Understanding The ILLUSION Of Inadequacy (Self Worth, Acceptance & Dating)
The central theme of this podcast episode revolves around the pervasive notion of inadequacy that individuals, regardless of gender, often grapple with—specifically, the belief that they are "not good enough." Jess articulates that this mindset frequently leads to the manifestation of dysfunctional relationships, as individuals attract partners who similarly harbor feelings of inadequacy. Throughout our discussion, we explore the origins of this belief, touching upon societal influences such as social media and the inherent human condition that fosters such self-doubt. Jess offers profound insights into the nature of self-perception, challenging conventional methods of personal development by suggesting that the very concept of "good enough" is a construct that lacks tangible measurement. By delving into the complexities of our thoughts and emotions, we aim to illuminate pathways towards genuine self-acceptance and healthier relational dynamics.
The discourse unfolds with an examination of self-perception and its profound implications on interpersonal relationships. The initial queries posed by Speaker A delve into the psyche of individuals, particularly focusing on the prevalent belief of inadequacy that plagues many. This sentiment of not being 'good enough' emerges as a recurrent theme, resonating across diverse demographics, as both men and women articulate their struggles with self-worth. The conversation progresses to unveil the detrimental cycle that such beliefs can initiate, wherein individuals, under the guise of inadequacy, inadvertently attract similar energies, thereby perpetuating unhealthy relational dynamics.
Drawing upon insights from psychological literature, the dialogue highlights the intrinsic human tendency to compare oneself with others, which is exacerbated in the contemporary age by the omnipresence of social media. This digital landscape often fuels feelings of inadequacy, prompting individuals to measure their self-worth against curated versions of others' lives. As Speaker A elucidates, such comparisons are often rooted in misunderstandings about one's intrinsic value, leading to a distorted self-image that hampers genuine connections. The discussion emphasizes the pivotal role of self-awareness in recognizing and dismantling these harmful narratives, thereby fostering healthier relationships and a more profound sense of self-acceptance.
Takeaways:
- The pervasive belief of inadequacy often stems from an internal narrative of not being good enough, significantly impacting individual experiences.
- Individuals frequently attract partners who share their feelings of inadequacy, perpetuating dysfunctional relationship dynamics rooted in low self-esteem.
- Understanding one's inherent value is crucial; it is vital to recognize that feelings of inadequacy are not a reflection of one's true essence.
- Social media exacerbates feelings of inadequacy by promoting unrealistic comparisons, which distracts from one's intrinsic worth and leads to unhealthy self-perceptions.
Links referenced in this episode:
Companies mentioned in this episode:
- Steve Peters
- Zamperrian
- The Chimp Paradox
- The Alabaster Girl
Transcript
So what I really look at is how does this individual see themselves?
Speaker A:What is the thinking that they, they hold to be true about themselves?
Speaker A:I'll give you an example.
Speaker A:If you're to believe that you're not good enough, then it's important to see the kind of experiences that you create as a result of not feeling good enough.
Speaker B:Do you speak to a lot of people that don't think that they're good enough?
Speaker A:Absolutely, all of the time.
Speaker A:Men and women.
Speaker A:It's something that is probably one of the most common things that I hear from both men and women is there's a sense of lack, I'm not good enough.
Speaker A:And the unhelpful thing with that, when we come from that way of being, should we say of I'm not good enough?
Speaker A:You're also going to attract people that also don't feel like they're good enough.
Speaker A:Thus they attract and create experiences, dating and relationship experiences from a place of dysfunction where it's unhealthy and there is this sense of lack.
Speaker A:And it's, it's often people recreating their own pain.
Speaker B:I watched a podcast a while ago with Professor Steve Peters, maybe Steven, I think it's Steve, and he wrote the book the Chimp Paradox.
Speaker B:Have you heard of it?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And the host asked the, he asked the Professor Peters, do why do so many people not feel good enough?
