Feeling Inadequate At Work Quotes

Living with life is very hard. Mostly we do our best to stifle life--to be tame or to be wanton. To be tranquillised or raging. Extremes have the same effect; they insulate us from the intensity of life. And extremes--whether of dullness or fury--successfully prevent feeling. I know our feelings can be so unbearable that we employ ingenious strategies--unconscious strategies--to keep those feelings away. We do a feelings-swap, where we avoid feeling sad or lonely or afraid or inadequate, and feel angry instead. It can work the other way, too--sometimes you do need to feel angry, not inadequate; sometimes you do need to feel love and acceptance, and not the tragic drama of your life. It takes courage to feel the feeling--and not trade it on the feelings-exchange, or even transfer it altogether to another person. You know how in couples one person is always doing all the weeping or the raging while the other one seems so calm and reasonable? I understood that feelings were difficult for me although I was overwhelmed by them.

Some mothers seem to have the capacity and energy to make their children's clothes, bake, give piano lessons, go to Relief Society, teach Sunday School, attend parent-teacher association meetings, and so on. Other mothers look upon such women as models and feel inadequate, depressed, and think they are failures when they make comparisons... Sisters, do not allow yourselves to be made to feel inadequate or frustrated because you cannot do everything others seem to be accomplishing. Rather, each should assess her own situation, her own energy, and her own talents, and then choose the best way to mold her family into a team, a unit that works together and supports each other. Only you and your Father in Heaven know your needs, strengths, and desires. Around this knowledge your personal course must be charted and your choices made.

We all have days when we feel small. Really small. Completely inadequate but saddled with all this responsibility...I have to fight battles against people who shouldn't be my enemies - especially when there are allready plenty of enemies to go around. There are days when I would love to pull the cover over my head and say to hell with it. But I don't do that. And most people don't do that. Most people get up and do their jobs and work their asses off for no reward at all - but just so they can get up the next day and do the whole thing over again. World isn't perfect, and some days it wears you down. You can either accept that, and face it, and be a help to others instead of a hindrance. Or you can decide the rules are too tough and they shouldn't apply to you, and you can ignore them and make things harder for everybody else. Sometimes life is about being sad and doing things anyway. Sometimes it's about being hurt and doing things anyway. The point isn't perfection. The point is doing it anyway.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

We focus on other people’s faults. There is a saying that the world is divided into people who think they are right. The more inadequate we feel, the more uncomfortable it is to admit our faults. Blaming others temporarily relieves us from the weight of failure. The painful truth is that all of these strategies simply reinforce the very insecurities that sustain the trance of unworthiness. The more we anxiously tell ourselves stories about how we might fail or what is wrong with us or with others, the more we deepen the grooves—the neural pathways—that generate feelings of deficiency. Every time we hide a defeat we reinforce the fear that we are insufficient. When we strive to impress or outdo others, we strengthen the underlying belief that we are not good enough as we are. This doesn’t mean that we can’t compete in a healthy way, put wholehearted effort into work or acknowledge and take pleasure in our own competence. But when our efforts are driven by the fear that we are flawed, we deepen the trance of unworthiness.

The problem with cosmetics exists only when women feel invisible or inadequate without them. The problem with working out exists only if women hate ourselves when we don’t. When a woman is forced to adorn herself to buy a hearing, when she needs her grooming in order to protect her identity, when she goes hungry in order to keep her job, when she must attract a lover so that she can take care of her children, that is exactly what makes “beauty” hurt. Because what hurts women about the beauty myth is not adornment, or expressed sexuality, or time spent grooming, or the desire to attract a lover. Many mammals groom, and every culture uses adornment. “Natural” and “unnatural” are not the terms in question. The actual struggle is between pain and pleasure, freedom and compulsion.

A fixation on happiness inevitably amounts to a never-ending pursuit of “something else”—a new house, a new relationship, another child, another pay raise. And despite all of our sweat and strain, we end up feeling eerily similar to how we started: inadequate. Psychologists sometimes refer to this concept as the “hedonic treadmill”: the idea that we’re always working hard to change our life situation, but we actually never feel very different.

If you want to have loving feelings today, do loving things: Flirt with everyone, especially old people and yourself. Pick up some litter in your neighborhood, even though there will be more by Sunday. Get your work done, one inadequate sentence and paragraph at a time. Then go through your draft and take out all the lies and boring parts. Left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe.....Those are the things I am going to do today.

Watching my clients, I have come to a much better understanding of creative people. El Greco, for example, must have realized as he looked at some of his early work, that 'good painters do not paint like that.' But somehow he trusted his own experiencing of life, the process of himself, sufficiently that he could go on expressing his own unique perceptions. It was as though he could say, 'Good artists do not paint like this, but I paint like this.' Or to move to another field, Ernest Hemingway was surely aware that 'good writers do not write like this.' But fortunately he moved toward being Hemingway, being himself, rather than toward some one else's conception of a good writer. Einstein seems to have been unusually oblivious to the fact that good physicists did not think his kind of thoughts. Rather than drawing back because of his inadequate academic preparation in physics, he simply moved toward being Einstein, toward thinking his own thoughts, toward being as truly and deeply himself as he could. This is not a phenomenon which occurs only in the artist or the genius. Time and again in my clients, I have seen simple people become significant and creative in their own spheres, as they have developed more trust of the processes going on within themselves, and have dared to feel their own feelings, live by values which they discover within, and express themselves in their own unique ways.

Dr. Mason had warned her that infants were hard work, but this wasn’t work: it was indenture. The tiny tyrant was no less demanding than Nero; no less insane than King Ludwig. And the crying. It made her feel inadequate. Worse, it raised the possibility that her daughter might not like her. Already.

How come she gets . . .” The answer that always worked was, “Worry about yourself.” As adults, we sometimes call this the Compare and Despair trap, where you look at someone else’s life and become envious or feel inadequate. We can’t know what other people have gone through or what’s really behind that Instagram post.

To-do lists: the last bastion for the organizationally damned. They’re the embodiment of evil. They possess us and torment us, controlling what we do, highlighting what we haven’t. They make us feel inadequate, and dismiss our achievements as if they were waste. These insomnia-producing, check-boxing Beelzebubs have intimidated us for too long.

i measure my self-worth by how productive i've been but no matter how hard I work I still feel inadequate - productivity guilt

Everyone has an Everest. Whether it’s a climb you chose, or a circumstance you find yourself in, you’re in the middle of an important journey. Can you imagine a climber scaling the wall of ice at Everest’s Lhotse Face and saying, “This is such a hassle”? Or spending the first night in the mountain’s “death zone” and thinking, “I don’t need this stress”? The climber knows the context of his stress. It has personal meaning to him; he has chosen it. You are most liable to feel like a victim of the stress in your life when you forget the context the stress is unfolding in. “Just another cold, dark night on the side of Everest” is a way to remember the paradox of stress. The most meaningful challenges in your life will come with a few dark nights. The biggest problem with trying to avoid stress is how it changes the way we view our lives, and ourselves. Anything in life that causes stress starts to look like a problem. If you experience stress at work, you think there’s something wrong with your job. If you experience stress in your marriage, you think there’s something wrong with your relationship. If you experience stress as a parent, you think there’s something wrong with your parenting (or your kids). If trying to make a change is stressful, you think there’s something wrong with your goal. When you think life should be less stressful, feeling stressed can also seem like a sign that you are inadequate: If you were strong enough, smart enough, or good enough, then you wouldn’t be stressed. Stress becomes a sign of personal failure rather than evidence that you are human. This kind of thinking explains, in part, why viewing stress as harmful increases the risk of depression. When you’re in this mindset, you’re more likely to feel overwhelmed and hopeless. Choosing to see the connection between stress and meaning can free you from the nagging sense that there is something wrong with your life or that you are inadequate to the challenges you face. Even if not every frustrating moment feels full of purpose, stress and meaning are inextricably connected in the larger context of your life. When you take this view, life doesn’t become less stressful, but it can become more meaningful.

Where did we learn about the American dream? What role models were available to us? You pontificate on the meaning of Michael Chang. Do the lessons passed down to us by books or movies to TV apply to our lives as Asian kids with Asian parents, or do they make us feel inadequate? Why are we always working so hard, proving our smarts, living up to someone else's standards? Maybe it's all a trap. Why are we looking out for help, when it's all around us? We are not men without a culture. We just have to make it ourselves.

Exploring Self-Compassion Through Letter Writing PART ONE Everybody has something about themselves that they don’t like; something that causes them to feel shame, to feel insecure or not “good enough.” It is the human condition to be imperfect, and feelings of failure and inadequacy are part of the experience of living. Try thinking about an issue that tends to make you feel inadequate or bad about yourself (physical appearance, work or relationship issues, etc.). How does this aspect of yourself make you feel inside—scared, sad, depressed, insecure, angry? What emotions come up for you when you think about this aspect of yourself? Please try to be as emotionally honest as possible and to avoid repressing any feelings, while at the same time not being melodramatic. Try to just feel your emotions exactly as they are—no more, no less. PART TWO Now think about an imaginary friend who is unconditionally loving, accepting, kind, and compassionate. Imagine that this friend can see all your strengths and all your weaknesses, including the aspect of yourself you have just been thinking about. Reflect upon what this friend feels toward you, and how you are loved and accepted exactly as you are, with all your very human imperfections. This friend recognizes the limits of human nature and is kind and forgiving toward you. In his/her great wisdom this friend understands your life history and the millions of things that have happened in your life to create you as you are in this moment. Your particular inadequacy is connected to so many things you didn’t necessarily choose: your genes, your family history, life circumstances—things that were outside of your control. Write a letter to yourself from the perspective of this imaginary friend—focusing on the perceived inadequacy you tend to judge yourself for. What would this friend say to you about your “flaw” from the perspective of unlimited compassion? How would this friend convey the deep compassion he/she feels for you, especially for the discomfort you feel when you judge yourself so harshly? What would this friend write in order to remind you that you are only human, that all people have both strengths and weaknesses? And if you think this friend would suggest possible changes you should make, how would these suggestions embody feelings of unconditional understanding and compassion? As you write to yourself from the perspective of this imaginary friend, try to infuse your letter with a strong sense of the person’s acceptance, kindness, caring, and desire for your health and happiness. After writing the letter, put it down for a little while. Then come back and read it again, really letting the words sink in. Feel the compassion as it pours into you, soothing and comforting you like a cool breeze on a hot day. Love, connection, and acceptance are your birthright. To claim them you need only look within yourself.

