Stage One

Stage 1

“It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.”

— G.K. Chesterton

Removing the Blinders

At the age of 72, Jim is a chronic complainer. I learned a long time ago that I don’t need to buy a newspaper or watch television to know what’s wrong with the world; there are plenty of people like Jim who will tell me what’s wrong. Complaining, gossiping, criticizing, and negative thinking are some of the deadliest habits.

Little by little, negativity eats away at a person’s health and eliminates the possibility for happiness. If someone close to you is a complainer, a criticizer, or a negative thinker, your own well-being is at risk.  

Complaining about things beyond our direct control is one of the most destructive habits. Yes, I know, it’s also one of the most common things that people do. We complain about the weather; we talk about whoever is the focus of the latest celebrity scandal; we blame the government—any government—for everything that’s wrong.

Complaining about things we can’t control is a very effective way to avoid facing up to things that we can do something about. By spending his life complaining about things that he is powerless to change, Jim avoids having to confront his own negative thinking and bitterness.

Jim wants everyone else to change. He blames everyone else for his problems: his parents, a former business partner, the government, the local economy. In his present state, he can’t begin to understand that his unhappiness has nothing to do with any of these things, and everything to do with his habit of blaming others for what’s wrong in his life.   

Jim doesn’t have a habit that causes a clear health risk. He doesn’t smoke, drink, use drugs, or overeat. But his health is failing, and he is worried about the need for major surgery. Although negative thinking hasn’t been conclusively linked to cancer or heart disease, researchers are beginning to find evidence that resentment, bitterness, and hatred literally kill people.

Jim feels no reason to change his own attitude or behavior. He is a classic example of a person who is unable to recognize the true cause of his unhappiness. Jim is in denial.

Denial is the first stage in the cycle of self-change. The vast majority of people whose health, happiness, or relationships are being threatened by a self-destructive habit spend months, if not years, in a stage where they deny the seriousness of the problem.   

People in this stage share the following characteristics:

·       They refuse to admit that they have a serious problem.

·       They resist change and usually become aggressive if confronted about the need to change.

·       They have a general sense of hopelessness, no matter how busy their lives seem to be on the surface.

Many people who have self-destructive habits also suffer from feelings of distress. Research suggests that up to 50% of drug users have some form of depression. Misery loves company: We tend to form relationships with people who have our bad habit.

By spending time in a bar, people can convince themselves that it’s the normal way to unwind after a stressful day, since there are so many other people in the bar doing the same thing. Research shows that clinically obese people are less likely to lose weight when they live with other clinically obese people.

Self-destructive behavior

Many people are so stubborn in their unconscious need to defend their bad habits that they refuse help even when their lives depend on it.  

In Changing For Good, James Prochaska mentions a startling experiment done by a zoologist named Calhoun. Instead of using domesticated white mice and rats in his research, Calhoun studied wild mice to gain an insight into how they strive to maintain control over their own behavior.

In one experiment, Calhoun gave the mice an electric switch that allowed them to select dim light, bright light, or no light in their cages. When allowed to make their own choice, the mice avoided bright lights and darkness; time after time, they turned on the dim light. But when the dim light was turned on by the experimenter, the mice ran to the switch and turned it off. Then they turned on the bright light or left the cage dark.

In another experiment, the mice were given control of a switch that activated a treadmill, which was their only source of exercise. Caged mice need to run about eight hours a day to stay healthy. Without any prompting, the mice turned on the treadmill and ran at different times of the day.

Whenever the experimenter turned on the treadmill, the mice immediately turned it off, even though the first part of the experiment clearly showed that the mice wanted and needed to exercise.

Prochaska calls this “foolish freedom.” Laboratory mice are too domesticated to exhibit this kind of behavior. Prochaska points out that the wild mice “demanded control over their behavior, even if it meant sacrificing their own health.”

Helping relationships

People in denial have lost control of the problem, which means that they have lost control of their lives. They rarely progress to the next stage without the benefit of a helping relationship.

Professional counselors, therapists, and helpers have learned that confrontation doesn’t help a person move from stage 1 to stage 2. Nagging doesn’t help. Letting him have his way—or “going along with him” to avoid confrontation—merely strengthens his denial of the problem by reinforcing in his own mind that whatever he’s doing is right.

People usually need an unexpected response before they can remove the blinders. This is a fact that hasn’t changed in the last 3,000 years, as the following story illustrates.

King David was one of the heroes of ancient Israel. He was the leader of his nation, a great warrior, an accomplished musician, and one of the greatest poets of antiquity. When he was a young shepherd tending his father’s flock, he killed a bear and a lion with his hands. When he was barely a teenager, he killed Goliath on the battlefield.

One evening, the king got out of bed and went up to the roof of his house. He saw a beautiful woman washing herself not far away. Immediately he sent his men to find out who she was. Her name was Bathsheba. She was the wife of a soldier named Uriah, who was one of Israel’s bravest and most loyal soldiers.

Uriah was away from home, serving his nation in a war against one of Israel’s many enemies. David sent for Bathsheba and slept with her. She became pregnant.

The king wanted Uriah out of the way. The Israeli army was besieging an enemy city at the time. David sent a letter to the commander of his army, Joab, in which he laid out instructions for getting rid of Uriah. He told Joab to send Uriah to the front of the battle, then retreat with the rest of his soldiers, leaving Uriah alone.

Joab carried out the king’s orders and Uriah was killed in battle. David made Bathsheba his wife, and she gave him a son.

There are a lot of things going on here that are worse than smoking, overspending, negative thinking, and overeating—treachery and murder, to name just two. And it started with David’s voyeurism, a nasty thing in itself. How do you tell a king that he’s developing some dangerous habits?

If you think it’s hard to get somebody in your own family to remove the blinders, imagine what the prophet Nathan was up against. Nathan knew what was going on. As a prophet, it was his job to help the king open his eyes.

Nathan didn’t confront David directly. Instead, he told the king a story about two men who lived in the same city. One man was rich, the other poor. The rich man had many flocks and herds. The only thing the poor man had was one lamb. The poor man loved the lamb as if it were his daughter.

One evening the rich man needed a lamb for a dinner party. Instead of sacrificing a lamb from one of his own flocks, he took the poor man’s lamb. When King David heard this, he was furious—he thought Nathan was telling him a true story about two men in his kingdom.

“The man who did this thing shall surely die,” said the king.

Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man.”

David listened to Nathan’s story, and it opened his eyes. Why can’t we listen better? Why can’t we see the faults in ourselves that others see so clearly in us? It is so easy to know when others are in denial, and virtually impossible to admit that we are in this stage.  

In the language of modern therapy, the prophet Nathan was in a helping relationship with King David. He confronted David, but not through an act of direct verbal aggression. He created uncertainty in David by responding in a way that David least expected. That is what allowed David to open his eyes.

Uncertainty is what causes us to look for new options. Nathan knew that it’s impossible to change another person, but you can motivate him to want to change himself. Your role as a helper is to support another person during the process of self-change, not to attack him or reject him.

We can’t all be as wise as Nathan. But there is always a way to help someone open his eyes without entering into an aggressive confrontation, which often causes irreparable damage to everyone involved.

If someone close to you is in denial, you are already equipped to be a better helper by having read this. Don’t go along with him, don’t cave in to him, and by all means, don’t confront him openly.

The best thing you can do is give him this report. When he reads the story of Nathan and King David, he may be ready to say, “I am the man.”

If you’ve become aware of the need to free yourself from a bad habit, you’re already in stage 2.