Tara Brach has described many of us being under a trance of unworthiness so over the years we develop a particular blend of strategies designed to compensate us for feeling so unworthy. What are these strategies?
1. embarking on one self-improvement project, one after the other
2. holding back and play it safe rather than risking failure
3. withdrawing from our experience of being in the present moment
4. keeping busy and being distant from our pain
5. becoming our own worst critics
6. focusing on other people’s faults.
” The painful truth is that all of these strategies simply reinforce the very insecurities that sustain the trance of unworthiness. The more anxiously we tell ourselves stories about how we may fail or what is wrong with us or others, the more we deepen the grooves-the neural pathways-that generate feelings of deficiency.”
