I Am Not of Value


A client named Roxanne complained of feeling tense, jittery, all day at work. She also felt depressed most of the time. I asked her if she thought she was good at her job. Her answer was no. ˜˜Do you bring value to your organization? ˜˜No, was her reply.

The best way to understand Roxanne is to think of her as having a running hypothesis in her head that she was not okay. When things occurred that contradicted her hypothesis, such as someone giving her a compliment on her work, she would dismiss it. She would chalk it up to the persons not really knowing the truth about her.

But whenever she made a mistake on the job, that was a different story. To her, it was evidence that her hypothesis was valid. She would quickly think to herself, ˜˜Yup, that proves it, and then shed become depressed.

How was Roxanne a fake? In her own mind, she was not worthy of her job. She had the job. On the surface, she behaved as though she was fine in the job. But her private view was that she was a fraud.

Not that she was aware of all of this, of course. No, like Daniel and Catherine, she just felt crummy most of the time but didnt know why.

People like she often have a self-image that holds them back. They believe, deep down, that they are really not of value. According to Nathaniel Branden, this is a sign of low self-esteem. Branden says there are two beliefs that are touchstones for healthy self-esteem: the belief that one is able, and the belief that one is worthy. Roxannes challenge was to learn to affirm the latter belief.

The origin of a low self-image can usually be traced to childhood. When parents fail to tell kids they are able and worthy, the kids have little reason to believe in themselves . But its not always a parenting issue. A series of problematic life experiences can cause the problem. Bosses who dont positively reinforce employees can contribute to low self-esteem.

This, of course, is a big problem, because bosses want people to have initiative and an ˜˜I can do this attitude.

In Roxannes case, there was the claim, ˜˜I am of low value. That made coaching her relatively easy. She just had to learn to accept her limitations and her strengths. We talked a lot about how this kind of self-acceptance, regardless of a lifetime of conditioning, can be effected through choice. When one sees ones pattern, and can rationally refute the logic behind the pattern, one is able to recognize a role for choice. Ultimately Roxanne was able to say, ˜˜I have a recurring line of thinking that proclaims my being of low value. However, rationally I know where this comes from and that it is not necessarily valid. I know that I am in my job for a reason. I will make mistakes. But I can choose my outlook. I choose to accept my history, my mistakes, and I choose to adopt an attitude of hope and faith in myself .

Sometimes its not that easy, however. Some people say, ˜˜I know I have a poor self-image, but no matter what I do, I cant change it. And they are able to bring forth convincing evidence of their position.

I cant help but think of a man named Frank. He and I reached that place in our relationship where he declared, ˜˜My self-image is terribly poor. I responded by pointing out that there may not be any need for him to hold that position.

˜˜After all, I said, ˜˜you are an engineer. You are a respected vice president of manufacturing in a much-respected company. You have friends and parents who love you.

Franks answer was simple and put me on the spot. ˜˜Look, he said, ˜˜we both know that by anybodys definition I am not very attractive. Ive never had a girlfriend and Im forty-seven years old. I have a pockmarked, unsymmetrical face, I am out of shape, and no female has ever been interested in me. Who am I trying to kid? I really am of no value.

Beyond the compassion that Im sure I expressed , through my eyes, I didnt have an immediate answer. I couldnt dismiss his claims out of hand. I knew the mission was to get him to accept himself for what he was. I knew we could and would explore social constructs and their artificiality. But his argument was that he wanted a woman and couldnt get one. And it hurt him deeply.

Where was Franks fakery? He spent his days with a gnawing regret over being alone. On the job, he was an impostor . He went about his day-to-day job pretending to be okay, whereas inside, he was a wreck.

We did work on self-acceptance. We did look at how the media construct social definitions for beauty. We did explore the possibility of acceptance. To keep him busy, I convinced him to be active outside of work. He joined a badminton club. Thats where he eventually met his wife. Thank goodness.

Frank, like Roxanne, had access to his feelings. Both of them had a poor self-image and they knew it. But that leads us to that group of people who have a poor self-image and dont know it.

William comes to mind. He was an extraordinarily successful man who came across as dynamic, powerful, controlling, bright, and together. However, William was psychologically addicted to marijuana and he had an absolutely terrible temper.

Where was his fraudulence? He was hurting inside. And he had completely masked his pain. We uncovered that his parents, during his childhood forty-five years prior, had virtually ignored him, largely due to the fact that his sibling was severely handicapped and needed a lot of their attention.

Williams problems faded away as he was able to attribute his problematic behaviors, one-by-one, to his feeling of emptiness inside. He realized that he was a dominating control freak because of his mistaken belief that if he wasnt in control, he would re-experience his childhood angst. He was a know-it-all because if he were perceived not to have answers, that, too, would take him back to his pain. His temper was volatile because his anger at being neglected was always just beneath the surface.




Face It. Recognizing and Conquering The Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict At Work
Face It. Recognizing and Conquering The Hidden Fear That Drives All Conflict At Work
ISBN: 814408354
EAN: N/A
Year: 2002
Pages: 134

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