When she dies, you are not at first surprised. Part of love is preparing for death. You feel confirmed in your love when she dies. You got it right. This is part of it all. Afterward comes the madness. And then the loneliness: not the spectacular solitude you had anticipated, not the interesting martyrdom of widowhood, but just loneliness. You expect something almost geological-- vertigo in a shelving canyon -- but it's not like that; it's just misery as regular as a job. What do we doctors say? I'm deeply sorry, Mrs Blank; there will of course be a period of mourning but rest assured you will come out of it; two of these each evening, I would suggest; perhaps a new interst, Mrs Blank; can maintenance, formation dancing?; don't worry, six months will see you back on the roundabout; come and see me again any time; oh nurse, when she calls, just give her this repeat will you, no I don't need to see her, well it's not her that's dead is it, look on the bright side. What did she say her name was? And then it happens to you. There's no glory in it. Mourning is full of time; nothing but time.... you should eat stuffed sow's heart. I might yet have to fall back on this remedy. I've tried drink, but what does that do? Drink makes you drunk, that's all it's ever been able to do. Work, they say, cures everything. It doesn't; often, it doesn't even induce tiredness: the nearest you get to it is a neurotic lethargy. And there is always time. Have some more time. Take your time. Extra time. Time on your hands. Other people think you want to talk. 'Do you want to talk about Ellen?' they ask, hinting that they won't be embarrassed if you break down. Sometimes you talk, sometimes you don't; it makes little difference. The word aren't the right ones; or rather, the right words don't exist. 'Language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.' You talk, and you find the language of bereavement foolishly inadequate. You seem to be talking about other people's griefs. I loved her; we were happy; I miss her. She didn't love me; we were unhappy; I miss her. There is a limited choice of prayers on offer: gabble the syllables. And you do come out of it, that's true. After a year, after five. But your don't come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the Downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick. You are tarred and feathered for life.

Gratitude practices as they’re generally presented in pop culture—usually some form of grateful-for-what-you-have exercise, like “Every day, write a list of ten things you’re grateful for”—don’t cut it, empirically speaking. When Emily tried this, it always made her feel worse because it just reminded her of how many people don’t have those things, which made her feel helpless and inadequate. Then she read the research herself and followed the instructions of the evidence-based interventions…and it worked like a charm. There are two techniques that really get the job done, and neither involves gratitude-for-what-you-have. The key is practicing gratitude-for-who-you-have and gratitude-for-how-things-happen. A Short-Term Quick-Fix Gratitude Boost is gratitude-for-who-you-have. Mr. Rogers, accepting a Lifetime Achievement Award, asked everyone in the audience to take ten seconds to remember some of the people who have “helped you love the good that grows within you, some of those people who have loved us and wanted what was best for us, […] those who have encouraged us to become who we are.” That’s how to gratitude-for-who-you-have.

For many, the call to be a Christian can seem demanding, even overwhelming. But we need not be afraid or feel inadequate. The Savior has promised that He will make us equal to His work. 'Follow me,' He said, 'and I will make you fishers of men.' As we follow Him, He blesses us with gifts, talents, and the strength to do His will, allowing us to go beyond our comfort zones and do things we've never before thought possible.

The problem with cosmetics exists only when women feel invisible or inadequate without them. The problem with working out exists only if women hate ourselves when we don't. When a woman is forced to adorn herself to buy a hearing, when she needs her grooming in order to protect her identity, when she goes hungry in order to keep her job, when she must attract a lover so that she can take care of her children, that is exactly what makes 'beauty' hurt.

I hadn't thought that as well as the obvious fears about money, and your future, losing your job would make you feel inadequate, and a bit useless. That it would be harder to get up in the morning then when you were rudely shocked into consciousness by the alarm. That you might miss the people you worked with, no matter how little you had in common with them. Or even that you might find yourself searching for familiar faces as you walked the high street.

The English word Atonement comes from the ancient Hebrew word kaphar, which means to cover. When Adam and Eve partook of the fruit and discovered their nakedness in the Garden of Eden, God sent Jesus to make coats of skins to cover them. Coats of skins don’t grow on trees. They had to be made from an animal, which meant an animal had to be killed. Perhaps that was the very first animal sacrifice. Because of that sacrifice, Adam and Eve were covered physically. In the same way, through Jesus’ sacrifice we are also covered emotionally and spiritually. When Adam and Eve left the garden, the only things they could take to remind them of Eden were the coats of skins. The one physical thing we take with us out of the temple to remind us of that heavenly place is a similar covering. The garment reminds us of our covenants, protects us, and even promotes modesty. However, it is also a powerful and personal symbol of the Atonement—a continuous reminder both night and day that because of Jesus’ sacrifice, we are covered. (I am indebted to Guinevere Woolstenhulme, a religion teacher at BYU, for insights about kaphar.) Jesus covers us (see Alma 7) when we feel worthless and inadequate. Christ referred to himself as “Alpha and Omega” (3 Nephi 9:18). Alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. Christ is surely the beginning and the end. Those who study statistics learn that the letter alpha is used to represent the level of significance in a research study. Jesus is also the one who gives value and significance to everything. Robert L. Millet writes, “In a world that offers flimsy and fleeting remedies for mortal despair, Jesus comes to us in our moments of need with a ‘more excellent hope’ (Ether 12:32)” (Grace Works, 62). Jesus covers us when we feel lost and discouraged. Christ referred to Himself as the “light” (3 Nephi 18:16). He doesn’t always clear the path, but He does illuminate it. Along with being the light, He also lightens our loads. “For my yoke is easy,” He said, “and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). He doesn’t always take burdens away from us, but He strengthens us for the task of carrying them and promises they will be for our good. Jesus covers us when we feel abused and hurt. Joseph Smith taught that because Christ met the demands of justice, all injustices will be made right for the faithful in the eternal scheme of things (see Teachings, 296). Marie K. Hafen has said, “The gospel of Jesus Christ was not given us to prevent our pain. The gospel was given us to heal our pain” (“Eve Heard All These Things,” 27). Jesus covers us when we feel defenseless and abandoned. Christ referred to Himself as our “advocate” (D&C 29:5): one who believes in us and stands up to defend us. We read, “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler” (Psalm 18:2). A buckler is a shield used to divert blows. Jesus doesn’t always protect us from unpleasant consequences of illness or the choices of others, since they are all part of what we are here on earth to experience. However, He does shield us from fear in those dark times and delivers us from having to face those difficulties alone. … We’ve already learned that the Hebrew word that is translated into English as Atonement means “to cover.” In Arabic or Aramaic, the verb meaning to atone is kafat, which means “to embrace.” Not only can we be covered, helped, and comforted by the Savior, but we can be “encircled about eternally in the arms of his love” (2 Nephi 1:15). We can be “clasped in the arms of Jesus” (Mormon 5:11). In our day the Savior has said, “Be faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments of God, and I will encircle thee in the arms of my love” (D&C 6:20). (Brad Wilcox, The Continuous Atonement, pp. 47-49, 60).

When a boy grows up in a “dysfunctional” family (perhaps there is no other kind of family), his interior warriors will be killed off early. Warriors, mythologically, lift their swords to defend the king. The King in a child stands for and stands up for the child’s mood. But when we are children our mood gets easily overrun and swept over in the messed-up family by the more powerful, more dominant, more terrifying mood of the parent. We can say that when the warriors inside cannot protect our mood from being disintegrated, or defend our body from invasion, the warriors collapse, go into trance, or die. The inner warriors I speak of do not cross the boundary aggressively; they exist to defend the boundary. The Fianna, that famous band of warriors who defended Ireland’s borders, would be a model. The Fianna stayed out all spring and summer watching the boundaries, and during the winter came in. But a typical child has no such protection. If a grown-up moves to hit a child, or stuff food into the child’s mouth, there is no defense—it happens. If the grown-up decides to shout, and penetrate the child’s auditory boundaries by sheer violence, it happens. Most parents invade the child’s territory whenever they wish, and the child, trying to maintain his mood by crying, is simply carried away, mood included. Each child lives deep inside his or her own psychic house, or soul castle, and the child deserves the right of sovereignty inside that house. Whenever a parent ignores the child’s sovereignty, and invades, the child feels not only anger, but shame. The child concludes that if it has no sovereignty, it must be worthless. Shame is the name we give to the sense that we are unworthy and inadequate as human beings. Gershen Kauffman describes that feeling brilliantly in his book, Shame, and Merle Fossum and Marilyn Mason in their book, Facing Shame, extend Kauffman’s work into the area of family shame systems and how they work. When our parents do not respect our territory at all, their disrespect seems overwhelming proof of our inadequacy. A slap across the face pierces deeply, for the face is the actual boundary of our soul, and we have been penetrated. If a grown-up decides to cross our sexual boundaries and touch us, there is nothing that we as children can do about it. Our warriors die. The child, so full of expectation of blessing whenever he or she is around an adult, stiffens with shock, and falls into the timeless fossilized confusion of shame. What is worse, one sexual invasion, or one beating, usually leads to another, and the warriors, if revived, die again. When a boy grows up in an alcoholic family, his warriors get swept into the river by a vast wave of water, and they struggle there, carried downriver. The child, boy or girl, unprotected, gets isolated, and has more in common with snow geese than with people.

Youth. Particularly hard hit is the younger generation that faces an economic situation for which it has been inadequately prepared. Imbued with the unrealistic expectation of continuing economic prosperity, of having things better than their parents did, they grapple, often unsuccessfully, with underdeveloped self-sufficiency, unemployment, and underemployment in all but a few circumscribed areas. But this sense of entitlement creates a resentment of the compromises necessary to effectively survive. As a result, young adults may tend to feel more disillusioned and alienated.

