I will never forget a conversation I had with a friend years ago when I felt stuck in a stressful job. After complaining to her on a call, yet again, she kindly but firmly told me: Jenn, if you want to talk about making a change I’m here. I don’t want to hear about your job anymore if you are just going to keep doing what you’re doing.
I mean, wow. Kudos for clear boundaries and radical candor. She was absolutely right. I did not have easy alternatives, but I did have a choice about whether to stay in that position. And the truth is, that’s the case with most things. We just forget we have a choice or we don’t want to take the uncomfortable actions that will be required.
As I’ve shared previously, I did not feel like I had a choice about whether to stay in my marriage. It seems crazy to say/hear that now, “of course you had a choice, it’s your life,” but I had learned helplessness throughout my childhood. Everything was out of my control and the relationships that should have nourished me did not. Growing up the message that was reinforced was “You love (forgive and are loyal to) family no matter how they make you feel.” Once I chose a life partner I extended this [codependent] belief system to him, despite how his behaviors made me feel. I described our relationship to friends as “X is my Partner, just like my sister is my Sister.” Just as I can never choose to change the fact that my sister will always be my sister (not that I would want to, love ya sis), I also held a very strong belief that I had no choice about staying with my partner.
I read Essentialism, by Greg Mckeown this week and in the book he talks about how we forget our ability to choose. It was extremely helpful to hear and I would encourage anyone to read it, but especially those who find themselves routinely complaining about something in their lives or feel stuck in a situation. Check out the story below from PositivePsychology.com.
Seligman and Maier were working with dogs at the time and testing their responses to electrical shocks. Some of the dogs received electrical shocks that they could not predict or control.
For this experiment, the dogs were placed in a box with two chambers divided by a low barrier. One chamber had an electrified floor and the other did not.
When the researchers placed dogs in the box and turned on the electrified floor, they noticed a strange thing: Some dogs didn’t even attempt to jump over the low barrier to the other side. Further, the dogs who didn’t attempt to jump the barrier were generally the dogs who had previously been given shocks with no way to escape them, and the dogs who jumped the barrier tended to be those who had not received such treatment.
To further investigate this phenomenon, Seligman and Maier gathered a new batch of dogs and divided them into three groups:
- Dogs in Group One were strapped into harnesses for a period of time and were not administered any shocks;
- Dogs in Group Two were strapped into the same harnesses but were administered electrical shocks that they could avoid by pressing a panel with their noses;
- Dogs in Group Three were placed in the same harnesses and also administered electrical shocks, but were given no way to avoid them.
Once these three groups had completed this first experimental manipulation, all dogs were placed (one at a time) in the box with two chambers. Dogs from Group One and Group Two were quick to figure out that they only needed to jump over the barrier to avoid the shocks, but most of the dogs from Group Three didn’t even attempt to avoid them.
Based on their previous experience, these dogs concluded that there was nothing they could do to avoid being shocked (Seligman & Groves, 1970).
What Is Learned Helplessness? A Psychological Definition
Learned helplessness is a phenomenon observed in both humans and other animals when they have been conditioned to expect pain, suffering, or discomfort without a way to escape it. Eventually, after enough conditioning, the animal will stop trying to avoid the pain at all—even if there is an opportunity to truly escape it.
When humans or other animals start to understand (or believe) that they have no control over what happens to them, they begin to think, feel, and act as if they are helpless.
This phenomenon is called learned helplessness because it is not an innate trait. No one is born believing that they have no control over what happens to them and that it is fruitless even to try gaining control. It is a learned behavior, conditioned through experiences in which the subject either truly has no control over his circumstances or simply perceives that he has no control.
Believe Grow Glow 