Quotes About Lifetrap

Try to respect the reasons your lifetrap developed in the first place. In your childhood, it was essential for your emotional survival. But what was once a help to you is now hurting you, and it is time to give it up. It is time for you to begin the slow journey out of self-denial and self-defeat, and to reclaim your life for yourself.

Many people who have the Dependence lifetrap also have the Abandonment lifetrap. In fact, it is difficult to imagine a person having the Dependence lifetrap and not having the Abandonment lifetrap. People who have the Dependence lifetrap believe that they cannot survive alone. They need a strong figure to guide and direct them through the activities of day-to-day life. They need help. Abby is an example of a person who has both lifetraps.

When we Surrender, we distort our view of situations to confirm our lifetrap. We react with strong feelings whenever our lifetrap is activated. We select partners and enter situations that reinforce our lifetrap. We keep the lifetrap going.

Christine is too independent. No matter how anxious she feels, she forces herself to face things alone. This tendency to go to the other extreme—to act as though she does not need anybody for anything—is called counterdependence, and is a strong indication of the presence of the Dependence lifetrap.

Remember that your Subjugation lifetrap has the strength of a lifetime of memories and of a multitude of repetitions and confirmations that it is right. Subjugation feels right to you. Your lifetrap is central to your entire self-image and view of the world. Naturally, it is going to fight very hard for survival. You find comfort and reassurance in holding onto your lifetrap, regardless of its negative consequences for your life. You should not become discouraged because change is slow.

Alex consistently distorts or misperceives situations so that they reinforce his lifetrap. His view of situations is inaccurate: he feels people are attacking and humiliating him even when they are not. He has a strong bias to interpret events as proving he is defective, exaggerating the negative and minimizing the positive.

Surrender extends our childhood situation into our adult life. For this reason it often leads us to feel hopeless about changing. All we know is the lifetrap, which we never escape. It is a self-perpetuating loop.

Brandon tries to escape his feelings of defectiveness. With Escape, we avoid thinking about our lifetrap. We push it out of our minds. We also escape feeling our lifetrap. When feelings are generated, we dampen them down. We take drugs, or overeat, or compulsively clean, or become a workaholic. And we avoid entering situations that might activate our lifetrap. In fact, our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors work as if the lifetrap never existed.

The Dependence lifetrap can originate either in parents who are overprotective or parents who are underprotective.

This change step involves attacking your lifetrap on an intellectual level. In order to do this, you must prove that it is not true, or at least that it can be changed. You must cast doubt on the validity of your lifetrap. As long as you believe that your lifetrap is valid, you will not be able to change it.

Your life becomes painful only when you are no longer able to avoid the serious negative consequences that result from your Entitlement—for example, when you actually lose your job because you cannot complete the work properly, or when your spouse threatens to leave you. Only then will you acknowledge that other people are not happy with your behavior and that your entitlement is a problem. You finally realize that the lifetrap has a cost—that it can really damage your life.