I should know; perfectionism has always been a weakness of mine. Brene' Bown captures the motive in the mindset of the perfectionist in her book Daring Greatly: "If I look perfect and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame." This is the game, and I'm the player. Perfectionism for me comes from the feelings that I don't know enough. I'm not smart enough. Not hardworking enough. Perfectionism spikes for me if I'm going into a meeting with people who disagree with me, or if I'm giving a talk to experts to know more about the topic I do … when I start to feel inadequate and my perfectionism hits, one of the things I do is start gathering facts. I'm not talking about basic prep; I'm talking about obsessive fact-gathering driven by the vision that there shouldn't be anything I don't know. If I tell myself I shouldn't overprepare, then another voice tells me I'm being lazy. Boom. Ultimately, for me, perfectionism means hiding who I am. It's dressing myself up so the people I want to impress don't come away thinking I'm not as smart or interesting as I thought. It comes from a desperate need to not disappoint others. So I over-prepare. And one of the curious things I've discovered is that what I'm over-prepared, I don't listen as well; I go ahead and say whatever I prepared, whether it responds to the moment or not. I miss the opportunity to improvise or respond well to a surprise. I'm not really there. I'm not my authentic self… If you know how much I am not perfect. I am messy and sloppy in so many places in my life. But I try to clean myself up and bring my best self to work so I can help others bring their best selves to work. I guess what I need to role model a little more is the ability to be open about the mess. Maybe I should just show that to other people. That's what I said in the moment. When I reflected later I realized that my best self is not my polished self. Maybe my best self is when I'm open enough to say more about my doubts or anxieties, admit my mistakes, confess when I'm feeling down. The people can feel more comfortable with their own mess and that's needs your culture to live in that. That was certainly the employees' point. I want to create a workplace where everyone can bring the most human, most authentic selves where we all expect and respect each other's quirks and flaws and all the energy wasted in the pursuit of perfection is saved and channeled into the creativity we need for the work that is a cultural release impossible burdens and lift everyone up.

I cannot help feeling that the final explanation of the state of the Church today is a defective sense of sin and it defective doctrine of sin. Coupled with that, of course, is a failure to understand the true nature of Christian joy. There is the double failure. There is not the real, deep conviction of sin as was once the case; and on the other hand there is this superficial conception of joy and happiness which is very different indeed from that which we find in the New Testament. Thus the defective doctrine of sin and the shallow idea of joy, working together, of necessity produce a superficial kind of person and a very inadequate kind of Christian life.

The problem with cosmetics exists only when women feel invisible or inadequate without them. The problem with working out exists only if women hate ourselves when we don't. When a woman is forced to adorn herself to buy a hearing, when she needs her grooming in order to protect her identity, when she goes hungry in order to keep her job, when she must attract a lover so that she can take care of her children, that is exactly what makes "beauty" hurt. Because what hurts women about the beauty myth is not adornment, or expressed sexuality, or time spent grooming, or the desire to attract a lover. Many mammals groom, and every culture uses adornment. "Natural" and "unnatural" are not the terms in question. The actual struggle is between pain and pleasure, freedom and compulsion.

Sometimes, feeling that his own eloquence is inadequate to the task at hand, the author bows out gracefully and lets his character come across a poem, an Ayn Rand novel, or a quote from Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech to spell out the message for him. But the reader is not buying your book to find out what Ani DiFranco has to say about life. She expects you to have something to say about life, and to say it, because that is what we pay writers to do. There are instances when quotes can work very well. These include plots that are in some way about music, poetry, etc., and where there is an interweaving between these and the characters’ lives. Quotes can also work where the quoted material isn’t stating the message but expanding or commenting on it obliquely, so the reader doesn’t feel as if she’s hearing a public service announcement

Sex for Sara was at first incredibly painful, and for Tim incredibly frustrating. They both felt inadequate, angry, and confused, alternately blaming themselves and then each other. They had been told that if they followed the rules, they would have more satisfying and exciting sex than couples who'd had sex before marriage. The kind of sex that was better because it was pure. But when they got married, they found out that all of that was bullshit. The whole experience was crushingly disappointing. ... The church taught Tim and Sara that God was watching their every move, ready with a head shake. Like a controlling asshole with a killer surveillance system. And for a while that theology worked on Tim and Sara, as I know it has worked on so many. They buried their innate sexual development in order to please the master. And they entered marriage expecting their sex lives to be blessed accordingly.

As Christians, we are all engaged in the business of discerning and obeying God’s call, and this usually means that soon enough we find ourselves out beyond our own competence, frightened at what God demands and feeling cosmically abandoned, left in the lurch with a job for which our own resources are completely inadequate…Sooner or later, the panic touches each one of us who accepts God’s call and heads, eyes wide open, straight into some difficult and mysterious work—like pastoring a church, teaching a class, going back to school, learning a language, creating a work of art. The panic descends on everyone who accepts God’s call to do something that engages our heart and wracks our soul—like making a marriage proper through better and worse, raising a child and letting her go into adulthood, enduring a terrible illness, growing up, growing old. In fact, being called out far beyond our own competence is part of our regular experience with God.

I assume you think you’re winning,” she remarked, beginning an uncannily perfect waltz once he set his hands upon her waist, though he would have expected no less. Somewhere music was playing. He assumed that had been her work. “You tell me,” he said. “You’re the one who can supposedly read my thoughts.” “You spend most of your existence in the singular belief that you’re winning,” she said. “To be honest, Callum, there’s nothing so very interesting to read.” “Oh?” “There’s not much going on in there.” Parisa assured him, her neck beautifully elongated as she carried out the waltz’s steps. “No particular ambition. No sense of inadequacy.” “Should I feel inadequate?” “Most people do.” “Perhaps I’m not most people. Isn’t that the point?” “Isn’t it just,” Parisa murmured, glancing up at him. “You’re so very guarded with me,” Callum told her disapprovingly. “It’s really starting to hurt my feelings.” “I wasn’t aware you had any feelings to hurt.

Workaholism Our culture celebrates the idea of the workaholic. We hear about people burning the midnight oil. They pull all- nighters and sleep at the office. It’s considered a badge of honor to kill yourself over a project. No amount of work is too much work. Not only is this workaholism unnecessary, it’s stupid. Working more doesn’t mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more. Workaholics wind up creating more problems than they solve. First off, working like that just isn’t sustainable over time. When the burnout crash comes— and it will— it’ll hit that much harder. Workaholics miss the point, too. They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force. This results in inelegant solutions. They even create crises. They don’t look for ways to be more efficient because they actually like working overtime. They enjoy feeling like heroes. They create problems (often unwittingly) just so they can get off on working more. Workaholics make the people who don’t stay late feel inadequate for “merely” working reasonable hours. That leads to guilt and poor morale all around. Plus, it leads to an ass- in- seat mentality—people stay late out of obligation, even if they aren’t really being productive. If all you do is work, you’re unlikely to have sound judgments. Your values and decision making wind up skewed. You stop being able to decide what’s worth extra effort and what’s not. And you wind up just plain tired. No one makes sharp decisions when tired. In the end, workaholics don’t actually accomplish more than nonworkaholics. They may claim to be perfectionists, but that just means they’re wasting time fixating on inconsequential details instead of moving on to the next task. Workaholics aren’t heroes. They don’t save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.

Like addiction itself, anxiety will always find a target, but exists independently of its targets. Only when we become aware of it does it wrap itself in identifiable colours. More often we repress it, bury it under ideas, identifications, deeds, beliefs and relationships. We build above it a mound of activities and attributes that we mistake for our true selves. We then expend our energies trying to convince the world that our self-made fiction is reality. As genuine as our strengths and achievements may be, they cannot but feel hollow until we acknowledge the anxiety they cover up. Incompleteness is the baseline state of the addict. The addict believes — either with full awareness or unconsciously — that he is “not enough.” As he is, he is inadequate to face life’s demands or to present an acceptable face to the world. He is unable to tolerate his own emotions without artificial supports. He must escape the painful experience of the void within through any activity that fills his mind with even temporary purpose, be it work, gambling, shopping, eating or sexual seeking.

Nonconformity is an affront to those in the mainstream. Our impulse is to dismiss this lifestyle, create reasons why it can’t work, why it doesn’t even warrant consideration. Why not? Living outdoors is cheap and can be afforded by a half year of marginal employment. They can’t buy things that most of us have, but what they lose in possessions, they gain in freedom. In Somerset Maugham’s The Razor’s Edge, lead character Larry returns from the First World War and declares that he would like to “loaf.”23 The term “loafing” inadequately describes the life he would spend traveling, studying, searching for meaning, and even laboring. Larry meets with the disapproval of peers and would-be mentors: “Common sense assured…that if you wanted to get on in this world, you must accept its conventions, and not to do what everybody else did clearly pointed to instability.” Larry had an inheritance that enabled him to live modestly and pursue his dreams. Larry’s acquaintances didn’t fear the consequences of his failure; they feared his failure to conform. I’m no maverick. Upon leaving college I dove into the workforce, eager to have my own stuff and a job to pay for it. Parents approved, bosses gave raises, and my friends could relate. The approval, the comforts, the commitments wound themselves around me like invisible threads. When my life stayed the course, I wouldn’t even feel them binding. Then I would waiver enough to sense the growing entrapment, the taming of my life in which I had been complicit. Working a nine-to-five job took more energy than I had expected, leaving less time to pursue diverse interests. I grew to detest the statement “I am a…” with the sentence completed by an occupational title. Self-help books emphasize “defining priorities” and “staying focused,” euphemisms for specialization and stifling spontaneity. Our vision becomes so narrow that risk is trying a new brand of cereal, and adventure is watching a new sitcom. Over time I have elevated my opinion of nonconformity nearly to the level of an obligation. We should have a bias toward doing activities that we don’t normally do to keep loose the moorings of society. Hiking the AT is “pointless.” What life is not “pointless”? Is it not pointless to work paycheck to paycheck just to conform? Hiking the AT before joining the workforce was an opportunity not taken. Doing it in retirement would be sensible; doing it at this time in my life is abnormal, and therein lay the appeal. I want to make my life less ordinary.

