觉得自己不够好：如何认识并从根本上治愈它

照片由 Warren Wong 提供

自卑的迹象

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.

不习惯自省的人往往不相信会有微妙的、早已被遗忘的童年情感在影响着他们。然而，他们的外部行为往往无法用理性的动机，甚至是本能，特别是健康而温暖的情感来很好地解释。以下是潜意识中的自卑感的一些表现形式：

• • 的 爱现, 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 …)

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

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

• • 自我批评过度自律

• • 另一方面，也可能有 无理取闹 (防御机制）

• • 傲慢 对他人、 过度自信 (补偿金)

• • 在世界上留下印记的巨大需求，一种 沽名钓誉

• • 希望我们的孩子与众不同

• • 一种 罪责 如果我们不完美

• • 寻求关注、争吵和 权力斗争 在社交媒体和其他地方

• • 易受 大权

• • distrust of one’s own opinion and feelings

• • 忘我

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

• • 接受 过度责任 以及帮助他人的不平衡需求

• • 面对批评、分歧，甚至人与人之间的普通分歧时，感到威胁、恐吓或怨恨

• • 爱上权威、不可得或自私的人

• • 洼地

• • 社交焦虑症/恐惧症

• • 受害者角色

• • 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 你的一部分 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.

有些人为了摆脱不想要的感觉，可能会把事情推向另一个极端。如果我们不是服从权威，而是开始不加批判地、非理性地违抗命令；如果我们试图更加信任自己，却最终不加批判地相信脑海中出现的任何感觉，这都不是健康的表现。只要存在证明自己的需要，或者类似的不安情绪，问题的根源就没有完全解决。

感觉自己不够好的可能原因

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:

• • 如果父母一方或双方过于自信和权威，即使在没有必要的情况下也是如此，包括不承认自己的错误

• • 如果父母一方由于某种原因没有足够的时间或兴趣陪伴孩子

• • 如果父母一方因任何情况不得不长期离家，特别是如果这种情况反复出现

• • 如果父母对孩子期望过高

• • 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

• • 如果父母需要孩子充当代孕伙伴甚至代孕父母（条款： 情感乱伦)

• • 如果父母偏爱另一个孩子或另一个家庭成员，而牺牲了孩子的利益

• • 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,

• • 如果父母本身就有自卑感，而孩子是通过模仿来学习父母的、

• • 如果孩子误解了父母的某一行为或意图

• • 父母过度保护，可能导致孩子觉得自己没有能力应对困难和挑战

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 儿童需要挑战.) 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.

不同人生阶段的自卑情结

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.

自卑感往往是在青春期第一次意识到的，因为那时同龄人的看法对我们来说特别重要，我们的自我形象也不稳定。但这并不意味着这些感觉是在那个时期首次产生的。自卑感越强烈、越普遍、越不合逻辑，就越有可能在更早的时候就产生了。

有时，年轻人在人生刚刚起步、充满希望和目标、坚信自己会证明自己的时候，可以成功地抑制自卑感。那么，所期望的自我价值感就可以投射到未来的成就上，并从这些成就的愿景中汲取。但是，无论你是否实现了这些目标，自卑感都不是来自外部，所以也无法从外部解决。

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”.

中年危机往往会让人试图摆脱这种感觉，因此有些人可能会觉得更需要向他人证明自己，而且往往是以不计后果的方式。他们可能会诉诸没有真爱的恋情、以地位和金钱而非真正的亲和力为动机的职业变化，或者冒险尝试快速致富。我们所做的任何事情，如果没有真正的内在热情，只是为了获得外界的关注、认可或重要感，通常都是出于自卑感。

如何治愈自卑感

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 健康动力 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.

为了能够活出真实的创造力，我们需要找到并 从内心深处树立自我价值感.这说起来容易做起来难，因为童年的印象和早期的情绪影响比理性更深层次。这需要 坚毅与奉献 从长远来看，这将有助于改善你与自己的关系。以下是一些最有效、最简单、最令人愉快的方法：

• • 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.

• • 关注你的内心，认识到你内心深处的特质。练习觉察并表达它们。

• • 认同你周围拥有健康自尊的人的观点。调查这种感觉，并将其应用到自己身上。

• • 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.

如果您愿意，我们可以帮助您解决所有这些问题，并采用个性化方法解决您的早期调节问题。

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