In the movie "The Queen Who Wears Prada", the heroine Andy entered a top fashion magazine Tianqiao as an assistant to the editor-in-chief in the case of a long-term search for a job without success.
When she became the editor-in-chief's second assistant, she was ostracized because of her casual dress and ignorance of fashion brands and designers.
Whatever was the most tiring job, she would be asked to do it.
As the intense work unfolded, she began to lose her appetite, so she wanted to quit her job and leave here.
But whenever the thought of leaving arose, she unconsciously advised herself:
"A lot of people are squeezing their heads and want to work here!"
So she forced herself to grow, constantly adapted to the editor-in-chief known as the "female devil", and gradually changed her clothing style.
After several counts of the "female demon head", she is determined to make herself better, say goodbye to the helpless and always failed self, and prove her ability to the "female demon head".
So she devoted her time entirely to her work, meeting all the requirements of her boss.
Eventually she replaced her first assistant and managed to get the chance to go to Paris Fashion Week with the editor-in-chief.
But at this time, she had already retreated in her heart.
Because by the time she became a workaholic and kept making herself better, her life had long since become a mess.
When she was on the phone with her father and enjoying her parent-child time, she ignored his father's presence all night because of a sentence from the "female demon head".
At the same time, because she is always late for parties and releases pigeons, she becomes increasingly distant from her friends and boyfriends.
In the end, he broke up with his boyfriend.
She began to wonder if she was getting better or worse.
We've put too much effort into making ourselves "better."
But when we get better, there are always problems.
Why?
01
It's all because we're fighting the inner "bad me."
The concept of the "bad me" was proposed by Sullivan and corresponds to the "good me."
Generally speaking, the "bad self" refers to the part of the person who is not accepted by the outside world or self-disliked.
"Good self" refers to the part of a person who is praised or self-recognized by the outside world.
Therefore, many people think that by suppressing or eliminating the "bad me" and then developing the "good me", they can become a perfect person.
For example:
Throw away your timidity and become brave;
Say goodbye to inferiority and become confident;
Eliminate the pain and become happy.
But in fact, our inner beings are constructed together with the "bad me" and the "good me."
When we are eager to destroy the "bad self" and are only willing to accept the "good self", our inner conflicts will continue, which will make us feel pain.
So what happens to our lives as we get closer to the "bad me"?
In the Taiwanese drama "The Cultivation of Ordinary Women", the heroine Chen Jialing has struggled in Taipei for nearly 20 years, and in the eyes of most people, she can be regarded as a decent independent woman.
But in her own opinion, she is now 39 years old, no car, no house, no husband and no children, it is simply nothing.
On the surface, the work of unlimited scenery - the chairman of the board of directors special assistant.
In fact, it is a small handyman, there is no room for promotion, and he always deals with the trivial matters of the chairman's family.
The boyfriend who has been together for 4 years is also a mommy boy, and the two have long since lost their passion together, not like boyfriend and girlfriend but like roommates.
She wants to say goodbye to this life of looking at the head, but she is afraid of becoming a loser of middle-aged unemployment + lost love.
So she couldn't move and fell into the "choice dilemma" mentioned by psychologist Fromm in "Escape from Freedom":
Anxiety about taking responsibility for choices;
Worry because you gave up another option.
But when she finally became the loser of the middle-aged unemployment + lost love that she once feared, her life began to become interesting.
When she returned to her hometown, she took the English tour guide certificate and stayed in her hometown to receive foreign tourists;
With someone you really like, although the other party has no job for the time being, and has divorced;
With all the savings he had saved, he bought a house and renovated it in the way he liked.....
Although in the process, she also encountered all kinds of unhappiness, but as she said:
"The second half of my life has only just begun."
02
The "bad me" is an indelible presence in our lives.
When we treat it as an enemy and want to destroy it, then it will fiercely resist, thus making our internal conflicts more intense.
But for some people, the "bad me" is really too hard to accept, and it will make you miserable, so you can't get close to it.
Then we can integrate itself and transform its suffering into a living life force.
In the TV series "Female Psychologist", there is a unit story that tells that Li Wei had to participate in a liquor game because of her work.
At the liquor bureau, Mr. Qi was very enthusiastic about pouring her wine and persuading her to drink.
She didn't want to drink anymore, but seeing that other colleagues were trying to pull the business, she knew that she could only drink hard.
Because if she doesn't drink, in the eyes of her colleagues and superiors, she is a selfish ghost who is selfish and refuses to pay for the group.
And she drank it, and then successfully signed the contract, then she is the hero.
When Li Wei was drunk and staggered to the bathroom, Qi Zong followed up and took advantage of this to violate Li Wei.
Li Wei was reluctant at that time, but she did not resist and shout, but felt that her entire body was frozen, and even the body betrayed her consciousness and reacted.
Therefore, afterwards, she felt extremely painful that she did not resist at that time, and even her body reacted.
Thus thinking that in her bones she is a bad woman who does not have a face and wants to make people bad.
Horton explains her:
"Your body has a reaction, this does not mean that you are abusing yourself, sometimes our subjective will is unable to control our body reaction." 」
In the outside world's cognition, Li Wei's body reacted at that time, which was the embodiment of non-self-love, so she could not accept this, and she hated herself at that time.
But when Horton tells her that it's an instinctive response of the body and sometimes it's hard to control it with subjective will, she begins to be willing to accept the "bad me" and gradually transforms the pain it brings into helping more girls who have been violated, calling on them to speak up and expose the power of the abuser's evil deeds.
This is self-integration, transforming the suffering of the "bad me" into life force.
Whether it is the "bad me" or the "good me," as long as we are willing to accept them, then we are complete.
The master of psychology Jung once said:
"I want to be complete, and I don't want to be perfect, because wholeness is creativity."
May we all have a complete self and start the second half of our beautiful lives.
-END-
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