Fully His I have been forgiven and set free from my sins. There was a boy who lived in a town on the seaside. He was a skilled and clever carver, and he carved himself a little wooden boat. When he put sails on it, it really sailed. One day, he took it down to the shore and was sailing it at the edge of the sea, but the tide changed and carried his boat out to sea, and he could not recover it. So, he went home without his boat. With the next change of the wind and tide, the boat came back again. A man walking along the seashore found the boat, picked it up, and saw it was a beautiful piece of work. He took it to a local shop and sold it. The shop owner cleaned it up and put it on display in his shop window with a price of thirty-five dollars. Some while later, the boy walked past the shop, looked in the window, and saw his boat with a price of thirty-five dollars. He knew, however, that he had no way to prove that it was his boat. If he wanted his boat, there was only one thing he could do: buy it back. He set to work, taking any job he could to earn the money to buy his boat. Once he earned the money, he walked into the shop and said, “I want to buy that boat.” He paid the money, and, when he got the boat in his hands, he walked outside and stopped on the sidewalk. He held the boat to his chest and said, “Now you’re mine. I made you and I bought you.” That is redemption. First, the Lord made us, but we were in Satan’s slave market. Then, He bought us. We are doubly His. Can you see how valuable you are to the Lord? Think of yourself as that boat for a moment. You may feel so inadequate, so worthless. You wonder whether God ever really cares. Just try to believe that you are that boat in the Lord’s arms and He is saying to you, “Now you’re Mine. I made you and I bought you. I own you; you’re fully Mine.”     Thank You,

I believe that social media, and the internet as a whole, have negatively impacted our ability to both think long-term and to focus deeply on the task in front of us. It is no surprise, therefore, that Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, prohibited his children from using phones or tablets—even though his business was to sell millions of them to his customers! The billionaire investor and former senior executive at Facebook, Chamath Palihapitiya, argues that we must rewire our brain to focus on the long term, which starts by removing social media apps from our phones. In his words, such apps, “wire your brain for super-fast feedback.” By receiving constant feedback, whether through likes, comments, or immediate replies to our messages, we condition ourselves to expect fast results with everything we do. And this feeling is certainly reinforced through ads for schemes to help us “get rich quick”, and through cognitive biases (i.e., we only hear about the richest and most successful YouTubers, not about the ones who fail). As we demand more and more stimulation, our focus is increasingly geared toward the short term and our vision of reality becomes distorted. This leads us to adopt inaccurate mental models such as: Success should come quickly and easily, or I don’t need to work hard to lose weight or make money. Ultimately, this erroneous concept distorts our vision of reality and our perception of time. We can feel jealous of people who seem to have achieved overnight success. We can even resent popular YouTubers. Even worse, we feel inadequate. It can lead us to think we are just not good enough, smart enough, or disciplined enough. Therefore, we feel the need to compensate by hustling harder. We have to hurry before we miss the opportunity. We have to find the secret that will help us become successful. And, in this frenetic race, we forget one of the most important values of all: patience. No, watching motivational videos all day long won’t help you reach your goals. But, performing daily consistent actions, sustained over a long period of time will. Staying calm and focusing on the one task in front of you every day will. The point is, to achieve long-term goals in your personal or professional life, you must regain control of your attention and rewire your brain to focus on the long term. To do so, you should start by staying away from highly stimulating activities.

Kathy’s teachers view her as a good student who always does her homework but rarely participates in class. Her close friends see her as a loyal and trustworthy person who is a lot of fun once you get to know her. The other students in school think she is shy and very quiet. None of them realize how much Kathy struggles with everyday life. When teachers call on her in class, her heart races, her face gets red and hot, and she forgets what she wants to say. Kathy believes that people think she is stupid and inadequate. She imagines that classmates and teachers talk behind her back about the silly things she says. She makes excuses not to go to social events because she is terrified she will do something awkward. Staying home while her friends are out having a good time also upsets her. “Why can’t I just act like other people?” she often thinks. Although Kathy feels isolated, she has a very common problem--social anxiety. Literally millions of people are so affected by self-consciousness that they have difficulties in social situations. For some, the anxiety occurs during very specific events, such as giving a speech or eating in public. For others, like Kathy, social anxiety is part of everyday life. Unfortunately, social anxiety is not an easily diagnosed condition. Instead, it is often viewed as the far edge of a continuum of behaviors and feelings that occur during social situations. Although you may not have as much difficulty as Kathy, shyness may still be causing you distress, affecting your relationships, or making you act in ways with which you are not happy. If this is the case, you will benefit from the advice and techniques provided in this book. The good news is that it is possible to change your thinking and behavior. However, there are no easy solutions. It takes strong motivation and time to overcome social anxiety. It might even be necessary to see a professional therapist or take medication. Eventually, becoming free of your anxiety will make the hard work well worth the effort. This book will help you understand social anxiety and the impact it can have on your life, now and in the future. You will find out how the disorder is diagnosed, you will receive information on professional guidance, and you will learn ways to cope with and manage the symptoms. Becoming an extroverted person is probably unlikely, but you can become more confident in social situations and increase your self-esteem.

It is the purpose of both God and the devil to provide you with the answers to these key questions.  If Satan is able to establish his images of identity and destiny in your life, he then has set up a system of governing your life that more or less runs itself and requires very little maintenance or service on his part. It is an effective scheme of destruction in your life. I believe that it has always been God’s intention to impart, especially at specific junctures in life, His message of identity and destiny.  He has appointed special agents on this earth to ensure that His message of identity and destiny is revealed.  These agents are called PARENTS.  Their primary job is to make sure that children receive God’s message of identity and destiny throughout their growing-up years. Satan’s purpose is to access these very agents of God, the parents, and to impart his message of identity and destiny.  Many times parents are unwittingly used to impart the devil’s message rather than God’s. SATAN’S MESSAGE VS. GOD’S MESSAGE What type of message does the devil want to reveal regarding identity and destiny?  His message is something along these lines.  IDENTITY: “You are worthless.  You aren’t even supposed to be here.  You are a mistake.  Something is drastically wrong with you.  You are a ‘nobody.’” DESTINY: “You have no purpose.  You are a total failure.  You’ll never be a success.  You are inadequate.  You are not equipped to accomplish the job.  Nothing ever works out for you, etc..” I once heard a woman say, “It’s as if someone dropped me off on the planet forty some years ago, and I’ve been trying to make my way the best I could ever since.  But deep inside, I don’t feel as though I belong here, and I’ve been waiting for that someone to come back and pick me up.”  God never intended for anyone to feel that he doesn’t belong.  That is Satan’s message. God's message of identity and destiny is something like this:  IDENTITY:  “To Me you are very valuable and are worth the life of Jesus Christ.  You are a `somebody.’  You do belong here.  Before the foundation of the earth, I planned for you.  You were no mistake.” DESTINY:  “You are destined to a great purpose on this earth.  I placed you here for a purpose.  You are a success as a person and are completely adequate and suited to carry out My purpose.  Set your vision high, and allow Me to complete great accomplishments in your life.” JOE’S STORY Joe was a well dressed, successful business man in his late thirties when I first met him.  He had come to a weekend “FROM CURSE TO BLESSING” seminar.  As we moved into the small-group ministry time, Joe began to share, somewhat sheepishly, about the tremendous problem that anger had caused him in his life.  “Anger causes me to embarrass myself, and

Not only is this workaholism unnecessary, it’s stupid. Working more doesn’t mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more. Workaholics wind up creating more problems than they solve. First off, working like that just isn’t sustainable over time. When the burnout crash comes—and it will—it’ll hit that much harder. Workaholics miss the point, too. They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force. This results in inelegant solutions. They even create crises. They don’t look for ways to be more efficient because they actually like working overtime. They enjoy feeling like heroes. They create problems (often unwittingly) just so they can get off on working more. Workaholics make the people who don’t stay late feel inadequate for “merely” working reasonable hours. That leads to guilt and poor morale all around. Plus, it leads to an ass-in-seat mentality—people stay late out of obligation, even if they aren’t really being productive. If all you do is work, you’re unlikely to have sound judgments. Your values and decision making wind up skewed. You stop being able to decide what’s worth extra effort and what’s not. And you wind up just plain tired. No one makes sharp decisions when tired. In the end, workaholics don’t actually accomplish more than nonworkaholics. They may claim to be perfectionists, but that just means they’re wasting time fixating on inconsequential details instead of moving on to the next task. Workaholics aren’t heroes. They don’t save the day, they just use it up. The real hero is already home because she figured out a faster way to get things done.

Keith came from behind his desk and put his arm around my shoulder. "Calm down, Marco,” he said, leading me to the more comfortable love seat. “There's an un-blending process happening here. The various defender parts have a positive intention in defending against the pain from the abuse. It just happens to be in an incorrect manner.” Keith returned to his seat and leaned back in his chair. He took a deep breath. “When you're concentrating on one particular personality trait, the other parts work in conjunction, in different combinations with each other. They try to prevent you from getting to the core of the respective trait and having to relive the pain and shame from the abuse.” He leaned forward, punctuating his words. “The key ... to un-blending ... the defender parts ... successfully ... is to understand each attribute ... as it steps in to do its job. They protect you from the harmful emotions that are associated from the abuse.” Gazing at me over his wire-rimmed glasses, he said matter-of-factly, “Getting the defender parts to step aside so you can concentrate on the characteristic you want to address is the un-blending process. Once you are able to get through all the various defensive parts that get in the way of dealing with the core part, the true self is now able to answer the part in question in a divine loving place." I sat, pulled on my ear while thinking that over for a moment. "So, the true self is present to bear witness to all the feelings, beliefs, memories, and experiences of the inadequate part." Keith smiled. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desktop, his chin perched atop his clasped hands. "In essence, the past is being stirred up so all the associated burdens, pressures, and pain can be released and relieved. Following this unburdening process, the respective part can be cleansed. It can then be recomposed in a more constructive manner—similar to wiping a virus-infected computer hard drive clean ... then reprogramming it with anti-virus protected software." I stood up. With a few deep diaphragmatic breaths, I cleared my mind. While attempting to decipher what part came in and threw me off course, I sucked in my lips, vigorously shaking my head. Skepticism came in as a defensive part. I got back in Keith’s face. “This psychological un-blending is full of shit. The defense against the abuse is another trick to get me to believe that this crap actually works.” I flung my hands in the air. “How is this going to unburden the weight I carry on my shoulders every moment of the day? All my deficient personality traits are a result of me being a dirtball loser.” I shook my head. “I’m not worthy of the slightest bit of solace or happiness that this punishment called life has to offer.” Keith took a deep breath in and a longer breath out. "Marco, you're a miracle. A remarkable good-hearted human being. You're the most determined individual that I've come across in my thirty years of practice.

