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The Universal Narrative: When You Feel Unworthy
A little boy was told by his father, from a young age, that he wasnât good enough. Not in so many words, but through his actions â by criticizing him, yelling at him, hitting him, leaving him.
The boy grew up into a man, knowing that he was unworthy of praise, of success, of love.
The boy, as an adult, got a job, but didnât really think he was good enough to do the job well. He faked it, deathly afraid every single day that he would be found out and mocked, then fired. He tried to hide, not to put himself in the spotlight, because then maybe no one would see his unworthiness.
But he was always deathly afraid of people seeing him fail. So he held himself back, careful not to do anything where he might fail. He put off taking on tough tasks, and formed a long habit of procrastination. This came to rule his life, affecting his health habits, financial habits, relationships.
The boy, now that he was an adult, got into a couple of long-term relationships, hoping to find someone to make him happy. He didnât believe he could make them happy or get them to love the true him, because he already knew he was unworthy of love. But maybe if he was really nice to them, and only showed them the good parts of him, theyâd think he was lovable. So he never tried to be truly honest, never found true intimacy, because he could only show them certain parts that might win him love.
And he was always ready for them to find out how bad he was, to leave him. In fact, he left them before that could happen. Or if he didnât leave them, he was only halfway in the relationship, one foot out the door. Ready to leave. Only partway committed. And in truth, they always felt that, and craved his full commitment.
This was true of every friendship, every professional relationship. He was never fully committed. Never fully honest, because he couldnât show his true self. Always anxious that others might know how unworthy he was. Always trying to prove how worthy he was, even if he knew he wasnât.
This is the story of Unworthiness. And it is fairly universal.
My Inner Narrative of Unworthiness
Itâs one of my longest-running inner narratives. That Iâm not good enough â that Iâm somehow unworthy to teach, to write books, to train people in uncertainty.
As Iâve worked with thousands of people in changing their lives, Iâve found this is one of the most common inner narratives there is.
Weâre unworthy. Unworthy of praise, of putting our work out there in the world, of leading a team or community, of creating something meaningful in the world. Weâre unworthy of success. Of happiness. Of peace. Of financial comfort. Of loving relationships. Weâre unworthy of love.
Weâre not good enough. Not good enough to tackle our toughest struggles. To change our addictions and old habits. To change our diet, to start exercising, to start meditating â or to stick to any of these for very long. Weâre not good enough to put our writing or art out in public. Weâre not good enough for others to recognize our accomplishments. Not good enough to write a book, start a podcast, put videos online, start an online business, start a nonprofit, create a thriving entrepreneurial empire, launch a startup, teach ourselves a really hard skill, pursue a lifelong dream.
Weâre not good enough, and weâre unworthy.
The Great Secret
Hereâs the thing: itâs all just a story, isnât it? Itâs a narrative in our heads that we replay, over and over, until it beats us down into submission.
The thoughts arenât true. Thereâs no objective panel of judges in the sky who have judged us unworthy. We just made up this story, and we pick out evidence to match the narrative. When someone says something remotely critical, we take it to heart, and offer it up as yet more proof that weâre not good enough.
The narrative isnât true. And worse, it hurts us in every single part of our lives. It means weâre only half in relationships, hiding ourselves, never honest, never fully committed. It makes us anxious, afraid of failure, never putting ourselves out there (at least, not fully, not honestly), and if we do put ourselves in public, itâs a performance, trying to prove our worthiness. It holds us back. It makes us procrastinate. Hurts our health. Makes us unhappy.
This is the Universal Narrative of Unworthiness, and itâs not true, and it hurts is deeply.
Unlearning the Story
So how do we stop believing this untrue, hurtful story that goes so deep we donât usually even realize itâs there?
Iâll share two practices that have helped me start to unravel the story, even if it still persists when Iâm not being vigilant.
The first practice: writing out a mantra and repeating it. This is something I use when my unworthiness narrative comes up around writing a book or public speaking.
When Iâm writing a book, the narrative inevitably asserts itself as something like, âNo one is going to find this book valuable, this is going to be terrible.â It makes it much harder to write the book and I get very g