Do you analyze your past? Do you live in your own brain? Do you think you learn valuable lessons from past relationships that help you in future ones?

Or do you think this is more of a gradual process, where you learn your lessons at a deeper level, and actually sitting down and talking it out, or thinking out deliberately, isn't really helpful? Is it posible that people just differ in this area?

Got any examples of ways in which you have learned from your past, and made changes?

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Answers

I don't think it's possible to grow unless you are self aware. It would be foolish to believe that recognizing a pattern of behavior will immediately help you to change it, but our experiences *do* influence our future actions.

And yes, I'll give you an example: I have a bad habit of being attracted to men who are unavailable. If a guy is married, commitment phobic or moving to Borneo in 3 days I will undoubtedly find that I can't stop thinking about him. I know this about myself. For years I put myself in situations which were unquestionably bad for me, and then suffered the inevitable heartbreak. Over time, I have learned that it is much less painful to ignore the advances of unavailable men, and although I still find them attractive - I won't go there.

Thinking about it, talking about it and being aware of it are what helped me to change.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

I second-guess myself... constantly. But that's because I make decisions from moment to moment, based on an unreliable Piscean combination of gut feeling and who I happen to be in that particular instant.

Have I learned anything from it? That I can be unspeakably cruel with the best intentions, and that I am not to be relied on by any standards but my own. I do have them, but as I can't articulate them, they are not much use to anyone.

Have I changed? No. Maybe if I keep reinventing myself, eventually I'll like the person I turn into. In the meantime, I've just flushed the centre of my existence down the toilet... again... because I have the stupid notion that other people feel the same way about things that I do. Not that they should.

However, I'm not inflicting this on any one or anything but this forum, in large part because I'm too ashamed of myself. If I had been in the first place...

Never mind. Yours in hideous and lacerating self-analysis,

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Talking about the past did serve it's purpose and was helpful, but I think (at least for myself) that it became redundant.

I'm not so quick to anger anymore and I do think that's a direct result of first talking about where that anger came from and then implementing skills to help manage my anger. I guess that would amount to learning from the past... or something.

But, there did come a time when it'd been said and said and said, you know? My journal served as a way to talk about it all and process it all, endlessly. Somewhere along the way I realized I'd said most of what I'd wanted to say. I was tired of analyzing, though it had served it's purpose it just doesn't do it for me now.

Maybe that is growing up? I don't know. I am glad I spent the time going over things, it's made me more comfortable in taking action, now. But, I'm relieved to realize that I have enough confidence now to do things without the endless self-talk.

Of course, there's still the self-doubt, but I've found new ways to work through that, which feel more productive.

To sum up (she goes on and on - I know, I know), I'm glad I talked and analyzed and spent all that time in my brain... but I'm happy to be out in the world these days. I enjoy being less introspective.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Speaking as someone who has been in therapy for just over 2 years, where you *pay* someone to sit and talk with you an hour a week, I will say unequivocably that there is some value in analyzing your thoughts and actions.

I was in a very abusive relationship. Talking about it, coming to realize how my actions came into play, how the relationship affected my mind, and everything else that's involved with talking things out, can be very powerful.

BUT, and this is a big but, you have to be able to change. Someone people do, in fact, ceaselessly talk about themselves without ever doing a damn thing to fix anything they talk about. For those people, talking through things is a pointless exercise in self-absorbed futility. They are doing nothing but wasting their time and yours.

These people are the ones that give therapy a bad name. They don't intend to change at all. Instead they only want to point blame on others without growing as a person.

However, if you are one of those wonderful people who actually gets something, ephipanies or otherwise, from talking through your thoughts, then there is some value to the exercise. Maybe pay someone instead of subjecting your friends, but do it nonetheless. Therapy from the outsider's POV is 100% talk, 0% action. It is actually like 25% talk (if that), 75% action. After awhile you discover that it doesn't matter a flying fig what happened, it is your reaction that we are concerned with and how you aren't going to do it again. (Or if you did something right, why it was right so you can do it again...)

But you've gotta be willing to change - and make huge, life impacting changes sometimes - in order to make rethinking all your problems over & over worthwhile. Most people think, however, that sitting in a therapist's office an hour a week will change their life. It won't. It is the other stuff you do the rest of the week while you aren't in therapy that makes the difference in your quality of life. That's what it is... quality.

