Positive Psychology Column for 9-28-03 By Tom Muha, Ph.D. How We Stay Stuck Why don’t we change those behaviors we know are causing us problems? For example, we don’t want to be fighting with our spouse, but can’t seem to stop it.  Or we don’t want to be overweight, but continue to eat too much.  We know we’re creating problems for ourselves in many areas of our lives, but don’t know how to stop our negative behaviors.  Oh, maybe we can stop for a little while, but then we fall back into the same old habits. You can break your dysfunctional pattern if you change your way of thinking first.  It’s the way you think about your choice that’s enabling you to continue to make bad decisions. The problem is that no one wants to look honestly how they’ve contributed to creating the painful realities of their life.  But that means choosing to have long-term low level pain rather than the short-term suffering that comes from facing the truth.  This is why we all have our own well-supported defense departments.  You’ll recognize your primary defensive as you go on to read about them because yours will make you squirm in your chair.  Just consider this reality reading instead of reality TV. Denial is the most primitive defense.  There is, of course, a classic example of this process that involves using a substance to excess, whether it’s food, alcohol or drugs.  Even though other people point out how the substance abuse is creating a problem, the individual denies the reality that is staring them in the face. People use these defenses to avoid seeing the consequences of their choices, which they’re able to do in the short-run.  So the 60% of you who are overweight enable yourselves to eat fast food because it’s convenient by using defenses that blind you to the long-term health consequences of heart disease, diabetes, stroke, cancer and other ailments that will bring you an early death. How often do you imagine laying in a hospital bed with tubes coming out of every orifice and your family standing in the shadows weeping when you’re eating junk food? Another common defense against the truth is rationalization.  Many times in a marriage a spouse will acknowledge that he or she is acting angry toward their partner, but justify their behavior by blaming the other person.  They conveniently forget the age-old adage that two wrongs do not make a right. Think you’re unhappy now with the way your partner is acting?  Then try imagining your life without them, as well as half of everything you own. Intellectualizing is a defense we often see being used by politicians in both parties who campaign on values such as honesty, then seek to justify the flagrant disregard of the truth in their words and deeds.  If you’re wrong, then just admit you’re wrong.  Quit treating people like their idiots by concocting some story that tries to justify your mistakes.  Others can accept that you’re not perfect, but they’ll have a hard time trusting you if you can’t tell them the truth. One of the most damaging defenses is projection.  This occurs when we attribute our own weaknesses to other people.  So we see greed or laziness or aggression in certain people rather than facing the fact that we too have those traits.  Then we base our own negative reactions toward others on our erroneous assumptions. So the next time you’re feeling negative toward someone, try thinking, “There is something about that other person I don’t like about myself.” If you have an underlying negative attitude toward the people with whom you interact, you are successfully protecting yourself by keeping others at a safe distance.  But over time you’re ruining your relationships and depriving yourself of the best feeling in the world - love. Or maybe you’re overtly angry with the people in your world.  You may be getting what you want from others’ right now, but trust me when I tell you that those people that you’re bullying are currently planning their revenge. If you are experiencing negative results in your life, you have a choice to make.  Use your defenses to stay stuck in the hole you’re digging for yourself or put down the shovel and think about what you’re doing to deal with the problem. The path to achieving lasting success and satisfaction is to take complete responsibility for the results, no matter what external contributions may have contributed to your predicament.   Tom Muha is a psychologist in Annapolis. He welcomes your comments and questions. To contact him call (443) 454-7274 or email him at tom@achievinghappiness.com.