human beings
because we decide. The simple act of making a decision increases our selfhood.
That is why we must never regret a decision. No matter what the outcome of that
decision, the impact on our selfhood is what is most important in the long run. Of
course, making a decision means that we 'own' the effects and the ramifications of
that decision. No matter how difficult are the paths we find ourself on consequent to
the decisions we have made, the most important matter is simply that making a
decision was good for us. Part of the reason that our society has partially eliminated
institutions for the mentally retarded, the mentally ill, or the aged is that the lack of
decision and the privacy attendant to decision causes a personality deterioration.
People do not get well in such places. They slowly lose their sense of personhood,
empowerment and well-being. Note here that privacy is important to personal
empowerment, because without it we cannot fully create our own self-image or the
decisions that emanate from that point of view. At the same time that we need
privacy, we also need community, for it is in relationships that we experience the
feelings that increase self-knowledge and increase our capacity for authenticity with
others.
If decision increases selfhood, then an agreement is a joint decision between
two or more people. I notice that people who have a poor self-image, and who
lack a sense of selfhood, with its fortunate capacity for a healthy will-to-action, have a
serious difficulty making and keeping agreements. One way, therefore, to increase
our knowledge of ourselves as vital and competent people it to vow to keep all of our
agreements with ourselves and others. People who are recovering from
Codependency learn quickly to stop promising more than they can deliver. It is so
easy to say, "We are going to have lunch together one day," knowing full well that
we will forget to do this because we don't really have the time, or because it is not
really top priority for us. We make promises that are primarily wish fulfillments. We
want them to be true, but they are not. I teach all my clients, therefore, this saying:
"Healthy people make and keep agreements; addictive personalities make
promises and excuses."
The understanding of personal decision is not complete without a discussion of our
personal needs. That is where Maslow's Hierarch of Needs is useful.
When you look at the triangle, you notice that the areas at the bottom of the triangle
take up relatively more space than the very small triangle at the top that depicts self-
actualization. In other words, many needs must be met before a person will be able
to realistically address self-actualization needs. What I say to clients is: "If you were
on a street in the rain with no shelter, and you were hungry and naked, and a tiger
started running towards you, which need would you address first?" Most people
would see the logic of taking care of a basic safety need first, that is, of running from
the tiger. Many people satisfy their needs for safety, only to spend most of their lives
on issues of security, that is food, clothing and shelter. They never make it up to the
level of affiliation (what I call love, but is not really the same. It really is about
connection and participation with other human beings on a more general level).
Sometimes you notice that miliary families who move frequently have to take care of
the levels of security and affiliation over and over. In some cases they might get
stuck at those levels. They never get to the level of Recognition, which must be
fulfilled before one becomes "Self-Actualized". In many abusive relationships, a
spouse or parent deliberately causes another person to remain concerned with the
needs for safety and security. By doing this, the victim could never achieve enough
"Self-Actualization" to leave the abusive relationship. It is interesting to me to notice
that some teen-agers are able to reach all the way to the top of the hierarchy. Their
parents provide them with safety and security. School and church provides them with
Affiliation and often Recognition. Thus they are able for a short while to know what
it is to write, to paint, to organize activities, or do whatever turns them on as an
individual. Soon enough, they will be out on their own, forced to think about safety
and security issues for themselves and their families. They will probably not achieve
self-actualization again until they are at midlife, when many family and work tasks
are finally accomplished.
Now how does that gibe with the Ante-Up Game? Notice that if safety needs are
never met in a relationship, then self-actualization, or even love, would not be
possible. Thus, in the principles given for the Ante-Up Game, it describes the
central two purposes of the process as being Safety and Engagement. Then
other virtues, such as respect for the other person, and a sense of timeliness, can
follow.
Put these two things together and you see the explanation of why you cannot feel
the quality of love that you want. Namely because the relationship has not been an
emotionally safe place for you to be. So my last communication with you was all
about taking control of the verbal exchanges between you and the person with
whom you are relating, so that safety can be achieved. Eventually, when you have
mastered the AnteUp Game, no person will ever be able to make you feel unsafe
again (unless of course they choose to use a weapon!). That is why it is so important
that you learn how to master this communication method while you are still relating
to a person who makes it difficult for you. I suggest that the next time a person asks
you "Why aren't you more affectionate?" you can respond by telling him that you still
do not feel that your feelings and life purposes are SAFE when you attempt
communication with him/her. Therapeutic relationships also are all about safety. If
you do not feel safe with your therapist (minister, friend, family member), then your
sense of selfhood will not increase in that relationship.
