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[00:00:05] Henry Emmons, MD: Hello, I'm Henry Emmons, and welcome back to Joy Lab.
[00:00:09] Aimee Prasek, PhD: And I'm Aimee Prasek. We are in our brand new Element of Enoughness. I love that word. Hahaha.
[00:00:18] Henry Emmons, MD: Me too.
[00:00:20] Aimee Prasek, PhD: So let's just start with a fact here. The fact is that you are enough. And maybe you said this first, Henry, "You're perfect as you are, and you could use a little improvement." Was that you that said that?
[00:00:34] Henry Emmons, MD: Hahaha. I've said it, but I didn't originate it.
[00:00:37] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Oh, you didn't. Do you know who said that?
[00:00:41] Henry Emmons, MD: No, it's a Zen teaching, and I can't remember the β who person was that I heard it from. But yeah, love it.
[00:00:52] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Well it's yours now for β until we cite it in the show notes, folks. I love that.
So it is enough to be exactly who you are, where you are, at this moment, and still growing. And acknowledging this in ourselves, and realizing that it's true for others, is a path to flourishing, individually and collectively. Of course, we can mess this up and make things so much harderon ourselves and others, and that's why we're getting into this Element more, about the fact of our Enoughness. We'll talk about the obstacles that can stand in the way of realizing this, and how we can tap into this understanding.
So let's start from the beginning. What is Enoughness? I'm not actually sure I can define it very well with words. It's broad. It's not operationally defined, so there isn't, like, a consensus definition that gives us a clear way of measuring enoughness β you know, so that we could determine, "I have enough enoughness." But I think this is something that we can all viscerally tap into; that we know what enoughness feels like in our body, in our mind, and we know what not having it feels like, too β not feeling like we're enough. So my kind of working definition for Enoughness is that it's the realization and inner knowing that you are enough just as you are, with acceptance of who you are and where you are at this moment, and without giving up on where you're headed. And I think that's important with Enoughness. There's this contentment and acceptance that's kind of spiked with hope that, "Yeah, I'm enough and I can continue to blossom; to grow."
[00:02:48] Henry Emmons, MD: I like your definition. Or your attempt at a definition.
[00:02:53] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah? We'll stick with it for now. We can change it later. Hahaha.
[00:02:56] Henry Emmons, MD: I actually love that we have to wrestle a little bit to get our mind around this definition and this topic. It makes it feel kind of fresh to me, you know? Like it's alive 'Cause we're still working with it.
[00:03:11] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Absolutely.
[00:03:12] Henry Emmons, MD: And I think it β this topic brings us into the conversation around scarcity and abundance, which I've always personally been interested in. I've just always been intrigued with the question, how much is enough? And it's a question I don't think we give enough thought to. I know I haven't, even though it's intrigued me. I think most of us carry on as though we don't have enough or we aren't enough, and so it leads us to strive to get more or to be more. Or if we're not strivers maybe we just feel bad then, for what we think we are lacking. So I love the definition: the deep inner knowing that you are enough. But what do we do then, with the feeling that sometimes can be overwhelming β this feeling so many of us have β that something is lacking? I wonder, is there anybody who hasn't had that feeling at times, or even been driven by it, or thrown off balance by it? It's just such a prevalent feeling in our culture. If you have known someone who doesn't seem as affected by this sense of inadequacy β I've known a couple of these people β you might describe them as someone who feels comfortable in their own skin. You β can you think of somebody like that? You know, they β maybe they're happy to receive praise just like the rest of us, but they don't really need it, you know, and if you've known someone like that, they tend to really stand out 'cause I think they're kind of rare in our society. And maybe it's 'cause I feel kind of drawn to them, 'cause they have this sense of being so at ease with themselves that they're just pleasant to be around. So I think we wanna explore this rather rare quality, and to do it along several dimensions: having enough, doing enough, knowing enough, and being enough.
[00:05:35] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Sorry. My hair is really bothering me.
[00:05:38] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah, you got to get it right. Aimee, it's good enough. Hahaha.
[00:05:44] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Oh, no. Hahaha. My God, I'm just β So clearly I'm not one of those people that Henry was talking about. Haha. I don't usually look at myself in our camera here but I caught a glimpse, I was like, "Oh, my hair is terrible." But it is enough. I'm enough.