Speaker B:And his response was basically, it was kind of like a part of being human is to not feel good enough.
Speaker B:The chimp in us, or the part of the brain that he associates with being the chimp is in a never ending, perpetual sort of state of lack.
Speaker B:And that's why we feel, and we feel like we need to boost ourselves up with, with various things, which I guess maybe makes sense as we've evolved to pursue things external to us as a way of making us feel good, but also as a way of improving the species and growing the species.
Speaker B:So what?
Speaker B:So when I always think that, when I, because a lot of people that I speak to say, oh, they didn't think they were good enough.
Speaker B:And I think, well, what that sort of tells you is you should put less focus on you and more focus on what it is that you're doing, maybe, and that's where you will feel good enough, do you think maybe that's there's something to that?
Speaker B:How would you help someone who doesn't think that they're good enough to help.
Speaker A:Them to see that that can never be true?
Speaker A:So my approach to that is a little bit different to sort of traditional personal development in that, what is good enough?
Speaker A:How do we measure good enough?
Speaker A:We're using language to describe something that cannot be described.
Speaker A:I sometimes ask people, okay, well, when you wake up in the morning, do you take a quiz to find out whether you're good enough or not?
Speaker A:Do you take.
Speaker A:Do you.
Speaker A:Do you check?
Speaker A:Do you find some way of measuring whether you're good enough to have your breakfast or not?
Speaker A:We don't.
Speaker A:It's not something tangible.
Speaker A:It's not something that we can touch or taste.
Speaker A:We're using language to describe a feeling.
Speaker A:And what I love about the approach that I come from is understanding that that can just never be true of who you really are.
Speaker A:So the thing that sort of traditional personal development does is that it comes from a place where it's like, okay, let me do something about this good enough story.
Speaker A:So if you imagine it like you're carrying around this good enough thinking, when you do something with it, you're affirming the fact that you believe that you're less than, that you're not good enough.
Speaker A:But what is it in comparison to.
Speaker A:Where is the measurement that you have that you're not good enough?
Speaker A:Now, what we do have as human beings is we have some unhelpful thinking.
Speaker A:Sorry, Karen.
Speaker B:No, that's right.
Speaker B:Do you think a lot of not being good enough stems from comparing yourself to others?
Speaker A:I think, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:I think that's a version of it.
Speaker A:I think that there's this thinking that we experience as human beings of, I'm not good enough versus this person.
Speaker A:I'm not good enough because this person has this car and I don't.
Speaker A:I'm not good enough because, yeah, I don't have that kind of lifestyle.
Speaker A:I think social media is definitely fueling that good enough, not good enough story.
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:But this is, again, when we come back to our essence and who we really are, and coming back to who we are when we first came into this world, which is pure consciousness and love.
Speaker A:And what that really means, right, is that we didn't have any of this thinking.
Speaker A:We didn't have any of the stories and narratives that were not good enough.
Speaker A:So how can it be true that we're not good enough?
Speaker A:Because the pure consciousness and love that you experience, where you didn't have all these stories about who you are, you didn't have that as a baby.
Speaker A:No one did.
Speaker A:It's just some.
Speaker A:Just some things that you've picked up along the way that's not very helpful.
Speaker B:For you, but, well, they may not Be helpful in some aspects, but maybe they've been helpful in other aspects so that maybe they've protected us in some ways but also hindered us in other ways.
Speaker B:And the progression that the development lies in recognizing how.
Speaker B:In what ways you've been hindered and then to work on releasing and eradicating them because.
Speaker B:But then.
Speaker B:Then you may lose the, the benefits.
Speaker B:So what, what do you think?
Speaker B:Do you think we.
Speaker B:Do you think just life experiences bear us down?
Speaker A:Well, it's not life itself that's doing anything to us, really.
Speaker A:It's our thinking that we have about these experiences that weigh us down because life is just happening.
Speaker B:Is that something that you focus on when you're coaching?
Speaker B:Like help people change their perception?