Notice also that in the AnteUp Game it would be perfectly permissible to give a man
a kiss at level one or level three. You need to learn how to communicate to your love
relationship that "a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh." They are not fundamental
to life, and they should stand by themselves as expressions of affection and regard,
without indicating that sexual intercourse will necessarily follow. Practicing this with
a partner is part of practicing the AnteUp Game. You do not need to allow a spouse
or romantic interest to make you feel guilty because you gave him a kiss, but did not
follow it with a complete sex act. He has to learn this, so do you. Otherwise, you will
always feel defensive. You will always feel that when you give a little, your partner
will demand a lot! In the future, he will have to earn a kiss by giving eye contact and
being friendly. But he has to do a lot more than that in order to earn "the whole
deal"! Note that this escalation of communication through both verbal exchanges
and body language is illustrated in the diagram on the Onion Theory listed in the
Table of Contents.
You say that sometimes "I find myself not wanting to bother". This is a symptom of
being in a relationship where people do not relate to each other according to the
principles of the AnteUp Game, with its emphasis on safety and engagement. Why
do people unlearn a communication that is effective and natural? Precisely because
they have been taught to depend on others for personal fulfillment.
Many men and women have a tendency towards dependency. They want a
relationship to be satisfying, but they believe that the other person should be
contributing more goodness, competency and perfection than they are presently
capable of providing. So all this person's energies are being spent trying to correct
and improve (and rescue) the partner. If only they would improve, then they would
be more dependable for you! They would be better guides, leaders and lovers, and
you could just depend on them for wish-fulfillment, personal satisfaction and
relationship simpatico.
Eventually you will deliberately work to learn these principles of the AnteUp Game
and its collateral principles, not because you want the relationship to work, but
because you want to be fully grown-up in all of your relationships. If another person
often controls the dialogue, then you have a lot of learning and practice and work to
do! You recently described a conversation in which you directed the process of
dialogue from an unsafe Level 6 content back down to a safer, more effectual Level
3. Now you have really got the idea. You can control the health, progress and safety
of any conversation (unless your cohort is willing to use physical power against you,
in which case you leave the relationship as soon as it is safe to do so). Thus the Ante-
Up Game is very empowering. All people involved are eventually uplifted by greater
levels of health and capacity for true empathy.
Sometimes a person will attempt to manipulate you into feeling on the defensive. At
that point remember the principles about System Theory and Boundaries, which
we discussed previously. (See the articles included in this section of the website.)
You are a person. You have space that belongs only to you. You have a right to set
limits on whether or not another person shares your space with you.
Sometimes personal questions make you feel unsafe. They violate your space. They
create stress chemicals in your brain. They create a legitimate need to either fight for
your space, or to run from the offender. Fortunately, the AnteUp Game gives you
tools for doing this gracefully and effectively. If a person in your life keeps asking for
information they are not entitled to, tell him/her that you will tell him about your
day only if he/she seems genuinely interested (Ante Up Game level 3), but you
certainly will not accept being quizzed about your daily activities, as that violates
your rights and makes you feel unsafe. When we share with one another, we make
very personal choices about what we reveal. If we are comfortable sharing with
another person, we feel joy! If we feel stressed, then we can back up and use the
AnteUp Game to share at a simpler and less dangerous conversational or physical
level. Some people are so invasive that they will not respect physical barriers, such as
closed doors, including the bathroom or the bedroom. Remember that personal,
physical space is a Safety issue, not an Affiliation issue (back to Maslow's Hierarchy).
We must have the safety of privacy before we will feel like the intimacy of coming
together for affiliation. Obviously, a person who cannot respect ordinary physical
boundaries, such as the bathroom door, will be unlikely to be able to respect
boundaries of space that is primarily intellectual, emotional, decisional or relational.
You described to me a relationship tactic which involved handing your partner a
written note, instead of a verbal comment. This is a good strategy when it is
important to maintain the interaction at no higher than Level 3 until such time as
there is increased safety. For such reasons, people in conflict and serious
misunderstanding might very well use letters, notes, emails and even book exchanges
to communicate in such a way as to increase both safety and time to absorb new
information.
You also described times in which your partner does not respond to things you say,
things that matter to you, or times that he says things to you that do not relate to
what you said. This lack of comment is important. A lack of response, or a response
that does not relate to what you said, is defined as being a Discount. The discount
makes it appear that your comment didn't happen, or that it did not matter. Discounts
are highly dangerous to personal emotional health. They are the most destructive
interactions that occur between people. This is because the victim slowly begins to
learn that their words to not matter and eventually they themselves begin to say
words that do not relate realistically to the situation at hand. Emotional illness,
characterized by a form of meaningless babble, can result, if this kind of contact
occurs too often with a victim who is successfully isolated by an abusive personality.
