How to Face the Truth about Your Flaws

Why are we often blinded by our own shortcomings? The reason is this: We become what causes us the least pain. I’ll repeat that: We become what causes us the least pain. But how can we understand the fact that authoritarian, abusive people become what causes them the least pain? Let’s think about that now.

To understand this, we need to think about the person’s history. What kind of family did he come from? Was there good communication between family members or was there minimal conversation? Did they show affection with hugs, kisses, compliments, or were they unexpressive in their feelings? Were there problems with alcohol and other drugs, separation, violence, or were they sober people, without the use of alcohol or other narcotics, and was there marital harmony and no violence? In addition to the psychological characteristics of the family as a whole, another factor that makes a difference to the way we become as persons has to do with personal sensitivity.

Are you very sensitive to criticism, longing for attention, passive, unable to protect yourself, a victim of bullying, or are you proactive, setting firm limits, more rational, more resistant to frustration? Some have worse struggles in their minds than others. Many children are born with better defenses against trauma than others. I think that’s unfair, but it’s reality. The same traumatic events in a family produce different reactions in different family members.

Why is that? Because each one has a different sensitivity. Even identical twins are not the same from a personality point of view. Each one automatically becomes, in terms of personality, the thing that causes the least pain. But they may not become a healthy, balanced, mature person in their human relationships. What we have become so far and which causes us less pain is a defense of the pain we experienced during childhood and adolescence.

The problem is that we are often partly blind to how we function as a person. Worse than that, we can deny that we have issues when people tell us we do and when they are right. This denial of our behavioral problems is part of the defense we use to avoid taking a look at our bad behavior that we have and that we deny to have.

We’ve gotten used to functioning the way we do today, and we want to stay in our comfort zone, without having to look at what needs to be changed in us. Perhaps we only start to think that we must have a character or behavioral problem when we hit rock bottom. Rock bottom can be divorce, being fired at work for personal mistakes, being sentenced to prison, a drug overdose that can bring you to the brink of death and so many other things.

So, how do we see our defense that produces bad behavior and adopt a new role to function better with ourselves and with other people? There is no magic formula for this. Everyone has to decide to want to change, to want to see themselves and make efforts to invest in self-growth. This is totally personal; we can’t force someone to change if they don’t want to.

I want to share a story with you that a lot of people share. If you can relate to it, it’s because it really is found in people of any race, creed, socio-economic position, religious or philosophical orientation.

A serene husband lives with a difficult, authoritarian wife. She came from a family where her mother was overbearing and knew how to assault her husband with words. This woman learned to be bossy from her mother. As a child, she suffered from arguments between her parents. They both loved her, but her mother, although verbally abusive towards her husband and other people, was protective and affectionate towards her daughter. Although her father was more affectionate, the daughter idealized her mother. Idealizing is putting someone on the altar and seeing them as perfect, turning a blind eye to their faults.

Why has this daughter swept her mother’s aggressive attitudes towards her father under the carpet of her conscience and kept an adoration of her mother in the back of her mind? It’s because her mother’s balance of affection was greater than her father’s balance of affection towards her. The good things her authoritarian mother did for her covered up the daughter’s view of her mother’s character defects. It’s like a camera when you take the focus off one scene and put it on another. The previous scene, where the focus was, was there, in other words, the mother’s aggressive attitude was real, but the daughter needed to change the focus to see only her mother’s affectionate side.

This daughter became an adult, repeated her mother’s bad side, married a serene husband, a bit like her father, and started having marital problems. Because it’s not possible to reset our past so that none of it influences our present relationships with family and other people.

So this good and bad behavior of hers is the best she’s managed to have in her life so far. If she still needs to see her mother in an idealized way, it’s very, very painful for her when her husband or anyone else, even with good intentions, wants to show her her mother’s faults and explain that she copied and repeats them now. She tends to reject comments like that and gets stressed about it, because such comments can come across to her as a dismantling of the idealization. It’s like removing the stakes that hold up a concrete slab that isn’t yet ready to stand without support.

When you touch another person’s wound by talking to them about their behavioral defects, if they’re not ready to see it, your comments will come across as negative criticism and not as help. When you make an observation about some bad attitude of a person who doesn’t want to see themselves, instead of them listening to what you’ve said and thinking ” Gosh, you’re right”, they will look at your speech as being critical and will keep their focus on you and not on their faults. This is a defense, it’s a flight from the truth, and only she will be able, at some point in her life, to let go of this defense, take an honest look at herself and see her character defects.

When the abusive person shows a bad attitude towards you, keep quiet, don’t argue, do what your conviction tells you to do without submitting to their abusive behavior, but keep quiet. Your silence will be God’s opportunity to get into her mind and show her the error.

Understand that I’m not telling you to submit to the authoritarian person’s control. That’s not it. I’m telling you to do what’s right, but not to argue, not to point out their mistake. This silence can be healing. Firstly, because you’ll stop stressing about someone who doesn’t want to see herself and change. And secondly, because, since you don’t argue anymore, you don’t try to point out her mistakes, and you keep to yourself and protect yourself, she can’t play the neurotic game of thinking and saying that you’re critical, without accepting that your criticism has a real basis. You dismantle this through silence, not disrespectful, but self-protective in dealing with a person who is still difficult.

We become what causes the least pain. When we see that our attitude causes pain in relationships, it’s wise to look at our behavior with humility, see what’s wrong and strive to correct it. That’s a great thing; it’s maturity; it’s humility.