And Beth, I disagree with something you said about yourself. self- analysis and second-guessing. It doesn't work. Self-analysis is good. Second-guessing is bad. They are two completely different actions with different motivators... Analysis is positive.... guessing is negative perpetuated by poor self-esteem. And Does knowing that make me less afraid, less insecure? It makes you less afraid because you can place a name on the feeling and then deal with it. If you don't know what the feeling is, how are you going to deal with it next time you face it? Once you can i.d. the problem, then you put on your brave face and deal with it.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

I think there is a significant difference between endlessly analysing oneself ("I shoulda done this! I shouldn't have done that! Why did I do that?") and analysing the situation. In relationships, if you only focus on what *you* should have/could have/might have done, you're missing at least half the equation right there.

I've come to have a pretty good idea of my personal trigger spots - I'm surprised by my reactions less often these days. I'm far less shy about explaining them to others, and that alone weeds out people from my life that won't mesh well. But more importantly, coming to realize that sometimes people aren't doing anything wrong to me - they are just coming from a totally different angle - that has helped me break out of a victim mentality that I am ashamed to say I wallowed in for a long time. 'Self-analysis' of where past relationships went wrong has helped me see that it wasn't all my fault, or all something I could have changed, and also that it wasn't all their fault or even anyone's fault. I count that as a good thing.

The problem I have with not looking back at what happened and doing some sort of debrief from a perspective that isn't so fully tangled up in immediate emotions is that you're left with an aimless feeling about it that is wrapped up in whatever the final emotions were, and when the same patterns assert themselves in the future, you are surprised and outraged all over again. "Why did this happen to me??" may not be a very useful question, but I do think "Why did this happen and how could I have seen it coming?" is.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Yes, I analyse my past, but I don't think I live in my own brain. I sometimes learn lessons. Sometimes I learn lessons and keep doing stupid things anyway.

It's both a gradual process and a sudden one. Sometimes I'll look back and say, hey, I'm not doing that thing that I used to do. (This is where a journal of any kind is nice to have. You look at it a few years later and see how much you've changed.) Other times I have an "aha!" moment and see a pattern. Therapy has been a big part of this.

Only example I can think of - recently I realized that in two recent Novembers, I had (minor) surgeries, which meant I had to be cared for, given comfort foods, stay at home, etc. November is my least favorite month and a genuinely hard time for me because of seasonal depression. This year, instead of going under the knife, I'm going to declare it a month when I need extra care.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Do I second guess myself? Yes, absolutely. Well, at least some of the time, if it's really important. Of course, not all the time, but then again, well, no, maybe not so much.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Nah. I don't second guess myself, and if I do, I certainly don't write about it in my journal.

Hah.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

As a recovering addict/alcoholic I can say with utmost certainty that, yes, actually talking and deliberately thinking out my issues has helped me tremendously. Jesus, my entire recovery and spiritual practices are based on contemplation and analyzation of my own mind in order to develop a hightened awareness of the habitual patterns in my life. If I didn't do this contemplation, I would still be using, and I would probably be dead. I have to keep deliberately introspecting and examining the causes and effects of my addictive behavior or I will get carried away with it. I can't just sit around and wait for some mysterious force to swoop down into my life and know that someday I will just "grow-up" and everything will suddenly be ok. That line of thinking would just be avoiding any and all personal responsibilty for the quality of my life and allow me to just keep getting sicker.

I've seen many close friends of mine make great progress in recovery programs and support groups such as AA and NA, when all an AA meeting really consists of is a bunch of people sitting around drinking coffee and chain-smoking, talking about our issues. The twelve steps of AA are designed to foster introspection and therefore lead to greater consciousness in our lives.

It seems to me that the times when I have lived unconsciously are the times when I have made the biggest mistakes and gotten myself into trouble. For me to just go along with my impulses and instincts is pure self-destruction. I constantly have to second guess myself in order to stay on track, in order to stay alive, really.

I don't think that simply talking about/thinking about our problems instantly solves anything. However, I believe that by becoming more familiar with the nature of our thoughts and feelings (or habitual unconscious patterns in our lives) we can gradually become less and less easily swept away by them. Instead of getting caught up or acting out impulsively we can begin to make decisions and act based on a deeper understanding and higher reason.