Read Shakespeare's King Lear for an example of multiple discounts leading to insanity.
Therefore, if a partner indulges in the discount, turn your body physically away from
such exchanges the best and fastest way that you can. By so doing, you talk to your
own unconscious mind. You say to yourself, "I saw that, but I don't agree with it, or
buy into it." Do not say to the offender, "You did not answer me." They know full
well that they did not respond. Use your body silently to respond, because it has the
effect of setting limits on this dangerous and unhealthy behavior. If turning away
results in violence, then you know that you need a serious exit from this relationship.
Sometimes a person tries to confront you about your own personal goals. You use
the AnteUp Game to protect yourself from this invasion. If dialogue between two
people is constructive, then sharing about one's plans comes natural and feels good.
If on the other hand, you feel stressed, tense, intimidated, or uncomfortable, then
direct the conversation towards lower, safer levels of the AnteUp Game.
One of the important principles about relationship includes the choice to be in a
relationship or not. If all the people in your life learn to be healthy, satisfied, self-
directed, and personally fulfilled, it will still be true that you will choose the people
with whom you want to share your own personal space. Occasionally, you will
achieve health, while simultaneously achieving greater distance, if that is what you
want. In other words, you do not have to prove wrong-doing by another in order to
distance yourself. In fact, by some strange paradox, unhealthy people are likely to
stay together, because they are still trying to fix the other one, because they feel
needed, or because they are afraid of leaving. In other words, another person should
not have to fail in order for you to have permission to distance yourself, and pursue
your own personal interests and life style.
Why would a person need another person to fail in order to have permission to direct
their own life? Again, this seems to involve a problem with self-development. Who
can give you permission to be a person and to live your own life according to your
own personal values and needs? Is it some form of dependency and unrealistic
expectation that makes you want permission from someone else? Think hard on this.
Because in reality no one will give you permission. Other people are busy living their
own lives and pursuing their own ideas about personal fulfillment and happiness.
They don't have time to give you permission to create your own life. Paradoxically,
any person could design a program for your life, including me. But then it would not
be yours. It would be me who would be satisfied. I would succeed in creating the
world I want for myself, and I would place you in it, in just the spot that I designate
for you! Maybe you learned as a child to put other people's needs and wishes above
your own. But remember, even Jesus wanted the people who asked him for help to
be able to state clearly what they wanted. I believe that succeeding with learning the
tools of the AnteUp Game will make you stronger, so that you can better talk to
yourself!
About the sex life of a married couple. It is absolutely true that couples who produce
seratonin and endorphins in each other's brains have better sex. Fear is the antidote
to happy sex. That is why it does not occur in the midst of war activity, and why we
try to use fear to stop adolescents from experimenting with it. Again, you will never
have the sex you want as long as basic safety issues are in the way. That is the reason
that in the AnteUp Game sexual activity is at Level 6. Even female bears require a lot
of aggressive and safe foreplay before indulging in sex. All of the activity between
her and her partner take time, and they indicate to both of them, "I am playing, I am
safe, I am involved, I am assertive, and I am serious." Furthermore, one of the things
that partners enjoy with each other is that grown-up, self-confident people who feel
safe never mind asking for what they want!!
The next time someone is pressuring you to open the bathroom door, say "Please go
away. I need my privacy." Other women have to do this too. The thing that matters
is that he must comply with your wishes for your space. But if you say no words to
others in which you define your space, then you will lose the rights to control your
life.
Sometimes a person will try to manipulate you into feeling and acting affectionate. If
they say, "You are not affectionate," then respond with truth. State clearly that you
are not feeling affectionate, and that you are NEVER affectionate with anyone unless
you feel safe with them.
Regarding stress chemicals in the brain: most of the time, when my clients leave my
office, they say that they feel better than when they came. That is at least partly
because the feeling of comfort and safety made the seratonin in their brains work
well, and so they were able to relax. It is also because the client is beginning to learn
how to make his/her own choices, and thereby to learn to determine the course of
their own life. They are beginning to learn what works and does not, and so they are
beginning to enjoy a sense of clarity about many issues involving health and
personal progress. The therapist is just there to help a process, not to determine the
life goals of the client. And all of this happen through the careful and judicious use
of the AnteUp Game!
