Growing Up

I've been thinking about the process of growing up a lot. I always thought that I would come to a particular state of adulthood or old age at which point I would somehow be mature, wise, balanced, in a word, a finished product. Now that I'm (coff) of mature years I see that I still struggle with becoming myself, being more honest, less defensive, more direct. I struggle with it on a daily basis, my petty dishonesties, my hiding myself behind a role or a part I choose to play.

Bear with me, if you've read this far, because I think I'm going somewhere with this. Many years ago when I was a young psychotherapist in my own treatment, I read a book named "Effective Psychotherapy" by Helmuth Kaiser. In that book he struggled with the ideas of what made therapy work, and after much thought he decided that therapy (or just simple human maturation) occurs when people "say what they mean and mean what they say". Why is it that this is so bloody hard to do?

Well, I wasn't raised to be honest. I was raised to be a "hero" of accomplishment, a Superman who would make his family proud. That was the way I learned to think of myself. I tested (in my mind) everything I thought or did and every decision I made against that touchstone. I felt like a failure or a disappointment when what I did or what people thought of me didn't fit that measure. Of course, that was much of the time. Did I have freedom? Sure, when I made decisions that fit the role to which I had been assigned. The longer you play a part, the harder it is to remember you are only playing a part. I can't even begin to list the parts I have believed in, but certainly they include: the Overworked Husband, the Dominating Father, the Brilliant Young/Old Therapist, the Arrogant Prick, the Stand-up Comic, the Romantic Lover, the Great Writer, The Angry Young Man, the Rebel Against Authority, the Authority Against Rebels..... the list goes on and on.

My own therapy taught me a lot, but the most important single thing I learned was that it is almost impossible to know when you're telling yourself the truth, but it's a lot easier to know if you're telling the truth when someone is present and listening carefully. I learned to begin to tell truth from fiction slowly. I began to hear when I was bullshitting myself. I gave up old fictions but only to take on a lot of new ones. In retrospect some of the parts I played were really absurd. They were so far from the truth that even thinking about them is somewhat embarrassing. I still can't tell when what I'm thinking about myself is true, but it's a lot easier when I tell someone I trust.

So for me maturation is a long, steady process of peeling off layers of fiction and dramatic parts, struggling to tell uncomfortable truths about myself to those I love, finding those remaining dishonesties and fictions (will I ever bloody get done?) and trying to face them down, admit them and drop them. I try not to invent new fictions too, which is easy. People like to have a box to put you in, and sometimes I find it easier to just get in the box. I try to stay aware that I'm just playing a convenient part, to smooth things over or take less effort. Sometimes I find myself saying outrageous things JUST TO GET OUT OF THE BOX.

It helps to be in a relationship with someone with whom you can be honest about anything. The more you keep yourself to yourself the harder it is for you to find out who you really are. Most people don't even want to know. Have you noticed how much easier it is to be defensive when your role is challenged? As a therapist I've found that people are most self-centered when they're most uncomfortable and defensive. Maybe maturation means just dropping defenses because there is nothing to defend. Peeling off fictions makes me wonder if there is anything at the core, behind all those roles, or if what is there is just very simple, very clear, very direct and totally itself. I believe that is the Buddha nature, but to call it anything is to falsify it and turn it into another role. So we mature (if we mature) toward a greater simplicity and purity of heart. Whatever that is, it has to exist without a name.