I'm experiencing some challenges in my relationship with

Candice Bergen.

I recently started watching _Boston Legal_ on Sunday nights,

because Candice Bergen had joined the cast. (She joined the

cast so that more people like me would start watching

_Boston Legal_ on Sunday nights.) Like most Candice Bergen

fans, I mainly associate her with her character on _Murphy

Brown:_ tough, smart, funny, sharp, no-punches-pulled,

slightly over-the-top, and definitely not someone you want

to have angry with you. Even the _Vogue_ editor she played

for a few episodes of _Sex and the City_ fit this mold.

While I'm certainly enjoying watching her on _Boston Legal,_

it's been an interesting challenge for me, because the

character she plays, Shirley Schmidt, is different from

Murphy Brown. I expected her to be playing a

larger-than-life version of her usually type. Instead, we're

shown a very different Candice Bergen, and I'm noticing that

even after three episodes, I'm still having to adjust my

expectations.

Shirley Schmidt does embody all of the strong qualities that

Candice Bergen's characters are famous for: brilliant,

no-nonsense, sharp and canny. But she's also much softer and

more compassionate than I expect from her characters. This

new character is still Candice Bergen, but she's a far more

subtle and nuanced Candice Bergen than I expected.

I realized this after the first episode. And yet, I still

expect her to behave in the way she did in Murphy Brown. I

expect her confrontation scenes to be bigger and louder and

broader, and I don't expect to see her character as a

layered and multi-faceted person.

This is creating a certain amount of strain on my

relationship with Candice Bergen. I'm having to alter my

expectations of how she behaves, and who she appears to be

as a person.

Sadly, I don't actually have a personal relationship with

Candice Bergen. I simply have the same relationship to her

that millions of other television fans do. But even in this

one-sided relationship, I still have safety and validation

needs, and this change in her character is disrupting those

needs. The fact that she has evolved, that she is playing a

different character requires me to adjust my expectations

and redefine my relationship with her, and this makes me

feel less safe in our relationship.

(At this point, in the interest of avoiding a restraining

order, let me state that I am only using Candice Bergen as

an illustration.)

In Hollywood, actors are, often arbitrarily, assigned a

"type." We see an actor in a certain role, and identify her

with that role. The stronger the identification, the harder

it is for us to accept her in different roles. Actors

constantly struggle against "typecasting," because once

they're seen as a certain "type," they find it more

difficult to be cast in roles that differ from this "type."

Jim Carrey, for example, is a fine dramatic actor; however,

it's taken him many years (and a number of baby steps) to be

able to be accepted in more serious roles, and audiences

still relate to him best when he's being a clown.

But typecasting doesn't just happen in Hollywood. We also

encounter typecasting in our family relationships.

For most of us, we first experience typecasting because

we're the ones being typecast. Our families have an uncanny

knack for not recognizing how much we've evolved and matured

as individuals. No matter what our accomplishments, no

matter how much we've achieved, our parents and siblings

invariably remember us as we were in our most memorable (and

usually our least favorite) role from our childhood.

When we spend time with our families as adults, we struggle

against this typecasting. We try, in increasingly less

subtle ways, to get our families to recognize and relate to

us for who we are, rather than for who we were. It's an

ongoing struggle--one that we seem to lose more often than

we win, reverting to type and playing out our

well-established roles in the family drama long after we

believe we've outgrown them.

What we rarely notice while we're feeling typecast

ourselves, is that we're making the same typecasting

assumptions about our family members. We're so concerned

that our family members notice how much we've changed and

evolved that we don't take the time to notice how our family

members have also grown.

Since the Universal Law of Relationships states that our

partners in relationships are our mirrors, (and therefore

it's never about the other person), if we want our families

to accept us for who we are now, all we need to do is to

learn to accept them for who they are now. When we change

how we relate to our families, the way that they relate to

us will also change.

It's quite simple, actually. Unfortunately, simple isn't the

same thing as easy. Just as it's taking me time to adjust my

expectations of Candice Bergen and accept her in her new

role, it takes us (and our families) time to adjust our

expectations and begin to relate to each other as adults.

One essential thing to recognize is that anytime the nature

and dynamic of a relationship changes--especially a

long-standing relationship such as a family

relationship--we're dealing with the question of safety

needs.

Let me explain. One of the fundamental things that our egos

need in order for us to feel safe is to know what to expect.

On the most fundamental level, "safe" is the same thing as

"familiar." We don't have to like what we expect in order to

feel safe; we simply have to _experience_ what we expect.

Consider this: Our family relationships are some of the most

important (and frequently difficult) relationships in our

lives. We value safety in these relationships tremendously,

because safety often seems to be in such short supply. No

matter how well defended we may feel in the rest of our

lives, our family members always know where (and how) we're

the most vulnerable. We instinctively cling to what's

familiar (and therefore safe) in our family relationships,

and this results in typecasting.

On a conscious level we may want to embrace our family

members and recognize their evolution as individuals. On an

unconscious level, however, the fact that our family members

are no longer playing their familiar and safe roles in the

family drama is very threatening. We (and our family

members) unconsciously cling to the familiar family dynamic

(no matter how dysfunctional it may be), and try to impose

it on our family members-even as we attempt to escape it

ourselves.

There may be some very deep and dark fears at the root of

this. As long as we stick with the original family dynamic,

we're still a family. We're bound by blood and we are

required to stay in relationship with each other. Parents

are required to raise and protect children; children are

required to live with their parents and abide by their

rules; siblings are required to put up with each other, or

at the very least not fight in a moving vehicle.

Once we become adults, however, this dynamic no longer

applies. The thought that our family members are no longer

required to be in relationship with us--and worse, that they

could choose to reject or abandon us--is fundamentally

terrifying.

This is not necessarily a universal fear, of course. But I

invite you to consider that we do derive a certain amount of

comfort--and safety--from the knowledge that there are some

relationships that will always be a part of our lives.

So, how do we overcome typecasting in our family

relationships? The same way that we change any belief or

pattern in our lives: through AWARENESS, OWNERSHIP and

CHOICE.

First, we become AWARE that our expectations of our family

members may be out of date. Next, we OWN and take

responsibility for our expectations, and for our safety

needs. We are responsible for maintaining the balance in our

own safety accounts. It is not the responsibility of our

family members to help us to feel safe by living up to our

expectations of them. Finally, we CHOOSE to relate to our

family members as they are now, rather than as they were

then.

When our family members have difficulties in accepting us

for who we are now, remember that they're feeling unsafe.

Who we are is unfamiliar and threatening to them. Once we're

AWARE that we're involved in a safety issue, we can OWN the

situation. Owning this particular situation means

recognizing that we're not responsible for the fact that our

family members feel unsafe. We are, however, responsible for

making sure that their lack of safety does not result in

_us_ feeling unsafe as well. Finally, we can CHOOSE to be

gentle with our families, helping them get to know who we

are, not making them wrong for relating to us as we were,

and ultimately allowing them to feel safe in our

relationship once more.

I'm gradually overcoming my expectations in my relationship

with Candice Bergen, and as a result, our relationship has

improved tremendously. Just imagine how powerful overcoming

typecasting can be in your family relationships!

About the Author

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Kevin B. Burk is the author of The Relationship Handbook:

How to Understand and Improve Every Relationship in Your

Life. Visit http://www.everyrelationship.com for a FREE

report on creating AMAZING Relationships.

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