They say ‘I’m wavering because every time I make a firm decision, I worry about the disruption damaging my parents’ health’, or ‘I can’t do it because it devastates me to think of my children feeling torn between the two of us’ or ‘My community has been so supportive and everyone assumes we’re doing fine. If they blame me for the break up, I’m scared they’ll disown me’.

Whenever you waiver, do you equally feel immobilized by your obligations? Do you fear that moving to a poorer geographical area will mean a longer commute to work that will reduce your time with your children and impact their self confidence? Do you worry that a divorce might embarrass your parents? Are you anxious that you can’t exist without your partner’s income? Do you feel guilty that your partner, who has a physical disability, relies on you for care? Or maybe you cannot contemplate adding the inevitable arguments and unpleasantness to your already stressful life?

Alternatively, do you use commitments as your excuse for your not making the move today: your daughter came to stay for the weekend so it was difficult; your partner made an effort this week; or it’s their birthday soon and it wouldn’t be fair? Perhaps you’ve booked a holiday together and feel you can’t un-book it. Or you’re both invited to the wedding of a mutual friend and it would be embarrassing not to go. Maybe one of you is incapacitated with ‘flu and needs looking after.

When clients feel imprisoned by their obligations, I relate Benoit’s description of a man who similarly imagines himself to be a prisoner, trapped in a cell. He stands at one end of a small dark empty room on his toes, with his arms stretched upwards, hands grasping the small barred window for support, the room’s only apparent source of light.

If he holds on tight, straining upward towards the window, he can see a bit of bright sunlight between the top bars. So committed is his effort not to lose sight of that glimmer of life-giving light that it never occurs to him to let go and explore the rest of the cell. So it is that he never discovers that the door at the end of the cell is open, he is in fact, free. He has always been free to walk out into the brightness of day, if only he would let go. As Sheldon Kopp* puts it:

‘In life, we are defeated not only by the narrowness of our perspective, and our fear of the darkness, but by our excuses as well…we make circumstances our prison and other people our jailors’

Are you making circumstances your prison and other people your jailor? In reality, like Benoit’s man, you are your own jailor. You may say, as do my clients, ‘How can I possibly be responsible for not crossing my Rubicon when I’ve just told you I can’t because of my social and financial obligations?

Well you’re not responsible if you define ‘responsibility’ as follows:

‘Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of
God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbour.
In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.’ (A. Bierce)*

But for me, responsibility is by no means a ‘detachable burden’. This is because, when I speak of your responsibility, I am not merely talking about your being responsible for your behaviour.

I am talking about your being responsible for being yourself. Once we’re here, what we make of ourselves is up to us. Responsibility in this sense is inseparable from freedom – the freedom to choose.

In choosing who you are and who you are to become, you have absolute freedom: even refusing to chose represents a choice. If you are to stop tearing yourself apart and live life to the full, you must acknowledge that you are freely choosing to do with your life what you are now doing – vacillating.

And that you could equally freely chose to do a number of other things: go for good, stay and make improvements, move out yet continue to be couple, divorce, have a trial separation, and so on. You choose…!

References
* Kopp, S., If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him! (London: Sheldon Press, 1972)
* Bierce,A., The Devil’s Dictionary (Oxford Book of Quotations) (London: Penguin Books, 1976) Text No. 803

Copyright © Beverley Stone Confronting Company Politics Published by Palgrave Macmillan 1997 ISBN 0-333-68154-1
Copyright © Beverley Stone The Inner Warrior Published by Palgrave Macmillan 2004 ISBN 1-4039-3677-3
Copyright © Beverley Stone 2010

Many of my clients feel unable to say or do what’s in their hearts or on their minds. Instead, they spend weeks, months and even years, thinking about their current situation, making ambitious plans to change, but when it comes to the crunch, they do nothing. They never act on their hopes or dreams.

Maybe you recognize yourself in some of these ‘aborted decisions’, too:

• You think about making a new life abroad, plan to do it, but don’t
• You think about doing what it take to make your marriage work, plan to do it, but don’t
• You think about starting your own business, plan to do it, but don’t
• You think about leaving your relationship, plan to do it, but don’t
• You think about changing your job, plan to do it, but don’t

From the trivial to the life changing, if you never experiment with your plan, it’s no wonder that at times you feel that your life is passing by and your wasting it.

