Do you play self-defeating games?

I do.

I work hard to minimize their presence in my life. The challenge is, identifying the trigger points so that the self-defeating game doesn’t become a sticking point to living wild and free in the moment of now. Expressing myself with integrity, compassion and love. Moving with grace and ease no matter how harsh the winds or scared I feel to get real.

Recently, my beloved and I were deep in a conversation we’d started based on a question we’d drawn from the box of Deeper Talk cards that sits on our island, waiting for us to pull one during dinner every day.

It is a practice we both enjoy (normally – I’ll get to that part in a minute) because as the tagline on the box states, the cards are “A tool for creating lasting and more impactful connections”.

The box contains 150 prompts.grouped under six categories: Dreams. Life Lessons. Exposed. Courage. Beliefs. Self-awareness. (I also use the cards with another writer friend as a daily morning pages writing prompt )

It is this morning’s card from the ‘Exposed’ section that prompted my thoughts on self-defeating games. “What’s your instinctive reaction when someone or something hurts you?”

A very potent question.

I have lots of self-defeating games and with time and practice, I engage them less when triggered by an event or something someone said or did that causes me to want to take Flight. Fight. or Freeze.

Until I don’t.

That night, with that particular conversation, I spiralled quickly from engaging with grace and ease into sticky messiness.

I was not impressed with myself.

I was defensive, argumentaitve (for no reason other than I wanted to have the last word and get him to say, You’re right! How could I have been so wrong? 🙂 )

After we finally found calm waters again, I realized that I needed to go back to what triggered my response.

Why was his assertion about whatever we were talking about causing my pulse to start racing and my mind to start squirming around looking for clever (read – sarcastic) comebacks rather than seeking harmony through listening to understand his position?

It was a bit of an awakening for me.

I realized in my self-reflection (an important component of defeating self-defeating game behaviours) that I am often triggered when I feel he is assuming a position of authority simply because of his maleness.

I recognized that my upset with his behaviour/response to the question had nothing to do with what he was saying or even his behaviour in that moment. It had everything to do with HOW I was perceiving the way he was – both saying and sitting and behaving and appearing — to be a repeat of words and conbditioning from long ago. The long ago being my childhood and into my twenties and even thirties where in the world as I knew it, I came up against the reality of the times where “Father knows best” grated against my belief we are all equal and my right to say and do and be how I want is the same as yours (the man’s) In that world of inequity. It meant all men know best, men hold the power, we women are the weaker sex and therefore, we must do as ‘they’ say — “Shut-up and be quiet. Know your place. Don’t rock the boat.” which underlay the patriarchal assertion that men are right simply because… they are men.

I realize this is not true of all men. However, I continue recognize it as part of our collective consciousness, particularly in the places where women continue to be treated as chattel and objects.

My beloved didn’t say anything ‘wrong’ during our conversation. My self-defeating game was, I have a trigger point based on past experiences and when I reacted instinctively to that trigger being pulled, I went on the attack to assuage my deeper, historic feelings of being less than, not good enough, not listened to, not – a whole bunch of nots that did not add up to my recognizing my own worth.

Yes, we still live in a world where patriarchal structures and our social conditioning continues to allow the inequities of centuries old beliefs and behaviours to undermine our recognition of the worth of all human beings.

In my relationships, my responses to that conditioning are my issue — not my beloveds. The onus is on me to calm the angry voices from the past that rise up when I see him through the eyes of ‘All men…” so that, rather than throwing bombs of discord, I create pathways to harmony, understanding and deeper connections.

Namaste.

When I was a little girl, my father would promise us trips. Usually we set out on them. Often, we never reached our destination.

My father was a man of mercurial moods. One moment he’d be excited about something. The next, storm clouds brewed and we four children ran for cover. Often, the reason our trip never got to its destination, or ended sooner than expected, was because something had set my father’s temper rising, and he would declare it was time to leave. Now.

I loved my father. I did not love his angry outbursts.

I also did not love the pattern of behaviours I adopted to compensate for my lack of trust in promises and people’s inability to keep their commitments.

Not trusting in promises and commitments lead me to not write out my goals or to believe in my dreams – and to often not keep my commitments with myself and others.

I have been working on this aspect of myself for years — it did not serve me well. It needed to change and the only person who could do something about it was/is… ME.

it’s a journey on which I keep taking steps every day, which is why, recently, I took action to fulfill on a dream that began percolating when I first stepped into the Choices room in April of 2006 — which was the predecessor to the Discovery Seminar I just coached in.

Every Sunday, there is a spiritual service which begins with someone from the group singing, playing an instrument, sharing their talent. That first Sunday morning, sitting in that room, I felt my teenage me dream stir.

I have always loved singing. When I was young, my sister Anne and I would accompany our dishes chores with singing. We loved doing it even if the rest of the household made us close the kitchen door.

In junior high school, I was part of a folk group and at 16 I got up the nerve to perform in the Annual Talent Show and Concert. My song, Joni Mitchell’s iconic, Both Sides Now, which I sang in French and English.

I came second in that competition.

Unfortunately, my success didn’t matter to me. My parents didn’t come and my brother did his normal thing of teasing me mercilessly – which I know is what big brothers do. For me though, that teasing only highlighted the fact my parents weren’t there to hear me. It reaffirmed what I feared (and secretly believed to be true) I didn’t matter.

Believing I didn’t matter lead to my holding back on articulating my dreams. I wanted to be an actor and singer. My family thought that was ridiculous. I quit talking and dreaming about it, And though I did take steps at times to sing with choirs and to act in community theatre, I always withdrew. The commitment was too great for me and my fear of proving that thought – I didn’t matter – true, pulled me back from taking steps foward.

One of the things Discovery seminars highlights is the importance of keeping our commitments, to ourselves and others.

I continually practice strengthening this mental muscle because I know deep within me that I do matter and I am worth keeping my commitments so that I can feel good about myself and not carry shame (which comes when I don’t keep them!).

One of my commitments I made to myself when I first started into this self-discovery journey was to dream. And, to take action on that dreaming.

Which brings me back to that dream of singing out loud in front of an audience – in particular, in the Discovery room where I know, I am loved and safe, and that I matter.

Last week I asked for what I wanted.

I asked a fellow coach whom I know is a musician if he would help me. He said yes — which means one Sunday soon, I shall be singing in front of the people gathered for the spiritual service. It doesn’t matter if I’m any good. What matters most is I am doing this for me. I am keeping a promise I made long ago to that child within. I will always cherish, protect and celebrate you. I shall keep my commitments.

I am taking steps to experience my dream come alive and to heal that broken promise of my teenage self. I am showing that 16 year old Louise, her voice matters. She matters.

And in case you’re wondering, the song I’ll be singing is, Both Sides Now.