Why Men Never Feel Good Enough (Wrestling with God)

I have my guitar here, so I'm going to play you a Catholic hymn later on called like a shepherd because that's exactly how I see and feel God in my life and how this good enough feeling and are you a good person it kind of answers the question. So one parental figures. We'll keep it quick in this video. Parental figures. If you had a mom or dad for guys specifically maybe a dad who you had to prove yourself to all the time. And you wanted to you always wanted approval to let them know you were here and maybe it wasn't recognized. So now in your business or the way you work you're craving significance. And that was me for sure. That's why I started a YouTube channel. I I wanted to be significant. I wanted to be known. I wanted to make a difference and I needed to do good to feel good all the time. I needed to take good actions, have good intentions and and if I didn't the day wasn't good enough. Therefore, I wasn't good enough. You see how how there's perfection in that? And there's exhaustion in that. And there's a an inner dialogue that just won't be quiet with that kind of mindset. That to feel good enough and to be good enough you only can do good things. No room for mistakes. No room for taking a day off. If you have gifts from God and and talents well you better use them or else. Yeah? So there there can be a guilt there as well when you make mistakes, when you don't live up to your potential. This is all hustle culture too. You can't turn your brain off because when you sleep even you're missing out on your potential. You're missing out on productivity. You're missing out on being good to going to great. And man is that tiresome and that's that is not meant for um average human beings like ourselves. So if you grew up with in a in a household where you had to prove yourself and you were punished when you weren't good enough. You're punished for mistakes. This can trickle in at times in adulthood. Where you still beat yourself up for mistakes. You still feel judged when you're not living up to your potential. You still feel judged when you make a mistake. You feel like you're being watched. And that's what we call this inner critic. It's watching you. It's poking holes in your story. It's waiting for a little crack to get in and when you make a mistake it's going to blow that up out of proportion and say you're not enough. I told you so. If you were good enough you wouldn't have made a mistake. See? The I'm good. You're a good person because you're a human being. Because as Christians we believe you were made in the image of God. You have a value right away. And you can tell by by I I you know I was I was at the mall. I was at Yorkdale in Toronto looking for a sofa. We got a house and uh you see all the people doing their errands and with the kids and you know kids screaming for ice cream and then couples disagree on the colors of the couches and beds and people at the food court cuz they're hungry. The world is passing you by and you're in it. All the people I see have value. I see good people there. They're doing good. And then I come downtown Toronto and then there is homeless people. There's people by CAMH, the Center of Addiction and Mental Health. And they're screaming at the top of their lungs having possibly a psychotic episode or some kind of induced psychosis. And then you have a homeless person begging. Do they have any less value? Are there are they any less good than the people at the mall? Exactly. No, they're not. That's not the way we as Christians see it and I'm sure even if you're not Christian here uh you don't believe that either. So why are you any different? Why are you any different? Wouldn't you be good the moment if tragedy struck me and I lost the house and we lost everything? Would I become less good? Of course not. Of course not. But there's this enoughness that we constantly chase and when it's healthy it is good to chase being better. The improvement, the learning, the getting to know yourself, the inner work. This is good. But when it's at the full cost of any satisfaction that you feel, any happiness and joy that you feel, that's where it goes wrong. That's where inner criticism takes over. And you become so identified with the judgmental voice that you may have soaked in from parents or male role models, anything like that and it becomes your personality, becomes the only inner voice you feel. And now where do we find relief? Let's go to number two and to God. >> [snorts] >> If it's a healthy relationship with this all-knowing, benevolent, compassionate, unconditional loving being well you get relief from that inner criticism. And that's why people pray. That's why people sit with this unknowing force and feel relief because finally when you pray to God, this all-knowing loving being, you take the attention off yourself. The inner critic gets a rest. And when you create that space for God in there then unconditional love fills those gaps of mistakes and judgment and hatred instead of the inner criticism going in and filling in those gaps where you made mistakes. Does that make sense? So that's one idea of it. But when we don't feel like we're good people sometimes the relationship we have with God isn't a healthy one. That