Ilene S. Cohen - When Its Never about You

PRAISE FOR
When Its Never About You

When Its Never About You is no ordinary self-help book, but rather an insightful guide using a time honored theory (Bowen) to assist the reader into becoming more of a self, finding their true voice, and authoring their preferred story for living. The author uses both her personal journey of self-discovery and clinical examples to highlight new ways of growing oneself; shedding light on ways of thinking and acting that can transform functioning in relationships. Every personal journey needs a map to traverse the territory. Anyone who reads the concepts and vignettes provided by Dr. Ilene will be greatly rewarded to find themselves standing on more solid ground with their family, their relationships and their sense of self. People with curiosity about their functioning in all kinds of relationships will profit from the wisdom proffered in this reader-friendly book.

~ JIM RUDES, Ph.D, LMFT, LCSW, Associate Professor Barry University

In her book When Its Never About You, Dr. Ilene offers a wonderful, accessible and practical guide for anyone who is looking to take charge of their life, and shed the guilt and exhaustion of pleasing and looking for others approval. As a family therapist, she gives readers an understanding into family systems and how to view your own role in your family and intimate relationships. This insight will give readers an opportunity to implement real change that will make relationships more enriching, and allow others to take responsibility for themselves.

~ OLIVIA SCHLAPFER COLMER, Ph.D., LMFT

Having spent 32 out of my 33 years stuck in a cycle of constant people pleasing, I cant begin to express how it felt to learn, through this When Its Never About You, that I was not alone in how I lived and that there were indeed ways to stay out of the people-pleasing zone. Dr. Ilenes candid and honest examples of how she, too, was stuck in the debilitating cycle of pleasing were refreshing, and how she found her way out of that tangled web was extremely inspiring. This is a self-help book that feels more like a personal support group, one where a brilliant writer and psychotherapist reminds you that youre not alone, and teaches you how to live a self-full life, without guilt, and with total confidence.

~ MICHELLE DEMPSEY, Former people-pleaser

Dr. Ilenes book is a great read for those who are constantly challenged with the need to please others. I have no doubt that it will allow readers to gain a new perspective and acquire some very useful tips on becoming fulfilled without the need to please others.

~ THALIA RYDZ, LCSW

In life, many of us get caught in wanting to be the person for everyone else; our need to help, make it easier on someone, etc. Dr. Ilene shows us how to fulfill this need while still being a healthy FULL person in this easy to read guide. My colleague reminded me that life must be SELF-FULL to be SELF-Fufilled!

~ DR. EDRICA D. RICHARDSON, LMFT

When
Its
Never
About You

The People-Pleasers Guide to Reclaiming Your Health, Happiness and Personal Freedom

ILENE S.COHEN, Ph.D.

When Its Never About You

by Ilene S. Cohen, Ph.D.

2017 Ilene S. Cohen, Ph.D.

www.doctorilene.com

Published by Harte & Co Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Copywriter: Peter Bowerman

Proofreader: Denise Fournier

Book design: Chris Mol

Print edition: ISBN: 978-0-9993115-0-9

DEDICATION

To my family, without whom

I wouldnt be the person I am today.

We are forever interconnected,

and I wouldnt have it any other way.

SELF LOVE

Once when I was running,

from all that haunted me;

to the dark I was succumbing
to what hurt unbearably.

Searching for the one thing,
that would set my sad soul free.

In time I stumbled upon it,

an inner calm and peace;

and now I am beginning,

to see and to believe,

in who I am becoming

and all Ive yet to be.

~ LANG LEAV

CONTENTS

PREFACE

You have inherited a lifetime of tribulation. Everybody has inherited it. Take it over, make the most of it and when you have decided you know the right way, do the best you can with it.

~ MURRAY BOWEN

I N MY PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE, things dont just happen without rhyme or reason. We dont aimlessly walk around making choices with no purpose, meaning, or significance to our lives. I say this because I believe you picked up this book for a reasonperhaps because you need a change in your life. Many choices we make, including the books we decide to read, shape the way we think and lead us to make meaningful changes in our lives. All these meaningful changes start with awareness. This makes it important for us to read and educate ourselves in ways that can help us with whatever we might be going through at a particular point in life, bringing more awareness to that situation. My purpose for writing this book is to help you build a strong sense of self, agency, and competencysomething I call self-full living. If you find yourself in a people-pleasing pattern in your relationships, you may be experiencing a loss of self, a loss of awareness of your internal world. You may constantly find yourself completely neglecting what you wantor not even knowing what you want in the first placein order to do what you believe someone else wants.

I get it. I created the word self-full while trying to find a healthy balance between being selfless and selfish in my own life. Born into difficult family circumstances, I did everything possible to cope. My efforts to be helpful, which ultimately involved conforming to everyones expectations, werent very helpful at all. However, I kept doing the same behaviors, even when they werent working. As much as I wanted to be more aware of myself, I found that over time, my mission to build myself up was thwarted by my resistance to being viewed as selfish. My experiences make it easy for me to understand that its hard to adopt the open-mindedness it takes to become truly self-full, perfectly balanced between selfishness and selflessness. So, let me be the first to commend you for taking the initial step toward self-full living.

I want you to reflect a moment on the following question: What is the force that holds the solar system together? As you bring yourself back to 5th grade science, you may recall that the answer is gravity. Gravity is the powerful force that keeps our universe together. It helped form our solar system, the planets, and the stars. Its what holds the planets in orbit around the sun, and moons in orbit around the planets. If there were no gravitational force on planets, people would float off into the sky. So its safe to say that gravity plays a significant role in our survival.

If you only see the solar system as planets out in space acting on their own without influence, youre likely to miss the bigger picture: that each planet works as part of a greater system, in which everything influences everything else. This same idea applies to viewing an individual as a single entity with no influence from the outside world, failing to see that each person is part of a system of relationships that influence each other. Dr. Murray Bowen, whose ideas make up Family Systems Theory, a common approach to family therapy, proposed that people should not be understood in isolation from one another, but rather as a part of the emotional unit of their families of origin. Seeing the family as an emotional unit suggests that what one family member does will affect the other members of that family system. A family isnt just a bunch of separate people walking around freely; the gravitational pull influencing family members is the emotional connection they have to one another.