4. The Neuroscience of “I AM WORTHLESS”

It’s not simply my opinion that SELF judgment is detrimental to the SELF. The deleterious impact of SELF criticism on both our minds and bodies can now be scientifically verified.

Discoveries made through neuroscience demonstrate that the way we perceive an external threat such as a dangerous predator is the same way we register an internal threat such as a SELF critical thought. 

This means that as far as the brain and body are concerned, there’s not much difference between the SELF critical thought, “I AM WORTHLESS,” and an actual live grizzly bear.

Allow me to explain…

You’re walking through the woods when you stumble upon a mama grizzly and her two adorable cubs. Without even thinking, your eyes send a signal to your nervous system, which sets off a cascade of physiological reactions otherwise known as the “fight or flight” response. 

Your heart pumps faster, the airways in your lungs open wider, sweat pools in the palms of your hands, stored glucose in your cells floods into your blood stream. All of these changes happen in a matter of seconds and are designed to help you fight or flee the external threat, the grizzly.

You choose wisely and opt for the latter—flight—and take off running. Mama bear calculates that you’re not worth abandoning her cubs for and you get away. You survive.

This is the way we humans (and other mammals) have survived for millions of years. Through the hard-wiring of an ancient, ingeniously choreographed survival system that’s both efficient and effective. Unfortunately, however, it’s also costly.

Defending your SELF against any external threat takes both a physical and emotional toll on the body and mind, on your outside SELF and inside SELF. 

Energy reserves become depleted and stress hormones in the brain get released into the body. Such hormones are essential for accomplishing the short-term goal of surviving a chance encounter with a grizzly, but are toxic when delivered in large doses for long periods of time.

This is one reason why people who live in poor and dangerous places have a shorter lifespan than people who live in rich and safe places. Those who persistently live with less, under constant threat, exist in a perpetual state of hyper arousal, trapped in a never-ending mode of fight or flight. The end result is higher rates of both physical and mental illness.

Our survival system works well when we can return to a peaceful and plentiful place after the threat subsides, but when we’re unable to escape the danger, it can be lethal.

But what about the internal threat, the SELF critical thought? Why and how is “I AM WORTHLESS” anything like the peril posed by a ferocious, wild animal?

To answer these questions, you have to understand the crucial role that social connection plays in the survival of the human species. Human beings are deeply social creatures. In addition to oxygen, food and water, we need love and connection to survive. We need a clan—a family, and we need a tribe—a community.

When we’re unable to develop or maintain supportive relationships, particularly in early childhood, we fail to thrive. We die.

And so, just as our survival system is constructed to fend off physical threat, it’s similarly structured to ward off social danger. Being shunned, cast out, disowned or rejected is just as relevant to the human brain and body as the grizzly because it risks our social survival.

This is where “I AM WORTHLESS” comes in. While such a thought may seem impotent (after all, it’s just a thought) it actually serves to catapult us into action. With a chorus of “I AM WORTHLESS” playing in the background, we get to work making our SELVES as socially acceptable as possible, striving to become everything that those around us hold dear. Productive, beautiful, successful, powerful.

At first, it seems “I AM WORTHLESS” is helping us. For example, such negative SELF assessment may drive our productivity. And when productivity is both valued by our family and protective in our community, it not only gives us our worth, but also ensures our safety. We’re all good, we’re all golden, as long as we’re productive.

However, I AM WORTHLESS can only help us for so long because we can only be productive for so long. We get sick, we get tired, we break down, we need rest. Here is where the threat comes in. When our SELF worth and SELF preservation are tied to our productivity and then we can’t, for some reason, be productive, it’s as terrifying to the brain and body as the grizzly. 

Stress in the form of shame courses through the SELF, setting off the same physiological response we have when we feel threatened physically, not to mention producing intensely painful emotional symptoms: Panic, anxiety, depression.

When shame is experienced mildly and intermittently, we weather the SELF attack okay. For example, if we think “I AM WORTHLESS,” but part of us knows that we are, in fact, not worthless, that we have value outside of our productivity, we’re able to tolerate the shame. 

But if the shame is experienced frequently and intensely because we believe “I AM WORTHLESS” at our core, then it’s exactly like living in the poor and dangerous place that you can’t escape. It’s exactly like being trapped in perpetual fight or flight mode. Only this time, the threat is coming from the inside, not the outside. This time the threat is coming from the SELF.

At the start of the pandemic I had been trapped in perpetual fight or flight mode for quite sometime. My mind was a poor and dangerous place that I couldn’t escape. I believed “I AM WORTHLESS” at my core and it rang through my inside SELF like a never-ending refrain.

I had heard “I AM WORTHLESS” so frequently that, eventually, I learned to tune it out. But not before it had settled into my cells and burrowed into my bones. Not before it had become my default setting, my background noise, my mama grizzly that I couldn’t outrun.

Until, one day, I did.