I was now able to logically decipher my behavior and analyze my actions. I understood all the conditioning that the exploitation and disgrace had in creating the different personality parts and behavioral traits that dwelt in my depths. I started to understand how criticism and insults painfully intensified my ignominious impression of myself, causing me to take everything personally. The numb, confused, and skeptic defender parts now made sense to me. I could see how they contributed to the various problems I incurred throughout my life. I comprehended why I mistrusted and did pernicious things to loved ones—for fear they would do them to me first. The need to self-medicate made sense. I began to recognize the urge for porn. The need to commit acts of perversion was a result of my adolescent mind being manipulated and programmed to believe it was acceptable. I perceived that the reason why I wanted to be humiliated sexually was because the shameful part from the humiliation of the maltreatment wanted to be reinforced. The logic of it all—how all the parts fit together, their roles and reasons for being—became apparent to me. I opened my eyes for a brief moment. Keith was leaning forward with his right elbow resting on his leg, his hand supporting his chin, staring at me as if he was trying to analyze my thoughts. I gazed off in a distance, remembering my numerous misbehaviors. I could trace the main contributing factor for why I acted the way I did to the resulting ignominy from the desecration. But the most significant understanding I had was, that even though it wasn’t my fault, I was still responsible for my behavior. My lengthy musings came to a halt when Keith said, “Marco? Where are you now ... tell me what you’re seeing, thinking.” I proceeded to explain to him my current revelation. “Excellent work, Marco,” Keith said, cracking a smile. “Now think about your next step.” My next step was to cleanse and reprogram the inadequate part. I closed my eyes again and began to concentrate. The only way to accomplish this was to create a tangible picture in my mind of the inadequate part being exorcised of all its imperfect characteristics. Once I was able to concentrate on this step, I looked up into his gaze. “I see myself overlooking a canyon during a sunset. As the sun descends, I envision its rays reflecting off the sparse layers of cloud cover, creating a beautiful multi-layer spectrum of blazing colors. I imagine a cool breeze flowing across my body, as a warm illuminating light from above shines on me and creates a white-out effect that is the cleanest, brightest white I can imagine. I picture the whiteness as a soothing cleansing treatment for the blackness within. I’m feeling as pure and clean as the brilliant color itself.” "And now how do you want to orchestrate the inadequate part?" I stood up and puffed out my chest. "I want it to be the exact opposite—confident, strong, and stable. It should be at peace with itself and not paranoid about what other people think.” Sitting back down, I folded my hands over my crossed knees. “I don't want to feel as if I have to worry about working to exhaustion in my personal life. On the job, or in the gym, I shouldn’t feel I have to be perfect in order to be accepted in society. I want to move past that. I want to feel good and proud of myself. But most of all, I want to feel morally acceptable." I now had a better understanding of the inadequate part, its defender parts, and what they wanted. I was able to see the un-blending taking place within me. The unburdening and bearing witness process got me to the point of reprogramming the misconception that the inadequate part thought about itself. I could go straight to the visualization technique of cleansing and reprogramming the part whenever I felt its symptoms coming on. CHAPTER

I hadn't thought that as well as the obvious fears about money, and your future, losing your job would make you feel inadequate, and a bit useless. That it would be harder to get up in the morning than when you were rudely shocked into consciousness by the alarm. That you might miss the people you worked with, no matter how little you had in common with them. Or even that you might find yourself searching for familiar faces as you walked the high street.

...those who live in the West or in middle-class urban enclaves in the Non-west […] have to make a determined effort to grasp the grimness of past reality for most of humankind. In non-privileged, non-modern societies, most people in times past were malnourished, inadequately clothed against the elements, unwashed and filthy, living with insect parasites in overcrowded hovels. […] In these circumstances, “ill-health” […] very often simply meant that one was too incapacitated to carry on working in the fields or in the shop. It did not mean that one woke up feeling slightly off-color […] in the world we have lost, feeling somewhat off-color (or worse) was the standard condition.

Recognizing that parental responsibility is insufficient for successful child-rearing, but still not conscious of the role of attachment, many experts assume the problem must be in the parenting know-how. If parenting is not going well, it is because parents are not doing things right. According to this way of thinking, it is not enough to don the role; a parent needs some skill to be effective. The parental role has to be supplemented with all kinds of parenting techniques — or so many experts seem to believe. Many parents, too, reason something like this: if others can get their children to do what they want them to do but I can't, it must be because I lack the requisite skills. Their questions all presume a simple lack of knowledge, to be corrected by “how to” types of advice for every conceivable problem situation: How do I get my child to listen? How can I get my child to do his homework? What do I need to do to get my child to clean his room? What is the secret to getting a child to do her chores? How do I get my child to sit at the table? Our predecessors would probably have been embarrassed to ask such questions or, for that matter, to show their face in a parenting course. It seems much easier for parents today to confess incompetence rather than impotence, especially when our lack of skill can be conveniently blamed on a lack of training or a lack of appropriate models in our own childhood. The result has been a multibillion-dollar industry of parental advice-giving, from experts advocating timeouts or reward points on the fridge to all the how-to books on effective parenting. Child-rearing experts and the publishing industry give parents what they ask for instead of the insight they so desperately need. The sheer volume of the advice offered tends to reinforce the feelings of inadequacy and the sense of being unprepared for the job. The fact that these methodologies fail to work has not slowed the torrent of skill teaching. Once we perceive parenting as a set of skills to be learned, it is difficult for us to see the process any other way. Whenever trouble is encountered the assumption is that there must be another book to be read, another course to be taken, another skill to be mastered. Meanwhile, our supporting cast continues to assume that we have the power to do the job. Teachers act as if we can still get our children to do homework. Neighbors expect us to keep our children in line. Our own parents chide us to take a firmer stand. The experts assume that compliance is just another skill away. The courts hold us responsible for our child's behavior. Nobody seems to get the fact that our hold on our children is slipping. The reasoning behind parenting as a set of skills seemed logical enough, but in hindsight has been a dreadful mistake. It has led to an artificial reliance on experts, robbed parents of their natural confidence, and often leaves them feeling dumb and inadequate. We are quick to assume that our children don't listen because we don't know how to make them listen, that our children are not compliant because we have not yet learned the right tricks, that children are not respectful enough of authority because we, the parents, have not taught them to be respectful. We miss the essential point that what matters is not the skill of the parents but the relationship of the child to the adult who is assuming responsibility.

Sometimes the journey ahead can feel so daunting and so implausible that we lack the courage to take the first step. And there is never a shortage of good excuses: it’s not the right time; the odds are too stacked against me; or no one like me has ever done it before. I’m also willing to bet that Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, Sir Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Everest, or even Thomas Edison, trying thousands and thousands of times to make the light bulb work, had a good list of excuses that they could have used, too. And I can promise you they all felt inadequate at many times along their path. You know what the sad thing is? It’s that most people never find out what they are truly capable of, because the mountain looks frightening from the bottom, before you begin. It is easier to look down than up. There’s a poignant poem by Christopher Logue that I’m often reminded of when people tell me their ‘reasons’ for not embarking on a great adventure. Come to the edge. We might fall. Come to the edge. It’s too high! COME TO THE EDGE! And they came, And we pushed, And they flew.

It took me more than a decade to work my way through the landscape. I owe my liberation from it to the work of geographer David Lowenthal and social critic Marshall McLuhan. Their writing convinced me that the world-as-picture was, on one hand, geared to the superficiality of taste and, on the other, an outcome of a Renaissance mathematical perspective that tended to separate rather than join. Walter Ong's essay "The World as View and the World as Event" convinced me that this distinction between the visual and the tactile was more than ideological. The landscape was an inadequate nexus. It was only a twist in the idea of the co-option of the earth. Indeed, such ideas depended as much on unconscious perception as on intellectual or artistic formulations. I began to feel that something still more biogenic, yet common to humankind, which yet might take partic­ular social or aesthetic expression, held the key to an adequate human ecology. “Over the next decade I read anthropology and child psychology. During that time a meeting of anthropologists took place in Chicago that resulted in the publication of Man the Hunter. I began to think that the appropriate model for human society in its earth habitat may have existed for several million years. If Claude Levi-Strauss were to be believed, nothing had been gained by the onset of civilization except technical mastery, while what had been lost or distorted was a way of interpreting in which nature was an unlimited but essential poetic and intellectual instrument in the achieve­ment of human self-consciousness, both in evolution and in every genera­ tion and individual human life. I knew such an idea would be ridiculed as a throwback to the discredited figure of the noble savage, but when it was considered in light of Erik Erikson's concept of individual development as an identity-shaping sequence I found it irresistible.

At times, I find myself irrationally jealous of his work, as if she’s a mistress who gives him everything he could ever want, which leaves me feeling inadequate and insecure, and I’ve never been that kind of person.

Complaining warps, weakens, and sometimes even destroys the very relationships that are vital to our happiness and well-being. When we engage in complaining, our relationships stagnate and devolve. Complaining shifts our focus from the positive attributes that drew us to the other person to what we perceive to be his or her faults. This shift draws us into a trap in which we feel unfulfilled and the other person feels inadequate.

Fear of Success I’ve never read anything better on the subject than this from Marianne Williamson: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

83 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. EPHESIANS 2:8–9 Father, you alone can save. There is no one like you. You have redeemed the world. Today I feel inadequate. I feel guilty for not doing more for my family and friends. Remind me that I am enough because it is not me but Christ in me who makes me worthy. Protect my loved ones when I can’t be there for them. Surround my loved ones with the kind of unconditional love only you can give. Thank you that you are enough for me and that your grace will always be sufficient. In Jesus’ name, amen.

This exercise builds new “memories” or stored data into your mid-brain and central nervous system. It builds a new image of self. After practicing it for a time, you will be surprised to find yourself “acting differently,” more or less automatically and spontaneously—“without trying.” This is as it should be. You do not need to “take thought” or “try” or make an effort now in order to feel ineffective and act inadequately. Your present inadequate feeling and doing is automatic and spontaneous, because of the memories, real and imagined, you have built into your automatic mechanism. You will find it will work just as automatically upon positive thoughts and experiences as upon negative ones.

