Two Steps Forward, One Back

There is a big difference between a child who is fixated at a certain developmental stage and a child who has already mastered that stage and subsequently regresses back to it again.

Parents often become concerned when at about 8 months of age after having shown the beginning signs of being able to separate from mother, their baby exhibits “stranger anxiety” whenever anyone other than mother picks him up. Mommy might only be a foot away, but if uncle Mark picks up the baby he’ll stiffen and start to cry. “What’s going on here?,” the parents say to themselves. Before now the baby would let anybody pick him up. There wasn’t any crying when grandma, grandpa, or any of the uncles, aunts and cousins picked him up. The baby would give everybody a turn at lifting him and holding him.

The answer is that the baby has graduated to a more advanced level of development where he is able to more clearly recognize and differentiate people from one another. Eighth month stranger anxiety is a sure sign that the baby is recognizing mother as being more of a separate person who is clearly differentiated from others.

All types of development – whether physical, emotional or spiritual – progress in a back-and-forth two-step forward, one-step backward, two-step forward progression. This is G-d’s design. We never grow in a straight line. Regression is a necessary part of life. When the Torah says that: “a fall must precede a rise,” it is giving expression to the same concept on a spiritual level. It means that a spiritual fall must precede a burst of spiritual growth. In fact it is only through falling (regressing) that one is able to become more elevated. Psychotherapists distinguish between pathological regression where people become fixated at a lower level, and what’s called “regression in the service of the ego” which is a good healthy and desirable form of regression because it ushers in new growth.

Each developmental achievement can only stand upon the successful completion of the earlier stages. If what we accomplished earlier was mastered well, it becomes a solid foundation upon which to build more. Sometimes we reach a new level and G-d sees that for some reason we need to return to an earlier level to fix something. Once the correction is made, the person can learn and progress even more rapidly to more advanced stages of spiritual growth.

Somebody who I’ve known for a long time, let’s call him David, has a history of severe anxiety and panic attacks. He used to have these attacks very frequently. They could happen anywhere – in synagogue, at home, at work or even while driving his car. Of course he found these anxiety attacks to be debilitating and caused him to restrict himself in many ways such as from traveling too far from home. In time, David became much less anxious. As he matured spiritually, he became more devoted to his wife and children, became active in community affairs and was made a partner in his family’s business. Life was proceeding along quite smoothly for David and it had been a long time since he had a full-blown anxiety or panic attack. He was thinking that he had finally conquered his anxiety once and for all.

One day something apparently wonderful happened to David but he couldn’t understand why he wasn’t feeling so great about it. He had just met with his father who had given him a rather sizable gift of money as an expression of his love for David and his wish to contribute towards David’s purchase of his first home.

Shortly afterwards David had one of the “worst” anxiety attacks he had suffered in years. He called me in a panic not knowing what was happening to him. He told me that not only was he unable to go to work and function normally but he was feeling like the ultimate failure who had gotten nowhere after all this time. He felt that he was back to where he had been years ago.

Thank G-d, it didn’t take long for David to see that none of what he was thinking was true and that his present anxiety was of a completely different nature than what he had experienced in the past. In the past, David’s anxiety was precipitated by feeling very small helpless and emotionally dependent in relation to his popular and successful father. The slightest conflict with his father who he perceived as his all-powerful savior could cause him to panic for fear that his father would not be available to him if he became injured or in-firmed.

In the present situation, though, David had already become a partner in the family business and he had already initiated many needed changes in the business that required him to appropriately and respectfully challenge his father and the older partners during meetings. David had already come to realize that not only was his father not omnipotent, but that his aging father needed David’s youthful zeal and ingenuity to keep the business growing in the face of strong competition.

David’s present anxiety was in the form of a “fall in order to rise.” David was helped to see that  he had, in some ways, surpassed his father and that G-d was now preparing him for the greater role  of becoming his father’s caretaker and closet confidant. G-d reached down and picked David from amongst his many siblings and their spouses to take on a very special role in relation to his father. What Heaven wanted now was for David to excel in a mission which he never dreamed he could achieve.

Rebbe Nachman said that we can find embedded in our very “worst” personal characteristics and traits our greatest abilities and spiritual treasures. Over the next several months, David became G-d’s designated messenger to help his own childhood hero, his father, to deal with a rapidly advancing and debilitating illness with the dignity and poise that only comes with real faith.

We need to go easy on ourselves and others and remember that our spiritual growth necessitates many ups and downs. We may not always understand them but they are all good.