It is our responsibility to pick good, safe people. Our own character flaws cause us to pick unsafe people sometimes picking a person with the same issues as ourselves. We have to identify our own issues that cause us to repeat the cycle of involving ourselves in unhealthy relationships. The destructive relational patterns within our selves are demonstrated in the following areas:
Inability to Judge Character: God has made us with two sides of our thinking, the rational and emotional. We get into trouble when we ignore the rational thinking. We “know better” but we still may be attracted to some one who is irresponsible, acting upon our emotions only.
Isolation and Fear of Abandonment: With out safe and supportive relationships, keeping a primary unsafe relationship seems better than nothing at all. This all-or- nothing split keeps isolation and the fear of abandonment going.
Defensive Hope: Defensive hope disappoints and prevents us from facing the truth. We want to avoid sadness and grief by not facing reality. We hope the other person will change, but we have to learn to not expect that they will change. The only one that we can change is ourselves. With people who do not have our best interest, we have to set boundaries and limits.
Failure to accept your own Badness: We all have bad parts that we need to own and confess. If we believe that we are completely holy and do not own our badness, we will see the badness outside of ourselves. Many people choose unsafe relationships because they do not own their badness are finding it and living it vicariously through others.
Merger Wishes: People try to find what they lack by identifying with someone else. Often time people choose relationships based on the other’s financial success or assertive personality. The problem then is they try to achieve spiritual and life growth without doing the hard work them selves.
Fear of Confrontation: Confrontation can be difficult but can be learned through the practice of boundaries, setting limits and giving consequences. Biblical, loving confrontation is needed with unsafe people.
Romanticizing: Romanticizing is an idealized way of looking at someone or some situation. They only see the good and they ignore the other person’s character flaws.
Need to Rescue: A rescuer needs an unsafe person to rescue. People who need rescuing are not taking responsibility for their own lives. The rescuer is not getting their needs met from the unsafe person. The rescuer is enabling the unsafe person and neither one is growing or maturing.
Familiarity: God has designed each of us to learn patterns of relating in our family of origin. In His plan, we should learn healthy character development like honesty, responsibility and love. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. We can learn deceit, manipulation and other unhealthy character flaws from family and culture.
Victim Mentality: A victim is someone who has no power. Thing are done to them, not by them. When a drunk driver hits you, you are a victim. Victim mentality is a pattern of relating and is not the same a being a victim. Instead, they play the “victim role”. This victim mentality does not take responsibility for their choices and behaviors. They are passive in nature and give over the “reins” to another and let them make choices for them. These “victim role players” need to learn to make good decisions, take responsibility for them selves, practice boundaries and setting limits with others.
Guilt: For someone to make us feel guilty there is some part of us that agrees with the accuser. There is a critical voice inside us agreeing to allow someone to control us with guilt messages. But we can free ourselves from guilt and shame when we look within ourselves. When there is love and acceptance by others and we understand there is freedom and no condemnation in Christ, we let the other party bear the responsibility for their own feelings and choices.
Perfectionism: Some perfectionists are particularly compulsive about details. Others want people to always view them as perfect in whatever content or situation. They put up a front and do not want anyone to find out they have problems and flaws. This idea of perfectionalism allows others to have power and control and they become a slave to their ideals. Perfectionist people need to learn to love and accept themselves, and allow others to see them as they really are, so they can have relationships built on trust & acceptance.
Repetition: Repetition is when you are caught in a destructive relational pattern that is learned early in life and the cycle repeats over and over again, going down that same familiar maze. People, who are caught in this repetition pattern, do not learn from their mistakes and do not mature and grow. Freedom from this destructive pattern is to gain insight and identifying the pattern, connect with healthy people, make some tough choices and learn new healthy behavior.
Denial of Pain and Perceptions: We need to learn from our experiences and discern good from evil. Our senses are dulled when we get stuck in destructive relational patterns. Our feelings, intuitions, and perceptions are important to be in touch with, instead of only believing what someone tells us. We have to learn to pay attention to our gut feelings when some one is hurting us. We have to search scripture, pray, have a support group and identify the “fruits” of our relationships.
These are all issues that the Bible deals with directly and tells us how to face as part of our growth process. If you have a pattern of bad relationships, it may not be the fault of the other person but actually a sign of your own spiritual immaturity. As you change, the people around you will adapt and change and you will break free from the pattern of behavior that keeps you in relationships that do not have your best interest.
No comments:
Post a Comment