Franz Kafka’s novel The Trial is about a man who is accused of wasting his life. He fails to take chances that would have led him to become the person he could have been. Instead he timidly waits for others to give him permission to do so. But by sitting and waiting for an un-stressful ride, his life was largely futile. In the book, Kafka relates the following parable that says it all:

Before the Law stands a doorkeeper on guard. A man from the country comes to the doorkeeper and begs admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot admit the man at the moment. The man asks if he will be allowed, then, to enter later. ‘It is possible,’ answers the doorkeeper, ‘but not at this moment’.

Since the door leading into the Law stands open as usual, when the doorkeeper steps to one side, the man bends down to peer through the entrance. When the doorkeeper sees that, he laughs and says: ‘If you are so strongly tempted, try and get in without my permission. But note that I am powerful. And I am only the lowest doorkeeper. From hall to hall keepers stand at every door, one more powerful than the other. The third doorkeeper is already so terrible that even I cannot bear to look at him.’

These are difficulties that the man has not expected to meet. The Law, he thinks, should be accessible to every man and at all times. But when he looks more closely at the doorkeeper in his furred robe, with his huge pointed nose and long, thin, Tartar beard, he decides that he had better wait until he gets permission to enter.

The doorkeeper gives him a stool and lets him sit down at the side of the door. There he sits waiting for days and years. He makes many attempts to be allowed in and wearies the doorkeeper with his persistence…[who] always conclude with the statement that the man cannot be allowed to enter yet.

During all these long years the man watches the doorkeeper almost incessantly. He forgets about the other doorkeepers and this one seems to him the only barrier between himself and the Law. In the first years he curses his evil fate aloud; later, as he grows old and childish he only mutters to himself.

Finally his eyes grow dim…but in the darkness he can now perceive the radiance which streams immortally from the door of the Law. Now his life is drawing to a close. Before he dies, all that he has experienced during the whole time of his sojourn condenses in his mind into one question, which he has never put to the doorkeeper. He beckons the doorkeeper, since he can no longer raise his stiffening body.

The doorkeeper has to bend far down to hear him, for the difference in size between them has increased very much to the man’s disadvantage. ‘What do you want to know now?’ asks the doorkeeper ‘you are insatiable.’ ‘Everyone strives to attain the Law’, answers the man, ‘how does it come about, then, that in all these years no one has come seeking admittance but me?’

The doorkeeper perceives that the man is at the end of his strength and that his hearing is failing so he bellows in his ear: ‘No one but you could gain admittance through this door, since this door was intended only for you. I am now going to shut it.’

What are we to make of this chilling tale? Kafka’s man was guilty of living an unlived life, of succumbing to his fears, of waiting for permission from others to make his move, of not seizing his life and going through the doors intended for him alone. As a result, he died ‘like a dog’ malingering, sitting in the waiting room of life. He never became even half the man he could have been had he found the courage to overcome his obstacles and taken the risk of going through doors that were ‘intended for him alone’.

Are you sitting in the waiting room of life, succumbing to your fears? Are you in danger of never becoming half the person you could be? You can no longer sit and wait for it to feel safe to make your move. It never will and by hoping against hope, you are already regretting a wasted life. Don’t die malingering. Seize your life. Now is the time to go through those doors intended for you alone.

References
Kafka, F., (The Trial, London: Minerva, 1992)

Copyright © Beverley Stone Confronting Company Politics Published by Palgrave Macmillan 1997 ISBN 0-333-68154-1
Copyright © Beverley Stone The Inner Warrior Published by Palgrave Macmillan 2004 ISBN 1-4039-3677-3
Copyright © Beverley Stone 2010

This is what happened to Gulliver. During his seafaring expeditions, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver is shipwrecked on an island called Lilliput. He awakes to find himself tied down by the island’s tiny inhabitants. Gulliver, being a giant to the Lilliputians, could easily have freed himself from their tiny threads, but felt unable to do so for fear of hurting the Lilliputians, being hurt himself or simply making matters worse.

Like Gulliver, do you tolerate what you know to be wrong because you make false assumptions about your rights, the rights of others and the probable outcomes of your standing up for what you believe in.

This Gulliver Effect may occur when making decisions during a team meeting at work, with your parents whilst deciding on your future or during a clash of opinions with your partner over decisions around money, work or parenting.

Do you suffer from the Gulliver Effect? Do you feel shackled by invisible threads? Do you silently disagree with the behaviour, values or attitudes of others, only to voice your real thoughts when you feel safe with those you can trust – at the coffee machine, with your best friend or in the pub with like-minded mates?

