(...)
Children
are domesticated the same way that we domesticate a dog, a cat, or any
other animal. In order to teach a dog we punish the dog and we give it
rewards. We train our children whom we love so much the same way that we
train any domesticated animal: with a system of punishment and reward.
We
are told, "You're a good boy," or "You're a good girl," when we do what
Mom and Dad want us to do. When we don't, we are "a bad girl" or "a bad
boy."
When
we went against the rules we were punished; when we went along with the
rules we got a reward. We were punished many times a day, and we were
also rewarded many times a day. Soon we became afraid of being punished
and also afraid of not receiving the reward. The reward is the attention
that we got from our parents or from other people like siblings,
teachers, and friends. We soon develop a need to hook other people's
attention in order to get the reward.
The
reward feels good, and we keep doing what others want us to do in order
to get the reward. With that fear of being punished and that fear of
not getting the reward, we start pretending to be what we are not, just
to please others, just to be good enough for someone else. We try to
please Mom and Dad, we try to please the teachers at school, we try to
please the church, and so we start acting. We pretend to be what we are
not because we are afraid of being rejected. The fear of being rejected
becomes the fear of not being good enough. Eventually we become someone
that we are not. We become a copy of Mamma's beliefs, Daddy's beliefs,
society's beliefs, and religion's beliefs.
(...)
The
domestication is so strong that at a certain point in our life we no
longer need anyone to domesticate us. We don't need Mom or Dad, the
school or the church to domesticate us. We are so well trained that we
are our own domesticator. (...) We
punish ourselves when we don't follow the rules according to our belief
system; we reward ourselves when we are the "good boy" or "good girl."
(...)
During
the process of domestication, we form an image of what perfection is in
order to try to be good enough. We create an image of how we should be
in order to be accepted by everybody. We especially try to please the
ones who love us, like Mom and Dad, big brothers and sisters, the
priests and the teacher. Trying to be good enough for them, we create an
image of perfection, but we don't fit this image. We create this image,
but this image is not real. We are never going to be perfect from this
point of view. Never!
Not
being perfect, we reject ourselves. And the level of self-rejection
depends upon how effective the adults were in breaking our integrity.
After
domestication it is no longer about being good enough for anybody else.
We are not good enough for ourselves because we don't fit with our own
image of perfection. We cannot forgive ourselves for not being what we
wish to be, or rather what we believe we should be. We cannot forgive
ourselves for not being perfect.
We
know we are not what we believe we are supposed to be and so we feel
false, frustrated, and dishonest. We try to hide ourselves, and we
pretend to be what we are not. The result is that we feel unau- thentic
and wear social masks to keep others from noticing this. We are so
afraid that somebody else will notice that we are not what we pretend to
be. We judge others according to our image of perfection as well, and
naturally they fall short of our expectations.
We
dishonor ourselves just to please other people. We even do harm to our
physical bodies just to be accepted by others. You see teenagers taking
drugs just to avoid being rejected by other teenagers. They are not
aware that the problem is that they don't accept themselves. They reject
themselves because they are not what they pretend to be. They wish to
be a certain way, but they are not, and for this they carry shame and
guilt. Humans punish themselves endlessly for not being what they
believe they should be. They become very self-abusive, and they use
other people to abuse themselves as well.
But
nobody abuses us more than we abuse ourselves, and it is the Judge, the
Victim, and the belief system that make us do this. True, we find
people who say their husband or wife, or mother or father, abused them,
but you know that we abuse ourselves much more than that. The way we
judge ourselves is the worst judge that ever existed. If we make a
mistake in front of people, we try to deny the mistake and cover it up.
But as soon as we are alone, the Judge becomes so strong, the guilt is
so strong, and we feel so stupid, or so bad, or so unworthy.
In
your whole life nobody has ever abused you more than you have abused
yourself. And the limit of your self-abuse is exactly the limit that you
will tolerate from someone else. If someone abuses you a little more
than you abuse yourself, you will probably walk away from that person.
But if someone abuses you a little less than you abuse yourself, you
will probably stay in the relationship and tolerate it endlessly.
(...)
Each
of us is born with a certain amount of personal power that we rebuild
every day after we rest. Unfortunately, we spend all our personal power
first to create all these agreements and then to keep these agreements.
Our personal power is dissipated by all the agreements we have created,
and the result is that we feel powerless. We have just enough power to
survive each day, because most of it is used to keep the agreements that
trap us in the dream of the planet. How can we change the entire dream
of our life when we have no power to change even the smallest agreement?
If
we can see it is our agreements which rule our life, and we don't like
the dream of our life, we need to change the agreements. When we are
finally ready to change our agreements, there are four very powerful
agreements that will help us break those agreements that come from fear
and deplete our energy.
- Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements
