Some time ago I had an interesting case study, I was helping a man who felt inferior, but also often "too much" in front of the group. That he had better be a little quieter or go away. Or that his presence was not important.
What is an inferior feeling?
When you suffer from feeling inferior, as above, it can be very double. You may feel that you are so not allowed to show yourself, but deep down the person you actually are is very cool and may be too much for the group around you.
But you may not show that, then.
Or that you show yourself, but that's not good enough.
At least you don't feel like you're allowed to show up, which was the feeling that the man I helped sat with. That he always had to walk within the lines. He does love himself, who he really is, but doesn't know why he can't show that, why it's not just right the way it is.
That feeling of not being good enough, then, often comes from comparing yourself to other people in the group and thinking somewhere that you are inadequate then[1]. There are even companies that capitalize on this so that you make purchases to make yourself feel a little more superior again, but that aside.
What causes feeling inferior?
So the feeling may come from comparing yourself to other people, but how you determine whether you pass the comparison depends on your beliefs. These generally originate in your childhood.
For example, the man I helped was not allowed by his parents to play soccer and he started playing korfball instead (where he often played soccer with the ball). Already there began the feeling of being rebellious and not really fitting in.
At age 11, he also had to go to another, stricter school with uniforms (this was in Belgium). This again prevented him from being himself. His parents wanted him to conform, but of course he did not.
In the past, you might have had to do what your parents told you and had to do all the things you didn't want to do.
Parents often project their desires onto their children. For example, I have four boys and thought: nice then they will play soccer. Not one of the boys plays soccer. They all do gymnastics. I like that now, but it's not what I expected. It is the way it is.
In addition, there is a correlation with feelings of shame[2], because if you don't do as you should, you feel ashamed.
So feeling inferior is actually a reaction to a situation or to people, in that you unconsciously begin to compare yourself and use a certain standard for this purpose that may be outdated.
For example, you no longer have to comply with your parents' rules, especially if you no longer live at home.
For example, I used to have to go to church and wear nice clothes; now I don't have to.
But that feeling of "do I fit in here and am I doing it right?" is still there. While that moment has long since passed. This is because you have those rules that you used to be taught somehow are still embedded in your unconscious.
What can you do to stop creating this feeling
First, it is helpful to know that when you are an adult you are allowed to create your own rules.
After all, life has no rules. You only have them in your head. If you decide to go out in a pink bathing suit, that's up to you. You might get a reaction, but you don't know what. You might even get new friends.
The rules of the past can linger for a very long time. Then you try to break free and be rebellious, but really you can have it all to yourself.
The realization that you get to know it all for yourself can be confusing at first.
For what?
Then you have to start asking yourself what you actually want. What do you want with your life? And then you can live by that.
This may be easier said than done when you are blocked by this feeling of inferiority.
Two Questions
In that case, you can ask these two questions.
- Imagine, they don't want you?
Then you might as well show what you can do, because it doesn't matter.
- Imagine if they did want you?
Then you can also show what you can do, because they want you.
Explore what's going right in your life
In addition, you are now an adult and already doing all kinds of things well. You probably have a job and friends, so you're good enough for many people.
The man I helped was a coach; his goal was to make people better. And not just anyone who was sick. People with chronic pain who were also entrepreneurs and needed to lead a team. He had clearly articulated his target audience.
Before this, he had set up pathways and had even achieved results with them.
I asked him if he would also feel inferior when meeting with all those clients. The answer, of course, was no.
About his work, he did not feel inferior.
In your group of clients, you don't feel inferior.
So why feel inferior in any other group?
Taking a moment to write down all the things you do well can go a long way toward reducing feelings of inferiority.
This helps you think about the cool things you're doing more often.
If you really feel inferior, lie under a bridge with a bottle of booze by your side.
Sometimes adapting to the situation is the best choice at the time
He also had a number of memories where adapting to the situation was best at the time.
For example, his relationship was over, but due to a death in his ex-in-law's family, they kept up appearances for a while. This may feel like deception and not the way it should be, but then consider that in addition to the funeral at that point, you will also get all sorts of whining about the end of the relationship. At that moment, keeping up appearances was the best solution.
In addition, he had accidentally impregnated a woman on a one-night stand and they chose to have an abortion. Again, something you might think is not as it should be. But they were both young. You're going to feel obligated to do something for that child anyway, and you may also get into an argument with the child's mother who you don't actually know well, because of the one-night stand. All kinds of drama in their lives they had avoided by making this difficult decision. That she also chose to have an abortion, because otherwise she wouldn't have done it, is actually something he can be thankful for.
If you suffer from feelings of inferiority because you think you should be ashamed of something, remember that you made the best choice at that time with the knowledge you had at that time (not the knowledge of today, but the knowledge of then).
Sometimes you also take a moment to do something for other people. After all, you are a social being and sometimes it's just the best decision to temporarily adapt. Afterwards, you can always say that things could have been done differently, but that's of no use to you now.
Acceptance is more convenient and those social adaptations also show that you are not a psychopath. That, in turn, is the opposite of someone who feels inferior.
Hypnotherapy
One way I helped the man I was helping was by taking a brief look into his life. When someone is in hypnosis you do this with regression. You then go back to the moment when you received the belief that you are not allowed to be yourself or that you are inferior.
In this man's case, those were multiple moments in his life, and sometimes as a therapist you take those leaps with your clients as well, to revisit all those moments and give them meaning again. Sometimes giving another suggestion for how someone can look at it is enough and sometimes it is more helpful when the person visualizes the situation and does something with it, such as empathizing with the people who are there
When someone suffers from feeling inferior, this can help you resolve those feelings and blockages. You then often literally feel lighter when this succeeds, as if a burden falls off your shoulders.
Want to learn more about hypnosis so you can help yourself or others? Then come to the free online hypnosis master class or enroll in one of our training courses.
Sources:
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0148296318302169
[2] http://ccare.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/An-exploration-of-shame-measures-I-the-other-as-shamer-scale.pdf
