Incompetent Ingrid: Putting a Face to Shame

The other day, in my Are You Open to Receiving post, I shared a journaling exercise I use whenever I notice any triggering "I am..." voices wafting through my brain.

These painful "I am..." statements show up in our psyches as shame.

I thought it might be helpful for you, if you're wanting more clarity on all of this, if I walked one of my recent shame triggers through the exercise. I personally learn better through examples, and I assume I'm not alone. So here we go:

A little over a month ago I was driving down the 405 with my husband, thinking about someone close to me who I was, at that moment, judging as 'inept.' I've known this person my whole life and somehow they always seem to make really simple situations far more complicated. So, as I'm thinking about how frustrated I was about this person's incompetence, I decided to stop myself and ask why my judgement around competence was so fierce.

I thought about a recent exercise I'd done in the 'Bringing Light to Shame' course I've been taking, which uses non-violent communication and Hakomi techniques to address how our psyche responds to shame. In this one exercise, we were asked to identify a time in our lives where we felt our very best, like we were REALLLLY vibing with ourselves. Then we were asked to notice what sensations and beliefs came up. I noticed, right away, that my belief was, "I am able."

And then it all hit me like a burst of lightening: Holy. Shit. I am terrified of being incompetent.

I am SO terrified of being incompetent, in fact, that I refuse to feel good about myself unless I am in a situation where I feel 100% totally and completely capable on all fronts.

And—as it goes with shame—because I am so afraid of being incompetent, I get reaalllly weird about seeing incompetence in action.

So as I'm driving down the 405 I start explaining this crazy revelation to my husband, who responds, "yeah, that's interesting. You know, I often get the feeling you think I'm incompetent. Like you're always asking if you can do things for me, as if I can't do them myself, or something."

And then the lightening struck again: Holy. Shit. I DO do that.

I realized that it's not about how I judge it in the wild (I could care less if Joe Shmoe acts a fool), I was straight-up PROJECTING it onto the people I care most about.

Usually, those projections have to do with me wanting to prove how competent I am. For example, me asking my husband if he wants me to 'take over' at some random task is really about me (a) asserting my competence and (b) trying to nip incompetence in the bud before I see it becoming an inconvenience. But over time, the projection turns into a limiting belief: that I can't rely on anyone else to be capable but me.

And here's the catch about shame. When you are SO certain you're the only one who isn't afflicted by whatever it is you're judging, you probably have a deep-seated fear that you actually are afflicted by that thing.

My fear of incompetence completely controlled me. And it was wildly unfair to the people around me that I had been letting it run the show for so long.

Now, I could wax poetic about WHY this came to be. I could talk about how certain instabilities in my childhood made me feel like I had to overcompensate. And that may help soothe some of the shame that crops up around letting my fear control me for so long (because we humans love our shame spirals!), but while that may offer some sort of justification around my feelings, it doesn't stop the bleeding.

When it comes to shame, I want to stop the bleeding.

So I decided to take my newly discovered shame through a journaling exercise I created which blends some of the techniques I've learned in the course I'm currently taking on shame as well as techniques from the book Dark Side of the Light Chasers, which I'll NEVER STOP promoting because it changed my life.

This is the same exercise I walk you through in my Are You Open to Receiving post—I encourage you to read it there, too, because it offers more descriptions and examples.

I'm sharing this simply as an example of my experience, so you can see it in action.

Integrating Shame: Journal Exercise

Start by leaning into some self-awareness.

1) Identify the painful "I am..." statement.

In my case, for so long I was attached to the statement, "I am NOT incapable." I was desperate to be seen through this lens. But what I realized when I really explored my feelings around incompetence is that deep down I did feel like a fraud. I feared that maybe I was just an incompetent person, after all, and fooling the whole world into believing otherwise. *I considered many of the ways I'd felt incompetent: not getting a career further off the ground in as much time as I've had to try, times when I'd made mistakes that inconvenienced other people, or situations where I had felt defensive but deep down, was terrified someone had simply seen how incompetent I really felt.

*(It's not important to deep-dive into all the ways you feel your shame—that can get really heavy and I wouldn't want to put you in that position—I was just taking time to notice how my "I am incompetent" voice really did live behind my "I am not incompetent" voice. I was sending awareness to where it showed up for me.

2) Pinpoint the need your shame is blocking.

