Many men are a slave to familiarity, even when they know it harms them.
—
The room was dark and my mood darker– it had happened again and the whirlpool of despair pulled me closer and closer into its terrifying maw.
A mere 24-hours ago, it had all seemed so different, when connection, intimacy, shared stories and laughter suggested my long, lonely and unsuccessful quest for love had come to an unexpected win.
However, the ambiance that had since settled was familiar–depressing. Oh-so-familiar.
A strange thing happened as I wallowed in my misery. A dialogue began in my head between the part of me prone to catastrophizing about my self worth and a much calmer voice, gently and lovingly speaking to me. “ What do you notice?” it whispered.
“It’s the same story over and over” I said–“I connect, I hope and then rejection.”
“What is the teaching?” asked the calm voice inside me. I exploded into my familiar story mentally. That word again…leaping out at me as though in bright neon lights-FAMILIAR.
◊♦◊
They behave toward him as though nothing has changed, as though his significant growth is nonexistent.
|
It recalled a conversation I’d had long ago with a successful speechwriter from Australia, who has complained that however far and wide he’s traveled and whatever deep learnings and personal development he’s achieved, once returned home, people regard him as the same. He’s in the same place doing the same thing the same way at the same time. They behave toward him as though nothing has changed, as though his significant growth is nonexistent.
I was younger then. the pertinence of the lesson was almost totally lost. Yet as I sat in the dark, that specific conversation showed itself in a different light.
Rejection was nothing new, the struggle to connect was nothing new, self-flagellation: nothing new, But more importantly, the depressing sense of futility was also…all too familiar.
Yanked from my fugue state by the intriguing notion I was about to capture a powerful and valuable insight, I began to question how it could be that a grown man could re-experience the same angsty, dramatic nonsense that had been the totality of my romantic career. After all, isn’t love supposed to be beautiful and easy?
My mind drifted to bar veterans, wearing a groove in the same stools, singing the same songs of former glories and glories that never were.
What happens to a man that he surreptitiously creates Groundhog Day?
I was addicted to the pattern of my negative expectations and self assessments.
|
My head was swirling, so I escaped into hypnosis with a request to my subconscious mind that it give me an answer where reason was failing me. Sure enough, as I drifted ever deeper into a meditative state, the mist began to clear and my former training revealed itself—I was addicted to the pattern of my negative expectations and self assessments.
◊♦◊
Addiction is widely perceived as being the sole province of drug addicts, malcontents, seedy low-lifes and rich people with nothing better to do. What is less known? We are all addicted and far more dependent than we might like to believe. We dress addiction up in different language and rarely pause to consider the notion we might not be in full control of our habits, behavior, or even thinking. Sugar, candida, the Internet, approval and more addictions spring to mind.
As I considered the pattern of my love life, and while using the AA model of fearless moral inventory, I could not help but notice there were no exceptions. Every putative relationship of mine had become subject to my identical subconscious strategy.
In my work as a hypnotherapist, for every person I get to help, are dozens, if not more, who are vehement and sometimes violent in their rejection of the concept that they have the power to get well! After nearly a decade of attempting to persuade people they can heal themselves, their response is almost always to deny, divert, reject, or disabuse the notion.
Before I was a hypnotherapist I traveled in many jobs, often accompanied by spectacular failure and always conforming to the same pattern—I sincerely applied, did my best, failed and in some cases was fired—often to the dismay of sales managers who had seen “gold in the hills.”
By applying the familiar to any life circumstance, rather than daring to do something different, we physiologically reward ourselves when we make the same choices.
|
What unites these different contexts? The answer is so simple it’s challenging to see! The pattern, operating at a subconscious level, is familiarity! By applying the familiar to any life circumstance, rather than daring to do something different, we physiologically reward ourselves when we make the same choices!
When an unidentified urge drives you to behave in self-sabotaging ways through narrow focus and an absence of self-awareness and regulation, it is reasonable to suggest, if repeated often enough, one becomes addicted to the urge, the safety net-feeling of familiarity.
Having had this awareness brought into consciousness, I decided to see whether it applied when talking to my network of business and social contacts. It does! We may think of man as an explorer, a daredevil, a promiscuous playboy, or as programmed to “seek the new.”
◊♦◊
That’s not the case.
I’m suggesting the Hunter of old, the Risk Taker, the Explorer, the Discoverer of Archetypal truth has disappeared. I am living it, doping myself through ritual and routine.
So I’m addicted to familiarity, or at least I was until I became aware of it. There are six human needs according to psychology, of which certainty and uncertainty are two. What then of uncertainty? Some among us drive race cars at breathtaking speeds, leap from planes, bungee jump and perform other acts of derring-do, but most men have become creatures of routine. I posit the multimedia representation of man is of little resemblance to the actual man of today!
What then of the 21st-century man? As a father, am I raising my son to the gentle addiction of so-called normalcy? What happened to the Hero? The Adventure? The Innovator? The Warrior?
I’m in the process of looking at myself, and in as much as a coach without an MD can diagnose, I’m beginning to alert people to the fact they are addicted to familiarity…even as they know it will harm them.
It is the same response my body gives me for falling in love with women who are astonishingly similar in how they treat me.
|
To the heroin addict, the reward physiologically for self-harm, is the same reward I receive when ingesting my coffee-like substance every morning. It is the same response my body gives me for falling in love with women who are astonishingly similar in how they treat me.
◊♦◊
The good news is, you will not receive a medical diagnosis for familiarity. The bad news, especially for people habituated to pain, misery, suffering, trauma, abuse, low self-esteem, self sabotage, toxic relationships and more, is that your body is rewarding you for making the same choice even as you rail against the injustice.
The answers may be both simpler and more complex. I would invite anyone to assess with fearless honesty, just how happy they are. For many, there has been an abandonment of dreams, big goals and high ideals in favor of settling. Settling is the addiction then. The cure is to change your relationship with uncertainty.
I have been conscious of how easy it would be to define myself by this illness.
|
I’m committed, obsessively, to being the best man I can be and I’m okay with that. What I’m not okay with is the idea I’m being driven by an addiction of any kind—I used to drink heavily and party hard, so I feel pretty positive about the lifestyle choices I make today. As I battle multiple sclerosis, I have been conscious of how easy it would be to define myself by this illness.
The danger is the disease becomes familiar and my ability to cope becomes the barometer of success or failure. I’ve been wrestling with this for eight years and it is fair to say it’s familiar—what I want to know is whether I’m addicted to that familiarity, and if it is an obstacle to self-cure.
I don’t have all the answers—however I would like to challenge you to examine your own life through the prism of possibility you are addicted to the greatest dope of all—familiarity.
Photo credit: Getty Images