The Eleven Lifetraps

recommend book⇒Your Road Map to Lifelong Happiness: A Guide to the Life You Want

by:

Ken Keyes Jr.

978-0-915972-23-4

paperback

(born: 1921-01-19 died: 1995-12-20 at age: 74)

978-0-915972-22-7

hardcover

publisher:

Love Line

published:

1995-06-19

Ken’s last book finished just before he died. He introduces EMDR, Harville Hendrix, Ron Kurtz’s Hakomi and other therapies as much faster ways of getting rid of addictions than using his classic methods.

Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

recommend book⇒Reinventing Your life: How to Break Free From Negative Life Patterns and Feel Good Again

by:

Jeffrey E. Young, Janet S. Xlosko, Aaron T. Beck

978-0-452-27204-0

paperback

publisher:

Plume

978-0-525-93584-1

hardcover

published:

1994-05-01

The late Ken Keyes highly recommended this book, and near the end of his life, taught its techniques. I too highly recommend it. It explains the lifetraps conditioned into us as children that make our live miserable as adults.

Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

Dr. Jeffrey E. Young and Janet Klosko handle them much better in their most excellent book Reinventing Your Life : How to Break Free from Negative Life Patterns and Feel Good Again.

The basic idea is you are still reacting as if you were a child. You have to go back to childhood and relive the corresponding traumatic events with your adult understanding. Once you do that, your adult reactions become more rational too. You find the key events by asking yourself when you are suffering, "What is the earliest time in my life I felt this way?" For example, your fear of meeting people now may have been burned into you on your first day of school when the other kids beat the heck out of you.

Here is an example from my own life. About my earliest memory is when I was two living on Cook street in Victoria. The next door neigbour girl had a dog, Barney trained to bring in the paper. She invited me over to her house, possibly for some sex play (I started young), or to play with the dog. As we were going through the gate she asked me to put my thumb on the mechanism. I complied. Then she slammed the gate shut on my thumb, and giggled with glee. It hurt mightily. I told myself "Never trust females again!!".

All my life, females have betrayed me in various ways, reinforcing this belief that none of them can be trusted. See core beliefs and the law of attraction. In 2000-07-01 I revisted this incident with adult understanding. My friend/therapist suggested restating that as "Never trust that little girl again!!". I thought about it, and said, "That makes sense". Ever since all my relations with females have taken a dramatic turn for the better. Females flirt with me everywhere, and I enjoy it! — me a gay male.

Further, we tend to abuse ourselves as adults in the same way we were abused as children. Many of us have a tyrannical internal voice constantly belittling our every effort.

There are 11 different lifetraps:

Abandonment : You fear your partner abandoning you.
Mistrust and Abuse : You mistrust people, or end up in abusive situations.
Emotional Deprivation : You feel you will never get the love you need.
Dependence : You feel you can’t make it in life without someone to take care of you.
Defectiveness : You believe there is something wrong with you right at the core of your being, even if you can’t quite put your finger on just what it is.
Social Exclusion : You feel you will never be able to fit in socially.
Failure : You feel you are a failure.
Entitlement : Perhaps because you have suffered so much, you believe the world owes you goodies without significant effort on your part.
Subjugation : You feel controlled by other people.
Vulnerability : You fear destitution or some other calamity.
Unrelenting Standards : You push yourself to ever higher standards, always driving yourself and never allowing yourself time to enjoy life.

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