The Nice Girl Syndrome (19 page)

The following shadow exercises will help you to identify and take back those aspects of yourself that were deemed inappropriate, unla- dylike, or bad.

E
XERCISE
: I
DENTIFYING
Y
OUR
S
HADOW

1. List all the qualities you do not like in other people (for example, conceit, selfishness, a short temper, greed, bad manners).
   

2. Take a look at your list and note which of these characteristics you find most offensive in others—those qualities that you not only dislike but despise, hate, or loathe. Circle these items.
   

The items you have circled form a fairly accurate picture of your own personal shadow. For example, if you circled greed as one of those traits that you simply cannot stand, and you tend to adamantly

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criticize others for this quality, you would do well to examine your own behavior to see if perhaps you, too, tend to be greedy.

Not all criticisms of others are projections of our own undesir- able shadow traits. But whenever our response to another person involves excessive emotions or overreaction, we can be sure that something unconscious has been activated. If an individual is some- times greedy, for example, there is a certain degree of reasonableness about your being offended by his or her behavior. But in true shadow projection, your condemnation of this person will far exceed his demonstration of the fault.

E
XERCISE
: A
LLOWING
Y
OURSELF TO
B
E
B
AD

1. Pay close attention to how often you monitor and censor yourself, how intently you focus on being good.
   

2. Try loosening the reins a little bit on yourself. If you are a workaholic, sneak out of work early or play hooky from work one day and go to the movies or some other fun activ- ity. If you are a health fanatic, allow yourself one day a week to indulge by eating chocolate or some other delectable food. If you constantly monitor what you spend, ease up a bit and treat yourself to a new outfit or some other kind of treat once in a while. Most important, if you are always cheerful and sweet, even when you don’t feel well, start telling people how you really feel.
   

You don’t have to be perfect to be lovable. You don’t have to be perfect to be wonderful, successful, and strong. So stop trying to be perfect and start accepting yourself—your flaws as well as your pos- itive attributes, your dark side as well as your light side.

Turn down the volume of your inner critic and create a nurtur- ing inner voice to take its place. When you make a mistake, forgive yourself, learn from it, and move on instead of obsessing about it. Equally important, don’t allow anyone else to dwell on your mis- takes or shortcomings or to expect perfection from you.

8

Stop Being Gullible and Naive

I tore myself away from the safe comfort of certainties through my love for truth; and truth rewarded me.

—S
IMONE DE
B
EAUVOIR

False belief:
If I act innocent and naive, people will take care of me and I won’t have to grow up.

Empowering belief:
It feels good to be a grown-up.

This chapter is especially beneficial for Innocents, Enlightened Ones, Prudes

D

ana is very childlike in her mannerisms. She often puts her hand in front of her mouth when she giggles and she frequently

shrugs her shoulders w

hen

asked a question. Because she appears

to be so naive, people tend to take on a teacher role with her, explaining how things work and solving problems for her. All this works fairly well in helping Dana to avoid taking responsibility for herself. But the price she pays is that the same people who help her out also feel they have the right to order her around. She tends to get into emotionally abusive relationships with men who are controllers.

The reality is that Dana is still a child. She still wants someone to take care of her. She plays helpless and dependent so that others will take pity on her and come to her rescue. She refuses to grow up and take responsibility for her own life.

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Dana is also a dinosaur—a throwback to a more innocent time— a time when women routinely acted coy and naive as a way of get- ting attention from men and eliciting their protection, a time when men felt protective of women and enjoyed playing the white knight who came galloping to the rescue. But as mentioned earlier, women can no longer afford to play innocent or naive. There are no more white knights, and those who dress like them usually end up taking advantage of the women they rescue.

Pretending Can Be Dangerous

Women also can’t afford to put their heads in the sand when it comes to the dangers all around them—everything from the threat of date rape and stranger rape to the ever-increasing practice of boys and men videotaping their sexual conquests and showing them to their friends. Neither can women continue to pretend that emotional or verbal abuse does not harm them or that a man who hits or shoves a woman once has never done it before and will never do it again.

Nina was constantly being manipulated and conned by other people. Her friends rolled their eyes and laughed when they talked about how many times she’d been talked into one scam after another. There was something very sad about just how gullible Nina really was. It’s one thing to be the target of many scams, but Nina was also easily manipulated in her relationships with men. Time after time, she found herself becoming sexually involved with men she didn’t even like.

This is what she shared with me when she finally realized she needed professional help and came in to see me. “My friends have been worried about me for a long time, but now I’m finally starting to worry myself. I realize that I just don’t know how to take care of myself with guys. They are always able to talk me into sex—even when I don’t want to. I always fall for their lines or I let my guard down, and before I know it, I’m having sex. It happens over and over, and I’m tired of it. I want to know what is wrong with me.”

Nina told me story after story about how she had been manipu- lated by men. “I went out with this one guy who told me he needed to stop by his apartment to get something. Once we were there, he asked me if I wanted to see his apartment. I was curious about how his apartment looked—especially since I was thinking about moving

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soon myself. So I went upstairs with him. Once we got inside, he asked me if I wanted a drink. I didn’t think anything of it and said, ‘Sure.’ We sat down on the couch to drink our wine, and before I knew it, he was kissing me. I liked the kiss but thought it was much too early in our relationship so I said, ‘I think we better go.’ Then he put his head down and looked really sheepish. He told me that he was really embarrassed because he’d recently lost his job and he didn’t have enough money to take us out to eat as planned. He looked so pitiful sitting there that I felt sorry for him. I told him it was no problem—that we didn’t have to go out to a fancy restau- rant, that we could just order pizza.

