Connor Beaton describes how he used achievement to mask feeling broken, then learned that self-worth comes from who you are, not what you do. Separating personhood from behavior breaks the cycle of shame and performance-based self-esteem.
I was the guy, I didn't feel any type of self-worth. I felt fundamentally broken. And so what did I do? I started to get very good at doing certain things and my confidence started to really grow. Do I matter? Do I have worth? Do I have value? Not for what I can do, but simply for who I am. The first step that we have to take is separating what's called personhood from behavior, separating your self-perception From what you do and how well you do it. If you are always measuring, gauging how well you do things as an indicator of your sense of self, that is going to reinforce the shame that exists inside of you. We start to separate, here's who I am, from here's what I just did, or here's how I've been performing. And in doing that, we reinforce our sense of self-worth.
How to Raise Strong, Unshakable Boys in Today's Culture, with Dr. Shefali Tsabary