I'm lucky enough to have grown up and still go to amazing Catholic churches. And the priests are awesome and it's not about original sin. It's not about you're a sinner. It's not about beg for mercy. It's not about I'm not worthy, humble yourself. I don't believe in this. This is what adds to the judgmental attitude of ourselves and we live in complete fear. And I wonder if this helps you embody the grace of God by feeling judged. It doesn't for me. It doesn't for me. And all the hymns and the Psalms and the New Testament and Christ's teachings this is what I go to. I'll go to scripture and see what it says. I'm not a big fan of Old Testament stuff. I'm not. Okay? Like you can reference that but the New Testament and Christ's words and the historical Jesus go to that. And people are so obsessed with Paul and the revelation on the road to Damascus. Why wouldn't you go to the source of Christ's words? Why only listen to Paul and what he said? And the church is based off of so much of Paul cuz he wrote most of the New Testament. So I wonder what your relationship is with this God you do believe in in Christianity. And is it helping you embody Christ-like actions and thoughts and consciousness and presence, compassionate presence? Or are you feeling judged and guilty? You know there's there's the guilt, the Catholic guilt if you didn't go to church every Sunday. You know you better go when next time you see the priest you better go to confession. I didn't show for church and do five Hail Marys and five Our Fathers. It's different now. I'm not sure if your church is different. But it's only healthy to not have completely rigid and closed off beliefs. That's what Jesus it's a whole thing of Christ's mission was with the Pharisees. These were closed off just rigid beliefs about the law and we live for the law and that's only what we do and we cannot be challenged. We believe what we believe and that's it. And to be closed off to that is to be closed off to any new spiritual experience. Any new psychological experience. Any new experience biologically and neurochemically which is what my work is about is combining neuroscience with Catholic spirituality and mindfulness. And if we can be open to experiencing God in a new way and maybe a way that again helps us embody this loving compassionate presence. That's what changes people. When you see, you know, I'm not a fan of the evangelical movement in this but you see, you know, when I would go down to the states and these big signs of Jesus saves and you know all of this and that's where all the money goes to these preachers and these big mega churches. Okay? The the churches I go to, the Catholic churches I don't know none of these priests have mansions. They have little little monk beds attached to the church. And they don't have they don't have cottages, you know, and they went to seminary and they stayed in their little beds there. And you know, this is this is my experience, okay? Um but I'm not ignoring the fact that the Catholic church has all the real estate and amazing churches in Rome and oh my goodness, I can't wait to go back. The architecture and the artwork and oh my goodness. Um But I the reason I'm saying this is one we have the parental figures for that judgmental, I'm not good enough mind and I wonder if God and your image of God and definition of God is making you not feel like enough either. That's all I'm asking you. And that's a question you can ask yourself and that's a question that I deal with and I wrestle with and I work on. What's the God I believe is true? The one that I want to believe is true as well. The one that speaks truth into me. You know? And based on Christ's message and what he said and what what he came to do and what he believed in himself. The focus only on sin and where you went wrong and what's wrong with you and you're a broken human being and you were born into sin. I don't know how that narrative works for you. Maybe it does because it does motivate us to a degree to do well. But a lot of us are predisposed to again this negative inner critic that doesn't turn off and we can't get any good rest and we can't sleep and our mind and body is completely jacked up with cortisol non-stop because of this judgment. Because we attack ourselves and then we seek forgiveness and we feel like we're being attacked again. So the best way I can describe how I see God at times is the song like a shepherd. Forgive my guitar skills, but the tab is on here. Um It's C. Like [singing] a shepherd he feeds his [music] flock and gathers the lambs in his [singing] arms. Holding them carefully [singing] close to his [music] heart. Leading them home. >> [music] >> Like a shepherd he feeds his flock and carries the lambs in his arms. Holding them carefully close to his heart leading them home. Hm? Is that a compassionate image of God? Is that a compassionate image of love and caring? The parental figure of holding you softly in your arms leading you home? Leading you to your compassionate authentic self? See, leading you home. Listen to the lyric. I forget what Psalm this comes from. Leading you home. It doesn't focus on what it's leading you away from, away from sin, away from your shittiness. No, leading you home. Let's focus on what we're going