CUTTING OFF FAMILY: The High (& Scary) Price of Healing…sometimes

One of the grand fears that people have as they get a bit further into the deeper work of recognizing the BS core beliefs they were imprinted with, at a very young age, and realizing where those came from is having to cut people out of their lives, or at least radically reduce the presence of those people in their lives. It’s something you’ve never imagined or never considered an actual possibility. Or, if you have, it’s something that becomes more startling as that possibility becomes something you find yourself considering with increasing frequency and seriousness.

The thing is, it’s not just the loss of this particular person that wrenches the soul and induces a growingly gnawing fear. It’s the greater fear of:

What the hell is my life going to look like,

if I start throwing people out, or even just cutting back people

who’ve always been there?

I mean, it’ll create this giant vacuum.

What if I end up all alone?

You wanna put the fear of God in someone, so to speak? Throw that increasingly distinct possibility at them. You wanna upset the apple cart of someone’s life, not to mention their sense of stability in life, allow them to think that might be a reality they’re going to have to look at.

Yet, what’s interesting is that I tell all clients that I will never ask, push, or coax them to scoot someone out of their lives, or even create space with that person. So, if they’re choosing to cut someone out, it’s their own choice, not because of my influence.

Well wait, that means if you’re afraid of that reality happening, you’re afraid of something happening that you, yourself, are choosing to make happen. Well, come on, then it’s not some terrible fate befalling you that you have no control over. No, then it’s like you’re terrified to get on the giant rollercoaster, but you get on it anyway.

Ain’t no one putting a gun to your head to get on the rollercoaster. You’re choosing it. So, quit yer bellyachin’. I mean, I can understand you’re scared, in advance. But you’re only being scared of something THAT YOU ARE CHOOSING! YOU DON’T HAVE TO CHOOSE IT!

Aye, but there’s the rub, isn’t it? Somewhere in you, you know you may just have to choose it…for your own sake. Often the client reaches the point where they know they have to cut this person back or cut them out for themselves. Or, maybe they have to cut back several people. And, it’s just sad because it’s scary, and scary because it’s sad.

The “Target” Exercise

So, to both assuage that pain and to give them control over their lives — a bit of method to the madness of this fear — I explain how I finally began to order my own life. I think of people in my life as all being on a target with concentric circles.

- On the field outside of the outermost circle are just people I bump into but don’t know.

- In the outermost ring are people I wave at whom I see, say, at the coffee shop each day, whom I don’t know, but recognize.

- Next ring in are, perhaps, Stephanie, the nice young gal at my liquor store, whom I chat with who prefers cloudy days and staying in with a book; or my neighbor way up the street, Lucy, who is opening the ice cream shop and whose kids love to play hoops in the cul de sac.

- Next in are Marc and Danny at the gym, one’s a heavy lifter young guy who just had a kid, whom I talk with more than others because he’s such an affable guy who also works hard; the other is an older dude that I talk old-school gym talk with and is totally blue-collar and the nicest guy; both whom I’ve seen out and about with their wives, or at the steak joint with clients.

- Next in are my actual friends, but not close friends. So, maybe old friends I’m not in touch with, or only loosely, as well as occasional friends around town, scattered around the country/world, and extended family.

- Then, close friends, like Rob and Chris, and siblings, and nieces/nephews. These are people whom I just spend more time with, check in on more, worry/wonder about, and give more energy to.

- Then, oddly, oldest friends, whom I oddly spend the least time with, sometimes talk with least, but have the warmest spots in my heart – Huge, Emerson, Lisa, Jay, Todd.

- Finally, the bullseye is reserved for my kids and their spouses, as well as my girlfriend. These are the people closest to me, who have unfettered access to me and choose to give the most, yet also from whom I expect the best treatment. That is, I expect to be treated the way I treat them. These are the people I cannot out-give..

- Yet, there’s one more spot on the target, as anyone who throws darts knows. It’s the double-bullseye in the dead center, the very smallest spot on the entire target, always with the highest prize attached to it. There, in the dead center is me and only me, the most sacred spot on the target. No one is allowed to transgress that boundary.

That’s all very well and good, but it doesn’t really mean anything to anyone, besides me, unless there’s a legend to the map – an explanation of the ordering, of what the criteria are that determine what or who goes on one ring versus another. This is where the exercise becomes instructive more in the growth process than if you were just cutting someone out of your life or pushing them to an outer ring..

expectations and boundaries

So, it began for me, really, at the end of my first major adult relationship, when I realized, in my 20s, very distinctly that I knew in my next relationship that I wanted one thing for sure. I wanted a woman who could apologize and mean it and forgive and mean it. I mean, I’m in my 20s and thinking about that?? It felt like such an odd thing to think at that age, but it was real and strong. Thus, the very first ring got drawn around the bullseye. The double-bullseye of just me in the dead center didn’t exist yet in my life, but I knew that to be in the center with me as my mate you had to be willing to own your crud and forgive me for my crud and mistakes. (Interestingly, in my next big relationship, I met a woman who could and occasionally did. But, I still lacked the courage to hold her accountable to actually do so.)

Over time, I began to layer in a few more criteria onto my target, even if I wasn’t aware that’s what I was doing. To this day, it’s not a particularly complex sequence of expectations and boundaries. In fact, my target criteria are really pretty simple. I move people further in the target, or allow them to do so, if they basically live by life principles that are similar to mine:

• Are they truly a gentleman, or gentlewoman?

• Is their default kindness?

• Are they deferential?

• Do they do honorable work, whether vocationally or avocationally?

• Do they truly own their sh*t, or do they weasel out of stuff, even cleverly?

• Do I respect them?

• Do I trust them?

• What does their energy say?

• And the real whopper: Do they give more energy than they take?

But, as I became more in tune to myself, my own needs and the things that just don’t feel good to me, I had to be willing to bump people out a ring or two, or six, if necessary. In the past, I had no boundaries, really. Someone could come all the way in to the innermost parts and do a home makeover, rendering whatever manner of criticisms and damage they saw fit. For some reason, I thought I had to take it. I was raised in a home that modeled giving constantly. I was raised in a flavor of Christianity that put a premium on both giving and on reflecting on my own share of fault in any situation, or how I might be contributing to a problem. In other words, I was not set up to create or maintain boundaries, much less even know what the hell boundaries even were.

Then, with aging, pain, reflection, reading, lots of journaling, and self-permission, I simply thought, Why? Why am I obligated to allow anyone to do damage? Or, much more basically, why am I obligated to allow anyone anywhere near even the surface levels of inside my life if they don’t add value.

Don’t get me wrong, I am just like any other person insofar as I love giving to others. I love serving. I love giving love and seeing/making others happy. But, doing that at the expense of self constantly no longer became the rule. I instead implemented rules for my life, becoming much more judicious in who I gave to and, simply, who I allowed closer to me.

And, here’s the subtle thing about even that giving of permission and ordering of life. The mere act of saying I’m allowed to do that, the mere act of setting rules for who gets to come closer and closer, the mere act of even having that conversation with myself is an act of self-worth. It’s all a statement of mattering. I matter enough to have gates to different levels of self. I matter enough to say, ‘No!’ And, as I talked about in Love Cup, finally mattering to yourself is big stuff, very big stuff. It’s stuff that finally begins the healing of the hole in the bottom of the love cup.

The Exercise

Get yourself a piece of paper and draw a target, maybe six concentric circles, to start. Do so with the understanding that the first iteration of this exercise may be a rough sketch, because you may want to add more, or fewer circles later; or, perhaps, make more room for writing, lists, or what have you. Thus, it might be best to not have this first shot at it be in your actual journal, so that you’re not burning up pages in your journal. On the other hand, who cares? Play with it. Make the exercise fun and adapted to you.

Start with the innermost circle, as that’s usually easiest. Now, you can start by listing the actual people who are in that circle, or maybe it’s just you, or not. Or, maybe you want to list the criteria for the circle, rather than the actual people, first. Then move outward to each successive circle, defining it as it feels right to you; or simply putting in the people who feel right for that circle, defining each circle later. Work your way outward and all the way to the edges.

Now remember, as the writer David Miller wrote, “Taking fun simply as fun and earnestness in earnest shows how thoroughly, thou, none of the two discernest.” In other words, even the most serious work has an element of play and fun to it, even as play has seriousness to it; and if you don’t get that, well, you just don’t get it. So, in this exercise, make it fun. Yes, this is self-work, but it needs to have an element of play to it. Tailor it to you. Do you have particular pets, perhaps, who are as dear to you as people, or perhaps more so? Where do they go on your target? Maybe you commune with those who have gone before you, a deceased spouse or sibling, whom you’re very close to, even still, or perhaps they still talk to you? Great, add them in here wherever they belong.