The most obvious need that I was protecting was 'competence.' (This is a common one for a lot of people, particularly women, by the way—in part because we are raised to be so many things to so many people). I also uncovered a need for respect, contribution, appreciation, reliability, acknowledgment, and ease.

This list of needs words is a helpful place to start. I also really love this list of needs words from Wise Heart PDX because it's even more expansive (just be careful because the columns on the left are feelings, not needs).

3) Thank your shame for trying to help.

So, as I noted in my last post, it can be especially helpful to name your shame as though he/she is a person. It's about neuroplasticity—when we make abstract concepts less abstract, it's easier for our brains to grasp and therefore the new neuropathways we are building from this exercise are more robust and have greater staying power. This is a tool used in many Zen exercises as well—the idea of seeing the ego, etc, from a higher vantage point. It just allows our brain to fully wrap itself around the concept.

I named my shame Incompetent Ingrid. I spent some time visualizing her. She is in ratty clothes, super clumsy, with frizzy blonde hair—and she's totally frazzled.

I begin to write.

"Hi, Incompetent Ingrid. It's me, the person who's been shoving you in the corner all her life. Listen, I'm sorry about that. I can see you've got a lot going on. And I can also see that by trying to hide you away, it's only made you feel like you had to scream louder and louder from the back of the room. I can see now why you were making such a fuss—you were trying to alert me to all of these needs I have that aren't being met for some reason. So thank you, really, for trying so hard to show me how important 'competence' and 'respect' and 'appreciation' are to me. I can see that you're coming from a good place. I also see how being afraid of you has blocked me from accessing all these needs."

4) Consider other ways that this shame has served you.

"Ingrid, the funny thing about all this is that being afraid of you has also served me: in an effort to avoid you, I worked really hard my whole life to learn to be good at the things I took on. I developed a lot of great skills along the way... I feel like I'm able to problem solve with a high level of resilience, and I'm capable of thinking three steps ahead on most tasks I take on. I'm thoughtful about how I approach most situations and this level of thoughtfulness has served me very well in work scenarios where I have been well-respected for my skills. It's also given me the drive to do good work, and that has served me well, too.

Of course, I can also see how incompetence, itself, might serve me. If it shows up when I'm trying something new, it serves as a reminder that we are always learning and it's exciting to embark on something unexplored. If it shows up as a mistake, it teaches me about what doesn't work so I can better learn what does. If it shows up as clumsiness, it reminds me that I am human and helps me re-calibrate or reconnect to my body."

5) Offer your shame a seat at the table.

"So, Ingrid, here's the deal. I don't want to put you in the corner anymore. I see that you bring value to the table and when you speak up—or try to flag a need I have that isn't being met—I want to hear you. I promise I will make a better effort to hear you from a place of gentleness and kindness. I understand that by inviting you to the table, I'm not giving you the keys to run the show. And that, actually, by pushing you to the back of the room I was setting you off in ways that made you try to run the show, just to get a little attention. But now that you see I'm willing to offer attention where you need it, I hope you can feel relief that you no longer need to cry out or take the reigns. I recognize that I AM incompetent sometimes, and that's okay. We ALL are. I can be incompetent and competent all in the same breath. Just because you are here, Incompetent Ingrid, living in my brain space, it doesn't mean all the competent parts of me disappear. You are a part of me. You are not all of me. And so, you are welcome here."

When I'm done writing that, I close my eyes and envision Ingrid's response to all of it. I imagine she is relieved, a little teary-eyed, and at peace. She feels seen, heard, and valued. We hug, shake hands, or whatever—and she pulls up a seat at the round table in my mind. I trust that she is at home here, and won't be bothering me too much from here on out.

6) Write down three ways you can speak to each of the needs on your list.

I look at my list of needs and choose to focus on competence, respect, and appreciation.

• Competence

  • Guess what? Ronin has been barking at outside noises a lot lately, and you recently implemented a training strategy that is working. Points for the competence it took to apply strategies you learned from the behaviorist to a new situation.

  • You make a mean cup of pour-over coffee, even when it's decaf. I'd say you're highly competent in the do-it-yourself coffee arena.

  • You've done well when it comes to grasping concepts in the course you're taking on shame. And you ask direct questions when you need clarity. Competence at work!

  • Respect

    • I respect the way you care about other people's feelings.

    • I respect your passion for mindful communication.

    • I noticed that a friend came to you recently asking for your advice, and I can see how the trust she offered you in that moment is indicative of the respect she holds for you.

