This morning, during “think time,” an acquaintance came to mind who reflects some of the themes in previous posts - he thinks life dealt him a bad hand of cards and therefore he is entitled to take advantage of others. He has a strong need to be right and others wrong. He is also one of those people who takes little responsibility and will quickly blame those around him for his mistakes.
Not too long ago, he opened a conversation with me by loudly and aggressively complaining about his co-workers and their failure to do something or another. After he wound down a bit, I asked him, “What are you so angry about?” He responded, as most would, by rehashing what I had just heard. Once he wound down again, I said, “Jon, you aren’t angry about those things at all - irritated maybe but not angry. What are you really angry about?”
The non-verbal reaction was beyond the deer in the headlights look - more a look we might see if I had whacked him upside the head with a 2X4. In that moment, I realized that he was looking one of his demons right in the eye. I have no idea what cognitive processing was going on in that moment but it was pretty clear, since it also appeared that he was beginning to tear up, that there was some rapid and intense internal dialogue at play.
We talk about wounds, hurts, pains, and demons as being obstacles to happiness and growth. Even more, they are obstacles to self-awareness. It’s as if the fear of facing those demons prevents us from challenging ourselves in other ways. The demons have us stuck.
It would seem that the only way to move past these “stuck” positions is to look the demon in the eye. By that, I mean acknowledge the truth and reality whatever it may be. Only then can we begin to address the conflict, the history, the belief or belief system that is the demon, the stuck point, the roadblock to moving forward, growing and becoming more.
Taking from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, demons keep us stuck at Safety - protecting ourselves from our own wounds and realities. If we accept Maslow’s theory as accurate, we will stay at Safety which means we cannot love, we cannot feel good about ourselves, and we certainly can’t self-actualize, know what and who we are at our deepest yet highest state of being. We cannot, following Plato’s sage wisdom, know ourselves.
First, let me ask you as a coach, counselor, or therapist, “What do you do when you recognize that your client is stuck to help her get unstuck? What do you do to help clients recognize and stare down their demons?”
Second, what I do is not terribly scientific but it is something I learned during an internship on a crisis hotline and have kept with me ever since. It is a single question that is so incredibly open-ended, as opposed to closed, that it allows a client to go wherever she wants. It’s a simple question with the potential for anything but a simple response. The question is, “What’s going on?” It’s the question I asked my acquaintance when I observed his non-verbal response, “Jon, what’s going on?” He then told me that he’s angry because his life isn’t going the way he wanted it to, and that life isn’t fair, and and and. And, perhaps he actually took his first step toward staring that demon down.
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