Processing and analyzing, while it may annoy the hell out of some of my less contemplative friends, has helped me to grow enormously and is and will continue to be a fundamental part of the way I live.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Ha. It's funny Beth you wrote a long introspective and self-analyzing entry about how you are no longer introspective and self-analyzing.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

I make a concerted effort to not be introspective. And when I do feel miserable I will talk about it (with Tristan or my mother), but I'd never write about it in my journal. For one thing, I think it's hugely dull to read about the mundane workings of somebody else's head unless I know them very well - yes, I want to hear about their life, but I don't need to know everything they're thinking. And I'd rather be witty than emotional when I write - writing a journal is public, and my feelings are private and not for general consumption.

And anyway, I think to write about and analyse every negative feeling you ever have gives too much weight to some feelings which are nothing more than a trick of your hormones or the product of too many late nights and too much work. If I wrote a journal entry about my feelings towards my father (largely absentee through running his own business when I was a kid) I'd be making a song and dance about something which only rarely crosses my mind these days anyway. And it would make a 'I've got a problem with my father' an official issue, instead of just a fleeting one.

I think people over-analyse. I try very hard to accept bad moods as well as good ones - you can't have one without the other. And a bad mood is nothing a good night's sleep or a soak in the bath wouldn't fix.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

hehe, Jim... you noticed that too?

everyone learns to do life differently. some incessantly self-analyse. i have changed strategies bunches of times, and will continue to do so. its a kick...

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Yes, I most certainly do. Particularly when people start absolutely ripping on me for decisions that I thought were totally right...that sure doesn't help.

Yes, I do analyze my past (quite a lot), and I think seeing the recurring patterns is useful. I've only had one relationship that I've rehashed a lot, and I'd have to say that I've learned what I do wrong in relationships from that one. Unfortunately those are things about me that -I- think are totally right, and everyone else thinks are utterly wrong...hence the second-guessing confusion.

I'm avoiding relationships for the time being, as no one has yet to convince me that doing what I think is wrong is truly the right thing to do (and in some ways it was quite obvious that the past relationship would have lasted longer if I'd just done as he begged and pleaded with me to do, and that this is most likely true with anyone else), yet I still feel that those things don't work for me :P

I'm a big believer in talking/thinking it out, because eventually you'll come to some realization. Whether or not you want to take action on it's another thing for me, though. If I think the action I'd have to take to solve it is worse for me than the actual problem is, then I won't change.

See why I'm confused?

-- Anonymous, August 09, 2000

Yes .. and every time I have a nice long think and come to conclusions, I reinforce the conclusions I came to before and become more likely to do something about them.

I do this either through writing about it in my paper diary, talking about it with friends or Sabs, just staring at the ceiling while I fall asleep, or at any other time when the noise of the world quiets enough for me to be able to listen.

I do think that this re-evaluation helps over the long haul, only by repeating what I have learned, do I remember it, do I make it sub-conscious, work it into my psyche so that the subliminal part of myself can be changed by my experience.

I can't will myself to change after one or two realizations -- but I have changed over time.

One concrete example: I have learned to control my temper and re-direct it in less destrutive ways as I've grown up. I did that by reminding myself, every time I got angry -- don't do it that way next time, try doing _this_ instead.

And the more times I repeated those subliminal instructions to myself, the more I remembered and the more I changed until my outbursts have grown fewer and my ways of dealing with my anger have become more constructive.

-- Anonymous, August 10, 2000

You know, I just realized why I feel so strongly about this: it's because to me, personal growth is necessarily tied in with becoming less self involved and self absorbed. It involves living less inside your head and more in the world around you. It involves an openness to sensory experience. Enlightenment is realizing, "Whoa. It's not all about me, after all."

Our concept of self improvement -- whether it's therapy, self-help books, self-analysis, or even religion -- hardly ever seems to have that as a goal.

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

I'll agree there, therapy seems to tell people "You have to focus on YOU and dump everyone else."

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000

Whoa. Reading an old interview in Salon with a guy who thinks therapy is useless, and I found these quotes:

There's the idea that therapy is the way to deep knowledge. In most instances, therapy is the way to the shallow end of the pool.

Americans want to believe you can be happy every single day of your life. The most you can hope for is to work hard and find some level of satisfaction -- and that only comes through a real engagement with life. And I don't think therapy is a real engagement with life. It's talking.

The interviewer? Our own Joy Rothke. (Those aren't her quotes; she's asking the questions.)

-- Anonymous, August 11, 2000