Do Roles, Rules & Duties Cut Us Off From Intimacy?

I’m in the midst of editing my new book, “Parallel Worlds,” and I was thinking about how I could share something regularly that would be of value.

The following is from a Free e-Course on my site called, “30 Days to Finding True Love,” but it’s not about ‘finding’ anyone it’s about finding the love that’s within you, and recognizing what holds you back.  I’ve selected some of the lessons and exercises that I use most when doing counseling work.

(The following link will allow you to either sign up for the course – it’s free – and receive a lesson daily, or you can go there and read the entire text.)

http://aspaceoflove.com/ecourses.html

Roles, rules and duties

Roles and duties are about doing the right things for the wrong reasons. We drop into roles for approval, perform our expected duties to prove we are good, and to show others, usually our parents, how they should have acted in order to treat us right.

Roles and duties are based on grievances, feelings of guilt and failure. They are embodied forms of sacrifice and compensate us for our painful feelings.

Roles are like suits of armor, encasing us, cutting us off from intimacy, our ability to give and receive. Roles create deadness. The two most common roles are ‘being good’ and ‘being a hard worker’.

Giving and receiving increases our sense of self-worth and heals the main dynamic of fear of commitment, which is that no one, including ourselves, is worthy of continuous attention.

Rules are built on guilt and pain. They have the same dynamics as roles and duties. They are rigid demands on ourselves and others, which lead to no-win situations, because if someone follows your rules, you feel a bit safer but still have the fear that generated those rules. Rules are counterfeit principles.

Exercise
Look for all the areas in which you are giving, but don’t seem to be receiving. Giving and receiving are a natural cycle, giving leads to receiving. An area where you are not receiving is an area in which you are in a role. To change a role into true giving just choose to give rather than giving because you are supposed to.

Make a list of all your rules which apply to the areas where you would feel hurt, upset or insulted if your rules weren’t kept, e.g. infidelity, tardiness, insensitivity.

To find these rules, think back to the times you felt hurt. As you find your rules, make new choices about the ones you feel ready to let go of.

A rule hides old pain and guilt and is really a defense begging to be attacked so that the pain and guilt can be healed. Typically, when a rule is broken and we experience pain in a relationship, we adopt a reactive, defensive or attacking posture to protect ourselves rather than using the opportunity for communication, healing and evolution.

Add a comment February 17, 2010