Is It Shame, Guilt, or Low Self-Esteem? Understanding What’s Beneath ‘I’m Not Good Enough’.
Have you ever felt like no matter what you do, you never feel good enough? That creeping feeling may not just be guilt or low self-esteem, it could be toxic shame.
To help us understand what could be going on, let’s start with some definitions:
Low self-esteem is a negative self-evaluation that leaves us doubting our worth and competence.
Guilt is the feeling we get when we believe we’ve done something wrong. It can act as a moral compass and reminds us that we are human and fallible. I has an adaptive function since it can lead us to make amends or take reparative action. For example, if we feel bad for forgetting someone’s birthday, we can apologize and bake them a cake.
Shame is way more all encompassing. Instead of feeling like we did something wrong, it can whispers (or sometimes shout): “I am wrong.” This can pull us into a shame-spiral of self-blame, disconnection, and unworthiness through which anything we have ever felt bad about keeps replaying in our head like a horror film. It is so much more difficult to work through because it seeps into the core of our identity and becomes a way of being (Ashley, 2020).
Some experts call this internal storm chronic shame and view it as an embodied experience that often originates from early relational disconnection. In other words, if we didn’t receive the love or connection we were looking for as infants, we might have blamed ourselves and felt ashamed. This happens because infants depend on caregivers to survive and it can feel scary, and even threatening, to recognized that they are unable to meet our needs. To preserve our “fantasy bond” with them we can blame ourselves instead of recognizing that they have limitations. This might look like, “I wasn’t able to get the response I was looking for, so there must be something wrong with me” (DeYoung, 2022).
Where does the experience of “never feeling good enough” fit in? I view it as a messy soup that blends chronic shame, low self-esteem and guilt. It is the tip of the iceberg hinting that all kinds of experiences happened that make it hard for us to be comfortable with who we are. It can manifest as a never ending array of self improvement projects to finally feel pretty enough, smart enough, educated enough, fit enough, rich enough, skinny enough or whatever version of “good enough” we are grappling with on a specific day.
What is important to remember, though, is that feeling good enough goes way beyond meeting our self-improvement objectives “du jour”, since new versions of “I am not good enough” can just keep appearing.
Because shame is part of it, it is an all encompassing experience that is often preverbal and stored in our body and right brain. That is why talking our way out of it or “thinking positively” often doesn’t work. Since it is a multi-layered experience, it requires an integrative treatment that encompasses our somatic, emotional and cognitive layers. Therapy must go beyond words so that healing can address the relational and embodied nature of shame.
In our work this could look like:
Creating a safe (enough) space where you could eventually feel comfortable sharing the parts of yourself that make you feel “never good enough”;
Exploring ways to foster your self-compassion. (Yes, this includes meditations and bubble baths, but it can also be learning to set boundaries and to protect yourself);
Connecting with your emotions, even the more buried ones;
Looking at the early experiences that predisposed you to feeling shame;
Finding ways for you to partake in activities that align with our values;
Re-writing and embodying new stories.
If you are ready to take the next step, please reach out for a free consultation. I would love to connect.
References:
Ashley, (2020). Shame-Informed Therapy: Treatment Strategies to Overcome Core Shame and Reconstruct the Authentic Self. PESI Publishing & Media: Eau Claire.
DeYoung, P. A. (2022). Understanding and treating chronic shame: A relational/neurobiological approach. NY: Routledge.