Basking in Reflected Glory of Others

Basking in Reflected Glory of Others is an other-reliant (codependent) behavior where one associates with successful, celebrated, or famous others. It’s a form of self-aggrandizement: promoting oneself as being important, needed and/powerful under the auspices of another/others. This most commonly shows up as connecting oneself to a sports team, being a groupie to a musician or music group, political party or recounting/posting a chance encounter with a celebrity. It runs on a spectrum. On the extreme end, it is a form of splitting off from the core as we enmesh with others, losing a sense of Self.

In the spiritual world, it takes the form of needing to report ones’ spiritual experiences to the public: ceremonies, trainings, taking a class with a well-known teacher guru, etc., as to make oneself appear spiritually awakened, and therefore, respected. This may also take place in retrospect: repeating stories or posting memories on social media about a time in the past when one was associated with a group or an individual where they felt recognized and essential, especially within a group.

As with all codependent behaviors, this stems from a place of insecurity and/or shame. In most cases, this is due to relational trauma causing lack of intimacy with the Self. If annihilation was present in the family of origin, these behaviors can be extreme. The message to the world is: I cannot show-up alone because I am not good enough in my own being. I, therefore, need to associate with others who I believe have more power than me. The recognition I receive by associating with and being seen with others (who have more power than me) makes me temporarily feel like I belong and am accepted.

Of course, we’ve all seen the avid sports fans who wear the team jerseys or the political zealot who plants a flag or political stickers on his/her vehicle. Then there are those who have become subconsciously and in delusional fashion, enmeshed with these groups: they use the terms “my” or “mine,” as if they’ve been accepted into the group or organization. They may even become possessive or emotional around negative comments about “their” group. At this point, they may start to dress, talk and act like their object of obsession…getting tattoos of said group’s brand or name permanently inlaid. In even more extreme versions, they partake in ceremonial rituals such as being tattooed with matching emblems on identicals body parts. This, of course, takes place in nearly every gang initiation. It is a form of control. But for the initiated, he feels accepted into a group, perhaps for the first time in his life.

In our early 20’s, most of these behaviors are accepted as developmental and part of rite and ceremony: it is a time in life where we are pushing and testing our internal boundaries through our peer group. In North American culture, healthy rite and passage is profoundly missing, especially for males. When ceremonies and rituals go missing from boyhood to adult, we see a a gestalt of confusion, where the middle-aged man is behaving in similar fashion to the 20-year-olds. It’s left us with few adults - nary an edler - who are able to guide healthy rites and passages from psychological adolescence to true adulthood. As Bill Plotkin laments, “The reality is that most contemporary people are lost and languishing in a Village on the edge of a vast deserted plain on the far side of which arise the gates to Adulthood - and few of them find their way across that plain.”

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A Toxic Relationship with Dopamine

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The Bodhisattva