Turns out my eyes are not as fast as my legs. No matter how hard I try. This quote from author K.N Martin's book "Precious Gem" puts forth the way in which the main character struggles with what she expects versus what, in turn, happens. No doubt, she runs fast but reads slowly. This difference brings light to one of the very famous conceptions regarding stories relating to youngsters: struggles between natural talents and life's demands. It also symbolizes the bigger challenges she is facing, showing that even with special talents, she still has to face up against everyday problems which need hard work and patience. It reminds that everyone feels inadequate sometimes and has things they need to work harder at to succeed.

The working model of self is your sense of how worthy or unworthy you feel of being loved. As you might imagine, when you feel unworthy of love, you also fear being rejected and struggle with attachment-related anxiety. You might recognize this as anxiety—a feeling of tension or nervousness. But you could also feel it as other distressing emotions, such as sadness, loneliness, or anger. Adults and children with a strong sense of unworthiness live as though their attachment system, or homing device for an attachment figure, is stuck in the fully “on” position. If you identify with this, you may be constantly in search of reassurance from an attachment figure and chronically feel alone, rejected, or in fear of rejection. And even at the less extreme levels of attachment-related anxiety, people can struggle with feeling somewhat inadequate, and fear being unable to emotionally handle rejection. This book is designed to help you overcome such distress, whatever your level of attachment-related anxiety.

There will be times when you will feel overwhelmed. One of the ways you will be attacked is with the feeling that you are inadequate. Well, you are inadequate to answer a call to represent God with only your own powers. But you have access to more than your natural capacities, and you do not work alone.

It helps kids to know that they are doing some of the emotional work that their peers may be doing later in life. Learning to cope with lack of control over life’s events, grief over losing loved ones, betrayal over misplaced loyalties, and shame over feeling inadequate are struggles for everyone over the life cycle. For a percentage of people, trauma will also be their experience. These children may be lagging in some emotional developmental tasks, but be ahead, ultimately, in learning to deal with life.

I had never considered that you might miss a job like you missed a limb—a constant, reflexive thing. I hadn’t thought that as well as the obvious fears about money, and your future, losing your job would make you feel inadequate, and a bit useless. That it would be harder to get up in the morning than when you were rudely shocked into consciousness by the alarm. That you might miss the people you worked with, no matter how little you had in common with them. Or even that you might find yourself searching for familiar faces as you walked the high street.

Diane Louise Jordan Diane Louise Jordan is a British television presenter best known for her role in the long-running children’s program Blue Peter, which she hosted from 1990 until 1996. She is currently hosting BBC1’s religious show, Songs of Praise. Also noted for her charity work, Diane Louise Jordan is vice president of the National Children’s Home in England. We all need to be loved--whether we admit it or not. All of us. A friend of mine recalled how, when in Rwanda a few years ago, he was taken to visit a lady in the slums. She was in agony because of an AIDS-related illness and had just hours to live. He described the inadequate dirt-floor shack that was her home among unbearable squalor. And yet he said it wasn’t the intense poverty or painful illness that struck him most, but rather the compassion of her friend who kept vigil. A friend who used no words, just silent tears, to express the deep feelings she had for her dying companion. In a similar way, it wasn’t words that stirred international attention, but the silent image of two people holding hands. One an HIV/AIDS sufferer and the other a “fairy-tale” princess. When Diana, Princess of Wales, held the hand of that seriously ill man back in the 1980s, many boundaries were crossed, many stigmas defeated. At that time, fear of death by AIDS had gripped the world so savagely that we were in danger of losing our humanity. Yet all it took to crush the storm of fear was a simple loving gesture. Princess Diana was good at that. She had the courage to follow her instincts, even if it meant being countercultural. She made it her job to be kind and loving.

I once thought that the Pacific Crest Trail Association used these trail registers to track the progress of individual thru-hikers and make sure that they are not cheating by skipping parts of the PCT.  But I learned that is not true.  The main purpose of the trail registers was to show me how many people were in front of me so that I could feel slow and inadequate.  But I could also learn the names of the people that I would pass so that I could freak them out by calling them by their trail name before they could tell me what it is.  Some people write witty things in trail registers, like “Out of food. Stalked by bear. For the love of God please help me.”  I get a lot of laughs from reading trail registers. When

The problem with cosmetics exists only when women feel invisible or inadequate without them. The problem with working out exists only if women hate ourselves when we don’t. When a woman is forced to adorn herself to buy a hearing, when she needs her grooming in order to protect her identity, when she goes hungry in order to keep her job, when she must attract a lover so that she can take care of her children, that is exactly what makes “beauty” hurt. Because what hurts women about the beauty myth is not adornment, or expressed sexuality, or time spent grooming, or the desire to attract a lover. Many mammals groom, and every culture uses adornment. “Natural” and “unnatural” are not the terms in question. The actual struggle is between pain and pleasure, freedom and compulsion.

I had never considered that you might miss a job like you missed a limb -- a constant, reflexive thing. I hadn't thought as well as the obvious fears about money, and your future, losing your job would make you feel inadequate, and a bit useless. That it would be harder to get up in the morning than you were rudely shocked in to consciousness by the alarm. That you might missed the people you worked with, no matter how little you had in common with them.

In the earliest study by Walter Gmelch, first published in 1984 and reproduced in 1993, the top ten self-reported stressors, in order of rank, are (1) “imposing excessively high self-expectations”; (2) “securing financial support for my research”; (3) “having insufficient time to keep abreast of current developments in my field”; (4) “receiving inadequate salary to meet financial needs”; (5) “preparing a manuscript for publication”; (6) “feeling that I have too heavy a workload, one that I cannot possibly finish during the normal working day”; (7) “having job demands which interfere with other personal activities (recreation, family, and other interests)”; (8) “believing that progress in my career is not what it should or could be”; (9) “being interrupted frequently by telephone calls and drop-in visitors”; (10) “attending meetings which take up too much time” (Gmelch 21–4). At

I had written that Patrick always recognized her picture in the press. She responded, “It’s very touching to know that he recognizes me.” Diana had been interviewing experienced, adult nannies for her child and had found one she liked. She only hoped that the nanny wouldn’t take too much control over the nursery. Diana was so very young that her concern was natural. At least, I thought, Diana would not have to worry about neglect or abuse of her child, as I did when I first looked for a caretaker for Patrick. I had imagined every horrible possibility as I started to interview people and really worked myself into a state. Thankfully, Patrick had only affectionate and devoted caretakers. It is ironic that the more competently a nanny does her job, the more inadequate a new mother can feel.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”- Marianne Williamson

That’s the beauty of poetry,” I said. “That language is inadequate to describe life. So poetry just tries to bring up emotions. Just read it and see how you feel. If you feel something, then the poem worked.

Four things about learning how to care for someone with dementia are important to realize. Firstly, most family carers are unfamiliar with the effects of dementia on people’s abilities, and people with dementia due to Alzheimer’s disease, or another disease, function in ways that most of us have never experienced.  Common sense does not help here. The carers have to learn how to understand new information about memory processes and how to cope with situations that are new to them. Secondly, don’t be too hard on yourself. If you realize you have made a mistake in the way you have been interacting with a person with dementia, learn from it, change what you are doing, but don’t hang onto the guilt. Forgive yourself. Know that every family goes through these painful experiences and feelings of being inadequate. Apologize to the person with dementia and then distract them with something fun. Thirdly, understand that each person with dementia is unique in the way they behave and how they understand what is happening. What has helped one family carer to cope may not help the next. Be patient with yourself and the person with dementia and never stop trying to find ways to help yourselves. Coping often means trying one thing after the other, and then using the approach that works for as long as it continues to work. Fourthly, scolding and arguing will not help them learn because they have lost most of their capacity to learn with their short-term memory. Scolding will, however, establish a procedural memory in their mind that interacting with you is always unpleasant.

Consider how suffering affects people who are seeking salvation by works. Self-justifiers are always insecure at a deep level because they know they aren’t living up to their standards but they cannot admit it. So when suffering hits, they immediately feel they are being punished for their sins. They cannot take confidence in God’s love (v 5). Since their belief that God loves them was inadequately based, suffering shatters them. Suffering drives them away from God, rather than toward him. It is when we suffer that we discover what we are really trusting and hoping in: ourselves, or God.

And every time we react in our habitual ways, we strengthen our propensities. This is similar to the findings in neuroscience that show how pathways in our brain get reinforced by our habitual actions and thinking patterns. Say you have a propensity to feel inadequate, especially about your work. You’re in the office talking to two co-workers and your supervisor barges in and says, “You people did a lousy job.” The supervisor is actually criticizing all three of you, but you’re the one with the strong propensity to take it personally, so you feel totally wretched, as if it’s all your fault. There’s already a long history behind your propensity, and the supervisor’s comment seems to add to the evidence against you. Now you go into a familiar storyline: “I never get it right. I’m worthless. I’m hopeless. I always blow it.” You experience yourself as a loser. And beneath all these concepts is a horribly unpleasant emotion that you would do anything to get rid of.

measure my self-worth by how productive i’ve been but no matter how hard i work i still feel inadequate - productivity guilt

i measure my self-worth by how productive i’ve been but no matter how hard i work i still feel inadequate

It’s always been this way, some years better or worse than others, but it’s never been as bad as it has the past couple of years. At times, I find myself irrationally jealous of his work, as if she’s a mistress who gives him everything he could ever want, which leaves me feeling inadequate and insecure, and I’ve never been that kind of person.

I don’t consider myself as a teacher, but a companion in the struggle of thought,’ Eliot wrote to a friend in 1875, as she worked on her last novel. Writing fiction, she found creative ways to address deep questions: rather than personifying ideas or telling didactic stories, she philosophized through her art. Her willingness to think in the medium of human relations and emotions, and to carry out that thinking in images, symbols and archetypes, expands the canonical view of philosophy that is embedded in universities — institutions that systematically excluded women until the twentieth century. Eliot once reflected that her friend Herbert Spencer, a prominent Victorian philosopher, had an ‘inadequate endowment of emotion’ which made him ‘as good as dead’ to large swathes of human experience, thereby weakening his arguments and theories. She might as well have been talking about philosophy itself. Her own philosophical style is compassionate, subversive, seasoned with humour, and enriched by an attentiveness in which fleeting moments — a glance, a touch, a flush of feeling — become significant.