Speaker A:I help them to see the misunderstandings that they've had about how they've created their life, how they've created their experience.
Speaker A:And it depends on the context of what we're talking about.
Speaker A:It could be that I'm helping someone to.
Speaker A:To feel at peace.
Speaker A:I'm helping them to improve the way that they experience better feelings in how they see themselves.
Speaker A:And I don't know if that answers your question.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, sorry, I just.
Speaker B:Because I'm just waiting for the lag to stop.
Speaker B:So I just paused.
Speaker B:But just ignore me.
Speaker B:The big pauses.
Speaker B:So do what, what would, what would the process look like of helping someone reframe?
Speaker B:What if they come with you?
Speaker B:Do you work out limiting beliefs?
Speaker B:Do you work out the crux of where?
Speaker B:Do you sort of go down the NLP route of finding the origin of where that thought arose and then tracing it back?
Speaker B:Or do you take like an example of something that happened recently?
Speaker B:How would you guide someone through that process of reframing?
Speaker B:I know it's context dependent, so maybe I should give you a example.
Speaker A:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker A:It is context dependent.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Well, I'll give you an example.
Speaker A:That's.
Speaker A:That's the best thing that I can give you in order to hopefully answer that question is that I've been working with a lady for a year.
Speaker A:I've actually worked with her for a year previously.
Speaker A:And something that she.
Speaker A:One of the things that she's really struggled with is how she thinks about herself and from this thinking, how it creates certain experiences that she doesn't want to have in her romantic life.
Speaker A:Now, what we've started or have been doing, not started, what we have been doing in the last couple of years really, is for her to see the misunderstandings that she has about herself.
Speaker A:So what I mean by this more specifically is like she Had a lot of thinking around, should I be this, Do I need to be this kind of woman?
Speaker A:Do I need to be softer?
Speaker A:Do I need to not say this to people?
Speaker A:So essentially there was a lot of thinking going on.
Speaker A:And in all of this thinking, anytime that we're, we have a lot of thinking, then what I've seen for myself and what I see in others is it creates a lot of muddled feelings in our body.
Speaker A:It creates a lot of anxiety, it can create a lot of fear.
Speaker A:And it's from that we might, you know, sabotage a relationship.
Speaker A:More specifically, giving examples here.
Speaker A:Relationship might end.
Speaker A:We're very anxious, very fearful in relationships.
Speaker A:So we're.
Speaker A:What we've been doing, what I've been doing with her is helping her to see the misunderstandings.
Speaker A:And once she's aware of how she's creating her experience via, for, via what she's thinking, moment to moment, and how that makes her feel.
Speaker A:And then from the feeling, how it creates the experience, perhaps reacting.
Speaker A:And again, this is the work that I do with people.
Speaker A:This is something that I talk to people about all of the time is when you're in that feeling of anxiety, how does it create your experience?
Speaker A:Oh, well, I messaged them 20 times.
Speaker A:Okay, well what we then go back to is the thinking that's creating that feeling in the first place.
Speaker A:So I wouldn't say it's NLP specifically from the approach.
Speaker A:The approach that I work from is something called the Free Principles.
Speaker A:And it's on, it's really on the basis I could talk about the Free principles for a really long time, but to keep it short, it's on the understanding that we create our experience from the inside out.
Speaker A:What I mean by this is for most of my life, I used to believe that things outside of me created how I felt.
Speaker A:But that's not true.
Speaker A:It's actually my thinking about, let's say, a relationship.
Speaker A:It's my thinking about any event, situation that might be occurring in my, in my life, in that present moment that is shaping my experience.
Speaker A:That is, that is telling me that perhaps this might be who I am because I'm experiencing this feeling.
Speaker A:So there's so many different layers and avenues that you can, you can go down that will help someone to create transformation in their life.
Speaker B:Is it like the chain of thinking, feeling, doing?
Speaker A:Is that it can be.