towards. Not always what we're moving away from. And this is the challenge with self-improvement and and the coaching I do with guys is we're always focused on what we don't want to do. What we're moving away from, what we hate about ourselves, what we want to improve. Let's do some orientation towards what we want first. And when we're focused on that and we move towards that, the stuff we hate and the stuff we disapprove about ourselves that gets chipped away just by us moving in a different direction. Cuz we oh, because I want this and I'm moving towards it, I just can't hold on to this anymore. It's just not useful anymore. Take things out of the backpack. Okay? So let's go back to the main idea here and Scott is talking today. Are you good? I can't tell you that. I can't tell you what to believe. Okay? Intellectually again, it is a completely different experience to say I'm good intellectually and this idea I have of God intellectually, scriptures intellectual, the stories intellectual. What do you feel and sense about yourself? That's the game, guys. That's the game. That's what we've lost. The connection to our self. Leading us home. Can you come home to yourself? Can you be in the world and not of the world, said Jesus. Because the world keeps pulling us out. Buy this, do this, value this, right? Keep up with the Joneses here. Make sure you don't drive the Ford, it must be the Mercedes, but if you drive the Mercedes, you better just go right for the next model. You better work for this company cuz if you work for that one, you're going to look like an idiot. I remember I felt so cool working for Twitter back in the day. I felt so cool to tell people that. And as you get older you don't give a [ __ ] It's [laughter] a It's a company. It's a company. It's just a bunch of people working on a thing. It does it that has no relevance whatsoever anymore. So can you come home to yourself and be a lamb in his arms and come home to yourself and say do I believe I'm good? Does God love me? Does God like me? What does this mean me as my authentic self? And not only doing worksheets and asking yourself these questions, guys, but sit with yourself. Close your eyes for a moment. Feel what's there in your body. This is the felt sense of emotional focusing. So with a lot of coaches, guys, you may be invited on calls and it might be just one call or two calls and you just talk about goals. Talk about what you're doing, what you don't like, what you like, what way you want to move, what's wrong. Cool, if that's your flavor, great. What I do is I work with you one-on-one. I don't want to do groups anymore because this works so well as one-on-one for eight weeks through a specific non-cookie cutter, it's not you get the same thing as Joe and Joe gets the same thing as as Dan. No, everyone gets something different, but what we do is the phase one of preparing the soil, the phase two of sowing the seeds and the phase three of integration of the harvest. Right? So we have to be present in awareness and practice that first and then we add in the cognitive tools. Right? So it's not just doing worksheets, you have to embody things first. You have to know what your body feels like first. And what does society value? It's all intellectual. We value the intellect. Of course we do. 99% of jobs value the intellect. What do you know? Okay? You walk around, none of this could have happened without intellectual human beings and ideas. Of course. But there's such a lack of balance. That's all it is. We don't know how we feel anymore. We don't feel connected to ourselves anymore. So when someone says, do you want this, what do you need, a lot of us have no idea. Cuz there's this barrier between our authentic self and everything we've read online and watch [ __ ] videos about about what a man should be, what masculinity means, what you should value, what you should have by this age, what you should be. Mhm, right? The milestones you should have achieved by now. And if you look back and you don't see that many milestones done and boxes ticked off uh-oh. I am not good. I'm not a good person. I didn't do enough good. I've insulted the creator. I didn't live up to my potential. All of these things and what do we call that again, guys? Inner criticism. Let's Let's label it for what it is. It's a voice that doesn't want you to move forward, that doesn't want you to forgive yourself in the past. Uh-huh, that wants you to keep feeling judged and watched and monitored. That doesn't want you free. That wants you on a very rigid path. And you can't sway this way or this way. You can't try this or this. No, no, it's too risky. Stay real rigid. Is that the shepherd? Is that what the shepherd would want for you? On eagles' wings? You flying with God on eagles' wings? Exploring the world? I always look to Catholic hymns. If you look at my Spotify wrapped of last [laughter] year, it's all Catholic hymns. It's be not afraid, it's like a shepherd, it's here I am, Lord. It's beautiful. You are mine. So a big thing in in my work, but but in your exploration at this [clears throat] time and I still I'm still exploring as well. Um you know, for the last five years I've gone to church almost every day and it's not necessarily to the mass, it's St. Mary's opens