#3- The Shame, Blame Cycle

We will be talking today about a really important topic; it's kind of a continuation of segment #1 titled “Not a Checklist!” Last week, we talked about how we often feel that life is a competition, & we feel the need to check off all the boxes on our checklist as quickly as possible. We ended off by saying that life is not a race, and instead, we should focus inwards on ourselves and our accomplishments.

Today, I would like to talk about the underlying feeling that comes with this thought process: "I need to check off boxes already.” (If you appreciate psychology, you’ll enjoy this!)

I call it The Shame Blame Cycle.

See, our thoughts lead to feelings. (and our feelings lead us to take action on those feelings, but that’s for another time.) And if we have a negative thought process, then the feelings that we experience will be quite negative. And this can become a vicious cycle, which can really crush our self-esteem, as we will soon see.

Let’s take it a step deeper.

For many people, subconsciously, the deep underlying emotion for the checking-off-boxes mindset is, -SHAME! Yes, shame.

Many of us, from when we were young, kind of had an idea of how we would like our lives to look. However, I don’t think any of us were hoping that on the "list" would be "struggling to get married!"

When our “plans” don’t pan out the way we would like them to, it can be pretty disheartening. And so, we start blaming ourselves. “There must be something wrong with me,” we think. Or, “I’m not enough!” or “The reason I’m not married yet is because…” We feel defective and inferior for not being able to get married already- something that at times seems to come so easily to others. And as more and more time goes by, with nothing happening, we feel more and more like a failure. Like we are worthless. And so, the shame, blame cycle continues.

Since we think we are a failure for not being married yet, we feel like a failure. Although this mindset is understandable (I do it too:)) it is completely FALSE!

For now, we’ve identified this subconscious feeling we have. In next week’s segment, we will IYH talk about what to do about it. Stay tuned!