You described a time when a person helped you to feel defensive and off-balance, so
that you had difficulty responding at that moment. When you read in my book,
Fortresses to Build and to Destroy, you notice the times that as a young person I
sat "in stunned silence." This happens when a person has behaved in a way that is
unpredictable, inconsistent with normal expectations of kind behavior, devious,
belittling, manipulative and seemingly purposeless. In such cases, the person's goals
are exactly what you describe, that is, to knock you off balance, to put you on the
defensive, and to make you feel uncomfortable or incompetent. Such moments are
times when the AnteUp Game is supremely helpful. It is at such points that one uses
the Therapeutic You Message, as described previously.
By the way, manipulative comments that are directed at your weaknesses,
inadequacies, failures or flaws are additional ways to invade your boundaries,
weaken your resolve, deflate your sense of self-direction, and decrease the likelihood
that you will grow and thrive as a person. When people hurt us in this way, we might
find ourself wanting to change their attitude towards us. But why should we do that
for them? Why do we need them to see our point of view or understand our
feelings? It is nobody else's job to agree with our feelings or our goals, just as it is not
our job to convert them to our way of thinking. We all must learn to think for
ourselves, and to take responsibility for our own choices and actions. This may not
lead to peace with other people, but it will lead to greater health and personal
satisfaction in the long run for everyone involved.
Another way to look at this is to think about mutuality of benefits in our
relationships, especially in our agreements with one another. Our goal with people is
to have 'win-win' agreements, and to avoid 'win-lose' agreements (zero sum games).
The reason for this is that people will not keep their agreements if they feel that they
were disadvantaged during the process. Similarly, it is important in our negotiations
with other people that we direct our energy towards the aspects of the other person
that they most like about themselves, that is, towards the most positive aspects of
their self-image. If we do that, they will feel that they negotiated from a point of
strength, and they will keep their agreements. This takes humility on our part,
because we may not agree with their self-assessment. We may not believe that they
are 'always right,' or that they are 'just trying to help.' Our humility comes from our
understanding that we all are inadequate, and we all hang onto our self-esteem by
the most fragile of threads. So if we want others to relate kindly to us regarding our
own self-image, then we must similarly do as much for them.
By contrast, when people want to play win-lose games with us, they do so because
they want to get the upper hand. They want to feel superior. That is why they
belittle us by focusing the maximum attention on our weaknesses and flaws. When
people invite you into win-lose games, you will notice that you feel uneasy and
unsafe. That tells you to be careful to use the principles of the AnteUp Game.
Sometimes you can use a Therapeutic You Message to provide them with a mirror of
their behavior. Sometimes you can 'Ante-Down' to a safer level. But if the
interchange includes a Discount then handle it the way you handle all discounts.
Turn your head away and disengage.
You might think that it takes too much time and energy to "AnteUp" with people who
denignate as undeserving of attention. In fact, these are precisely the moments that
you need to remember to use the AnteUp Game. In such cases, keep it at Level 1 and
2. Be safe, and feel competent without being unkind in the process.
Sometimes people misunderstand the AnteUp Game and think that they have a duty
to "Up the Ante." This is incorrect. There are many relationships where the game
process remains at 'Match,' of even 'No play.' There are also very good relationships
in which because of the timing of the conversation, that a Match is better than to
pursue higher levels of intimacy. Remember that 'the name of the game' is safety and
engagement. Then you will know whether to increase levels of intimacy or not.
Remember also that you are only using a game to relearn what would have been
natural if faulty learning had not bent your mind and relational habits in a wrong
direction.
Finally, in conversation, watch for cognitive distortions. There is a handout of ten
common thinking distortions on the website, in the Happiness Now section, listed as
Recovery. These ideas paraphrase some material from a book, Feeling Good, by
David D. Burns, M.D. When you notice cognitive distortions in your thinking or in
conversation, direct your mind towards truth. Use the AnteUp Game (probably Level
3) to agree with any truth that was spoken in the conversation, and do not respond
verbally to the cognitive distortions of others. If you do this over time, then people
who talk with you will gradually improve their truth-telling capabilities and
inclinations, because they will not be rewarded with energy and attention that is
directed at cognitive distortions. On the other hand, if the cognitive distortions are
occurring in your own mind, then use self-talk to correct yourself. State clearly to
yourself what you just said in error, then answer to yourself, "I don't believe that any
more!" This begins the healing of negative programming in your mind left over from
faulty childhood learning. This takes a lot of time and energy. But then, it is your life
and your health that is at stake. Good luck learning all this wonderful, life-enhancing
stuff! You will be so proud of yourself after you have mastered it. Moreover, you will
be a truly useful human being, contributing much value to the lives of other people.
Nancy Carter, LCSW
- © Copyright by Nancy Carter, LCSW, ACSW