The Lost and Found Box: A Provocative Exploration About Rediscovering Happiness and the Real You!

By Dr. James Wadley

The Lost and Found Box: A Provocative Exploration about Rediscovering Happiness and the REAL You!

Sometimes people will lose themselves to build or maintain a relationship and later on discover that they don't know who they really are. You used to spend time with family or friends but now that you are in a relationship, no one has a chance to see you anymore. You used to watch your favorite television sitcom on Thursday nights....but now that you are in are in a relationship, something or someone else is always more important. You use to enjoy your favorite dessert on Sundays....but can you remember the last time you had a chance to spoil your tastebuds?

Whether you lost a portion of yourself in a romantic relationship or forgot what really makes you happy, The Lost and Found Box is a tool to explore who you used to be, who you are, and who you could be. This book will help you identify those treasures in your box to empower you to give yourself the best of you!

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468543537

Dr. James Wadley

Dr. James Wadley is an associate professor and Director of the Master of Human Services program at Lincoln University. He is a licensed professional counselor in the States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Dr. Wadley has emerged as one of the nation’s best sexuality researchers and therapists with a focus on intimacy building in relationships, communication, and values clarification. Dr. Wadley received his Doctorate of Philosophy degree in Education from the University of Pennsylvania with a concentration in Educational Leadership and Human Sexuality Education. He has a Masters in Education degree in School Psychology from the University of Kentucky. He holds a clinical postgraduate certificate from the Council for Relationships in Philadelphia.

Book preview

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

WHERE DID I GO AND WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?

How Do You Find Yourself? Make a Plan

Start Small

What Keeps You

From Being Passionate About Yourself?

Your Career Path

If You Can’t Find the Answer…

Don’t Hang On To What Is Not Working

What Does This Have To Do With Your Relationships?

Self-Sabotage and Escape

Avoidance Behaviors

Developing Resentment

Anxiety and Depression

Loss of Self-Worth, Self-Esteem, Self-Respect

Letting Yourself Go…

What Are The Benefits of Finding Myself?

SELF-REFLECTION

AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

CHAPTER TWO

WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MY HAPPINESS: YOU OR I?

What Is Keeping You From Your Happiness?

So What Is Keeping You from Your Happiness?

Your Bad Attitude

Your Appearance

Your Baggage

The Benefits of Being Happy

How Do I Make Myself Happy?

On the Outside

On the Inside

Do What Makes You Feel Good

Surround Yourself with Happiness

Happiness and needs

Why It’s Important to Take Control of Your Happiness

SELF-REFLECTION

AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

CHAPTER THREE

COMMUNICATING WHAT’S INSIDE THE RELATIONAL BOX

Communication Safety

SELF-REFLECTION

AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

CHAPTER FOUR

EMERGENCE FROM INVISIBILITY: OFFERING AND ACCEPTING UNCONDITIONAL TRUTH

People Pleasers

People Who Believe Their Truth Is Universal

What If You Don’t Have ALL the Answers…

Finding Other Stuff

in the Lost and Found Box

Loving My Positive Attributes

and Working on the Negative

SELF-REFLECTION

AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

CHAPTER FIVE

EMERGING FROM INVISIBILITY

AND THE COURAGE TO CHANGE

Why Failing Is Important to Success

Defining the Successful You

and Your Commitment to Yourself

Being Proud of Me

SELF-REFLECTION

AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

CHAPTER SIX

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER…

HOW FINDING MYSELF ALLOWS ME TO CREATE THE RELATIONSHIP I DESERVE

SELF-REFLECTION

AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Acknowledgments

This manuscript seemingly took forever and two days to write. I am so grateful to all those who supported me in this endeavor and helped me pull this together. I would like to thank Karin Dancy, Kristina Brune, Tracy D., Pam R. (Pam’s Place), Doug Russell, and Dr. Linda Stine who helped me reconceptualize, write, edit, and reframe this manuscript and get it to a place where it can empower people in their relationships with themselves and with their partners. Many thanks to my colleagues, friends, and family at Lincoln University and the Master of Human Services Program who supported me with this project and allowed me to occasionally process and vent about individual and systemic change. Thank you to my friends at BEBASHI in Philadelphia, People Helping People Incorporated, The Philadelphia Sun Newspaper, Multi-tek, Multi-Therapy Services Inc., Holistic Behavioral Health, Germantown (Philadelphia) Psychological Associates, Sweet Escape in New Hope, Pennsylvania and Vanguard Title for your professional support.

