Wisdom from the Couch. Jennifer Kunst
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have become. While our early experiences shape us, they only shape us so much. For example, if we pay attention to the differences between children in the same family, we can see that the same parents can be viewed by their children in different ways. One child might see his or her mother as loving and available, another might see her as overprotective and smothering, and yet another as stern and demanding. Even if we take into account factors such as birth order and changing circumstances, there is just something so compelling about the idea that our inborn personalities influence the meaning we make of our lives.
So how does environment come into play? As I like to say, while innate constitution may have the first word to say about who we become, it does not have the last. The way the world responds to our inborn predisposition shapes us—for better or worse. Jacob’s envy was fueled by his mother playing favorites; Esau’s naïve self-sufficiency was fueled by his father’s blind loyalty. Instead of helping to rein in their sons’ inborn rivalry, they encouraged it. Perhaps this is what it means for the sins of the parents to be visited on their children.
I think environment affects personality development like it affects intelligence. We are each born with some range of intellectual potential. With a rich environment—such as listening to Mozart in the womb, early creative stimulation, good nutrition, good schools, involved parents, and exposure to lots of different experiences that expand the mind—we develop toward the upper end of that range. But with an environment that lacks creative stimulation, proper nutrition, and parental involvement and care, we develop toward the lower end of that range. I think it is the same with the personality. An innately competitive child will grow up to be a competitive adult—but with positive influences, competitiveness can become a strength, and with negative influences, it can become a liability.
Certainly environment makes a difference. We can think of many examples. A particularly warm family experience can soften the sharp edges of a prickly porcupine temperament. A hostile and perfectionistic family experience can intensify that same predisposition. An abusive environment can weaken the resolve and resilience of even the most optimistic little personality, while a supportive, challenging environment can foster his or her great success in life. We are a blend of our psychological hardwiring and the software operating system of our early environment.
As we grow into adulthood, this lens helps us make sense of our experiences, but it also tends to distort them.
Perhaps you now have a sense of how I understand the development of the mind, how the internal and external worlds are constantly interacting with each other as we try to make sense of our experiences. Our unconscious expectations become a kind of filter through which we experience life for many years to come. As we grow into adulthood, this lens helps us make sense of our experiences, but it also tends to distort them. We think we are seeing the world as it really is, but actually we are seeing what the baby inside expects to see. And that is why we seem so insane sometimes. We are approaching our lives through the eyes of our baby selves, through the lens of unconscious reality.
As Buddha said, “Life is a creation of the mind.”
A contemporary version of this idea adds a humorous twist: To paraphrase Albert Einstein, reality is only an illusion, although it is a very persistent one.
My thoughts about the unconscious mind are really a kind of introduction to all that is to come in the following chapters. They naturally lead to a critical question that I suspect is now on your mind. If the personality is so fixed and in such a state of confusion, how on earth can we ever hope to change?
IF YOU’RE NOT MOVING FORWARD, YOU’RE MOVING BACKWARD
WHETHER YOU SUBSCRIBE TO THE theory of evolution, intelligent design, or creation, it is plainly evident that all living things are wired with the express purpose of surviving. Human beings are no different in this respect. We have a strong drive toward self-protection. We all know what it feels like to be galvanized by the instinct to flee or fight in the face of danger, whether that danger is physical or emotional. But we humans are unique among living things because we are also wired with the express purpose of growing psychologically. We have an innate urge to grow our minds by learning from and making meaning of our experiences.
There are other ways to describe this basic orientation to psychological development. Some would say that we are wired for love, which would seem to put the emphasis on the relational aspect of being human. I like that, too. We could say that human beings are wired for work, play, creativity, self-expression, generosity, and many other things. But, for me, growing seems to be a way of describing a central dynamic of human existence that encompasses all of these other aspects of life. And growing is what makes being alive so interesting, fulfilling, and challenging.
Growing is that aspect of life that pushes us beyond mere survival, even beyond adaptation—to become more than we need to be, to become more of what we want to be. It is that aspect of ourselves that motivates us to lean into life’s challenges, even though we might be frightened or intimidated by them. People with a strong drive toward growth tend to live life with gusto. I am not talking about people who love bungee jumping, high-stakes gambling, or whirlwind transcontinental travel. In fact, I would describe myself as someone who has a strong drive for growing, and yet, as my sister says, I am risk averse when it comes to adventures like these. I prefer staying at a bed and breakfast over camping, and I like to play poker for M&M’s rather than real money. What I am talking about is the human orientation toward development where love of learning and the desire to face life honestly, earnestly, and passionately win the day, more days than not. If you are a person well-endowed with the natural urge toward growth, then you know that curiosity, hard work, and learning through experience make life worth living.
This may sound pretty straightforward, but here’s the rub: Sometimes—perhaps more often than we would like to admit—the urge toward survival is in direct conflict with the urge toward growth. This may not be readily apparent, since one would think that growing is simply the logical next step once you’ve got surviving down. But it is often not so. Growing fundamentally involves risk taking. It requires that one let go of that sense of security so essential to survival.
To use a very ordinary example, growing means taking off the training wheels from the bicycle. We lean into the potential of developing more independence and competence but must run the risk of falling over. Our safety is threatened. This challenging dynamic is at the heart of almost all of life. Often we prefer to play it safe by hiding out in what we know, rather than letting go and learning something new. It feels more secure to avoid change than to risk trying and failing. It feels smarter to keep our thoughts and feelings to ourselves than to share them in an intimate way.
While the balance between the urge toward survival and the urge toward growth varies from person to person, we all feel these tensions. At some level, we are all drawn to living in our bubbles and hiding under the proverbial covers, comfortable with what we know and protected from the dangers of what feels like a big, bad world out there. And yet, at the same time, we are drawn out of our bubbles by curiosity and a longing to engage.
Both Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein believed that all people struggle with these two psychobiological forces—what they called the life and death instincts. The life instinct is that internal force that pushes us to grow and develop, to take risks so that we can be all that we can be. Here, growth is prized for the sense of satisfaction, enrichment, and deeper security that it brings. The death instinct is that force within that pulls us toward homeostasis. Here, self-protection is valued more highly than self-development. It is better to hide under the familiar rock and die than to venture out into the unknown world and be killed.