why trying harder to be better doesn't work
Wanting to improve isn’t inherently a bad ideal. I think it’s primarily helpful, but can also be hurtful. I think we were creatively designed to move towards wholeness and flourishing. We want to be our best selves. But I think we’ve become confused about how to get there. How is it that we become our best selves?
Well, here’s how you don’t become your best self— you buy into the notion that shaming yourself is going to get you there. What if the very thing that you’re relying on to get you there is actually the very thing that’s keeping you stuck and frustrated?
I love the example Curt Thompson uses in his book, “The Soul of Shame” (which you should read).
Thought you may have: 'I didn’t work hard enough.'
Normal human self-talk response: 'I need to work harder.'
The assumption, ‘I need to work harder’ is based on shame. It actually doubles back and becomes a shame-reinforcer instead of a helpful motivator. That’s usually not our intention (we wouldn't do it if that was the case), but it does often happen.
If we’re not careful (and self-aware), the notion of ‘trying harder’ becomes based on the assumption that we aren’t good enough as we are right now, this very moment. This assumption doesn’t exclusively live in the land of cognitions and self-talk, but in our felt experiences, the sensations and perceptions that we experience because of shame.
We are emotive beings. Emotions are primal, meaning that they develop early in the course of the development of our minds. They are also potent, meaning that they exist as a powerful force that influences our thoughts, behaviors, and nervous systems. You can deny them or downplay them, but the reality is that they’re running your show, whether you’re awake and watching, or asleep in the audience of your own life.
Trying harder to ‘get over’ something or pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps or downplaying painful emotions or hustling for self-worth and belonging ALL stem from the very thing we’re trying to avoid— shame. It’s a ruthless, self-reinforcing cycle.
Let me say it in a different way.
The way we are trying to cope with feelings of inadequacy only reinforces the feelings of inadequacy. Shame is self-reinforcing.
Let me give you a few examples.
Saying, ‘I shouldn’t be ashamed’ of (this part of me) only reinforces the shame because of the emotional undertone of judgment and condemnation.
Turning away from intimacy with your partner because the possibility of being seen or known by him/her might intensify or reactivate the shame that I feel/have felt leads to isolation and disconnection, which reinforces the felt sensation that I’m not good enough. If you’ve read anything else I’ve written, you know how much I resonate with this example. Because it’s my life. It’s also a cycle that I’m committed to breaking because I believe deep in my bones that we were created for intimacy and love.
These patterns become a part of us— a part of our nervous systems, a part of our hard-wiring. Shame lives in our limbic systems, or our emotional brains. It lives in the knot in our throats and the pain in our belly and the ache in our neck. This emotional world— that is both primal and potent— was never intended to be denied, suppressed or detached from. It was meant to be embraced, moved through, and met with compassion. Neuroscience AND spirituality both say so.
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I’m going to make a daring claim.
The most meaningful personal growth that you can engage in doesn’t involve hustling and striving and DOING. It involves surrender and acceptance and FEELING.
It means unclenched fingers and open hearts.
It means reconnecting to the parts of your soul that you separated from because it was too emotionally painful or scary to look at and rumble with.
It means risk-taking because learning to feel again is a profoundly courageous thing.
It means refusing to stay small and showing up. Every time we show up, we get a little bit braver.
It means lavishing yourself with so much empathy that your inner-critic has no choice but to RUN, even if just for a short moment.
It means vulnerability hangovers because true connection with another human only happens when we are truly seen.
It means being in the freaking arena— ALL THE TIME— knowing that you will get knocked down by critics who don’t understand and that’s OKAY because your standing in your truth— you’re standing your sacred space.
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No hustle.
No striving.
No DOING.
But surrendering, accepting, and feeling through all of it.
Carl Rogers says that we cannot change until we accept ourselves as we are right now.
Jesus says to surrender and accept the very thing we’re hustling so hard to get— love, a seal of approval and acceptance, an assurance of belonging. We have it. We belong and we matter because we belong to Him— Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. What would happen if we stood our truth and claimed our space as His beloved?
‘Trying harder to get better’ is rooted in shame and shame was never intended to help us grow, but to disintegrate, distract, and destroy. If you’re stuck in the self-reinforcing shame cycle, I want you to know that I empathize with you to the hundredth degree because I am WITH YOU. Hustling, striving, check-lists, ‘figuring it all out’, & ’thinking my way through it’ used to be the ONLY way I moved through this world. But, I’m done. Because point-blank, it doesn’t work. It is the EPITOME of a damn hamster on a wheel. So much work and only exhaustion in return. There is another way.
I am committing myself to growth through surrender, radical self-acceptance, and FEELING through all of it. Will you come with me?
Trying harder is not the antidote to shame. Empathy— towards the SELF— is.
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in love always,
Rach
“I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing that we will ever do.”
“Wholeheartedness. There are many tenets of wholeheartedness, but at its very core is vulnerability and worthiness; facing uncertainty, exposure, and emotional risks, and knowing that I am enough.”
Brene Brown