Cole: Understanding our behavioral patterns

“As we age, the weight of our unsorted baggage becomes heavier … much heavier. With each passing year, the price of our refusal to do that sorting rises higher and higher.” — Bruce Springsteen (Born To Run).

Our unsorted baggage is simply a collection of our unique past histories and experiences, interwoven with our traumas, both micro and macro. Regardless of how normal we believe our childhoods to have been, our disappointments, challenges and hurts can still play a big part in how capable we are at staying present in any given moment, throughout our entire lives.

We’ve talked about how elements of our human biology and factors of our socialization can wreak havoc on our ability to stay present by luring us into a fantastical version of reality. Now we need to turn our attention to our individual past experiences as they can leave a lingering residue of pain or discomfort, driving us to seek distraction.

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A core foundational belief I have about us as human beings and one serving as the basis for most of the work I do in my psychotherapy and coaching practice, is that we are all made up of two fundamental parts: an authentic self and a protective self. The origins for this tenet come from one of the first authors of Buddhism and mindfulness who truly resonated as part of my contemplative journey beginning over 30 years ago. In “Going On Being” physician and psychotherapist Mark Epstein wrote about the “false self,” a fear-based, reactive manifestation meant to cope with challenges we faced during our childhoods. As child analyst D.W. Winnicott suggested (as cited by Epstein), “False self offers protection and permits the person to survive while hiding out from the unsympathetic parental environment.” 

As much as I was drawn to it, the name “false” self never really fit the concept as it seemed to suggest it was created out of a lie or misrepresentation, not giving nearly enough credit to the scared, vulnerable, sometimes desperate young person who perceptively found a way to cope with a difficult situation. Other labels — the “coping” self, the “adaptive” self and the “neurotic” self — have also been put to use. Alternatively, I’ve chosen “protective” self as the most accurate designation because, in reality, all of the coping, the adaptations and neuroses are fundamentally based on protecting oneself from hurt and pain. Regardless of what you prefer to call it, this entity is simply a younger version of you that, in its state of limited emotional and intellectual resources, did its best to deal with difficult situations. 

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When an experience reminds us of some pain or discomfort from the past, we might get a glimpse of this protected self in our reactions or how we’re left feeling after a problematic interaction. Professor of Psychology Nancy McWilliams wrote, “Under stress, people tend to revert to the methods of coping that characterized an earlier developmental challenge that felt similar to their current situation.” The protective self is just that — a mechanism created to protect oneself from painful and unworkable relationships and environments.

The antithesis to this protective self is the authentic self, grounded, safe, open and present. In another of Epstein’s books, “Thoughts Without A Thinker,” he suggests the real embodiment of the authentic self is essentially the lack of protected self: “It simply exists inside all of us and is overridden by the creation of and the attachment to the false self as we negotiate through the minefields of difficult childhoods.”

If our baggage is made up of traumas and the protective responses we had to them, how do we heed Mr. Sprinsteen’s advice and go about sorting it? The first step is to develop a deeper awareness of what parts of us are authentic and what are parts protective, what is resonant and what is dissonant. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to understand our expressed attachment styles.

In the 1950s, British psychologist John Bowlby and a short time later, American psychologist Mary Ainsworth developed a theoretical framework called attachment theory to help understand our behavioral patterns, particularly in all different kinds of relationships. It describes how we, as children, formed bonds with our caregivers and how these bonds then shaped our relationships later in life. 

Many believe we are merely the sum of our past experiences. Who we are, how we think and behave are all just a product of what we’ve been through in our lives. I have been told countless times by clients, “that’s just how I am” or “that’s just how I’m wired.” I counter by suggesting they are who they chose to be by believing the stories they tell themselves about their past experiences. We aren’t simply the sum of our experiences, but more so, the sum of the stories we tell ourselves about those experiences. Our stories are our narratives.

If we can change the narrative, we can re-contextualize the past. Philosopher Jason Silva: “Our cognitive framing, our interpretation, our use of rhetoric and language to frame our past experiences can actually allow us to change our very past experiences. The story we choose to tell about what has happened can change what has happened. The cognitive framing that we give to experiences can change our physiological response to those very experiences.”

The good news is we are not married to our pasts. We can learn to heal some of the wounds that necessitated the formation of the protective self and we can adapt our attachment styles to accommodate deeper and healthier connections. All leading to more present moment experiences. We will continue to explore the protected self, attachment theory and narrative in the next column in two weeks. Stay tuned.

Jeff Cole is a licensed professional counselor, board certified leadership and performance coach, certified meditation instructor and graduate of Naropa’s Contemplative Psychology program. He can be reached at jmcole28@gmail.com.