Latest / Unlocking The Paradigm Portal / Be Real, Not Nice: You're Not Driven. You're Wounded. | The Unworthy Wound (Generational Wounds Series)

Transcript

Be Real, Not Nice: You're Not Driven. You're Wounded. | The Unworthy Wound (Generational Wounds Series) · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

• 0:00
  Good morning everyone, welcome back to unlocking the Paradigm
• 0:03
  portal. My name is Sarah.
• 0:05
  So my episodes are supposed to release at 6:00 in the morning.
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  And what I've realized is the stone that I've set for weeks
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  now is my 5:00 AM wake up and record time.
• 0:13
  And that is awesome because I really like getting up early.
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  But what I really don't like is feeling rushed to record and get
• 0:19
  it uploaded. So I am here to say if you set a
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  stone and or lay a stone and it starts to not work for you,
• 0:28
  pivot, just pivot. So I'm going back to recording
• 0:31
  in the evening and enjoying my mornings.
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  So this is going to be uploaded a little bit late.
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  Sorry about that. That's how it's working.
• 0:38
  So if you caught Sunday's deep dive up, it's episode.
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  Yesterday I was talking about Pandora's Box.
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  And I don't mean the cautionary tale, I mean the real one, the
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  one in real life, the one we're opening.
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  The box isn't the catastrophe, it's more liberation.
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  And what's at the bottom of the box after everything dark has
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  come out is hope. And this week we're taking that
• 1:00
  thread and going somewhere very specific with it because the box
• 1:04
  doesn't just contain random darkness.
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  The box contains very specific things like wounds.
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  Wounds are emotional scarring inside wounds that were handed
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  down before you were old enough to know you're receiving them.
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  And today I'm going to talk about the unworthy wound.
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  And now remember, this is a judgement free, shame free and
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  blame free zone. So some of these wounds were
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  actually inflicted upon you emotionally by people around
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  you. Some of them were your
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  perceptions of experiences. We don't know which one.
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  And ultimately, it doesn't matter.
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  What matters is that the wound is there.
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  So we're going to dive right in. You've been working twice as
• 1:45
  hard as you need to for your entire life.
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  Does that sound about right? I feel that one pretty hard.
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  And it's not because the work requires it.
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  It's because something inside of you decided a very long time ago
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  that the baseline version of you, that unpolished,
• 2:00
  unproductive, unaccomplished version, wasn't enough to
• 2:04
  justify taking up space. So you overcompensate and you
• 2:08
  over deliver, and you say yes when you mean no, and you shrink
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  when you should speak, and you apologize for existing in rooms
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  where no apology was required. And the worst part?
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  You've gotten so good at it that you've confused it with your
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  personality. And you call it being driven and
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  you call it being conscientious and you call it being a hard
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  worker. You have built an entire
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  identity around the compensation strategy for a wound you don't
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  even know you're carrying until today.
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  And that wound has a name, and it's the unworthy wound.
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  And it didn't start with you. By the way, that's a great book.
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  It didn't start with you on generational trauma, which is
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  exactly what the theme is this week.
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  I'll find the info and I'll link it in the notes.
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  So you are not working this hard because the work requires it.
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  You are working this hard because some part of you is
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  still trying to prove that you deserve to be here.
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  And the unworthy wound is this core belief.
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  It's not a thought. It's a belief deep down, that
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  who you are at the most fundamental level is not enough.
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  It's not enough to be loved without conditions.
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  It's not enough to be chosen without performance.
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  It's not enough to rest without guilt.
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  It's not enough to ask for what you need without apologizing for
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  the asking. And it is not the same as low
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  self esteem, although they often travel together.
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  Self esteem is about what you think of yourself, and the
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  unworthy wound is deeper than thought.
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  It's cellular. It lives in the body.
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  It's the thing that makes your stomach drop when someone pays
• 3:44
  you a genuine compliment and you get really uncomfortable because
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  some part of you knows they must be wrong.
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  It's the thing that makes you dismiss your own accomplishments
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  the moment they happen because the bar keeps moving and you
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  keep chasing it and you never quite arrive.
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  And it shows up as the voice that says, who do you think you
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  are? It shows up as the compulsion to
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  make yourself smaller in rooms where you deserve to take up
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  space. And it shows up as the inability
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  to receive compliments, help, love, rest, without immediately
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  deflecting or reciprocating, to neutralize that discomfort that
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  arises of being given something that you believe that you don't
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  deserve and that you haven't earned.
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  And here's the thing that makes it so insidious, which is really
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  the perfect word for it. I refer to it as insidious
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  tendrils of self doubt. The unworthy wound doesn't look
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  like a wound from the outside. From the outside it looks like
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  ambition and it looks like humility, and it looks like
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  being a good person who doesn't need a lot of recognition.
