Mental Health Break Quit Cutting the Ends off Your Ham February 2007

by Elleen Norton, PsyD

“It takes a lot of effort on my part to deal with old behaviors, but if relationships aren’t working out in my life I need to figure out how to behave differently.”

A well-known story tells of a woman who always cut the ends off a ham before putting it into the oven.

“Why do you do that?” her husband asked one day.

“That’s the way it’s supposed to be done. It’s what my mother always did.”

“Why did she do that?” he asked.

The woman didn’t know why. And later when she asked for the reason her mom told her that she did it because the old pot she had used was too small.

We can all live our lives according to outmoded behaviors. Children are forced to develop resources to help navigate through a world run by big people. If I was abused as a child, for example, I might have learned as a coping mechanism to be aloof and emotionally removed.

The same thing might happen to me if I grew up with a mother who didn’t permit me to create a sense of self-identity, but kept me emotionally “joined at the hip” with her in the so-called “enmeshed mother” scenario. In response, I learn to maintain psychological distance in order to keep myself from being emotionally overwhelmed.

Another example of learned behavior is the pattern of believing as a child that I am unworthy of good things as a coping style for not having things. This mechanism helps me deal with poverty perhaps, but then after I’m grown I might do things like not pitching in for the collective birthday gift for somebody in my office. I don’t believe that I have the “extra” to give to or contribute to others.

Another pattern reveals itself in aggression stemming from a youth where belligerence was necessary for survival. Perhaps I learned the hard way that by screaming and yelling I could get my way. Later, in complicated adult situations I might try to practice the same behaviors – because it is the way I’m accustomed to behaving. I might still be able to get my way by screaming, but the price tag for doing so, in lost respect and evaporating friendships, is too high to pay.

These outmoded survival mechanisms may constantly interfere with my ability to develop healthy relationships with other people.

We all have this problem of carrying into adulthood behavior patterns we learned in childhood. We must develop the habit of analyzing our behaviors and leaving behind actions that no longer help us gain the goals we are looking for in life.

Identifying patterns that no longer work is made more complicated by the fact that those old behaviors might, in fact, still be appropriate for some situations. I don’t have to continually fight for my place any longer, perhaps, but that aggression pattern might still be appropriate in conflict situations that arise. One day I might find myself in a situation where screaming is exactly called for.

In the movie History of Violence the mild-mannered owner of a small-town diner, Tom Stall (played with great effect by Viggo Mortensen), had grown up in a family of Chicago gangsters. When two criminals invaded his restaurant and threatened his customers and him with death, Tom suddenly flamed out in a violent response that was as appropriate to the situation as it was astonishing to the town’s people. He had long-before put that pattern of behavior behind him, but could still call upon it when appropriate, and pay the price that the behavior inevitably called for.

If my enmeshed mother is no longer in my life then I don’t now have to remain aloof in every social situation. On the other hand, emotional removal might still be practical in keeping me from being overwhelmed by a circumstance that might arise with a micromanaging boss, for example.

So the modification of my behavior becomes something I practice from situation to situation, and the challenge is for me to learn when a given behavior is appropriate, but then suppressing it when it is inappropriate.

In other words, to become conscious of the dynamics of the situation I’m facing so I can choose whether or not to use a given behavior.

It takes a lot of effort on my part to deal with old behaviors, since these have become automatic. But if relationships aren’t working out in my life I need to figure out how to behave differently. I must learn to reflect upon my actions in order to make the right judgment about how to conduct myself now.

Try to find the price tags that you’ve been paying for your behaviors. Get in the habit of looking at the bigger situation. Live deliberately!

Life is better when we exert control over it by the choices we make rather than simply letting habit push us into places where we don’t really want to be.

Quit cutting the ends off your ham. °

Eileen Norton, Psy.D
925-354-7526
eileen@110mag.com