Or, do you put up with an unsatisfactory situation for too long until you finally explode, freeing yourself from the invisible threads but stressing yourself, hurting others and making matters worse in the process? When we do finally cry ‘Enough!’ just as Gulliver eventually did, we do so in such a way that is both self-destructive and destructive to others.

Maria is a wife and mother of three. Though once a participating, engaged mum, Maria has become a morose figure who is saying progressively little. Why? Because family members have exploited her accommodating nature in order to advance their own career paths. She has given in to her demanding children and husband and yet has seen no reciprocal behaviour extended to her when she tells them she wants to attend a one-year interior designer course.

So the change for the worse has occurred. She began as a generous, loving wife and mother, giving all her time to the family and everyone stood to gain what they needed from her. Then, she began to want her own time, space and career, but in the face of objections from every member of the family, she accommodated and silently went about her duties whilst loudly complaining to friends and family behind their backs. Every now and again, Maria’s frustration spills over when she unskilfully verbally attacks her children or husband.

The reason is that the home is Maria’s Lilliput. By trying for years to accommodate her family, she felt like a square peg in a round hole, and eventually got bent out of shape. Her talents are left unused. She is de-motivated, distant and unhappy.

So, if you want to avoid the Gulliver Effect and instead make your one and only life worth living, you will need to summon up the courage to break away from your old patterns, stand alone, face your fears and say what’s in your heart or on your mind. This applies whether you feel shackled by invisible ties at home, or at work. Only then will you be able to live the life you want to live.

References
* Swift, J. Gulliver’s Travels, Penguin Classics (first published 1726)

‘Gulliver Effect’ Copyright © Beverley Stone The Inner Warrior 2004
Copyright © Beverley Stone Confronting Company Politics 1997
Copyright © Beverley Stone 2010

In my experience, many relationships – maybe yours – eventually become characterized by what could be described as an implicit contract. This contract determines how couples and families interact. The following is an easy guide on How To Develop A Fake Atmosphere!

Table 1: The implicit contract of many relationships

I see the behaviours listed above as warning signs that a relationship has gone sour. Equally, I see the same behaviours in ineffective organizations and
Teams.

Andy Matheson, for example, is a 46 year old operations director at a pharmaceutical company who thrives on change. Ambitious for the company to improve performance, he has a number of ideas as to how this might be achieved. Yet he voices none of them. Instead, in board meeting after board meeting, he finds himself passively watching his fellow directors playing out a game.

Today is no different. One director, Frank, is demolishing the enthusiasm and ideas of another director, Tony, by careful use of apparently unarguable logic and “facts”. Juan, another director expresses interest and support for both points of view. However, Andy knows this is nothing more than a charade. In reality, Juan seeks to prevent change in either direction so that neither Frank nor Brian “wins”. This is because should one or other win, Juan would see himself as having ‘lost’. He would, therefore, prefer to maintain the status quo even though he hates that too! So no one wins.

Andy has said very little, if anything, and now Richard, the CEO is about to close the discussion by, as usual, postponing a decision until a later date. So yet again, nothing has changed. The frustration this caused is discussed soon afterwards in dispersed huddles around the building. The overall effect is that everyone blames everyone else for the impasse.

This charade is one of many reasons why Andy has come to despise his colleagues including is boss, Richard. Worst of all he has come to despise himself for putting up with the situation and doing nothing.

What has happened here? Andy is rationalizing his behaviour by telling himself that nothing he can say or do will have any effect. Yet in his heart, he knows that if he were to have the courage of his convictions and raise the issues he wants to in meetings, he could count on enough support to make some changes.

All too often, whether at home or at work, we find ourselves reluctant to speak up at important times because of an intimidating atmosphere. Sometimes, this may be when we are on the receiving end of games being played. Other times it may just be when we have new ideas or points of view that we want to convey to others. But we refrain from doing so, because, rather than stick our necks out, we prefer to keep our heads below the parapet and conform to the implicit contract; don’t raise the real issues, don’t say what you mean, don’t trust each other etc.

Many of my business and relationship clients feel misunderstood, undervalued or frustrated with the behaviour of their colleagues or partners, yet admit to sitting in the lounge, at the dinner table, in meetings, appraisal, selection interviews, one-to-ones and not saying what’s on their minds only to regret it later. Not only is this debilitating to the person, who is unable to be themselves, but the equal tragedy is also that the organisation and the family are losing half the person!

