{"id":3817,"date":"2013-01-20T12:01:44","date_gmt":"2013-01-20T17:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/?p=3817"},"modified":"2013-01-11T16:47:16","modified_gmt":"2013-01-11T21:47:16","slug":"do-you-feel-defective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/do-you-feel-defective.html","title":{"rendered":"Do You Feel Defective?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Today is Day 20 of my 31 Days of Self-Love posts to celebrate Self-Love Month<\/a><\/strong> with suggestions for jump-starting your own self-love and joining The Self-Love Movement<\/strong><\/a>\u2122.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I’m delighted to have Karen R. Koenig,<\/strong><\/a> LCSW, M.Ed., as my guest today. She\u2019s an expert on the psychology of eating\u2014the how and why, not the what of it. A psychotherapist, eating coach with a worldwide clientele, and an international author of four books on eating and weight, she has 30-plus years of experience successfully treating troubled eaters. Her practice is in Sarasota, Florida where she does eating coaching via the phone and Skype.<\/p>\n

Going From Feeling Defective To Self-Loving<\/strong>
\nBy Karen R. Koenig<\/a>, LCSW, M.Ed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sadly, many of my clients walk around feeling defective to the core. They may not use this word to describe themselves, and instead talk about feeling abnormal or unfixable, and that there is something gravely wrong with them. As a therapist, when I ask these clients if they feel defective, it\u2019s as if a light bulb goes on in their heads and they nod in agreement. This perception of being deeply and permanently flawed often drives shame-based behaviors such as binge-eating, drinking, illicit drug- taking, gambling, shopaholism, perpetrating violence, remaining a victim of violence\u2014and, in its own way, perfectionism.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s back up and see how such a sense of defectiveness might take hold in an individual. A belief in your lovability and self-worth\u2014or the lack of it\u2014comes from how you were taken care of growing up. If you were treated fairly and compassionately, you\u2019ll value and be fair and compassionate toward yourself.\u00a0 You\u2019ll recognize your faults and try to do better without aiming for an impossible perfection. You\u2019ll understand that you have strengths and weaknesses just like everyone else and that this balance is called being human.<\/p>\n

If you weren\u2019t treated with compassion and respect as a child, it\u2019s easy to grow up to feel unworthy and unlovable, and to come to erroneously believe that you are, at core, so defective that no matter what you do, you\u2019ll never be okay. After all, you might think, If my parents couldn\u2019t love me well, there must be something really wrong with me. Your misperception of not-okayness is understandable, but neither real nor evidence based.\u00a0 In fact, there is nothing wrong with you and never was. The real problem is your misperception that there\u2019s something intrinsically wrong with you.\u00a0 Get rid of that and you\u2019re fine\u2014as fine as the rest of us mixed bags.<\/p>\n

In order to understand the impact that your upbringing had on your ability to love yourself, try this exercise. Mentally walk out of the apartment or house you grew up in and go three doors down to the right, which we\u2019ll call door #1. Now come back to your front door and travel down three doors to the left, which we\u2019ll call door #2. Next, assuming that you have some sense of who lived there, consider what it would be like to have been raised by the person or people behind both doors.\u00a0 Maybe the folks behind door #1 were terrific\u2014caring, stable, loving, bright, successful, compassionate, and sensible, with good jobs and high self esteem. If so and you\u2019d been their child, you would have been cherished and adored and, consequently, would assume you were lovable.<\/p>\n

Next consider the person or people behind door #2. Let\u2019s say they were depressed or angry alcoholics who had little sense of what effective parenting entailed and even less ability to provide it. If you\u2019d been raised by them, they might occasionally have been kind and caring but, as often, might have criticized your every move or not paid attention to your physical or emotional needs. It\u2019s likely that as their child, you would have grown up feeling unloved and unlovable and downright defective.<\/p>\n

This is the family-of-origin lottery we all are entered in without our knowledge or consent. And, believe me, who you end up with as parents is nothing but a crapshoot. It\u2019s not about your inherent worth or lovability, but about how you were treated early on. Perhaps as a child you recognized that you had dysfunctional parents, dreaming of running away to live with your best friend\u2019s family or your first-grade teacher who treated you with compassion, fairness, and respect. Back then, you understood that other adults would treat you differently because they viewed you more positively and that there was another way to be parented that felt better\u2014that indeed was better.<\/p>\n

Consider how your mistaken sense of defectiveness manifests itself: driving your desire to be perfect and producing all-or-nothing thinking\u2014\u201cI\u2019m not perfect, so therefore, I must be defective,\u201d or, alternately, \u201cIf I do everything perfectly, no one will discover that I\u2019m a total mess.\u201d Forget perfect, which no one is or ever will be. Aim for better, improved, more skilled, good enough, but be very wary of the wish to be flawless. Paradoxically, that desire will just kick you back to square one, to Shamesville, and a world of perceived defectiveness.<\/p>\n

Rather than view yourself as permanently defective, look to develop a core belief that whatever you want to change (within reason), you can and will. Hate the fact that you\u2019re shy? Then work on becoming more outgoing.\u00a0 There are other qualities you might dislike in yourself\u2014you talk too much or don\u2019t stand up for yourself enough, aren\u2019t as smart as you wish to be, have trouble reaching your goals, aren\u2019t great at holding onto money, fear taking risks, cringe at small talk, or are too impulsive.\u00a0 Accept that each of these behaviors is changeable with patience, practice, and persistence.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re going to have to trust me on this, that is, the fact that you\u2019re not defective. You\u2019re worthwhile and valuable to your loved ones, yourself, and the rest of the planet. And because, like the rest of us, you\u2019re a mixture of fabulous and flawed, then there\u2019s no reason not to love yourself. Remember, no matter how many people tell you you\u2019re okay, that won\u2019t cure a case of defectiveness. Only self-love can do that.<\/p>\n

***************<\/p>\n

Join The <\/strong>Self-Love Movement\u2122<\/strong><\/a>! Take the 31 Days of Self-Love Commitment<\/strong><\/a> and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways<\/a><\/strong> for free at http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com<\/a><\/strong>. Read my 2012 31 Days of Self-Love Posts HERE<\/a><\/strong><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Please leave comments under my posts so we can stay connected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Day 20 of my 31 Days of Self-Love posts to celebrate Self-Love Month with suggestions for jump-starting your own self-love and joining The Self-Love Movement\u2122. I’m delighted to have Karen R. Koenig, LCSW, M.Ed., as my guest today. She\u2019s an expert on the psychology of eating\u2014the how and why, not the what of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[574,573,27],"class_list":["post-3817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nice-people-can-finish-first","tag-feeling-defective","tag-karen-r-koenig","tag-self-love"],"yoast_head":"\nDo You Feel Defective? - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2013\/01\/do-you-feel-defective.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Do You Feel Defective? - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Today is Day 20 of my 31 Days of Self-Love posts to celebrate Self-Love Month with suggestions for jump-starting your own self-love and joining The Self-Love Movement\u2122. 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