2.4 Disconnection
Planted: September 1, 2022
Last tended: February 25, 2023
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Video Transcript
So to have all of this toxic shame inside us to have this feeling that we are fundamentally not good enough, which obviously results in all of this controlling and releasing and escapism because it, it is so painful. That’s the thing about this toxic shame to believe that you are flawed as a human being, to believe that, you know, you’re just walking around in the world and everyone else is just better than you, you are a failure to have that as your fundamental belief. And I know this is exaggerating a bit from how you’re probably feeling right now. But this is the root of toxic shame, its shame about ourselves as people. And to have that is obviously, as you’ve seen from the control and release, so painful, they can compel you to do all of these different ways of just coping with this. And it’s probably the second most painful thing, the most painful thing is revealing that you are not enough having people see it and confirm it. So what we do is we attempt to hide our true selves in order to prevent exposure, to have other people confirming that we’re not good enough, or confirming that we are inadequate is so, so painful, because it’s our biggest fear about ourselves. So our biggest fear is actually exposure, to be exposed to as have our true selves, be out there for everyone to see. So what happens is called disconnection, we disconnect with ourselves. And this is the scary thing, because actually, it’s not just exposure to others, that we fear, it’s exposure to ourselves is so painful to confront our own inadequacy, because to see it or to experience it, is to confirm it. And we really don’t want to do that it’s this deep down subconscious fear that we are not good enough. So we try and actually disconnect ourselves from who we really are, and create what’s known in psychology as a false self. This is just a mask that we present to the world in order to try to prevent exposure. And this doesn’t have to be a fully different person as is, this isn’t someone else inside your head, it’s still you, of course, there, there is a kind of scale to this. Most people will have just symptoms of this, just little things. Some people do have full blown full selves, and they become so disconnected from who they are. So a shame based person will try to present a mask to the world that says, either I’m perfect. And I don’t make mistakes, as we saw in in the control side of the control and release. Or they’ll just try and be a different person. It’s quite common to find people just lying for for no real reason. You know, there’s a story about a man who comes home and a wife says, Where have you been? And the truth was that he went to the cinema to see a film. Cause there’s nothing bad about that. But he just feels compelled to lie. And say he went to the shops for no real reason. This is from the book No more Mr. Nice Guy, he tells the story. And this lighting is just creating this kind of full self because of this shame about who we are. And as I said, this is from no more Mr. Nice Guy. The nice guy stereotype is a full self, it comes from this belief of having to kind of be nice, having to be having to help people having to care for people having to take care of other people, too, to be liked. Really, it comes from thinking, if I am nice, then people will like me. And I’ll have normal friends and relationships and a good life. If I am nice. I’ll be well liked. It comes from the belief that you have to be nice to be liked. It comes from that sense of being fundamentally not good enough. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with being nice. It’s a great thing. That’s not what this is about. It’s a compulsive need. And there are there are two sides of this almost a control and release analogy. One way this can come about is is from being convinced that everyone can see how bad he is. And he is convinced that his only hope for having any kind of happiness in life lies in trying his best to mask his inherent badness. And he never really believes anyone will buy into his mask. He believes everyone will see how bad he is but he doesn’t think he has any other choice. And the other way this can come about is by masking his toxic shame with a belief that all the good things he does makes him a good person. And this goes beyond niceness. This could include having your hair just right and being smart and being pleasant and, and speaking in a nice non threatening voice and looking unselfish and being different from other men and being in good shape and never getting angry and making other people happy. Being a good worker, or a good father, or a good Christian, or a good citizen, but probably a good Muslim too, or, or any religion. The point is that this person prevents presents the image of niceness or goodness, or whatever their idea of perfection is, as a way of dealing with shame. See, being perfect, trying to be perfect, whatever you think perfect might be, or trying to be superior to everyone else, or actually thinking that you are superior to everyone else. This is just disconnection. And of course, this leads to massive alienation. If you think you’re superior to everyone else, you find it really, really hard to connect with normal people, you become so lonely and disconnected from the world as well as yourself. And this disconnection is actually a massive, massive problem. So again, it’s this kind of image of being perfect. And the nice guy stereotype forms from thinking that being perfect is being nice. And another thing that can happen is if you don’t think that being being nice, is perfect, maybe you think being extremely masculine, is perfect. And this can happen for people who grow up with this conception that, you know, a real man is silent and decisive. And a real man never shows weakness or emotion or vulnerability. Real men don’t have flaws, you know, all of this, this is, this is an over identification with a part of us that does not allow room for wholeness. And also, this is actually a source of shame. Two men can be shamed for embracing their human vulnerability, a true integrated male, just accept himself wholly as he is. Remember, healthy shame is accepting that we are only human, we are not perfect, and we make mistakes. Toxic shame is lacking that humanity and humility, and that groundedness in reality. So if you grow up thinking you have to be extremely masculine, and that makes you good, then you’ll develop this kind of exaggerated masculinity side of your full self. If you grow up thinking that many masculine traits are bad. This is quite common. Your idea of good might be to be gentle, and sensitive, and caring. And you might think that you need to have those qualities to be good. That you’re not actually good if you’re just naturally you. So be careful of that night. I want you to think about your own full self. Think of the ways in which you’re trying to present an image of perfection to the world. Think of ways in which you’re trying to present an image of perfection to yourself. In what ways do you lie to yourself, maybe you deny your emotions, maybe you deny your weaknesses. Maybe you deny your basic needs, like sex and food. It’s pretty common with toxic shame to think that to have a sex drive is something to be ashamed of. And we’re going to look at that next.Note: 5:45 β Feeling genuinely superior to others comes from toxic shame; lacking that healthy sense of humility that comes from healthy shame, being disconnected from all the ways in which you are imperfect because confronting that is too painful.
Another mask is the βfunny guyβ. He believes that if he is funny, people will like him. He believes he needs to be funny. He is always looking for the joke in any situation. Humour is great of course, but not when you need it to be βgoodβ.
Source
Author(s) || Connor McGonigal
Website || howtostopbeingacuckold.com
Article || 2.4 Disconnection
Date || Between January 29th and November 14th, 2018
tags: [“evergreen”]
contributors: ["Connor McGonigal"]