Inequality makes people feel that the material goods they have are inadequate. We constantly want more, not because we need it but because we want to keep up with the Joneses. The more our friends and neighbours have, the more we feel that we need to match them just to feel like we’re doing OK. The data on this is clear: people who live in highly unequal societies are more likely to shop for luxury brands than people who live in more equal societies.21 We keep buying more stuff in order to feel better about ourselves, but it never works because the benchmark against which we measure the good life is pushed perpetually out of reach by the rich (and, these days, by social media influencers). We find ourselves spinning in place on an exhausting treadmill of needless over-consumption.

Hilda looked helpless and inadequate, but she was actually controlling her husband in a powerful way. Her self-blame was her not-so-subtle way of keeping Charles in a straitjacket. She was really saying, “I can’t bear to hear what you’re telling me. Don’t say anything critical or I’ll make you pay!” She was so fragile that I had to discontinue the couples therapy so I could work with her individually. Hilda’s self-blaming tendencies were a huge barrier to intimacy. She simply couldn’t endure the pain of getting close to the man she loved because she didn’t know how to love and accept herself.

To make sure she really grasped this, I told her that I’d play the role of the negative voice in her mind, and I’d try to make her feel anxious, inadequate, and bitter, and she could play the more objective, positive, self-loving voice. I call this technique the Externalization of Voices.

I know my alphabet,' I said sharply as he laid a piece of paper in front of me. 'I'm not that stupid.' I twisted my fingers in my lap, then pinned my restless hands under my thighs. 'I didn't say you were stupid,' he said. 'I'm just trying to determine where we should begin.' I leaned back in the cushioned seat. 'Since you've refused to tell me a thing about how much you know.' My face warmed. 'Can't you hire a tutor?' He lifted a brow. 'Is it that hard for you to even try in front of me?' 'You're a High Lord- don't you have better things to do?' 'Of course. But none as enjoyable as seeing you squirm.' 'You're a real bastard, you know that?' Rhys huffed a laugh. 'I've been called worse. In fact, I think you've called me worse.' He tapped the paper in front of him. 'Read that.' A blur of letters. My throat tightened. 'I can't.' 'Try.' The sentence had been written in elegant, concise print. His writing, no doubt. I tried to open my mouth, but my spine locked. 'What exactly, is your stake in all this? You said you'd tell me if I worked with you.' 'I didn't specify when I'd tell you.' I peeled back from him as my lip curled. He shrugged. 'Maybe I resent the idea of you letting those sycophants and war-mongering fools in the Spring Court make you feel inadequate. Maybe I indeed enjoy seeing you squirm. Or maybe-' 'I get it.' He snorted. 'Try to read it, Feyre.' Prick. I snatched the paper to me, nearly ripping it in half in the process. I looked at the first word, sounding it out in my head. 'Y-you...' The next I figured out with a combination of my silent pronunciation and logic. 'Look...' 'Good,' he murmured. 'I didn't ask for your approval.' Rhys chuckled. 'Ab... absolutely.' It took me longer than I wanted to admit to figure that out. The next word was even worse. 'De... Del...' I deigned to glance at him, brows raised. 'Delicious,' he purred. My brows knotted. I read the next two words, then whipped my face toward him. 'You look absolutely delicious today, Feyre?! That's what you wrote?' He leaned back in his seat. As our eyes met, sharp claws caressed my mind and his voice whispered inside my head. It's true, isn't it? I jolted back, my chair groaning. 'Stop that!' But those claws now dug in- and my entire body, my heart, my lungs, my blood yielded to his grip, utterly at his command as he said, The fashion of the Night Court suits you.

Your only real control is to withhold your expertise. And although withholding expertise is the only leverage real experts have, it can be a powerful one, indeed. Let me show you how this relates to the second basic component of positioning: Good positioning makes you noninterchangeable. Imagine a somewhat difficult conversation with one of your existing clients. You’re uncomfortable with the direction they want to pursue, particularly since you know they’ll be holding you partly responsible for the results. You make your case carefully but passionately. You feel strongly that this is a mistake, for all sorts of reasons. The client presses and presses, but you don’t relent. There’s an honest disagreement. It’s not that you don’t know where the other party stands. No, you are both clear about that and just disagree. Eventually, the client says — after three years of working together, no less — that they are noticing an increasingly different perspective on how to impact the future and maybe it’s time for a fresh approach. Essentially they want to sever the relationship and move on. This usually doesn’t come out of the blue. It’s likely to have built up over time until the client gets to this place where they seem to be looking for opportunities to disagree with you. Nevertheless, the expert (you) has reached a turning point with the other controlling party (the client). As this crack in the surface widens, and it looks less reparable than earlier disagreements, the client entertains the possibility of replacing your expertise. They’ve surveyed the landscape of firms like yours and they aren’t that worried about finding an expert who will be a little more cooperative and helpful (as they read the disagreement). So what has seemed increasingly likely does, in fact, occur, and the client severs the relationship with your firm. That point is when the stopwatch starts. Tick, tick, tick. It keeps running until that same client finds a suitable (or even better) substitute for your expertise. But here’s the thing: The client is the one who defines success in that venture. When you hear about who they found to replace your firm, you may scoff and mutter about how inadequate the substitute expert is, but you don’t get to do that. “They hired who? [Snicker.] I saw their work for XYZ and was not impressed. The client will quickly find out that we weren’t so bad after all and that what we’ve been saying makes sense. There will be an initial honeymoon and then it’ll be just like it was with us.” It doesn’t matter.

But then there are those people who overidentify with their emotions. Everything is justified for no other reason than they felt it. “Oh, I broke your windshield, but I was really mad; I couldn’t help it.” Or “I dropped out of school and moved to Alaska just because it felt right.” Decision-making based on emotional intuition, without the aid of reason to keep it in line, pretty much always sucks. You know who bases their entire lives on their emotions? Three-year-old kids. And dogs. You know what else three-year-olds and dogs do? Shit on the carpet. An obsession and overinvestment in emotion fails us for the simple reason that emotions never last. Whatever makes us happy today will no longer make us happy tomorrow, because our biology always needs something more. A fixation on happiness inevitably amounts to a never-ending pursuit of “something else”—a new house, a new relationship, another child, another pay raise. And despite all of our sweat and strain, we end up feeling eerily similar to how we started: inadequate. Psychologists sometimes refer to this concept as the “hedonic treadmill”: the idea that we’re always working hard to change our life situation, but we actually never feel very different. This is why our problems are recursive and unavoidable. The person you marry is the person you fight with. The house you buy is the house you repair. The dream job you take is the job you stress over. Everything comes with an inherent sacrifice—whatever makes us feel good will also inevitably make us feel bad. What we gain is also

It’s hard to discuss motherhood because it is such an identity. However, when we get curious, we can shift from the focus on our own perspectives (and our own defensiveness) and think about the other person’s. The decisions mothers make about birth, breastfeeding, and whether to work beyond child-raising are intensely personal and are made against a backdrop of cultural messages that seem designed to make all of us feel selfish and inadequate. Our listeners’ ability to pause, recognize how their experiences were causing them to hear from a defensive posture, and come back to the discussion is extraordinary and instructive. We can’t get to the substance of Komisar’s research without first recognizing our stakes in our

Neff’s definition of self-kindness is contained and self-explanatory: “being warm and understanding toward ourselves when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate, rather than ignoring our pain or flagellating ourselves with self-criticism.” In my own life, this translates to one simple mandate: Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to someone you love.

A second form of manipulation is making guilt-inducing statements like: “After all I’ve done for you, how could you do this (or fail to do this) for me?” “If you really love me, you would . . .” “If you don’t quit doing that, you’ll drive me crazy, (make me commit suicide, etc.).” “God won’t love you if . . .” A third method of manipulation involves emphasizing details that place the other person in an unfavorable light. For example, a husband who wants his wife to change her behavior can rattle off a list of things she does inadequately, without noting any of the positive things she does. His manipulation is often effective because his wife may feel so negative about herself that she thinks she must give in to his demand, since she is apparently performing inadequately in so many other areas. A fourth form of manipulation is whining—used skillfully by children and adults alike. People will often give in to the whiner because they want to be free of the noise the whiner makes. Because it works, some people continue this method throughout life. In all forms of manipulation the manipulator, like the aggressive person, operates from an “I count me, I don’t count you” position.4

When we say a boy needs a father, we mean, a boy needs someone to teach him how to be a patriarch. Teach him to suppress. Teach him to be unfeeling. Teach him to lead without asking. Teach him solitude. Teach him not to cope. Teach him to explode. All in the name of maintaining the myth. Every lesson my father ever taught me came back to the myth. “One day, when you have a son of your own,” he would say, “you will understand.” I have no son of my own, but I understand. I understand that my father carried the pain of being abandoned by his father and vowed to not be like him. I understand that my father became the type of father he wished he had. I understand that for him a father was meant to set an example of hard work, that he should pass along valuable life lessons about handling money, that he should teach you how to drive and tie a double windsor, that he should come down hard when you lie or fail to live up to your potential. I also understand that as a shy insecure kid who wanted someone to talk to about his fears, there was a distance between me and my father. As someone who needed to know that I would be loved even through my mistakes, my father’s raised eyebrows, and voice, and belt, weren’t reassuring. His way of buying affection without speaking through his feelings made it harder to get close. His cold reactions to some of my proudest moments didn’t ease us toward embrace. When I tell the story of my relationship with my father, the response I hear most often is, “You had it better than most. Be grateful he was there.” And once again the myth prevents us from seeing. I did have it better than most. I’ll never deny that. My father’s sacrifices meant that I never went homeless or hungry, unclothed or unwashed. Materially, I had all that I could ask for and more — he made that possible. I would not be writing these words today if he didn’t. I’m grateful. But it doesn’t mean the strain and tension between us didn’t have an effect on me - on my sense of self. I didn’t like myself for a long time and much of that had to do with never feeling like I could do anything worthy enough to receive my father’s love. Perfection, if I could achieve such a thing, felt inadequate. I know now that it isn’t true. That he loved me in the way he knew how and he always would. But that’s not what shaped me.

