MIT OpenCourseWarehttp://ocw.mit.edu PE.550 Designing Your Life January (IAP) 2009 - Spring 2009 For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.Designing Your Life (IAP-Spring 2009) Lauren Zander and Gabriella Jordan Lecture/Discussion 7: Cleaning Up Hauntings Principle: Cleaning Up Hauntings Once you have found a haunting, your job becomes to clean up the haunting. When you do that, the whole thing falls apart: the theories, traits, and beliefs you have that center around the haunting. You can move on. It’s all a new game. It changes everything. To clean up the hauntings, have a conversation with the people involved. Say your piece, have them say their piece. Forgive and understand. It’s all about feeling at peace. Confess that you have a limited vantage point and don’t know what he/she will say and that you want to know their side. Apologize for what you have done; apologize for your traits at work. Apologize for judging him/her all of these years, or for carrying a grudge against him/her. For example, Lauren cleaned up her haunting about her friend Sheryl, who she cut off because Sheryl hooked up with Lauren’s ex-boyfriend. Lauren apologized that she didn’t have a conversation with Sheryl about what happened, and that by cutting her off, Sheryl lost all of her friends. The funny thing is that Sheryl didn’t know why she was cut off. She thought it was because she had lied about her age, and that Lauren wasn’t ok with the lie. Lauren feels so great and free and can now love her. Feels so good. A note about cheating: Cheating is no good, of course, but often cheating is the natural outcome of a relationship getting bad. And that going-bad process is the fault of both people. There are typically two criminals, not just the one who cheated. Here are some reasons you may use to talk yourself out of having a clean-up conversation with someone, and an argument as to why the reasons are invalid: • You may think that you don’t want to hurt the other person, or get hurt yourself. But the truth is that people often assume the worst. Knowing is better. It feels liberating, and it can bring a sense of intimacy and trust into a relationship. If someone “wronged” you, then own 1) why you brought it into your life, 2) that you have been hexing them (“I hope she suffers forever”). • You may also think you know how people will react, and so use that as an excuse for not actually having the conversation. But the truth is that we don’t know how people will react, and we should give them the chance to express themselves. It is actually not fair to them to prevent them from expressing themselves. • Sometimes, you will confess to people and expect something from the other person in response. Ok, I told my truth. Now you should tell me yours! Or be my friend again! But the truth is that we can’t manage other people’s reactions— afterall, we’ve been managing them all this time by NOT confessing. Being proud of who you are and willing to take the consequences of what you’ve done means that you accept ANY response from the other person. • You may also reason with yourself that things are going so well with someone, that you don’t want to destroy it by confessing right now. Why rock the boat? In reality, things could be so much better if you told them. The confession that is haunting you is affecting your relationship. You can’t be 100% yourself with them because you feellike you need to hide part of yourself. Odds are, if it bothers you that much, it probably left a mark on them too. • Finally, you may reason that cleaning up the haunting is not your job, not your business. But in reality, if it is haunting you, then it IS your business. It is impacting you. If not you, at least get the person whose job it “is” to confess. Class Participation Participant 1: I confessed to my godmother that I had been judging her about how she raised her kids, and how she was “unnecessarily stressed.” My godmother had no idea, and was so grateful. She explained everything that had been going on in her life at the time, and it turns out I had no idea about all of it. I feels closer and great! Participant 2: I know the people I want to work on, but I don’t know what to say to them. Lauren: For each person, make a list of everything that: 1. You are keeping from them. 2. Is unforgivable. 3. Is a mystery. What happened there? 4. Is none of my business, but I would like to know. 5. Is a hidden judgment. 6. You wish would change? Participant 3: My dad passed away when I was a few months old. I always hear the good things, but I never hear the bad. I asked my mom and grandma about his traits, and still they gave me no bad ones. Then I asked my sister and she told me that my dad would disappear for days. And all of my life, my mom has gotten upset when I don’t call every few days, because she’s worried that something has happened. I want to keep going back and make it safe for her to say things to me. Key point: sometimes it takes time and effort to build a relationship to a point where the other person feels comfortable and safe to talk. Participant 4: I read my mom’s memoirs, and I realized that she didn’t ask many things about her crazy family history, or her husband cheating on her. She just accepted the mystery and kept it at arm’s length. And now I see that my family is the same way. We just don’t talk about certain things, and there are so many secrets. Lauren: And you are exactly the same way. You wonder “how could she have lived with this mystery?” but you already know the answer to that, because you do it too. You are a profound chicken. You think that talking about real life is bad. But it’s really good. So confess to your mom that you want to tell her a few things for you. Participant 4: But I don’t want to put her through that. It’s selfish. I don’t want to hurt her. Lauren: But you have no idea. The woman has been through the war already. She is already hurt. In fact, it will be good for her. She has been lying to you her whole life. Here is her chance. You have no idea what she will say or feel. Two tips: 1) build an intimate relationship with her first, and 2) make it all about you. “I feel bad that I never said…” Also, what is so bad about hurt? It is a real human emotion. It happens. Feel it. We try so hard to avoid it, it’s crazy. Designing Your Life