Reining in the Brat
How to make sure your behavior towards others is mature and not hurtful. We all have a brat inside of us and if we are aware of this, we will be able to better manage the less mature parts of ourselves.
There are adult ways of dealing with frustrations and anger. There are even places (by yourself, away from others) where you can have your temper tantrum so that you can be calm when it is time to solve problems.
Being grown-up and mature means making sacrifices to benefit other people; in this case, it means making the effort to express your emotions in a way that does not harm other people. It might mean you telling someone that you have to have a time-out and that you will be back to work out the problems. Then go somewhere by yourself and get a handle on that kid. If you don’t want to confess the need for a time-out, then tell people you have to go to the bathroom and sit there until you can talk without screaming or your face turning red.
Love
The other way of being stingy is failing to love that child inside of you. We can do this in a number of ways.
Sometimes we make jobs that we have to do much more boring and difficult than they need to be. No little kid likes cleaning, particularly if the cleaning has to be just so and particularly if the cleaning is accompanied by a lot of negative messages such as, “you never do anything right. You are stupid.”
Boring jobs can be made fun or they can be made finite and either way helps the little kid to accomplish them. It’s a lot easier to do a little something every day when we know that the end of that little something is definite.
Another way we withhold love is that we punish ourselves for the least mistake without really understanding the motivation behind the action. The little kid inside us typically seeks to avoid problems but will take the easy way out, because that’s how kids are. For example, the kid will pop out a lie before the adult part of you can begin to register the problem. That’s because kids are fearful and short-sighted. A lie is going to solve the problem right now, and that’s good. Adults realize that lies cause long term problems.
Instead of castigating the kid inside for trying to solve the problem in a short-sighted way, (and often we can be meaner to ourselves than we would even dream of being towards another person) it’s important to recognize the pressure that led to the lie and do something about that.
We withhold love when we don’t take care of ourselves-when we run ourselves ragged. That has a negative long term effect-eventually the excess effort catches up with us, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.
Perfectionism is another way of withholding love. Love becomes contingent upon the quality of job done, and is therefore conditional. We can love other people unconditionally but seem to require ourselves to meet higher standards in order to “earn” love.
Raising That Kid
The first step in all of this is to unmask the kid. Recognize when what you do is motivated by the brat and then try to find the reasons behind the actions. They are there but they are hard to find, especially at first. Then take steps to address the needs of that child. You’ll find that acknowledging the kid inside helps you to be more adult towards the people in your life.
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