#14 How do I handle naysayers? / Is what they say true?
DEAR ABBY: I am 16 and very sad. I started my own advice column at school and receive tons of letters asking for help. The reason I did it is because I plan on becoming a psychologist when I’m an adult.
Every time I mention my column or my future plans, my family and friends laugh and thinks it’s funny. A friend of my mother’s told me that there’s no way I could know at this point in my life what profession I want.
Abby, what should I do about people who have so little faith in me? Should I listen to them or try to brush off their remarks? Please help. SAD GIRL ON THE EASTERN SEABOARD
DEAR SAD GIRL: Tune them out. A child who knows what she (or he) wants to do at an early age is fortunate. It’s called goal setting, and many successful people have set their eyes on a goal early in their lives.
That said, it’s important that you get a solid education in order to realize your dream. Talk to a school counselor to make sure you are taking the courses you need to get into a good college. Do not let yourself be dissuaded by doubters. Your goal is a noble one. —Abby
Gabby's Reply
Hi Sad Girl: What would you say to a patient who came to you with the same problem? It will happen. Hopefully you will say nothing. Just "get" it as a consideration and let them talk. However, I’m a communicologist and my ego is such that I think I might be able to facilitate you and others through this phase.
There are two main issues. One, you are at effect of your family and friends. You are supposed to be going through this "at effect" phase. Just hang on. The ride will soon be over. You have yet to develop a strong sense of self and so you question and invalidate your own experience. I say "hang on" meaning, keep your mouth shut, which I know you can't consistently do yet.It will take longer to complete your experience of invalidation if you allow yourself to get suckered into arguments. Choose to experience the experience of invalidation rather than resist it, and you will come out the other end empowered. Put another way, intend for them to be saying what they say.
There is a way to communicate other than how you have been. Actually it's a place to come from, to communicate from. You’ve been coming from victim. Instead of resisting them pooh-poohing your plans and advice-activity create that you are intending for them to say what they say. This is a powerful game to play. Walk into the kitchen and say, "OK naysayers, you’re awful quiet today. Come on, gimme your best shot. Invalidate me with all you got." Or, "Tell me what you’d like to change about me." And then remain silent, no matter what you hear, because there is some truth in it. The criticism you can’t be with, can’t own, you’ll be at effect of for life. With this intentional communication model you are tapping into other’s wisdom. Find the truth in what you are causing them to say.
Remember, they have no choice. They are addicted to putting others down. Have compassion. I say, "be silent" because silence will produce a different result. It will cause them to see that their communications had an effect, which is what this whole thing is about. They have a need to hurt you. Put another way, the look on your face when you've been invalidated and hurt is a truth they can recognize; it's far different than the look on your face when you're arguing. Arguing masks (denies) your experience. It doesn't communicate the truth. The truth is it hurts to be invalidated. They don’t experience being gotten so they have to keep saying it. Something about how you have been communicating with others, your communication model, drives them to put you down. I suspect it’s how you handle your brilliance, it can come across as condescending arrogance.
The second issue is, we don’t know if you have merely found a clever way to fight with your mother. Again, another normal phase you are supposed to go through. What we do know is that you are already stuck in the adversarial communication model. That’s to be expected. Ninety-nine percent of the population is stuck in abuse. How do we know that you are addicted to abuse? Because, whether you know it or not, you are causing it. You are unconsciously intending it. It’s all part of your master plan. An actualized person would know that your family and friends need counseling and merely get their communications. If they said the ceiling was the floor, or some other obvious lie, you would know they need a reality-check if not therapy. You would not be questioning your experience of what you know to be so about floors and ceilings. So here they are saying obvious lies and you do something with the lies. You react. You argue. If only in your mind, you try to invalidate their lies that you ostensibly know come from ignorance.
Many an adult is stuck in a profession they are ill suited for or are not happy with because they are still resisting [I'll show you. You are wrong. I can do it. I will do it.] some communication their parent tried to deliver earlier. One gives up choice when they act against another.
This we know. If another’s words can thwart, dissuade, or upset you then you might consider another profession. Your task it to find someone, one person, with whom you can share your experience and thoughts about what comes at you. In this way you’ll not get stuck dramatizing them for life. One of the bennies of the psychiatric profession is that you are required to clear out, complete, all these kinds of incompletes during training, and for life thereafter. It takes hundreds of hours of communication for any adult to complete their childhood invalidations; few learn how to communicate from their experience during childhood. Great letter, thank you, Gabby
P.S. My advice is to major in speech-communication and minor in psychology and do your MA in psychology, and, assist in as many communication skills workshops as possible. Take the fundamental communication course offered by Scientology and do Landmark Education's Forum. Also, read everything on Community Communications' website. —these all offer perspectives that are difficult if not impossible to find in any other venue.