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  And the world rewards it. Your boss loves it.
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  Your relationships benefit from it until they don't.
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  But inside? Inside it is exhausting, and
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  inside it is the relentless grinding, never enough hum that
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  follows you from the moment you wake up to the moment you
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  finally let yourself sleep. You might actually have trouble
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  sleeping, now that I think about it.
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  The unworthy wound doesn't announce itself, it just makes
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  sure you never stop moving long enough to ask whether the race
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  was ever yours to run. So where did it come from?
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  The foundation of all of it. That's what every bit that of
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  the work that I do every day is excavating down to the root.
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  The root cause of wounding, the root cause of physical pain, the
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  root cause of any kind of somatic issues, nervous system
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  dysregulation. What is at the bottom of it?
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  No more treating the symptoms. Let's get to it.
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  And with with the wounds, they do not originate with you.
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  I need you to hear that very clearly.
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  You were not born believing you were unworthy.
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  If you know a baby, look at that baby.
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  Does that baby think that it's not worthy?
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  No, it screams and it demands and it takes up space without a
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  single apology because it came into the world knowing that it
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  needed and deserved love and attention.
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  So it does what it needs to to get that attention.
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  The unworthy wound is completely learned, and it was learned from
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  people who learned it from people who learned it from the
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  people before them. So we're going to trace it
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  because understanding where it came from is how you stop
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  passing it forward. So I'm going to start with the
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  Silent generation. And honestly, I started there
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  because my parents are silent generation.
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  And now I may actually take a little time and go into the
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  generations before, if they're even labeled.
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  I don't know that they are. So the Silent Generation were
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  the people born between roughly in 1928 and 1945, and they came
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  up in a world defined by survival, the depression, the
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  war. You didn't talk about your
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  feelings because feelings were a luxury, and you didn't ask for
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  what you needed because need was weakness, and weakness got you
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  killed, or at least left behind. And worth in that generation was
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  entirely contingent on what you produced and what you endured
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  without complaint. The message passed down through
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  action, if not through words, was this You earn your place.
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  You do not simply have it. And then we moved to the
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  boomers. And the boomers absorbed that
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  message and then they amplified it.
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  They grew up in the post war boom, the era of the American
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  dream, the house, the car, the job, the achievement.
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  Worth became synonymous with success.
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  So you were worthy if you were productive.
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  You were worthy if you were advancing, if you were winning,
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  and if you weren't, if you struggled, if you failed, if you
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  needed help, God forbid. That was a character flaw.
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  Pull yourself up, try harder, don't be a burden.
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  The Boomers handed their children two things.
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  Enormous work ethic, Stellar, intense work ethic, and the
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  quiet, persistent belief that love and worth are things to be
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  earned through performance. So Gen.
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  X, that's where Gen. X comes in.
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  This is my generation. Gen.
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  X took that wound and went underground with it.
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  The latchkey generation, the generation that was largely left
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  to figure it out alone because their parents were working or
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  divorcing or otherwise unavailable in the ways that
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  matter. So Gen.
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  X learned not to need. They learned that asking for
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  help was pointless or shameful or both.
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  And the unworthy wound in Gen. X looks like fierce independence
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  OR cynicism, or a refusal to be vulnerable.
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  That was a huge struggle for me for my entire life until
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  recently. Or a bone deep discomfort with
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  being cared for. And I know that one's resonating
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  with quite a few people right now.
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  It's not that you don't want to be cared for because you you
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  just physically can't. Caring for yourself was the only
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  reliable option. So it is having to learn an
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  entirely new map with a foreign language on it, too.
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  So then we go to millennials, and they got the twist.
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  The wound with A twist, so to speak.
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  They were told explicitly, repeatedly, that they were
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  special, that they could be anything, that they were worthy
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  of everything. And then they graduated into a
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  recession and discovered that the system didn't actually have
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  room for all of them. And the wound went from quiet to
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  deafening, because now it wasn't just that you might not be
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  enough, it was that you've been promised you were, and the world
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  disagreed. So the unworthy wounded
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  millennials looks like chronic overachievement, chasing
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  external validation that never quite satisfies.
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  Or like needing the metric to prove the worth because the
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  internal sense of it was never stable.
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  And then we move into Gen. Z.
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  So Gen. Z is inheriting all of it in
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  real time in public, on the Internet.
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  So I'm going to quick reference back to the interview I did with
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  Quinn a few weeks ago. I can't even, You're not losing
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  them, I think was the title of it, another Sunday deep dive
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  where we were talking about this, the challenges going on
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  with teenagers in Gen. Z right now.
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  So to everyone out there, please stop comparing your upbringing
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  and your life when you're an older generation to Gen.
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  Z. You don't have to like it.
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  You don't have to agree with it, but it's very, very different.
