what if I am not a good person?

by Lissa Carter, LCMHC

It’s been a while since my last blog post, and I’ll be honest with you, it’s because people are struggling. I have never been so busy. Let me just say this now, in case you need to hear it: if you are strained, exhausted, overwhelmed, sad, or hurting, you are not alone. These have been some hard years.

There’s an old story about a man who was so wounded by the unanticipated arrow that came out of nowhere that he grabbed a second arrow from his quiver and stabbed himself through the heart.

The world sends us first arrows when we lose an important relationship, or a source of income, or a dream we longed for. It sends first arrows when we are oppressed or targeted, or when we don’t match the culture’s idea of what beauty, success, or talent look like. It sends first arrows when we face a drought or a pandemic or a war.

First arrows are not our fault. The only way to deal with a first arrow is to apply first aid. If you are hungry, or cold, or grieving, or facing someone else’s prejudice or hatred, that needs to be addressed with heat and food and ritual and systemic change. Not with counseling, although counselors can help you find resources.

However, just like the old man in the story, many of us react to first arrows with second arrows. We lose a relationship, and we say “I always guessed I was unlovable.” Or we lose a job and think “I’ll never be successful; I’m just not smart enough.” We face the grief of a lengthy pandemic and say '“I am not made of tough enough stuff…everyone else seems to be pulling through okay”. These second arrows can do terrible harm, and we do have control over them.

What do I mean by this?

Well, a client walked into my office recently and announced “I am not a good person.”

She was in a lot of pain because she had said something she could not take back. The thing she had said was impulsive and mean-spirited. It went against her value system. Looking at that message she could never un-send, my client was flooded with dislike for herself.

Has this ever happened to you?

Have you ever said or done something that you knew was wrong, or against your values, or that you knew would hurt someone else, but somehow you could not stop yourself from doing it?

we can all get a little prickly

Here is something I know to be true: we all think and feel and imagine truly terrible things. We are given the full spectrum of human emotions at birth, and this includes rage, contempt, revulsion, regret, resentment, detachment, fury, and envy. They are part of the package. We are going to feel them.

Here is something else I know to be true: if a small child feels fury, and is told that her fury is wrong and shameful, that child may stop demonstrating fury. But she will not stop feeling it.

Now, every time that child feels fury, she will tell herself: “I should not feel this way”. First arrow. Second arrow.

Imagine that you were in a space of righteous fury about something unjust that had happened to you. Imagine that you are telling a friend about it, and he remarks “but you shouldn’t feel angry. Anger is wrong.” Do you feel better? Or worse?

What if he remarks “I can understand why you are feeling so angry. Do you want me to help you express your anger safely?”

The first response adds an arrow. The second response applies first aid.

Now: how do you talk to yourself when you are feeling angry? Frightened? Scared? Contemptuous? Disgusted? Are you adding arrows or taking them away?

I have never seen a bigger, more poisonous arrow than “I am not a good person”. Where is my client supposed to go from there?

What if, instead, my client looked at those words she had written and said “I must have been in so much pain to have written that. I can have compassion for the part of me that was hurting enough to write something so cruel.”

Now we are back in the arena of kindness and compassion. In offering compassion to herself, my client is behaving in line with her values. And once that second arrow is taken care of, she can address the first arrow.

That first arrow—the hurt that caused the confrontation in the first place—can be much more skilfully addressed if my client is not distracted and sore from the second and third and fourth arrows she was continuing to jab into herself.

Because the truth is: I don’t believe in good or bad people. I believe in good or bad actions. And I know that people are more likely to perform bad actions when they are in pain.

Please take care of yourselves out there. If you make a mistake, breathe through it, have compassion for the part of you that messed up, and tend to that first arrow. Gently make amends and start again. Try not to make things worse with second arrows of self-judgment or wounding beliefs. We are all in this together. If you need help, reach out.

If you are in need of counseling, Julie King Murphy has recently joined our practice and is accepting new clients! You can read more about her work here.