Speaker A:Again, it depends on like the context of what someone wants.
Speaker B:Yes, of course.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:And sometimes greater change can come from actually doing your work.
Speaker B:Your actions influenced your thoughts.
Speaker B:Now your actions influence your feelings, which Influence your thoughts as opposed to the other way around.
Speaker B:So there's some, in some circumstances there's merit in focusing on the thought initially and then in some circumstances there's merit on focusing on the actions initially and sort of going backwards, I think.
Speaker B:Right, let's move on to dating because that was what all the questions I sent were you about dating?
Speaker B:I didn't realize the empowerment aspect of your, of your coaching.
Speaker B:Apologies for that.
Speaker B:So who do you, do you primarily work with?
Speaker B:With men who are looking for dating advice?
Speaker A:Yes, I do.
Speaker A:Accidentally.
Speaker B:That's incredible.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's good.
Speaker B:Why do you think that is?
Speaker A:Well, I could tell you the story of how it came about accidentally.
Speaker A:If it's something that would definitely be.
Speaker B:Of interest, please do.
Speaker A:Cool.
Speaker A:Well, there's a remarkable man called Zamperion and he wrote a book, a remarkable book shout out to him in this book called the Alabaster Girl.
Speaker A:And essentially what this book is is him sharing.
Speaker A:It took him like 10 years or something to write this book.
Speaker A:He shares his experiences as a child at the start and his experiences with women.
Speaker A:And he was really self taught.
Speaker A:He didn't go, you know, go speak to a pickup artist or any men or anything like that.
Speaker A:He traveled and he had experiences with different women.
Speaker A:And he's really self taught in a sense of how he connects with women.
Speaker A:And I suppose the way that I see his philosophy, the way that I perceive it anyway, is around loving and appreciating women.
Speaker A:Now the thing is the way that I see this is that you can only be in appreciation and love for another human being if you have those feelings within yourself, first of all.
Speaker A:So when I read this book and I met him a couple of years later because I did a talk in Romania where he's, he's based to a group of men and I was sharing about my experiences and what I believe would help the men in the room.
Speaker A:And I said to him when I read this book a number of times, this is a really good reminder to read this book again.
Speaker A:I just said to him, like, how do you know these things about women?
Speaker A:Like, he was just so right in the things that he shared.
Speaker A:And I really loved the aspect of where he was coming from appreciation and understanding towards women.
Speaker A:It has nothing to do with manipulation, ego and some of this other stuff that we see on social media nowadays.
Speaker A:So yeah, I just got really inspired from reading this book and I started to share my own experiences primarily on Facebook where I was just writing and giving my own experiences, my own viewpoints as a Woman.
Speaker A:And from there, men started to message me and say, you know, can I.
Speaker A:Can I work with you?
Speaker A:Can we have a conversation?
Speaker A:I really like this, what you said here.
Speaker A:This is something that I'm really struggling with.
Speaker A:So I picked up things that I really found inspiring out of the book.
Speaker A:And I'm sure if I reread the book, there would be so much that I could that would really resonate with me that I want to share as, As a woman and to help.
Speaker A:To help men.
Speaker A:But combined with this, this reading this book and my understanding of the principles is that I've really seen that once a man knows who he is and he feels peaceful in his heart and he feels grounded and he knows who he really is, then that is what's really going to help him to have the dating and relationship experiences that he wants to have.
Speaker B:Do you just.
Speaker B:The bit I want to pick up on was when you said that.
Speaker B:What's the name of this guy that wrote the book again?
Speaker A:Zamperrian.
Speaker B:Zamperrion.
Speaker B:What a name.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:He said that he learned to appreciate women because presumably that doesn't mean put them on a pedestal to use a sort of colloquialism.
Speaker B:What.
Speaker B:What did he mean by that?
Speaker B:To appreciate them?
Speaker A:Yeah, you know, I've never really specifically heard him say that.
Speaker A:I mean, maybe I just haven't watched enough videos.