I would like to thank my friends and colleagues who routinely gave me feedback about their individual journeys to happiness and contentment. Your words of encouragement, satire, and personal narratives about life, love, and living have always been instrumental in my own development as a person and a professional. Finally, a special heartfelt thank you to my family who remained patient and understanding while I worked on this manuscript over the past several months. Your resilience did not go unnoticed, and I am blessed and grateful to have you be the wind beneath my wings.

Foreword

In elementary and middle schools across the country, there is typically a designated place for items that students have lost. Usually, it is in the principal’s office, a storage area, or some other easily accessible location. During the fall and winter months, scores of children lose their jackets, hats, gloves, or mittens near, at, or around school grounds. During the spring, it is not uncommon to find athletic equipment brought from home or other personal items in the box as well. Oftentimes, these articles are kept in some sort of large box, and students can generally go to scour lost or discarded items.

When I was in elementary and middle school, the Lost and Found Box was always kept in the janitor’s closet. One could always find an abundance of clothes, toys, and athletic equipment there. Unfortunately, when I lost anything personal and had to go to the box to retrieve it, it wasn’t unusual to find that my lost item carried the unpleasant scent of cleaning solutions, sawdust, or mold. Nevertheless, if I lost anything that belonged to me, I always became quite anxious that I would not be able to find my hat or sweater in the box. If I didn’t find whatever I had lost, I would have to face dire consequences when I got home. On the other hand, if I did not have a hat or a pair of gloves to wear on a cold day, I knew that I could go to the Lost and Found box and borrow another student’s until I found my item. I must confess that sometimes I didn’t return the borrowed item to the box due to laziness or a lack of empathy.

What’s fascinating is that as people get older and enter into adult relationships, they sometimes lose things that are important to them. People don’t typically lose hats, gloves, or scarves and then have a designated area to find lost items. Some department or grocery stores may have a lost and found box, but typically there is no central place for adults to go and find things. Sometimes, lost items are taken to the local precinct, and one can find his/her item being held by the police,; but, in general, when things are lost, they remain lost forever.

This book is about people losing portions of themselves during the courtship process or while they are in the midst of a romantic relationship. What I am suggesting is that sometimes people will do anything to build or maintain a relationship and consequently end up losing their values, ideas, beliefs, behaviors, and attitudes that allow them to be special and unique. So, for example, has someone ever asked you a question but you did not tell the truth about how you felt because you didn’t want to hurt that person’s feelings? At one time or another, most of us have told a white lie about our partner’s or family member’s cooking, hair style, sexual expression, driving skills, or even intellect, knowing that our sentiments were only offered because we did not want to be inconsiderate. Instead of being honest and genuine about our feelings, we only told what we thought our partners, friends, or colleagues wanted to hear. This book is about finding and rediscovering those traits in your Lost and Found Box that allow you to be you. Moreover, this book will give you instructions about how to develop the willingness to identify how you feel and speak honestly and openly in your romantic relationships, friendships, and family relationships. The greatest gift that one can give is oneself, and this book will give you the tools to give and receive authenticity.

