The Enticement of Distress

I was in a hypnotherapy session with a client who was very sincere about accommodating well-being, however, the person finds themself in a tumultuous relationship with their mate. The tit-for-tat, the back and forth, the who’s right and wrong of it all – very exasperating, taxing, and stressful for the client. The predicament has become an almost all-consuming preoccupation of life.

Though there is the semblance of really desiring to release the trauma of it all, the profile of this person’s history indicates an almost zeal for excavating, dissecting, analyzing, exploring and any other verb you can come up with to address the narrative profiles battled in their life.

It became clear in this session that the trauma and drama had become its own entity. An entity being unconsciously feed, cater to, empowered, and attached to. It had unconsciously and unwittingly become something reveled in – though quite distressful and saddening by the person’s own admission. The heightened drama and the history of it all had become unconsciously enticing.

They were participating in their own high-drama reality show but not getting paid for it. And distressful it was. The person inhabits a mood deadening stupor. As this condition was compassionately indicated, the person reacted in a paralysis of shock at recognizing the truth of the reflection being pointed out.

It was the first time the person saw themselves outside of themselves and it became very sobering. As they listen to the feedback with rapt attention due to the illuminating assessment, a sort of melancholy sorrowfulness came over them in the realization of the predicament.

But it also became clear that a leveraging wake up call was being absorbed as well. The discourse then captured the understanding that distress cannot be resolved if it has become one’s de facto identity; the psyche holds onto it to avoid existential death – of an identity it has claimed as its own.

And how the unconscious psyche (now conscious of the situation) cements the claim on the trauma-induced distress identity is to make the elements, arguments, details, emotional distress, and situational factors irresistibly compelling. “I just can’t quit you!” (the drama that is), to quote a now famous movie line.

Engaging in the relationship turmoil had become life’s preoccupation under the guise of valiantly desiring to be through with it. There is another noted quote from a well-known source that says, you cannot serve two masters, in this case the masters being distress and peace of mind.

The decision to release distress is not so much a decision of what to do about it but a decision of what do I desire my life to be about? Do not be fooled by reality show mentality that thinks relationship combativeness is par for the course in relationship experience.

In truth, relationships can be opportunities to complement (advocate for) each other’s well-being rather than attacking it. This is not about a blissful fantasy but an opportunity. Unwittingly, many enter relationships to fill something rather than complement something. 

To fill a mistake, a fantasy, an escape, a barter, a status. Any relationship entered to fill rather than complement is doomed to devolve into attack when the unconscious motivation desired to be filled is not being satisfied.

An oft used ending to many of these newsletter missives is the encouragement to, “be your own salvation”, when we look to a relationship, a job, a status to be our salvation our worthiness atrophies from the chronic dependency. 

This is not about going it alone – not by any stretch – it is about bringing your fullness of worth to the relating. Then you are relating from a full cup and not a perception of deficit that disappoints when you or another doesn’t fulfill it.

Therein becomes the enticement of blame and faulting and reasons for blaming and faulting. It is a much more readily thing to access attacking another’s shortcomings (or perception of) as an obfuscation of the deficit-perception within we are attempting to get them to fill.

How is the tyranny of relationship conflict resolved? First and foremost, ween the self off the enticement of distress – scoring proverbial “points”, recognizing disorders but without the “got-cha” zeal of another’s mistakes, etc. – the ‘enticement juice’ of this stratum of engagement becomes, as mentioned, its own entity only interested in the next opportunity to feed and fuel the distress enticement. 

Next, become more interested in the health of love rather than in the ownership of it. Ownership in relating denotes need, a desire for health promotes one’s own reckoning for growth. 

This paradigm shift for relating is not some lofty, aspiration for pseudo relationship perfection, but rather, it is a decision that the strata realm of dysfunctional distress is no longer compellingly of interest to you.  

Trust this: your life goes in the direction of your interest – not your wants. Choose to be interested in well-being (not just pine, crave or wish for it) and your life follows that lead.

Choose you this day whom you shall serve.