Speaker A:And when I met him in person, he wasn't saying that, but that.
Speaker A:That would be my own language that I would use to.
Speaker A:To describe him, you know, and yeah, I think.
Speaker A:I think the appreciation, right, is seeing them as human.
Speaker A:I think what a lot of men innocently do nowadays is they don't see the human in a woman.
Speaker A:They don't treat them like an equal.
Speaker A:And I talk about this a lot on TikTok, actually, which is where men, or innocently want to really come from a place where they're trying to get something from her.
Speaker A:Now, something that stood out in the book is that Xan made it very clear in his interactions that no matter what she or, you know, what she could do or give him in that moment, in that interaction, whether it be anything intimate or whether it be time or emotional or anything like that, he saw the human in front of him.
Speaker A:And I think this is something that is really missing in life today.
Speaker A:And I think, you know, the.
Speaker A:Something that I've experienced as a woman is when I've met men who have not tried to get anything from me and just treated me like a human being.
Speaker A:They've got a lot more from Me.
Speaker B:Okay, so the presence is sort of the non objectification and the grounded presence with your time together.
Speaker B:That is key.
Speaker B:Is presence a good word to use?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think the thing that is not helping men to feel that sense of presence and that connectedness, let's say, if he's talking to a woman, I don't know, a social event, for example, what's preventing him from feeling that presence and that connectedness is all of the thinking.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:I love how this goes back to thought.
Speaker A:All of the thinking men have said to me over the years, jess, you know, I was talking to her and I was just thinking so much.
Speaker A:It was so in my head, I was analyzing, what do I say now?
Speaker A:How do I impress her?
Speaker A:And a big part of my job in hearing that is to help him come deeper down into what he feels.
Speaker A:A lot of men have said to me, you just want to teach men how to be simps.
Speaker A:Not true.
Speaker A:I help men to balance the power of their head and their intellect and their analytical mind and their heart.
Speaker A:Because when you use this part of yourself only this part is not helpful when it comes to dating and relationships.
Speaker A:Now, going back to Xan, for example, when I actually met him, I could feel that he had the balance between his head and his heart.
Speaker A:There's an energy.
Speaker B:Masculine and the feminine isn't.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, there was an energy that was there.
Speaker B:There was a presence.
Speaker B:I like that.
Speaker B:Or from a Jungian perspective, maybe it's the integration of the shadow or something like that.
Speaker B:There's the balance between the two.
Speaker B:Where does.
Speaker B:Given all that, where does the stereotype of bad boys versus nice guys come from, then?
Speaker B:What gives that ammunition?
Speaker A:Yeah, that's very interesting because it has.
Speaker B:A lot of ammunition.
Speaker A:When you say ammunition, like, what.
Speaker A:What do you mean by that?
Speaker B:I mean anecdotal.
Speaker B:It's not even anecdotal, actually evidence pointing towards the allure of the bad boy.
Speaker B:So, for instance, it's well documented that young women fall prey to narcissistic men more than older women do.
Speaker B:That's like.
Speaker B:Well, in the psychological literature.
Speaker B:And then they go through like a.
Speaker B:Maybe a sort of.
Speaker B:I don't know what you would call it, a maturation or an evolution where they come out the other end and it isn't.
Speaker B:I don't think it's quite as simple as bad boy, nice guy.
Speaker B:I'm deliberately being flippant with you.
Speaker B:Now, don't.
Speaker B:Don't get annoyed being sort of facetious, but what do you think?
Speaker B:The.
Speaker B:I mean, I.
Speaker B:I have my ideas and it's a very sort of.
Speaker B:It's a bit of a cliched argument, but I am interested in.
Speaker B:Surely you get men saying, I.
Speaker B:I was kind, but maybe I was too kind and she didn't like it and she lost interest.
Speaker B:Surely you get men saying that to.
Speaker A:You all the time.
Speaker A:You wouldn't.