Our inauthenticity is most obvious when we want to say what we think, be who we are or do what we want and stop ourselves because we know that the people around us won’t like it. We instead prefer to avoid the inevitable flak and conflict. So the truth is never on the table. And if the truth is never on the table, you are not discussing or resolving the real problems. As James Baldwin puts it:

‘Not everything that can be faced can be changed,
but nothing can be changed until it’s faced’

You need to learn how to be yourself and say what you really think even when you anticipate that the people around you don’t want to hear it. Even when it is uncomfortable, you stick to the courage of your convictions and don’t compromise over what’s really important to you.

Copyright © Beverley Stone Confronting Company Politics Published by Palgrave Macmillan 1997 ISBN 0-333-68154-1
Copyright © Beverley Stone The Inner Warrior Published by Palgrave Macmillan 2004 ISBN 1-4039-3677-3
Copyright © Beverley Stone 2010

Most likely, you’re reading this article because you’ve already put a lot of effort into trying to change your relationships at home or at work, ether through couples counseling, coaching, culture change programmes, leadership development or team building But with little long-term success.

This lack of success, in my experience, is because most advisers on behaviour change focus on clarifying the values, attitudes, beliefs and feelings that people hold and that influence their behaviour.

By developing new values, attitudes, beliefs and feelings, it is hoped that people will consequently develop new behaviours – e.g. communication, conflict handling and relationship skills

It’s true that, when someone behaves obnoxiously we accuse them of having an ‘attitude problem’. All we experience is their tone of voice, facial expression, body posture and what they say. But we know that this behaviour is a reflection of what’s going on underneath the surface – an attitude about themselves, the person they’re speaking to, how to bring up children, the different roles of men and women, or social, political and economic issues – whatever is the issues at hand.

This approach sees people much like an iceberg, with behavioural issues above the surface and psychological issues beneath.

Unfortunately, if you’ve been involved in similar work on your relationships either at home or at work, you’ll recognize that your initial understanding and resolve only lasts for a short period of time. Once back in your team or at home, the pressures of life, the behaviour of others or your nagging internal voice, soon contaminate all your good intentions.

The positive feeling and resolutions made during counseling, life coaching, reading, workshops, online forums, blogs, relationship articles and conversations are like a drop of ink in a bath – very clear and concentrated at the time but within days and weeks they dissipate until they can no longer be seen.

To really change your behaviour for good, you need to deal not only with the Behavioural Issues at Level 1 and the Psychological Issues at Level 2 of the iceberg model in Figure 1, but also the Philosophical Issues at Level 3.

It’s my belief that for long-term behaviour change, you also need to acquire a new perspective on your life as a whole; a perspective at Level 3 that constantly reminds you to make the most of your one and only life, to cease living a life of regret and encourages you to act despite your fears.

Figure 1: The ‘iceberg’ model of change including your new perspective at Level 3

Copyright © Beverley Stone Confronting Company Politics Published by Palgrave Macmillan 1997 ISBN 0-333-68154-1
Copyright © Beverley Stone The Inner Warrior Published by Palgrave Macmillan 2004 ISBN 1-4039-3677-3
Copyright © Beverley Stone 2010

I’ve worked with many people who, time after time, promise me that this week they’ll take the action needed to make the changes they say they want. Yet the following week they come back with a million reasons why they couldn’t,

Wanting something may at times influence our behaviour but when it comes to hard decisions, we need to pay some attention to our will. I explain to them how they block their action with their unconscious resister. Bringing unconscious resistance to consciousness and resolving it will unshackle your will power so that you’ll be able to stick to your decision and get on with your life

One of the most common internal resistances is between your Assured Inner Voice (AIV) and Uncertain Inner Voice (UIV). The AIV thinks it knows best. And says things like ‘You can do anything with your life’ ‘You’re a survivor’ ‘Whatever you decide you’ll make a go of it’ You’ll make it work’, ‘No one should have to put up with this’.

The UIV is weak, helpless, submissive and apologetic and chips in with negative self-talk. The UIV says things like ‘What if I fail?’ ‘What will people think?’ ‘I can’t do it alone’ ‘I’m not up to this challenge’, ‘It’s not that bad, I expect too much’

This is the inner conflict, the struggle between your AIV and the UIV to gain control. Because you’re not conscious of your inner conflict you find yourself stuck between the part of you that wants to ‘fly’ and the part that ‘nails your foot to the floor’.

