Orlando's Counseling, Marriage & Family Therapy and Life Coach Professionals

When I was four years old, my sister and I were invited to my cousin Rachel’s birthday party. The day before the party, my mother took us to Toys “R” Us to pick out a gift. We chose the most beautiful tea set I had ever seen, and as soon as we got it home my mother wrapped it with great care. When the time came at the birthday party for my cousin to open our present, I stood up and started clapping and jumping up and down. One of the other parents at the party said, “Oh no, she doesn’t realize that the gift is for Rachel. She must think that she gets to keep it for herself.” My mother shook her head and said, “No, she understands. That’s just how Kimmie is. She dearly loves that tea set, and she’s just so happy for Rachel to have it.” I’m sure the other adults in the room were skeptical of my mom’s explanation, and fully expected me to have some sort of a meltdown when I didn’t get to go home with the beautiful tea set. However, my mother knew better. I was what she called tenderhearted. Even when I was very young, I was concerned about the feelings of others, and I wanted everyone to be happy and to have their hearts’ desires.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I haven’t led the life of Gandhi or Mother Teresa (not yet anyway). I have wandered in the desert of my discontent, born of selfishness and loss and desperation. I have been unkind and closed minded. I have been misguided and confused, and I have regrets. I know what it’s like to be hurt and lonely, and I understand the depth and breadth of the struggle it requires to become whole again. However, stumbling and fumbling I have found my way back to the path that I started on so long ago. I have grown and changed, and yet (thankfully) I have managed to keep intact the same little soul who always wished the best for everyone, including spiders and worms. Having been there myself, I have the utmost respect for those who are ready to make the changes necessary to transform their lives through counseling.

As a therapist, I get to personally witness the bravest acts of humanity. It is humbling to be given the honor of bearing witness to another human being’s triumphs and struggles, heartbreaks and joys. Helping my clients to rediscover the strength, courage, and wisdom that already exists within them, even in their darkest hours, is what I was meant to do. I am grateful every day for the opportunity to be there in that small space between suffering and healing, championing for the beginnings of change. In the Red Hot Chili Peppers song “Soul to Squeeze (1991)” it says “…when I find my peace of mind, I’m gonna give you some of my good time…” That lyric has always deeply resonated with me. Now, I am in a position to make good on that promise. I get up every morning with the intent of giving away my peace of mind, and, you know, I find it always comes back to me. As my mom used to say, “My cup runneth over.”

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According to Clark Hull’s Drive Reduction Theory of Motivation, “Any repeated behavior by an organism is an attempt to meet a need for that organism.” Meaning, we repeat the actions that we believe will yield the  results necessary to satisfy our needs. Ok, so that’s pretty obvious and basic, right? We eat when we’re hungry so we’ll be nourished; we rest when we’re tired so we’ll be recharged, etc. That makes sense, and it doesn’t take an anthropologist to figure it out.

Now, here comes the interesting part. What about when we do bad stuff that doesn’t seem to have any benefits? Why do we cheat on our spouses, yell at our children, or gossip about our friends? Exactly what need(s) do we desire to meet when we do those things? Aren’t we going to get found out, and won’t the consequences eventually be catastrophic? Can it be that we do it because we’re just in a bad mood, or we can’t help ourselves? Maybe we’re under a lot of pressure at work or a health crisis is making us feel “not like ourselves” lately. Do these kinds of explanations really hold water? What needs can we possibly be trying to satisfy when we engage in behaviors that are mean, selfish, unhealthy and/or down-right self-sabotaging?

Well, first of all, let’s clarify: I’m not talking about something you do one time, clearly identify as a mistake, and never do again. We’ve all done things that we look back on and think, “Whoa, what was I thinking?” I’m talking about patterns of behavior that are harmful to ourselves and others, yet we’re seemingly powerless to stop repeating them. Often, we’re “unaware” it’s even a problem. We rephrase our problem behavior into benign sounding expressions like, “I only date bad boys,” or “ladies know I like to play the field.” We say, “So what if I have a temper? I’m at every PTA meeting, and all my kids are on the Dean’s List,” or “Everybody knows I’m sarcastic; if they can’t take the heat, they need to stay out of the kitchen.” We imply that the person on the receiving end of our misdeeds is somehow complicit by saying things like, “She knows I don’t mean it,” or “If he doesn’t like it, he can just leave,” or “He knew what he was getting in to when he asked me to marry him,” or the ever popular “Hey, she does it, too. What’s the big deal? Nobody’s perfect.” At work, we excuse our gossiping and sabotaging of others as “office politics,” “business as usual,” “how the game is played.” We claim innocence and pretend that if we don’t go along with it, we’ll be shunned or sabotaged ourselves.

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Kim Murphy, MS, Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern

Why do we as human beings lie to ourselves? Fear. We fear the truth and its consequences, so we deny our feelings. This kind of behavior can sometimes have its origins in childhood experiences. If we were not given a healthy feeling of self worth and a sense of belonging; if we didn’t have a safe place to process and consider our feelings, we learned to deny the truth about what was happening around us and our feelings about it. Eventually we became able to close ourselves off from our feelings altogether. Denial is a powerful, powerful thing. As a child, you may have learned to deny your feelings as a way to insulate yourself from the painful circumstances that surrounded you. This kind of self defense may have served as a way to protect you when others didn’t. Now that you’re an adult, you may not even be aware that you’re lying to yourself when things go wrong.

You could be telling yourself a lie that prevents you from accessing the greatest joy of your life in an attempt to avoid pain or disappointment: “I’ll never be able to do it right. I just shouldn’t have kids. Look at how my parents screwed me up.” Or, you may be feeling the pain of an unacceptable situation, without having any understanding of fact that you could be the one to extricate yourself from it: “I just wish she would stop cheating on me. I know what she’s been up to. Everything would be okay, if she’d just stop seeing other people behind my back.” By learning to be more honest with ourselves, we could avoid a lot of pain and suffering.

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