物足りなさを感じる：その根源に気づき、癒す方法

写真：ウォーレン・ウォン

劣等感の兆候

Feeling not good enough is one of the most fundamental, by far the most common feelings most people carry from their childhood. Many people are not aware they carry it within, because this feeling can manifest itself very subtly and is often masked by other emotions, such as arrogance, anger, ambition, guilt … Yet based on my experience with my clients and other people too, I think that at least two thirds, if not more, of human emotional and behavioral problems have their roots in a repressed sense of inferiority from childhood.

内観に慣れていない人は、子供の頃に忘れてしまった微妙な感情が自分に影響を与えているという考えをしばしば否定する。しかし、彼らの外見的な行動は、理性的な動機や本能ではうまく説明できないことが多く、特に健全で温かい感情では説明できない。潜在的な劣等感がどのように現れるかをいくつか挙げてみよう：

• • その 自己顕示欲, either in subtle or less subtle, constructive or destructive ways (e.g. through physical looks, money, career, cars, expensive clothes, number or social status of love partners …)

• • 羨望 of successful people or anyone who gets other people’s attention

• • the need to belittle and rationalize (deny) other people’s success

• • 自己批判過剰な自己管理

• • 一方で、次のようなこともある。 理不尽な反抗と不規律 (防衛機制）

• • 傲慢 他人に対して、 自信過剰 報酬

• • 世界に足跡を残したいという大きな欲求、つまり 社会的承認欲求

• • 子どもたちに特別な存在になってほしいという願い

• • を感じる。 有罪 完璧でなければ

• • 注目を浴びようとしたり、けんかしたり 権力闘争 ソーシャルメディアなどで

• • 感受性 権威

• • distrust of one’s own opinion and feelings

• • 滅私奉公

• • fear of what others will say (which often includes excessive control over one’s own children)

• • 受諾 過大な責任 他人を助けたいというアンバランスな欲求

• • 批判や意見の相違、あるいは人と人との普通の相違に直面したときに、脅威や威圧感、憤りを感じる。

• • 権威的な人、手に入らない人、利己的な人を好きになる

• • うつ病

• • 社交不安／恐怖症

• • 被害者役

• • an inner feeling of emptiness, self-indifference …

If you are prone to some of these feelings and behaviors, I recommend that you take some time to explore what is behind them. Feel what do you really hope for, what would the fulfillment of those urges mean to you emotionally? You don’t have to worry or feel ashamed if you discover there is あなたの一部 that believes you are not good enough; it’s a perfectly common feeling that doesn’t say anything bad about you. In fact, the more compassionate and innocent a child is, the easier it will be to develop a sense of inferiority in contact with unhealthy adults. That too can be solved with some effort.

These urges can be somewhat mixed with biological instincts, that is, the way in which a sense of inferiority will manifest can be determined in part by one’s biological instincts, which complicates things somewhat. People with a stronger inborn instinct to seek power and status will find it easier to resort to power struggles and status symbols in an attempt to suppress their sense of inferiority. Parental life values ​​and parental models of behavior also have a lot of influence on this.

望まない感情を取り除こうとするあまり、別の極端な行動に走る人もいる。権威に服従する代わりに、無批判で不合理な不服従を実践し始めたり、自分自身をもっと信頼しようとして、心に浮かんだどんな感情も無批判に信じてしまったりするのは、健康の表現とは言えない。自分を証明する必要性や、それに類する不安感が背景にある限り、問題の原因は完全には解決していない。

物足りなさを感じる原因

Feelings of inferiority are more easily developed in children and people who are more empathetic and cooperative by nature. Such people can easily identify with other people and their emotions, and give them importance, even if those other people behave unhealthily and irrationally. While doing so, empaths find it easier to ignore their own needs or blame themselves for problems, especially while they are still children trying to connect to their parents. In other words, a pronounced sense of inferiority and guilt from childhood often indicates that you are in fact an empathetic and responsible person. I don’t know how comforting it is just from a logical perspective, but that’s the way it is.

A child can easily feel unworthy, unimportant or “less than” even in well-meaning families from time to time, because a child’s perspective is needy and often exaggerated. Some of the circumstances in which feelings of inferiority can develop (besides in obvious cases such as circumstances of abuse, neglect, or excessive criticism) are:

• • 両親の一方または両方が、自分の過ちを認めないなど、その必要がないにもかかわらず、自信過剰で権威的に振る舞う場合。

• • 何らかの理由で、親が子どもに十分な時間を割けなかったり、関心を持てなかったりした場合。

• • 親が何らかの事情で長期間家を空けなければならない場合、特にそれが繰り返される場合。

• • 親が子どもに過大な期待を抱いている場合

• • if a parent does not understand and does not have patience for the stages of development of the child’s brain and expects the child to think, feel or act like an adult sooner than it’s realistic to expect

• • 親が代理パートナーとして、あるいは代理親として子供を必要とする場合（記事）： 感情的近親相姦)

• • 親が子供を犠牲にして、他の子供や他の家族を優遇している場合。

• • if there is any kind of chaos or instability in the family (fighting, divorce, illness, fear, grief, death …) due to which the child takes the blame upon him/herself, or tries to take on adult responsibilities

• • if parents act from a place of “moral high ground”

• • if a parent does not appreciate the child’s feelings and desires (this doesn’t mean the parents should do what a child wants; but it does mean that children need compassionate and thoughtful communication)

• • if some of the child’s innate characteristics (gender, appearance, intelligence, talents and affinities …) are not in line with the parents’ expectations,

• • 親自身が劣等感に苦しみ、子供がそれを模倣して学ぶ場合、

• • 子どもが親の特定の行動や意図を誤解した場合。

• • 親の過保護により、子どもが困難や試練に対処できないと感じることがある。

Parents reading this article may now think I’m asking for impossible perfection. But my intention is not to criticize. It is clear to me that modern life is too complicated for any parent to be perfect. Moreover, sometimes parents trying to be perfect end up overprotecting the child, and overprotecting, as I wrote above, can also result in feeling not good enough as well as various other problems. Nor is it good for parents to sacrifice their own boundaries and happiness too much, just to keep the child pleased all the time. Balance is always important, and balance does not always mean perfect feelings.