Its not that people want to get hurt again. Its that they want to master a situation where they felt helpless. "Repetition compulsion" Maybe this time, the unconscious imagines, I can go back and heal that wound from long ago, by engaging with somebody familiar- but new. The truth is that they reopen the wounds and feel even more inadequate and unlovable." "He may be resistant to acknowledging it now, but I welcome his resistance because resistance is a clue to where the crux of the work lies; it signals what a therapist needs to pay attention to." "Conversion disorder: this is a condition in which a person's anxiety is "converted" into a neurologic conditions such as paralysis, balance issues, incontinence, deafness, tremors, or seizures." "People with conversion disorder aren't faking it- that’s called factitious disorder. People with factitious disorder have a need to be thought of as sick and intentionally go to great lengths to appear ill." "Interestingly, conversion disorder tends to be more prevalent in cultures with strict rules and few opportunities for emotional expression." "Ultracrepidarianism, which means "the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one's knowledge or competence" "Every decision they make is based on two things: fear and love. Therapy strives to teach you how to tell the two apart." "if you are talking that much, you cant be listening" and its variant, you have two ears and one mouth; there's a reason for that ratio)" "To feel better now, anytime, anywhere, within seconds" Why are we essentially outsourcing the thing that defines uses people? Was it that people couldn’t tolerate being alone or that they couldn’t tolerate being with other people?" "The four ultimate concerns are death, isolation, freedom, and meaningless" "Flooded: meaning one person is in overdrive, and when people feel flooded is best to wait a beat. The person needs a few minutes for his nervous system to reset before he can take anything in." "Developmental stage models: Freud, Jung, Erikson, Piaget and Maslow

An obsession and overinvestment in emotion fails us for the simple reason that emotions never last. Whatever makes us happy today will no longer make us happy tomorrow, because our biology always needs something more. A fixation on happiness inevitably amounts to a never-ending pursuit of “something else”—a new house, a new relationship, another child, another pay raise. And despite all of our sweat and strain, we end up feeling eerily similar to how we started: inadequate. Psychologists sometimes refer to this concept as the “hedonic treadmill”: the idea that we’re always working hard to change our life situation, but we actually never feel very different. This is why our problems are recursive and unavoidable. The person you marry is the person you fight with. The house you buy is the house you repair. The dream job you take is the job you stress over. Everything comes with an inherent sacrifice—whatever makes us feel good will also inevitably make us feel bad. What we gain is also what we lose. What creates our positive experiences will define our negative experiences. This is a difficult pill to swallow. We like the idea that there’s some form of ultimate happiness that can be attained. We like the idea that we can alleviate all of our suffering permanently. We like the idea that we can feel fulfilled and satisfied with our lives forever. But we cannot.

Exercise Two Exploring Self-Compassion Through Letter Writing PART ONE Everybody has something about themselves that they don’t like; something that causes them to feel shame, to feel insecure or not “good enough.” It is the human condition to be imperfect, and feelings of failure and inadequacy are part of the experience of living. Try thinking about an issue that tends to make you feel inadequate or bad about yourself (physical appearance, work or relationship issues, etc.). How does this aspect of yourself make you feel inside—scared, sad, depressed, insecure, angry? What emotions come up for you when you think about this aspect of yourself? Please try to be as emotionally honest as possible and to avoid repressing any feelings, while at the same time not being melodramatic. Try to just feel your emotions exactly as they are—no more, no less. PART TWO Now think about an imaginary friend who is unconditionally loving, accepting, kind, and compassionate. Imagine that this friend can see all your strengths and all your weaknesses, including the aspect of yourself you have just been thinking about. Reflect upon what this friend feels toward you, and how you are loved and accepted exactly as you are, with all your very human imperfections. This friend recognizes the limits of human nature and is kind and forgiving toward you. In his/her great wisdom this friend understands your life history and the millions of things that have happened in your life to create you as you are in this moment. Your particular inadequacy is connected to so many things you didn’t necessarily choose: your genes, your family history, life circumstances—things that were outside of your control. Write a letter to yourself from the perspective of this imaginary friend—focusing on the perceived inadequacy you tend to judge yourself for. What would this friend say to you about your “flaw” from the perspective of unlimited compassion? How would this friend convey the deep compassion he/she feels for you, especially for the discomfort you feel when you judge yourself so harshly? What would this friend write in order to remind you that you are only human, that all people have both strengths and weaknesses? And if you think this friend would suggest possible changes you should make, how would these suggestions embody feelings of unconditional understanding and compassion? As you write to yourself from the perspective of this imaginary friend, try to infuse your letter with a strong sense of the person’s acceptance, kindness, caring, and desire for your health and happiness. After writing the letter, put it down for a little while. Then come back and read it again, really letting the words sink in. Feel the compassion as it pours into you, soothing and comforting you like a cool breeze on a hot day. Love, connection, and acceptance are your birthright. To claim them you need only look within yourself.

Focus works both ways. You can focus on what matters or what doesn’t. You can focus on what makes you feel rich and abundant, or what makes you feel inadequate and lacking.

Chapter FEEDING YOUR ATTENTION HOG I was once at a New Age party and wanted to get the attention of some particularly lovely sari-wearing, belly-dancing women who were floating in and out of the various rooms. I had discovered that I could move past some of my fear and make a connection with people through singing. So I pulled out my guitar and started playing a song I had worked particularly hard to polish, Fleetwood Mac’s “A Crystalline Knowledge of You.” I was able to make it through without too many mistakes and was starting to feel the relief that comes from surviving traumatic experiences. Then one of the belly-dancing goddesses called to me from across the room, “You are some kind of attention hog, aren’t you!” As soon as she said it, my life passed before me. The room started to swirl, as a typhoon of shame began to suck me down the toilet of my soul. “Embarrassment” is an inadequate word, when someone pins the tail on the jackass of what seems to be your most central core defect. I am usually scrupulous about checking with people when I make requests for attention. But this time I was caught with my hand in the cookie jar up to the elbow. I remember slinking away in silent humiliation, putting my guitar back in its case and making a beeline for my car. I just wanted to get back to my lair to lick my wounds, and try to hold my self-hate demons at bay with a little help from my friend Jack Daniels. After that incident I quit playing music in public at all. Several years later I was attending a very intense, emotional workshop with Dr. Marshall Rosenberg. Our group of about twenty people had been baring and healing our souls for several days. The atmosphere of trust, safety and connectedness had dissolved my defenses and left me with a innocent, childlike need to contribute. And then the words popped out of my mouth, “I’d like to share a song with you all.” These words were followed by the thought: “Now I’ve gone and done it. When everyone turns on me and confirms that I have an incurable narcissistic personality disorder, it will be fifty years before I sing in public again.” Dr. Rosenberg responded in a cheerful, inviting voice. “Sure, go get your guitar!” he said, as though he were unaware that I was about to commit hara-kiri. The others in the group nodded agreement. I ran to my car to get my guitar, which I kept well hidden in the trunk. I was also hoping that I would not just jump in my car and leave. I brought the guitar in, sat down, and played my song. Sweating and relieved that I made it through the song, my first public performance in years, I felt relief as I packed my guitar in its case. Then Dr. Rosenberg said, “And now I would like to hear from each group member how they felt about Kelly playing his song.” “Oh my God!” my inner jackals began to howl, “It was a setup! They made me expose my most vulnerable part and now they are going to crucify me, or maybe just take me out to the rock quarry for a well-deserved stoning!

We often see people who do things that look a bit crazy. We see somebody all the time not succeeding at things they could succeed at, or they are pulling out of relationships that looked promising, or they are putting up a wall when anyone tries to love them, or they’re sabotaging their chances, or whatever. And we think “Why does that person do it, it’s completely crazy, there’s no logic to it?” Here’s a very important point, there is always a point. Those behaviors once upon a time made great sense. I want to go further, not only did they make great sense, they were very often the difference between life and death, between managing to continue with life and giving up on life. We needed those patterns. Imagine someone growing up with a parent who is suicidal, they are threatening suicide, how on Earth does a child survive that experience? One of the ways they might learn to survive that experience is to shut down completely, right? They will never ever let anyone in because to let someone in is to risk their own annihilation. That when you’re 5 years old, to work that out, that is near genius, to work out that in order to survive you need to shut the drawbridge very tight. Fast forward 25, 35, 45, family situation resolved itself in whatever way, and you’ve moved on and you’re trying to have relationships or whatever, but in a horrible way that defense mechanism is still active, and now it’s trouble because now it means that when somebody comes along and says “Oh we could have a relationship”, “Umm, no not possible” because the drawbridge is still shut so a lot of the behavior that is suboptimal in adult life, once had a logic which we don’t understand, and we’re not sympathetic to it, we don’t even see it, but if we can learn to see that logic we can largely then come to unpick it. Or imagine somebody who, let’s say, we all know these people, who can’t stop joking around, somebody who is completely optimistic and sunny and even when something’s sad they’re at a funeral, they make a joke around the casket, and you go “Why are you not able to get in touch with your sadness?” Again imagine that former child has come through a journey where once upon a time it was absolutely essential that they be the clown and cheer up maybe a depressive mother or a father who was very angry and couldn’t find anything optimistic. That child needed to become a clown to get to the next stage of life, but now that precise behavior starts to be extremely negative. Another thing that children constantly do, is when children are brought up in suboptimal surroundings with parents who maybe are not that nice to them, it would be devastating to the child to have to see that the fault lies with their parent. Right? To imagine when you’re a four-year-old that your father or mother is really not a very nice person and maybe really quite disturbed and kind of awful, this is an unbearable thought. This was the pioneering work of the Scottish Psychoanalyst Ronald Faban. He was working with very deprived people in Edinburgh and Glasgow in the 1930s and he arrived at a fascinating conclusion. He talked to children from the most deprived most violent abusive families and he discovered that those children spoke very highly of their parents, they would say “My father is a great man”, this is the guy who was hitting the child, “My mother, she’s amazing”, mother you know left the kid unclean and unfed for days. In Faben’s view, it’s better to think that you are the problem than that you’ve been born into a problematic situation, so what happens when you’re in a suboptimal parental situation, is you start to hate yourself, and blame yourself and feel bad about yourself because it is preferable to the other bit of really bad news which is to think that you’ve been born into such an inadequate family, that you may not survive it.