Most unconscious personality drives sit on top of deeper strategic imperatives … often related to survival
Preservation of identity, self-esteem and stability (aka homeostasis) are a few of the most fundamental.
The early environment of most children is often quite constrained. Beginning in the terrible two’s, every child starts constructing a sense of self (identity). They also get reinforcement from the family as to which behaviors constitute worthy/lovable, and which behaviors are rejected / exiled in the family system.
If being kind, flexible, helpful, adaptive, loyal and concerned more about others, that you are about yourself, is reinforced, then the child’s identity gets entangled with, and built upon these “personality traits”. In short, it’s the primary tool the child learns to feel worthy, unique, lovable, and a welcome member of the group.
Their “supportiveness” becomes their identity and all behaviors outside this range are EXTREMELY difficult … destabilizing and actively resisted.
If you think you are CoD, here is a test you can run … a simple experiment to discern HOW MUCH free will you actually have:
Pick some day next week. Decide for yourself that for 15 minutes, you will be aggressive and rude to everyone you encounter. Sit & imagine yourself actually playing through on this experiment. Watch the anxiety, distress and contrary arguments arise within you as you imagine yourself behaving this way.
You might hear self-talk like: “I could never” “that’s not who I am” “people matter more than insight/discovery” “this is a stupid experiment” “I just won’t do it”
The resistance you notice arising is a measure of how much your sense of identity and worthiness is tied/bound to your identity as a “nice” person.
Imagine you had $1000 available to invest in this experiment. If you went up and interviewed 10 people, and asked them this question:
How would you feel if someone was rude to you for 90 seconds, and then they came back later, apologized to you, and gave you 100, or to have avoided that 90 seconds.
My VERY STRONG bet is that 90% of them would say they would DEFINITELY prefer the $100. But even with this knowledge, you CANT MAKE YOURSELF DO IT. So this really says more about your personality constraints than it does about “kindness”. It’s an addiction & you are truly codependent.
Being a “nice” person is fine and great … we need more of them. But it’s quite dangerous for your identity to be so rigid as to prevent:
- clear and direct anger when the situation warrants it
- “tough love” to people you care about, when valid and very good for them; if you can’t muster this, you are using them to manage your own emotional distress rather than REALLY caring for them
- active self-care when in the presence of chronic “takers”
To escape any automatic pattern or process, you first become conscious of it and then you retrain your habits and nervous system to get needs met in more productive and functional ways.
Dewey Gaedcke’s answer to How do you teach people accountability and to stop being a victim?
Dewey Gaedcke’s answer to What is “virtue signaling”? What are some examples? Is it good or bad?
Dewey Gaedcke’s answer to What subtle behavior is an indicator that someone is not a nice person?