at 4:00 and after work I just go sit and and be in that space. We have to get clear, or maybe you need to get clearer on your idea here. And see, okay, if if I don't feel good enough, why is that? Why don't I feel good? And you bring up that example again that I that I gave you with that with the homeless person. The person that doesn't have as much as you. The person that has a lot more than you. The person that has better health than you. The person that has worse health. Do we all have value? Are we all good in intention? Are we all made in the image of God? Does God like you? And love you? See? See how this all comes together? You see how the parental figure that we grew up with can then morph into the parental figure of how we see God? And most people have this idea of the father of God as being real judgemental and harsh. But then we see the Jesus, and we can get more on board with that. As, you know, the spirit became flesh. God became part of the world. So, we can we can really imagine and come together with that image, which is why it's so powerful. And based on the Gospels, we can get an idea of this is what he said. This is what he believed. This is how he treated people. This is what he said was important. These were the top two commandments that he just talked about. We So, if you can get on board with that, how does that transfer then to the almighty? Why would it automatically go to massive judgement and wrath? See, in my in my journey, guys, there's always tweaking. There's always parts we can improve about ourselves and how we treat others. But what's the real game here? What do we all What are we trying to accomplish? And I I I I ask myself that, too. When I'm on a call with somebody, and I have to ask them that. What do What's the goal here? What are you trying to accomplish? Changing the inner voice, yes. The inner criticism, how can I be my own ally and best friend? Why am I always putting myself down? What's What's What's the goal then? When you're When you're on your side, then what? Oh, then oh my Well, if I embody this more positive and loving and not even positive, but compassionate and grounded, humble man, grounded man, I'll be a better husband cuz I'll be present and and listening to my wife as she speaks. Oh! Ask any Ask any woman, what do you want most? I just want to be seen. I want to be heard. I want to be listened to. Oh my gosh, you got it made if you can focus. But if we focus and then oh, we go back to work and we focus and oh, I forgot about that and we focus and we go there. Right? So, it's a mindfulness practice, too. But when we focus on that inner critic and get your voice on your side, it's much easier to focus and be present. Okay, what else? Oh, I'd I'd I'd be I'd be happier being with my son or daughter. Or at work, I could get more done and and, you know, be more present there. And when I fail, I won't beat myself up so I can really recover a lot faster over that. Okay, that's where we get to. So, to have an outcome in mind here, too, of can I see my parents differently? And can I feel God a little differently? I know these are big questions. These are big questions. And please, be gentle with yourself if you're in the middle of these things. Please, please, please. You know, this this takes time and it's a it's a lifelong experience and quest. You know, I don't think we ever get to know know. That's why we continue on. It's that urge. The deep urge to know. Because it's all uncertain and it's all a mystery. And I've told you all that before years ago when I started talking about Catholicism a little bit. Even though I finally am out of the Catholic closet, uh so to speak. And you know, I would talk about how in a mass, the priest sings the mystery of faith. Like right there, we agree. It's a mystery. It's a mystery. Historical facts, all of this, it's still a mystery. You never know 100%. It's a mystery to me right now whether or not I don't know. This condo could come down. It could. It could. The next blood test I have could come out not too great. Yeah? Like we Everything is mysterious to a degree. And to admit that means you be gentle with yourself. And if you're like me and have influencers and people on your Instagram and YouTube feed that are so certain they know, um be careful. Because in my opinion, in my work the last decade, I think it's a bunch of [ __ ] >> [laughter] >> It's their truth. It's what they believe that's it's what they believe. It's not It's not my It's not my belief. It's not. I am into the mystery. I'm into how we can feel good about ourselves. Be your own friend as well. Have a safe, nurturing relationship with this omnipresent being. You're a good person. >> [clears throat] >> Sometimes we need to hear it from someone else, even if they're across the world or in a different country. All you in the United States. You're a good person. You are. And with that, there's actually no mystery there. Finally. That's the whole point. 28 minutes later. That's the whole point. It's the whole point of this whole episode. The one thing I can say with absolute certainty, it's not the condo, not going down, it's not the blood test. No, the one thing I can say with complete certainty is that you're a good person. I'll see you next time. Bye, guys.