Adolescence to Young Adulthood: Your Survival Plan Morphs into a Redemption Plan
At some point, probably in adolescence or early adulthood, you gave up trying to get the Connection, Validation and/or Safety you sought from the adults you depended on. You had become old enough to handle knowing they could not provide these things to you enough of the time, or in the forms you needed. (For details, see the Three Loves section of the Survival Plan page.)
At that point, your Childhood Survival Plan was replaced by an Adulthood Redemption Plan. Your ego's Redemption Plan has nothing to do with religious wisdom about redemption. Rather, this ego-based version of redemption uses the same five skills as your Survival Plan. The difference between the two is the focus of your Happy Ending Fantasy. It shifts to:
- Proving you deserved more of the Three Loves than you got (connection, validation and/or safety)
or
- Looking for ways to justify your existence even though you supposedly don’t deserve more of the Three Loves than you got
The purpose of a Redemption Plan is to attempt to absolve you for having failed to get what you needed as a child. There are two basic ways to do this. Both are about proving that you really do deserve an abundance of Connection, Validation and Safety after all. The difference between the two versions is that one is driven by success and the other is driven by failure. Most of us do a combination of both in different parts of our life.
 The “I Deserve More” version uses accomplishments to prove how undamaged you are despite all that you had to survive. Different people use different types of accomplishments to try to redeem themselves, including:
- Proving you can take care of yourself through being self-reliant or through self-improvement (see Self-Improvers)
- Proving you can succeed financially, socially, in power positions, or through creating impressive things (see Self-Improvers)
- Proving someone will love you or that you can love someone right (see Connectors)
- Proving you can save others or the world (see Do-Gooders)
The problem with the “I Deserve More” version of the Redemption Plan is that no amount of accomplishments is ever enough to prove that we are lovable, valid or safe. A Deserver’s life may look great to someone observing it, but it rarely feels great to the Deserver for very long, no matter how much they accomplish. The accomplishments either never quite feel good enough or the high wears off quickly, necessitating a next quest and a next one after that. So, all four varieties of the Success version of Redemption Plan are doomed to fail.
In contrast, the Failure version is about proving how damaged you will always be because you didn't get enough of the Three Loves as a child. Life is about suffering, deprivation and believing that this is ‘just how life is.’ Life feels like it will never stop being this way. Those using this Redemption Plan version believe one of two things as a result of their childhood Disconnection experiences:
- I really am worthless and I therefore deserve to fail as an adult;
- I am not worthless but I need to make the world see the damage that was done to me by those who harmed me during childhood; until then I cannot allow myself to truly thrive
As you can see, both varieties of the Failure version of the Redemption Plan are forms of living death. The problem with the Failure version of the Redemption Plan is that no amount of failure ever seems to be enough to get anyone to rescue you from having been so badly ‘wronged’ as a child.
Both the Success and Failure Redemption Plan variations sidestep the real issue: you are proving something rather than living your passion (life mission, calling) simply because it is your passion. Regardless of whether you are trying to prove your worth or prove how damaged you are, you are still proving a point rather than living your life. (You might be trying to prove this to yourself, your childhood caregivers, new people you meet as an adult, and/or God.)
Doing this means you are continuing to sacrifice aspects of your authenticity and/or integrity, just like you did as a child, except now you are doing it to prove your point! Redemption Plans are about wanting to be right rather than happy. No matter how you slice it, remaining more loyal to your Survival Plan, or its Redemption Plan equivalent, than to truly thriving as an adult means never feeling whole or fulfilled. It means never truly developing as an adult. It means living out of integrity with yourself, in your relationships and with collective highest good.
It therefore means that living life from your Redemption Plan makes 3D Integrity™ and 3D Living™ impossible!
The Purpose of Adult Development
One of the most important purposes. It is also one of the most overlooked! This is why you cannot fully understand Adult Development without first understanding what you bring into adulthood!
Now that you have a clearer picture of the Basic Wiring, Survival Plan and Redemption Plan you enter adulthood with, your Four Adult Development PlayZones will make a whole lot more sense to you. Click on the button below to learn more...
Complete details about how to take charge of your development are in
The New IQ and The New IQ Integrity Makeover Workbook by Dr. David Gruder,
both of which will be released this coming January, 2008!
Want to know more? Click on the book cover draft further up the left frame.
Want a free sneek peek? Click on the "Free eCourses" button further up the left frame.
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