    • Appreciation

      • I appreciate the level of openness you try to foster with yourself and others.

      • I appreciate your desire to do good work.

      • I notice that when people tell you about their good experiences with their gratitude calendars, they are making an effort to express an appreciation for something you created.

Full disclosure: this was the hardest part of the exercise for me—especially the competence piece (I actually had to ask Jaren if he could help me kickstart my brainstorm because I literally sat there staring at the page for 5 minutes)—but that's okay! In fact, it makes sense!

Because I've been blocking myself from fully accessing these needs, I certainly haven't been freely offering them to myself. And I haven't been noticing when the rest of the world IS actually trying to speak to them. I have to re-learn, in a way, to notice where my needs are being met. And I have to learn how to meet them, myself, as well. The stronger I become at accessing these needs, the less frequently I'll feel triggered by all my various forms of shame or limiting beliefs.

The aftermath:

I walked through this exercise a month ago, and I have to tell you: the results were almost immediate. I noticed a sense of 'freedom to be' that I hadn't felt in a very long time—maybe since I was a kid.

I had been transparent with Jaren that I was doing this work, but I noticed almost immediately that I stopped interpreting things he would do as incompetent. If he was executing a task differently than I would do it, I'd shrug it off and remind myself that he's a totally capable adult who has learned to do things differently. DO YOU KNOW HOW FREEING THAT IS? TO ACTUALLY TRUST YOU AREN'T THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN DO STUFF? And obviously it's great for Jaren, too, who doesn't have to deal with me asking him if he wants me to take over something he felt totally capable of doing. (disclaimer, because I'm feeling a little bit of shame come up around the fact that I used to do this... I want to be clear that I wasn't constantly trying to do things for Jaren... it just happened enough for it to be noticeable. k? k.)

Also, I am not feeling as much insecurity around my own incompetence, either. When someone brings something up that I may have been defensive about in the past, I notice it doesn't trigger me. Because the idea of being seen as 'incompetent' isn't as scary. I know I've got my shit handled, you know? Who cares if someone else thinks I'm incapable of something? I understand that if that's true, I can use that incapability to teach myself something new. I can gain something from it. And I can move onward and upward. Because deep down I understand that the moments of incapability don't define me. I am still capable. There just isn't as much SHAME around it anymore. And that is liberating.

Granted, we are all creatures of habit, so I have noticed my old automatic responses pop up once or twice. When we were at a friend's house recently, Jaren pulled a few glasses from the cabinet and I had this gut reaction to say, "those look breakable!" (because, they did—I wouldn't have trusted myself to handle them)... but I immediately caught myself, "Oops! Nevermind, you're totally capable!" and we were able to easily laugh it off. While these moments are fewer and further between, the beauty is that when they do happen and I am able to call them out for what they are. It's just not that heavy anymore. It helps that Jaren knows I am actively working on this, too, because it allows him to see that none of this is personal. I'm working through my own stuff, my own fears of inadequacy. It's about me, not him.

But my larger point is: while I felt an immediate freedom from this exercise, I still have moments where I have to check in with myself. "Is that you, Incompetent Ingrid?" I'm learning how to communicate with her in a healthy way. It gets easier and easier with time.

I think my favorite part of this exercise is that, even with those minor slips, I feel so much more at EASE. I feel resilient. I feel like I have permission to be who I am because I'm not so afraid people will 'discover' this part of me I don't like. And dare I say... I even feel... COMPETENT at managing this moving forward??

I mean, look at me—I'm putting this on the internet. Now everybody knows that I know that I'm capable of incompetence. This would have TERRIFIED ME just three months ago. I mean, paralyzed me. But here I am. Because even though I still strive to do good work, I recognize the inherent value in embracing that little part of me that doesn't always get it right.

I've integrated the shame.

There may come another time in my life when I start pushing Ingrid to the back of the room again and she starts to try to take the wheel again and I'll have to do this work again. But I feel incredibly confident that I'll be able to do it. That's most of the battle.

I'd love to hear from you if you give this exercise a shot. And if it's hard, or you feel resistance, that's okay. Sometimes we have to walk through this exercise a few times for it to fully register. It's not easy embracing a part of ourselves we've learned to hate. That frazzled lady might not be somebody you want to hug right away. Give yourself patience, time, and you'll get there. And when you do, you'll feel transformed.