ceremonies is that they take place in the presence of a significant
number of the people. The adults simultaneously begin to treat the
initiate as an adult and expect him or her to behave in that way. In a
short time, the new adult catches on and fulfills the expectations
that the group has for adults.
In western society, the passage to adulthood is spread over a
longer period of time. Whatever your process may have been in ar-
riving at adulthood, if you still look to others as authority figures or
need to be told what to do, or if you give others the power to judge
your worth, these expectations will limit both your accomplishment
and satisfaction.
It is important to understand how we view the authority figures
in our lives. Depending on how we see them in relation to our-
selves, we may be giving away our personal power for no reason. If
we view the authority figures in our lives as we did as a child, in our
minds they will appear to be much larger than we are. In those
cases, we may be giving them more weight than we do our own deci-
sions. (See Figure 6.3.)
As children we are told to respect our elders, the police, fire-
fighters, schoolteachers, and so on. We have been conditioned to
elevate them to a higher level than ourselves. As adults, we may still
be seeing these people the same way because our unconscious102 Your Recovery from a Good Upbringing
FIGURE 6.3 Authority Figures