This book is for anyone who has ever felt invisible or unheard in a relationship. It is for anyone who has lost his or her way, and it is an invitation to be courageous enough to explore the lost and found box within you. It was written with the intent to empower individuals and empower relationships based upon the assumption that everyone has a unique quality that can be shared and received unconditionally. This book was also written to give a voice to those who have ever felt marginalized in their relationship but with the understanding that those feelings of being ridiculed or minimized occurred not because of your partner… but because you may have allowed your truth to become invisible along the way. This book is the product of hundreds of discussions with scholars, clinicians, and leaders in the fields of psychology, sociology, and anthropology who have offered their sentiments about the evolution and etiology of happiness. It is my hope that you use this book as a source to learn about yourself, your relationships, and how you can use your power and courage to change the way that you present yourself to others. This book is not based upon socioeconomic status, relationship status, sexual orientation/identity, race, or religion but is focused solely on individuals being able to remain strong in their convictions about themselves. Inasmuch, this book is for individuals who are trying to rediscover what they are passionate about and what experiences bring forth inspiration.

This book is unique in that it runs counter to the traditional paradigm of finding someone who can make us happy. If you are willing to read further and explore your own lost and found box, you will find that people can’t make you happy. However, the right person will enable and encourage you to be who you are without reservation, and that can lead to happiness and satisfaction.

Introduction

Sandra and Jeff have been together for three years, and recently Jeff has been struggling to let Sandra know that he really wants to watch football on Sundays. Sandra believes that she and Jeff don’t have a lot of free time to spend together because of work and other family responsibilities, so Sunday is the best day for her and Jeff to catch up and do things together. Jeff enjoys Sandra’s company and will do whatever he can to please her, but he typically becomes anxious whenever his team is playing and he cannot watch. This past Sunday, Sandra wanted Jeff to go with her to her mother’s house to help clean the garage, and Jeff reluctantly agreed to because he did not want to disappoint her. Jeff went with her but eventually became very angry about missing the big game again.

*     *     *     *

Ron recently asked Sharon to accompany him on a kayaking trip with some of his close friends. Sharon hates the outdoors and has no interest in being outdoors, let alone paddling a kayak in the open water with a bunch of obnoxious people. She never tells Ron how she feels because the relationship is new, and she wants to let Ron know that she is an everything kind of gal, so she tells him that she will go. Once they get to the river with the kayak and meet Ron’s friends, Sharon desperately tries to act like she is having a good time, but Ron detects that she is just going through the motions, as she is frequently abrupt and curt when asked a question or invited to share about her life. Once the date ended, Ron asks, Why didn’t you just tell me that you didn’t want to go? Sharon replied, I didn’t tell you because I wanted to make you happy.

*     *     *     *

This book, The Lost and Found Box, will help you explore how you can increase your capacity to restore the best of YOU for yourself and your romantic relationships. Couples frequently lose themselves in their romantic relationships because they desperately want to please their partners… at the expense of their true selves. Roles, identity, and attitudes become muddled over the course of your relationship because you think that intimacy with your romantic partner should supersede the relationship that you have with yourself. In this book, you will be challenged to think about how you have abandoned those traits that have allowed you to be a special person and how you can recover, restore, and reinvent endless possibilities of self-empowerment. This book was written to challenge you to search your Lost and Found Box and begin to reshape and reconfigure how you present and communicate YOURSELF to others. By reading this book, you will discover that your Lost and Found Box is within you, and you’ll be able to uncover what may have been missing for months or even years. Your Lost and Found Box contains the best of you, and it needs to emerge to become a part of your daily living. Even if you discover traits that you don’t like in your box, this book will suggest strategies to reframe those experiences into potential learning and growth opportunities.

At one point in your personal or professional relationships, you may have felt invisible or unheard because you could not or had difficulty conveying the real you. This book will be a useful tool for you to develop a better understanding of yourself and how you present yourself in your romantic and professional relationships.

Chapter One

WHERE DID I GO AND WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?

We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.

François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

(French Author)

Will I ever have a chance to meet the person you become when I’m not around?

Anonymous

People spend inordinate amounts of time, money, and emotion trying to figure out how to be true to themselves. They buy books, attend costly self-help workshops, and confide in experts as they try to find out who they really are. Many people assume that being true and honest with themselves will allow them to be happy in their intimate relationships. They assume that the process of exploring themselves will bring forth a higher level of satisfaction. Moreover, it is assumed that not having a sound understanding of oneself may increase the likelihood of being dissatisfied and possibly emotionally stagnant in relationships. If your partner would be okay