Why Can't I Ever Be Good Enough? Escaping the Limits of Your Childhood Roles [Paperback]

Joan Rubin-Deutsch (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1572243147 | ISBN-13: 978-1572243149 | Publication Date: January 2003 | Edition: 1

We learned how to relate to others in childhood, by gauging the responses our behavior elicited in our parents and creating early agreements with ourselves about how best to act and feel. We believed this was a mutual agreement, or "contract" that we were making with our parents. Unfortunately, these contracts don't stand up outside our families of origin and were often not formed our best interests in mind. Breaking these old contracts and establishing new ones with the important people in our lives is essential to both growing out of unhealthy childhood roles and getting what we truly need. In Why Can't I Ever Be Good Enough? we learn which contracts still define us, what it takes to break these, and how to create brand new contracts with ourselves that will lead to healthier relationships and lives. Through a series of exercises that include sample contract worksheets, we learn: How to develop a conscious awareness that will make old contracts visible How to distinguish your own voice from the critical, internalized voices from childhood How your contracts influence the way you connect and disconnect in relationships How to envision and create the life you want to be living

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Unlike comparable books on "toxic" families, our book offers adults from many different kinds of families real tools for change. Therapists have long told us that we need to do away with unhealthy roles from childhood, but here is a book that offers a clear, simple concept (contracts), and way of making that change (rewriting contracts). For people who grew up with parents who couldn't be trusted to establish reliable rules or expectations and today are uncomfortable with who they are, who may believe they are not worthy of love, and who are confused about what they need and want from love and work and life. Women who seek treatment for these issues are 20 and over, while men are usually 40 and over.

From the Inside Flap

Create your own contracts for the life you want to be living.

As a child, you created unspoken and binding internal contracts with yourself that stated, "If I behave in a certain way, my parents will give me what I need in return." When your needs weren’t met, you believed it was because you weren’t good enough. As an adult, these contracts continue to influence your relationship with yourself and others.

In "Why Can’t I Ever Be Good Enough?" Joan Rubin-Deutsch guides you through a program that teaches you how to transform unhealthy feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and relational patterns that are affecting your ability to experience your life joyfully. You will learn to listen to your own powerful voice, identify and break old, unworkable contracts, and envision and design new contracts that enable you to create the life you really desire.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 169 pages
• Publisher: New Harbinger Publications; 1 edition (January 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572243147
• ISBN-13: 978-1572243149
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,002,826 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Transforming old destructive messages about yourself..., September 7, 2003

By 

Szifra Birke, author of Together We Heal (Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Why Can't I Ever Be Good Enough? Escaping the Limits of Your Childhood Roles (Paperback)

In Why Can't I Ever Be Good Enough, Joan Rubin-Deutsch soothes, encourages and inspires you to make changes in your life. She clearly wants her readers to be happier and live more joyful and authentic lives.

Through gentle language, sharing stories about her clients and herself, guided meditations and easy-to-follow exercises, readers are guided along a healing journey with Joan as their emotional tour guide.

This book would be helpful for anyone interested in understanding themselves more. Joan's found a new and very interesting way to describe how and why we got trapped in maladaptive patterns. In her description and discussion of the contracts we made as children, we learn that we have the power to change - to transform old destructive messages about ourselves into messages that are clear and objective - messages that offer greater choices and freedom.

From changing the inner voices to reflect your "true inner self" to "becoming your own internal architect", Joan will walk the path with you as you decide which life contracts to keep, which to modify and which to discard completely. You will be a freer person at the end of your journey.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Growth Enhancing Experience, May 2, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Why Can't I Ever Be Good Enough? Escaping the Limits of Your Childhood Roles (Paperback)

This is a truly amazing and wonderful book! Rubin-Deutsch writes that "you can be the person YOU choose to be . . ." and offers a step-by-step guide to discovery and realization. She makes it easy to grasp the often unconscious patterns we form as children in response to our parents and families by using the idea of contracts-and then shows how to "re-write" these contracts from a healthy and adult point of view. The book contains clear explanations of the concepts, with examples, and is also a workbook with exercises to complete. It is definitely not something to rush through, but requires some serious thought in order to really achieve personal growth. The book is very well organized and each chapter builds upon the work in the previous chapter so that you can really see and feel progress. I especially liked the guided meditations which are used as a tool for relaxation, coping, discovery and reinforcement--and continue to use them. Reading this book and doing the work felt very much like working with a therapist-it almost seemed like I could hear her! She must be fantastic to work with in person! Anyone who wants to unhook themselves from the damaging thoughts, feelings and behaviors that stem from childhood "contracts" will appreciate the supportive, affirming and positive voice of the author. But I also think that just about everyone can benefit from the self-exploration that flows from the exercises Rubin-Deutsch outlines.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Why Can't I Ever Be Good Enough? Escaping the Limits of Your Childhood Roles, April 5, 2010

By 

Nellie Spencer (Minnesota) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Why Can't I Ever Be Good Enough? Escaping the Limits of Your Childhood Roles (Paperback)

I loved the book and am still reading it! It has been very helpful for me to heal the dysfunctional & erroneous beliefs about myself that I picked up during my childhood with my parents. I liked the part about finding contracts that I subconsciously made with life that were destructive to me.