When people identify either with their AIV or UIV they don’t realiIze their own part in blocking themselves and may project it onto mother, father, society, management, the company culture, lack of communication etc.

Thus, individuals maintain the status quo and continue their life of a mediocre mentality, a mediocre existence, a mediocre career, a mediocre marriage because they can see no way through the impasse. If they can become aware of, identify with and own both sides of the internal conflict, they become more balanced, centred and more confident to make their move.

Copyright © Beverley Stone Confronting Company Politics Published by Palgrave Macmillan 1997 ISBN 0-333-68154-1
Copyright © Beverley Stone The Inner Warrior Published by Palgrave Macmillan 2004 ISBN 1-4039-3677-3
Copyright © Beverley Stone 2010

Are you someone who is tearing themselves apart, unable to decide whether to leave your partner or stay?

Each time you think you’ve made a decision, you find yourself back in the loop, raking over excellent reasons to stay and ever better reasons to leave. You are as confused as your friends by your inability to take action, even though your indecision means that you’re stagnating and making yourself ill.

It’s a tragedy that you can neither decide to give up and compassionately make your exit, nor decide to stay and skillfully resolve your differences. Instead you stay, endlessly argue and threaten to split up or stay, silently seethe and secretly plan to leave.

Either way, you don’t change

Unlike your experience with the people who’ve tried to help you up until now, my approach is to spell out to the impact that your indecision is having on your making the most of your one and only life.

For as long as you can remember, your head tells you that the rational decision would be to either confront your partner and both commit to a new way of living together or to accept that this is not the relationship for you and leave. But in the defence of your own self-image or that of others (i.e. not wanting to hurt parents, partner, children), you choose to suffer the consequences of your own inaction.

So why don’t you act? Why do you focus on defending your ego rather than take the risk of saying what you mean and doing what you say?

Fear is the answer. There are a number of fears that prevent us from doing what’s in our hearts or on our minds:

Have you ever been at a party and someone is expounding on a topic in a way that you find offensive, yet you’re unsure how to disagree without upsetting people or spoiling the atmosphere? The more you don’t speak, the more nervous you feel about hearing the sound of your own voice; and the more nervous you become, the more unskilful what you have to say sounds in your head?

If and when you eventually do pluck up the courage to speak, you either make a hash of it or, because of the delay, it’s now out of context and so you do in fact sound unskilful! Yet we have no difficulty in saying what you mean as soon as you leave the group to ‘freshen your drink’! As soon as you’re amongst like-minded friends, you feel safe enough to say what you mean. And boy, do you say what you mean!

Why do people behave in such an inauthentic manner? Why do we feel the need to defend our self-image? It starts very young, with parents who tend to think that they’re right and so their children learn that the way to win their parents’ approval and recognition is to conform to their wishes. This is reinforced by teachers, religious instructors, lecturers and so on who likewise reward their students for doing things ‘right’ in their eyes and punish them for doing things ‘wrong’. When they are punished for being ‘wrong’ they are made to feel stupid and as a consequence begin to lose confidence in expressing their own ideas and view of the world.

By the time people enter work they’ve learned that if they’re to win approval, it’s generally best to suppress their own opinions, feelings, experience and creativity and, instead, conform to the expectations and standards of others. So strong is this need for approval, that even as successful adults we still feel put out if our parents fail to acknowledge our status and success.

It is in trying to win this approval that people perpetuate the status quo within their families. Rather than be decisive and change, they try to be what they imagine others expect of them.

They keep their heads down, do what they are told and suppress their views, ideas and opinions, for fear of getting it wrong, being a misfit, making waves, being disliked, disapproved of, the discomfort of an argument and so on.

If you’re to make your decision and act upon it, you have to learn to take the risk of being yourself. Well it’s either that or stay the same!

As Howard Figler puts it:

‘Risk is the tariff for leaving the land of predictable misery.’

Learning to jump this hurdle – and 5 others – is how I ensure people finally live an authentic life; one that they’ll be proud of.

Copyright © Beverley Stone Confronting Company Politics Published by Palgrave Macmillan 1997 ISBN 0-333-68154-1
Copyright © Beverley Stone The Inner Warrior Published by Palgrave Macmillan 2004 ISBN 1-4039-3677-3
Copyright © Beverley Stone 2010