Healing Idealization
Idealization Sabotages Our Dreams
When we idealize, we fantasize about a future that never comes true. We fall into the pattern of believing that "only if" or "when" we reach a certain circumstance, will things be better. Idealization is projecting a false belief upon ourselves or another (because it makes us more comfortable), insisting that the false belief must be true. An idealization is a form of wish fulfillment, where our perspectives need to fall in order to simplify our lives. We choose and remain with partners by not accepting their negative attributes, only seeing and believing in their potential. This denial of the whole picture is what gets us in trouble. We believe (because we have the apparent same goals as our partners) that things will work out. Idealization delays us from challenging the status quo (and possibly creating conflict), and perpetuates both attachments and positions that ironically are contrary to what we want. We end up using these polarized emotional and intellectual perspectives to sabotage what we want. The result is anxiety, delays and confusion. To make matters worse, we seek guidance, acceptance and affirmation from the very people who wish us to remain confused.
Idealization keeps us from seeing our Beauty, Truth and Goodness. We are confused by outer attractive appearances, the illusion of power, and the glamour of being considered better than others. Idealization seems a quick fix because we justify that results are more important than the means or methods that we use to obtain the outcomes we seek. Idealization is an attachment to a principle at the cost of our creative spirit. When we idealize ourselves, our self-importance runs roughshod over others' rights and prerogatives. Idealization is used to justify poor ways of interacting with others and automatically insulates us from the negative effects of our judgments. When we idealize others, our negative self-image gets in the way of asserting our creativity and rights. In Idealization, we discount everything that does not make sense or does not match up with our aspirations. One result is choosing partners who will not work out or never were interested in us enough to commit.
Idealization can be neutralized by employing our creative consciousness. We need to recognize that shortcuts to results are actually roadblocks because we are not embracing the fullness of truth. We need to integrate our truth and construct it from many different sources. We need to accept our creative humanity and not fall into the trap of attempting to control others, including ourselves. Developing unity, a spacious context, transpersonal desires, and humility will transform our over-inflated egoic self-importance. Consider how much time and suffering you have had because of this problem to date. Is it time for a change?
This class can change the trajectory of your life. It does this when you accept your creativity and thereby the capacity to transfigure yourself and those you love. Of course, the cost is that you are going to have to give up your unconscious biases, false assumptions, and fantasies about how easy it should be. We need to be able to see both the positive and negative of everyone. It just takes awareness not to pre-judge ourselves or others. Are you basing your perspectives only on your body or mind? Or are you overdoing your emotions or underdoing your thoughts? If the answer is yes, then come to our Free Intro night, where we will talk about Idealization, so you can see it disappearing in the rearview mirror.
Idealization is always about people, places and things. We can idealize ourselves or others, see the positives about a place or the worst about that location, or love or hate the things around us. This generates drama in our lives as we react to extremes. What we do not understand is that we use these polarities to create false personality stability in our lives. We try to moderate these opposites by adopting a state of mediocrity. This occurs when we push the middle ground without embracing the whole.
Goodness is a personal experience that is lost when we adopt the mediocrity of others. What we sacrifice is our ability to be truthful or to recognize the truth because we cannot see both the good and bad simultaneously. As a result, relationships that were good originally can change on a dime to be worse than we ever imagined.
Healing Idealization is a 12-week Zoom series on Tuesdays at 6:00 p.m. MDT, from May 16 through August 8, 2023. Contact Sandy at sjaquith@earthlink.net for financial assistance information.
Join us on Tuesday May 9 at 6:00 p.m. MDT for our FREE INTRO “The Problem With Idealization” We will send a Zoom link just before the Free Intro to all registrants.