Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Can I Unknow ?

As many of you know there have been times when I have shared this spot with my mother, Dr. Linda Edelstein, a clinical psychologist and author. She has now joined the rest of  us as an avid blogger. Her blog is dedicated to “ideas from psychology that make life better”. I love her new blog’s name, Life Ain’t For Sissies. This is one of her recent posts and a personal favorite. I think it will resonate with you.

We all receive information every day, maybe too much and unfortunately some news is unwanted. Do we take it in?  Do we repel it?  We change as we learn.

I’ve been editing the manuscript of my new book and, as I reread sections, I thought about some of the ideas I found compelling in the original writing. The following is taken from the book. It made me think and got my wheels spinning.

Linda: There is one lie I used to tell (I don’t say this anymore) to clients in the beginning of therapy. It would occur after we had talked about aspects of their lives that they said they wanted to change, whether it was emotions, personal behaviors or interpersonal relationships.  If someone asked, “What if I don’t like the change?” I often responded, “Then you can change back.” This is not true.  They certainly can continue to change but the idea of undoing change, as if you were untying a shoe, is equivalent to unknowing.  How can you reclaim unknowing?

There are some many times in life when we learn something that is unwelcome.  It could be as small as finding out we are color blind.  It could be as gigantic as a medical diagnosis or a betrayal.  And, this surprising, unwelcome news doesn’t have to only come from the outside – it might come from inside ourselves.  For example, when we realize that we no longer love our partner, we know that we have reached the end of a job, we finally understand that our parent is an addict, or we comprehend that our child is not the person we had hoped. Information like this changes our world.  Just as my client who asked, “What if I don’t like the change?” we can’t go backward, we can’t ‘unknow’.  We can’t reclaim innocence.

I’m convinced that the inability to ‘unknow’ is one reason people fight against understanding their situations.  They realize that they will have to live with their knowledge and probably act on it, even if that action is acceptance, not leaving, screaming or throwing things. So, it becomes preferable to never gain the knowledge.  That is probably what denial is all about.  There are things in life that can be undone – hair grows back and possessions can be bought and sold.  Other things, if not undone, can be fixed by apologies, better behavior, and future improvement.  But certain knowledge exists in that category of, “Oh no, what do I do with this?”  That last category compels us forward.

One last, optimistic point.  It seems to me that this idea of ‘unknowing’ also works when we learn positive information, when we realize that we are more talented, more insightful, less damaged, more hardworking or compassionate than we previously knew.  We cannot unlearn that, either.  That’s the good news.

I’d like to hear your experiences, if you’d like to share.

To check out mom's blog click here.

 

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