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Scottydog
United Kingdom
330 Posts |
 Posted - 08/21/2006 : 08:04:51
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On BBC Raio 4 this morning psychologist Dorothy Rowe gave her views on Inferiority:
Whenever we do something that causes us nothing but pain we try never to that thing ever again.
If we go on and on doing something that causes us pain there is something in that situation that’s rewarding us, so if you want to change your behaviour ask yourself,
“What advantages do I get out of feeling inferior?”
There are many advantages:
If you feel inferior then you don’t have to take responsibility for anything because superior people will do that.
You can blame superior people when things go wrong because they haven’t dealt with them properly, it’s not your fault.
If you feel inferior you never lose a competition because you never enter.
Many inferior people, who might say that they lack self confidence, fear that if they became self confident then people would stop doing things for them, helping them, people would stop giving them wonderful comments about how really good they are and how wonderfully they did then.
You can be so sure of your special position, as being inferior, that you are oblivious to other people’s suffering, you don’t have to pity other people because you don’t even notice that there are other people in worse positions than yourself .....you’ve cornered the market on suffering.
Many people feel that because they feel inferior nobody likes them and they feel very much alone. Once they decide not to see themselves as inferior they cease being frightened of other people, they are not predicting that other people will reject them and we all know that once you have good relationships with other people, life becomes much more enjoyable because, in the end ,what matters most is how we feel about ourselves and our relationships with other people.
This seems a really commonsense approach. She's written several books which could be worth looking at.
Anne |
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jrnythpst
USA
134 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 13:53:48
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I see my old self in your posting Anne and have to say it makes a lot of sense. I was never really 100% that far gone with my feelings of being inferior (save for a one week period in High school and a few other times for maybe a few hours at a time).
I just read an article in the current Ladies Home Journal that speaks to the self confidence and fear factor. It was a really good article that made a LOT of sense. If there is a way to upload a file to the forum, and if anyone is interested I can try to scan the article into a wordpad or word format. It could very well be on their website as well www.lhj.com Anyway that doesn't do something (especially a lot of somethings) out of fear, I think could benefit from this article.
The main thing to remember is it doesn't matter if you succeed/accomplish the end goal but it's the fact that you tried. Just the fact you did something is usually enough to make you feel good about yourself. I know some will argue but think about it, the first time you rode a bike for a few feet you felt energized even if you didn't make it around the whole bike, the feeling and knowledge that you rode, even if for a few feet, was exhilerating.
Hugs,
Ali Cat |
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mhr74
USA
20 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 14:07:47
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| Ever read the books by Don Miguel Ruiz, starting with the Four Agreements? Great stuff on the universality of this topic, IMHO. |
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jrnythpst
USA
134 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2006 : 14:59:44
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Nope I have never heard of him but I will do my best to check it out. I am all for brain empowerment.
Hugs,
Ali Cat |
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On being inferior
