The Pain-to-Power Principle : Part 1

Living the Truth: Transform Your Life Through the Power of Insight and Honesty
by Keith Ablow, M.D.

Dr. Keith Ablow, bestselling author and host of a new daily one-hour daytime - TV talk show, presents his first self-help book. Based on more than 20 years of clinical experience and highlighting stories from his own practice, Ablow shows how ignoring or burying painful memories and experiences can negatively affect every aspect of our lives, and he presents strategies to help the reader transform the pain of the past into the power of the future.

In a world where short-term talk therapy and medication are the latest trends to "fixing" an unhappy life, Ablow's message is controversial. But though examining the past can be daunting, Living the Truth is as comforting and rewarding as it is transformative. And through Ablow's fine storytelling skills, empathetic voice, and straight-up advice, the experience of reading this extraordinary book becomes the first step to living a truly authentic life.

Chapter 1

The origins of self- deception run deep inside us. As we mature, small lies we tell ourselves about the past build into an impenetrable web of denial and fantasy that conceals our pain. This web has to be unraveled if we are ever to fi nd our way back to the people we were meant to be.

We all tell ourselves lies; we all have buried truths. Most of us fear revealing them, even to ourselves. So we leave them buried and do whatever it takes to keep them there, sometimes forever. Our lives become more and more inauthentic. We forget the Painto- Power Principle - that coming to grips with the truth, rooted in the past, is our greatest source of power.

One of the ways we can learn to live the truth is by example. When we hear of someone who has shown the courage to look honestly at the most difficult chapters of his or her life story - whether he or she suffered through divorcing parents, abuse, loss of a dear friend, a spouse's infidelity, an illness, or growing up with an alcoholic - we can be inspired to do the same.

Empathy is a big part of that inspiration. Listening to some one talk about the toughest parts of his or her life triggers an internal barometer of truth in us, a part of the soul that resonates only with genuineness. And when that barometer tells us we are in the presence of truth being revealed, it also tells us that the person speaking the truth is more, not less, powerful as a result. We feel this way because we respect and admire that person. We connect with the humanity of that individual. And in a way that can actually transform our lives, we connect a little bit more with our own humanity, our own hidden truths.

We get courage by observing and listening to stories of courage. That's a kind of miracle.

I've seen it again and again while hosting my show. One person after another has sat with me in the studio and found the resolve to stop running from his or her past, to start facing pain buried for many years, to finally feel that pain and move beyond it. It not only empowers each and every one of them but also empowers many of those watching in our live studio audience. Thousands of attendees and viewers have told me - in person or by letter, e-mail, or phone - that they have lived through some of the same trials and tribulations as my guests, and that the bravery of those guests in breaking through decades of denial provided a big part of their motivation to face their own truths.

The same inspiration can come from reading life stories, and that's why I will share with you the experiences of several of my patients. Our journeys toward living the truth have the power to transform not just our own lives but the lives of everyone around us.

Living in Denial

Four months before she came to see me, Nicole, forty- six, would have said her life was very nearly perfect. She had been married nineteen years and had a healthy daughter, seventeen, and son, fourteen. She worked part- time as the office coordinator for her husband, Grant, a successful Realtor. She was in close touch with her sister, forty, and both her parents. She had friends, a dog, two cats, and a Volvo SUV.

Sure, she sometimes wondered whether drinking a glass of wine or two to get to sleep could be a problem, but plenty of people didn't sleep well and plenty of people enjoyed their wine. And yes, there was also the way she went on shopping sprees to lift her mood when she felt down for more than a day or two, but a few extra dresses or pairs of shoes didn't seem like the end of the world. Even the fact that she didn't have much interest in sex anymore didn't seem so weird. After all, she'd lived and worked with the same man for nearly two decades - not exactly the ultimate recipe for passion.

Then, shortly after her daughter, Kelley, was accepted to a nationally recognized design school, Nicole's mood really started slipping. She was thrilled to see Kelley pursuing her dream, so she couldn't understand why she wasn't on cloud nine with her. She figured maybe with all the excitement and worry of the application process, she had simply given way to fatigue. Maybe visiting schools had been more exhausting than she knew. She remembered feeling the same way after her wedding, when the ceremony and celebration and honeymoon were over.

This time, however, turned out to be different. Her mood continued to slip. Within three months, despite Kelley's growing excitement about going to college, Nicole found herself tearful at times. She felt exhausted and couldn't concentrate at work. She began arguing more with her husband, especially when he bothered her about her drinking. She was up to three glasses of wine at bedtime, usually around nine o'clock, earlier when she could think of an excuse. She had no sexual desire whatsoever. In dark moments after midnight, she even doubted whether life was worth living.

She began to wonder if her real problem might be her marriage. She certainly didn't feel anything close to romantic love anymore. When she thought about it, she probably hadn't for many years. But she didn't want to think about it.

By avoiding the pain in her life, Nicole was no different from most of us. In working with thousands of patients over the last fifteen years, I have found that human beings have a reflex reaction to psychological pain no different from their reaction to physical pain. We withdraw from it. We try to avoid thinking about not only the painful aspects of our lives today but those in the past, all the way back to childhood.

This should come as no surprise. No one wants to feel bad, and the human instinct to seek pleasure and avoid pain (including painful recollections) has been a central principle in philosophy and psychology since the time of the ancient Greeks. Sigmund Freud called it the "pleasure principle."

Indeed, we accept the notion that the mind uses many "defense mechanisms" to distance us from bitter realities - we repress our emotions, we rationalize our behaviors, we distort past events. Chief among these mechanisms is denial, in which we unconsciously ignore distressing facts about ourselves or others. Denial can make us "look the other way" in the face of evidence that our spouses are unfaithful or our children have turned to drugs. It can make us immune to feedback from friends and loved ones who warn us about our addictions or other self- defeating behaviors.

Nicole might never have come to see me, in fact, were it not for her fourteen- year- old son, Nathan. Nate was a high school football player and all- around jock, not one to talk about his feelings, so when he got choked up and told Nicole he felt as if he had "lost his mother," she decided it was high time she tried to "find herself." She heard me interviewed on a local radio station, called my office, and booked an appointment.

© Keith Ablow, 2007

About the Author

Keith Ablow, M.D., host of The Dr. Keith Ablow Show, is a Brown University and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine graduate who trained in psychiatry at Tufts-New England Medical Center in Boston. He is a contributing editor at Good Housekeeping and has published articles on personal growth for the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, and Cosmopolitan.