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  We didn't have the Internet with all of our stuff in full glory
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  bombarding us constantly with propaganda saying that we're not
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  good enough. And so Gen.
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  Z, that Internet, they have a measuring stick that updates
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  every 30 seconds with a highlight reel playing
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  constantly that their nervous systems have to compete with.
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  And the unworthy wound in Gen. Z is immediate, and it's
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  visible, and it is a brutal in a way that no previous generation
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  has had to navigate. Because now you don't just feel
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  unworthy privately, you watch the evidence of your
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  unworthiness accumulate in follower counts and engagement
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  rates and comparison loops that never end.
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  Different generations, different expressions, same wound, same
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  route, same question running underneath all of it, generation
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  after generation. Am I enough?
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  Just as I am. And the answer in most family
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  lines has been a resounding, unspoken no, and that no got
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  passed forward. Every generation has adapted the
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  wound to their era, but the wound itself never changed.
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  It just found new clothing. So here's what I want you to pay
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  attention to. Because the unworthy wound isn't
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  dramatic, and it doesn't show up as a crisis.
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  It shows up as 6:00 AM on a Monday morning.
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  And it shows up when someone pays you a genuine compliment.
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  And your first instinct before the thank you or before the
• 12:00
  smile is to find a reason that they're wrong.
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  And you immediately think of all the ways the thing they're
• 12:06
  complimenting isn't actually that good.
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  Sorry about the cars in the background.
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  I'm actually recording in my living room and apparently
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  traffic is crazy at 6:00 in the morning on a Monday.
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  So you deflect when you're when someone gives you a compliment,
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  you minimize. You say, oh, it was nothing, or
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  I had a lot of help, or you should see so and so's version,
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  or I really didn't do that much, or here's the one that I always
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  did. Can't everybody do all of this?
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  I mean, everyone does it because receiving the compliment fully
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  would require believing that you deserve it.
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  And that belief is not available if you have this wound.
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  And it shows up when you say yes to something you desperately
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  need to say no to, not because you want to help.
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  Because the idea of saying no, or of prioritizing yourself, or
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  of admitting that you have limits or of potentially
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  disappointing someone triggers a level of anxiety that is
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  completely disproportionate to the situation.
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  Because somewhere underneath that anxiety is the belief that
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  if you stop performing, and if you stop being useful and if you
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  stop delivering, the approval goes away.
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  And without the approval, what exactly are you worth?
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  Everyone who has a tendency or a challenge or a struggle with
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  people pleasing this wound is the underlying cause you have to
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  people please to prove your worth, and it shows up in how
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  you rest, or rather, how you don't.
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  The inability to sit down without a reason, or the guilt
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  that arrives the moment you stop being productive.
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  Or the way vacation feels like a performance of relaxation.
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  A performance rather than actual relaxation, because that
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  unworthy wound doesn't know what to do when there's nothing to
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  achieve. And rest feels like something
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  you have to earn, and you never quite feel like you've earned
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  it. And it shows up in your
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  relationship without asking, or with asking for help without
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  warning. Actually, the unworthy wound
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  makes asking for help feel like an admission of failure, or like
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  proof that you can't manage, or like something that will burden
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  the people around you and confirm their suspicion, or your
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  suspicion that you are too much or not enough, or somehow
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  deficient. So you don't ask, you figure it
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  out yourself, and you carry more than you should, and you call it
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  being capable. This wound is heavily in Gen.
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  X. It shows up in the way that you
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  talk about yourself when no one is listening.
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  The internal monologue, the running commentary, The way you
• 14:39
  replay conversations looking for evidence that you said the wrong
• 14:43
  thing or came across badly or missed some opportunity to prove
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  your worth. The way that you hold yourself
• 14:49
  to a standard of perfection that you would never apply to anyone
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  that you love. And it shows up in the
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  overcompensation, because the unworthy wound doesn't always
• 14:58
  look like smallness. Sometimes it looks like
• 15:01
  grandiosity. Sometimes it looks like the
• 15:04
  person who has to be the best, the loudest, the most
• 15:07
  accomplished, the one with all the answers, the one holding the
• 15:10
  microphone. Think about that.
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  Because if they ever stop performing excellence, the thing
• 15:17
  underneath might be visible, the thing that says I'm actually
• 15:20
  terrified that I'm not enough. So little side note, that's one
• 15:25
  of the reasons that I am doing this podcast is to heal this.
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  If you go back, you might notice there were days I was posting 2
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  episodes a day. And I learned you have to temper
• 15:35
  it. You have to have a structure and
• 15:37
  pace yourself. And the unworthy wound is not
• 15:41
  always the person who makes themselves small.
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  Sometimes it is the person who can never stop proving they're
• 15:46
  big. We see this in society a lot.