In essence, I do not think that recognizing and exposing a problem automatically means the problem should not exist at all, and should be suppressed by all means. Even if problems could be completely avoided – which as a rule is not possible – I think experiencing some problems is needed for our development and motivation. (Check out the article 子供たちには挑戦が必要だ.) That’s why not everything is up to parents – it is every adult’s responsibility to help themselves heal their self-image, once they grow up.

人生の各段階における劣等コンプレックス

Feeling “less than” may exist at the identity level – i.e. chronic and generalized – or it may be contextual, i.e.  may appear only occasionally in specific circumstances. What these circumstances will be, largely depends on the experiences in our early family, that is, what our parents valued or why they criticized us.

劣等感は思春期に初めて意識されることが多く、その時期は仲間からの評価が特に重要になり、自己イメージが不安定になる。しかし、これはその時期に初めて生まれた感情というわけではない。劣等感が強ければ強いほど、一般的で非論理的であればあるほど、それはさらに早い時期から生じている可能性が高い。

人生を歩み始めたばかりで、大きな希望と目標に満ちあふれ、自分自身を証明してみせるという信念に満ちているとき、若者は劣等感をうまく抑えられることがある。そうすれば、望ましい自己価値感を将来の業績に投影し、その業績のビジョンから引き出すことができる。しかし、その目標を達成しようがしまいが、劣等感は外からやってくるものではないので、外側で解決することもできない。

People who achieve their ambitions, can one day wake up and realize they still do not feel good enough, that successes have not driven away the underlying pain and emptiness. They may realize that they have wasted years of life chasing other people’s dreams and approval, instead of building their own identity and looking for their own path. Or they don’t realize it at all, so the need to prove themselves keeps driving them on and on. This can often be noticed in powerful and famous people in public life.

People who have failed to achieve their goals may (usually around their 30th or 40th birthday, when they begin to doubt themselves or lose hope) find themselves faced with a sudden resurgence of feelings of inferiority. They have to face a hidden self-image they had mostly successfully avoided until then. Considering it’s a childish self-image, it’s not just reasonable acceptance that we’re among the vast majority of people who aren’t “on top”; it is an irrational but intense feeling that we are flawed, that we are not good enough just by not being among “the best”.

中年の危機は、そのような感情から逃れようとすることが多いので、人によっては、しばしば無謀な方法で、他人に自分自身を証明する必要性を感じるかもしれない。真実の愛がないのに恋愛に走ったり、本当の親和性ではなく地位や金銭を動機とする転職をしたり、一攫千金を狙う危険な試みに走ったりすることもある。外から注目されたり、承認されたり、重要視されたりするために、内面的な熱意なしに行うことは、一般的に劣等感に突き動かされている。

劣等感の癒し方

It is very easy to give in to the urge to seek confirmation from the outside: through money, business success, relationships with popular people, and various power games, from physical violence, to all kinds of manipulation, to games like “I’m a such a victim, I suffer more than others!” Our upbringing, peers, the whole culture around us constantly subtly or less subtly urge us to seek external approval.

But even if we manage to prove ourselves in such ways, external success fails to fill the internal void. Many people lose interest and satisfaction in such success almost as soon as they achieve it, so they usually reorient themselves to some new goal, a new success – and it never ends, it’s never enough.

A 健康的なモチベーション for effort and achievement in the outside world is not the hope for recognition and approval of others, but inner inspiration, curiosity and pleasure in developing one’s own potentials. In that state of mind, we have no need to compare ourselves with others, but simply explore, follow our sense of interest and satisfaction, allow our creative urge to express itself. As soon as we start to wonder if what we are doing is good enough, if it will attract attention and recognition, it already means that we doubt our own worth.

本物の創造性を発揮するために必要なのは、自分自身を見つけることである。 内面から自己価値を高める.幼少期の印象や初期の感情的条件付けは、理性的なものよりも深いレベルで作用することを考えると、これは言うは易く行うは難しである。それには 根気と献身 長い目で見れば、自分自身との関係に取り組むことだ。ここでは、最も効果的で、しかもシンプルで楽しいアプローチをいくつか紹介しよう：

• • Imagine looking at yourself from the perspective of someone who loves you. That way, it’s easier to appreciate your virtues while forgiving yourself your flaws.

• • 自分のハートに集中し、ハートの核にある資質を認識する。それを意識し、表現する練習をする。

• • あなたの周りにいる、健全な自尊心を持っている人の視点に同調する。それがどのような感覚なのかを調べ、自分に当てはめてみる。

• • Imagine healthy parents who support you, value you and recognize your qualities. This is one of my favorite methods, given that our inner child still unconsciously follows our parents’ input even when we are already grown up.

もしご希望であれば、私たちはこれらすべてをお手伝いし、初期のコンディショニングを解決するために個別のアプローチを適用することができます。

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