Check Your Blind Spots

No matter who you put on your target, check your blindspots. That is, ask yourself questions like, Am I adding this person here because this actually feeeeels right and accurate or because I feel obligated to do so, like if this person saw this (which they never will, I’ll remind you!) they’d get mad if I didn’t? If you’re not being blatantly honest and clear in this exercise, then you’re still not fully giving yourself permission to be you, even in the privacy of your own self-work of your own journal.

Think about that! Are you still so terrified of the truth and/or others that you refuse to be honest, even in your journals and work on your own self? Are you being fully honest with yourself? I mean, if you’re in your self-work and you’re not being honest with. yourself, then what’s the point of doing the work, at all.

In light of the honesty discussion, there’s one more wrinkle to the Target Exercise. You can attack this exercise from the perspective of how your life sits presently as your still unhealed and not fully grown and authentic self. Or, if you like, you can approach it from the vantage point of how you want your life to be ordered, not how it is now. Or, if you’re feeling clever and a bit ambitious, make three targets: one that shows how the people in your life were arranged ten (or five or 20) years ago, one that shows how it is now, and one that shows how you’d like it to be.

After arranging your target, if you started with listing the people in each circle, label each circle with a number. Then, down below, write the number. Next to that number, write out the criteria for being in that circle. Feel free to start on the innermost circle, the outermost, or wherever you would like to start.

Or, if you began the Target Exercise by writing the criteria for each circle, then after now numbering them, go down below and start listing the people who belong in each ring.

As you fill in the criteria and people for each ring, feel free to expand your journaling to include further explanations of why you included this person or pet in this ring, but not that person or pet. Journal about why you’ve included this criterion but not that one in this ring. What is it about that particular issue that is important to you? When did it become important to you? Why then? What life event taught you that? The more detailed you are, the more specific you become in understanding your own self. You’re detailing your understanding of self, which may/will change as you change and grow.

Do you see the value of greater defining and questioning, detailing and changing of self and descriptions?

What often happens in the working through of this exercise is that folks realize that some people in their lives aren’t actually as important as they’ve been making them; or, they don’t want them to be as influential as they’ve been allowing them to be. This may happen to you. Don’t be alarmed. Just let these thoughts come. Write them down. Make the changes that feel right to you, knowing damn well that you do NOT have to act on one bit of any of this. It’s just an exercise. No animals or humans were harmed in the making of this exercise. This is simply a learning lesson, for you to know more about you. If you choose to act on it someday, great. If not, great. Who cares? It’s your life. For today, we’re just tinkering, trying to more clearly see what the truth of who you are actually is. That’s it. Action not required.

So, yes, I know you are scared at the thought of possibly having to cut out family/friends, or you have done so and it hurts, even though you know you had to do it. All yourself to feel those feelings and write about them, especially the fear and the sadness. But, as you do so, also allow yourself to both see and write how YOU see your own life being ordered and set into motion by YOU.

You got this!

Please feel free to check out my free online moderated community, Badass Counseling Group, on Facebook. But, if you long for a closer community that’s more committed to next-level growth, direct access to me — Sven, and more excellent resources for transformation to greater ALIVENESS, go to www.badasscounseling.com and click on CMTY-PLUS! It’s what you’ve been waiting for!

Thanks for reading.

HAVE A KICKASS DAY!

-- Sven Erlandson, MDiv, Is The Author Of Seven Books, Including 'Badass Jesus: The Serious Athlete And A Life Of Noble Purpose' And 'I Steal Wives: A Serial Adulterer Reveals The REAL Reasons More And More Happily Married Women Are Cheating.' He Has Been Called The Father Of The Spiritual But Not Religious Movement After His Seminal Book 'Spiritual But Not Religious' Came Out 15 Years Ago, Long Before The Phrase Became Part Of Common Parlance And Even Longer Before The Movement Hit Critical Mass. He Is Former Military, Clergy, And NCAA Head Coach For Strength And Conditioning; And Has A Global Counseling/Consulting Practice with offices In NYC, NJ, And Stamford, CT: BadassCounseling.Com