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  I'm not going to say who, but there are people who want to
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  prove how big they are. Yeah, look at it through this
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  light now. So here's what Pandora knew.
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  And here's the part of the story that matters for to day.
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  The scary thing wasn't what was in the box.
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  The scary thing was the moment before she opened it.
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  That threshold, that place where you know something is in there
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  and you haven't looked yet, and your mind has had time to make
• 16:15
  it as terrifying as possible. The imagination of what it might
• 16:20
  be inside is always worse than the thing itself.
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  It's the boogeyman at Schrodinger's box, the unworthy
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  wound. When you finally turn the lights
• 16:28
  on and look directly at it, it is almost never the monster you
• 16:32
  thought it was. What it actually is, underneath
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  all the compensation and the performance and the exhaustion
• 16:38
  is a child who was taught that love was conditional.
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  A child who learned through 1000 small interactions over years
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  and years that their worth was tied to their usefulness and
• 16:51
  that approval was something to be earned.
• 16:53
  And that need was dangerous. And that asking was burden, and
• 16:58
  that rest was laziness. And that being was not enough.
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  That doing was the only currency that mattered.
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  And that child was not wrong to learn those lessons.
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  That child was responding rationally to the environment
• 17:11
  that they were in. And the wound made sense when it
• 17:14
  was formed. And it was protective and it was
• 17:17
  adaptive and it helped you survive the particular family
• 17:19
  system that you were born into. But you are not in that family
• 17:23
  system any more. You are an adult.
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  And the strategy that kept you safe at 7:00 is the thing that
• 17:29
  is exhausting you at 35 or 45 or 55.
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  And the wound outlived its usefulness, and now it is
• 17:37
  running a program that no longer serves the life you are actually
• 17:40
  in. And when you see it, like really
• 17:43
  see it, something shifts. Not overnight and not
• 17:45
  completely, but the grip loosens because the wound only has power
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  in the dark. In the light, it is just
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  information. It is a story that was written
• 17:55
  about you before you had any say in the authorship.
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  And stories, once you can read them clearly, can be rewritten.
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  And what comes next after the seeing is not more work.
• 18:06
  It is not another thing to perform or achieve or fix.
• 18:09
  What comes next is something most people with unworthy wounds
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  have never been given permission to experience.
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  Rest. Real rest.
• 18:17
  The kind that doesn't have to be earned.
• 18:19
  The kind that is just yours because you exist, because you
• 18:22
  are a human being and not a human doing, and your worth was
• 18:27
  never actually tied to your output.
• 18:30
  Hope. The specific, stubborn,
• 18:32
  indestructible hope that is at the bottom of every box, under
• 18:35
  every wound, at the root of every generational story that
• 18:39
  anyone has ever been brave enough to examine.
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  That hope is yours. It was always yours, you just
• 18:44
  couldn't find it under everything that was piled on top
• 18:47
  of it. The wound kept you moving and
• 18:50
  the healing gives you permission to stop.
• 18:53
  And in the stopping, in the actual real urn stillness, you
• 18:57
  find what was there all along. So here's your assignment, your
• 19:02
  stone. It's two parts.
• 19:04
  We got a 2 parter today because they work together.
• 19:06
  Tonight before you go to sleep, I want you to write down three
• 19:10
  things that you've been calling. Fine.
• 19:13
  Not the catastrophic things, the quiet ones, that low grade hum
• 19:17
  you've gotten so used to that you stopped noticing it.
• 19:21
  The way you automatically apologize, the way you said yes
• 19:25
  when you meant to say no this week.
• 19:27
  The compliment you deflected. The rest you didn't take.
• 19:30
  Write them down, give them a name, don't analyze them, don't
• 19:35
  try to fix them. Just stop calling them.
• 19:36
  Fine. And then this week, the next
• 19:40
  time that you feel that familiar poll the pull to over deliver,
• 19:44
  to shrink, to apologize for something that required no
• 19:48
  apology, to work when you need to rest or to perform when you
• 19:52
  could just be pause for five seconds before you do it.
• 19:55
  You don't have to stop yourself. Don't force anything, but just
• 19:58
  notice. Name it while it's happening.
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  There it is. There's the wound running the
• 20:04
  show that noticing that 5 second pause between the trigger and
• 20:07
  the response is the crack in the door.
• 20:09
  It's the beginning of the light getting in.
• 20:12
  The box is already open. You are already braver than you
• 20:15
  think you are because you are here.
• 20:17
  You hit play, you're listening in.
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  Hell, you're still listening 20 minutes in.
• 20:21
  And that, that right there is the first act of someone who is
• 20:24
  done letting the wound be the author.
• 20:27
  So I will see you Wednesday. And we're going somewhere harder
• 20:30
  and it's going to be worth it. We're going to dive into the
• 20:33
  unlovable wound. So I will see you then.