“I thought the guy was going to cry. He told me that no girl had ever been so understanding—that I was an angel. He reached over to me and gave me a big hug. I could tell that he was relieved. He got up and ordered a pizza and then came back to the couch. We started kissing, and by the time the pizza got there, we were hot and heavy. He answered the door and got the pizza but came right back to me on the couch. I didn’t want to be going so fast, but I really liked him. He seemed so nice, and I kind of felt sorry for him and I liked the way he kissed. We ended up having sex right there on the couch and eating the pizza afterward.

“I really liked this guy and I thought he really liked me. But he never called me again. To make things worse, I saw him about two weeks later at a really expensive restaurant with another girl. He didn’t even acknowledge me when he saw me. I felt so used.”

Nina had been used. And duped. Most women know the old, “I have to stop by my apartment” trick, but Nina seemed oblivious to this ploy. She not only ended up being a cheap date but had also gone against her own standards—namely, her promise to herself to never have sex on the first date.

Why was Nina so naive and gullible? Part of the answer was that her mother had been very naive, as I was to learn when I took Nina’s history. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom who seldom ventured outside the home. “She always told us that her family was all she needed,” Nina said. “She didn’t even have many friends.”

Nina’s father seemed to like having her mother home. “They were a really traditional couple. Dad wanted his dinner ready when he got home, and Mom seemed to like waiting on him. ‘Your father works hard,’ she’d always tell us. ‘You girls be quiet and let him relax.’”

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When I asked Nina if her parents seemed to get along, she imme- diately responded with, “Oh, yeah. They really loved each other.” When I asked if they ever fought, she once again answered quickly, “Oh, no. My mom never argued with my dad. She always agreed with everything he wanted to do.”

Nina was painting a picture of a storybook family life—the duti- ful wife, the hardworking husband, the kids who were seen but not heard. Or was it? Nina was a young woman who was raised in the eighties—not the fifties. Something just wasn’t adding up.

After several more sessions and some gentle probing on my part, Nina finally opened up more about how it really was in her family. As it turned out, it wasn’t so perfect after all. Yes, her mother was a dutiful wife, but her father was quite demanding. He expected his wife to wait on him hand and foot when he was home, and he was extremely hard to please. There were many nights when he refused to eat what she had cooked and insisted that she cook something else entirely. He complained if the house wasn’t immaculate and the kids weren’t bathed and dressed up when he got home. As we con- tinued to explore Nina’s childhood, Nina admitted that it really wasn’t by choice that her mother didn’t have any friends or didn’t go out much. It was at her father’s insistence that Nina’s mother not associate with anyone outside of the family.

When I asked Nina how she felt with this new awareness, she said, “I feel sorry for my mother. I’d always thought she was happy just being our mother and my dad’s wife, but now I wonder if that is true.”

When I asked her how she felt about her dad, she made excuses for him. “I’m sure he had a rough life. He did work very hard, and I suppose he needed things to be just so in order for him to relax.” “And how do you feel about the fact that he basically isolated your mother? And about the fact that he was so controlling of her?” Nina avoided answering both these questions. She merely shrugged and looked away. I had expected as much. She had an investment in not facing the truth about her father. She had pretended all her life that her mother and father had a perfect relationship, and even though she was coming to see some of the chinks in her father’s armor, she wasn’t ready to completely come out of denial. This was at the core of Nina’s tendency to be naive and gullible. As long as she pretended that there were no bad people in the world, that people

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didn’t lie, cheat, or manipulate, she could continue to pretend that her father was a great man. But if she began facing the truth about people—that there are those who con other people, cheat other peo- ple, and control other people, she would open the door to seeing the truth in all its forms—including the truth about her father.

No More Mr. Nice Guy

Women are also naive and gullible in believing that a man who is being helpful to them is doing it just because he is a nice guy and not because he wants anything from them. While this can sometimes be the case, women cannot afford to
assume
this is true.

Jasmine first met Aaron at a dinner party at the home of one of her friends. Since he was much older than she was, Jasmine didn’t think he was coming on to her but was just being friendly. He seemed very fatherly to her, offering her advice about everything, from how to find a better job to suggesting the best hotel at her favorite vacation spot. Before they parted that night, Aaron gave her his phone number. He said he knew the name of a headhunter who might be able to help her find a better job.

As luck would have it, the headhunter was able to get Jasmine a position at an incredible firm for much more money than she had been making. Feeling grateful to Aaron, Jasmine called to thank him. When he casually suggested they get together for lunch to celebrate, Jasmine agreed.

They had a wonderful lunch together. Aaron was a fantastic listener and Jasmine found that she could discuss almost anything with him, including her problems with her boyfriend. Aaron agreed with her when she told him that her boyfriend was inconsiderate and selfish. He told her that she deserved to be with a man who would make her the most important thing in his life. That sounded wonderful to Jasmine since her current boyfriend seemed to have difficulty making time for her. After lunch Aaron said, “Why don’t you come with me this weekend to the premiere of . . .” (Aaron was in the movie industry in Hollywood). “It will cheer you up and it will send the message to your boyfriend that you aren’t going to just wait around for him to call.” Jasmine thought it was a great idea.

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