Yeah, so we will dig into all of those [things] that you just noted, Henry: having enough, doing enough, knowing enough, being enough β having good enough hair. And to anchor our work, we'll lean on a few perspectives that I wanna highlight now so that we're kind of ready for what's ahead as well. One is called "contingencies of self-worth," and the other is the "typologies of perfectionism." I love these.
So contingencies of self-worth was coined by Dr. Jennifer Crocker. It's this idea that we don't stake our self-esteem on everything equally. So we have certain domains that we attach more of our self-esteem or worth to, and in effect, our worth or self-esteem raises and lowers based on those successes or failures. And there are some key claims with contingencies of self-worth.
First, they motivate where we put our attention and efforts, and goals actually, in a lot of ways, which β maybe a positive β can offer focus, but can also be blinders. And when it comes to goals, contingencies often push us toward trying to prove ourselves. So the goals are around performing, proving, and may be not helpful or even interesting for us.
Second, contingencies influence how we react in these domains. So when we've staked our self-esteem or self-worth on something, then we obviously care about it more; we weight it more than other stuff, even if it's like small stuff that in the grand scheme of things doesn't seem to matter much.
Third, those contingencies can lead to fragile self-esteem, which is associated with higher rates of depression and anxiety. So contingencies turn, "I feel good about myself," into, "I feel good about myself if..." So that bonus of focus has a lot of trade-offs. Here's an example of how these contingencies can snag us. One study from Crocker and colleagues found that college students who tied their self-worth to academic performance studied more hoursper week than other students, which sounds great, maybe. But when the researchers controlled for some other variables, they found that the extra studying did not predict a higher GPA. So the interpretation was that these students were not studying to learn. They were studying to get a grade that would prove their worth. So that contingency of academic performance was pushing them to study more, but it wasn't giving them the outcome that they wanted. And the students who attached more of their self-worth to academics also reported more conflict with professors, more academic struggles, and they had more dissatisfaction by the end of their freshman year. So I think that's kinda key to remember here, you know, you can be focused, you can be motivated to get good grades, or do well on a performance review, and not attach your self-worth to whether or not that happens, or to how good you do, or whatever that grade is. In fact, according to a lot of this research on contingencies, that is the more effective route. So loosening up on these contingencies is not a surrender of goals; it's an invitation to not let those outcomes, or the judgments of others, be the dictators of your self-worth.
[00:10:06] Henry Emmons, MD: Hmm. You know, I'm thinking of the words insecurity β which I think people often use as kind of a blanket explanation for why someone is struggling emotionally, 'cause they're insecure β but I think that the term inadequacy might actually be a little closer to the truth for most folks; let me say more about that. If we are woven through with the belief that we're not enough, that we're inadequate, it can impact almost everything, including our mental health. It's just so hard to feel good if we don't feel good enough about ourselves.
[00:10:49] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah.
[00:10:51] Henry Emmons, MD: In Buddhist psychology this problem is summed up by the concept of grasping, or you might say endless grasping, which is a good term for it because it does never quite end.
[00:11:08] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah, endless.
[00:11:09] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah. It can manifest in a lot of different ways; there are many different things we can grasp onto, but each of us tends to have our β kind of our favorites, you know? There's something that we just can't quite let go of, or get enough of. But no matter how much we get of the thing we think will finally make us happy, it doesn't work, or at least not for long. 'Cause it might make us feel good for a moment, and then we go right back to needing more of it to help us feel filled up. So this is one thing, if we're just looking for some form of satisfaction, but it can be overwhelming when it's deeply tied to our sense of worth. And it's not an exaggeration to say that this tragic gap between not-enough and a healthy sense of self is what drives a lot of the most common mental health problems, like anxiety and depression.
[00:12:16] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah, I think that distinction is super smart. Feeling inadequate actually shakes our sense of security, safety; we feel inadequate; we're not measuring up, so maybe we'll get cut off from the group. And the group, our sense of connection, is everything when it comes to surviving and thriving, so I love that distinction. This is biologically woven into us, as you noted.
I think another really important distinction to make is the difference between constructs like self-esteem, fragile self-esteem, and self-worth. And actually, maybe you noticed, Crocker doesn't clearly distinguish between the two in that work on contingencies of self-worth, but I think it's really essential to tap into the difference. And we'll keep doing that through our Episodes for this Element, because part of why our Enoughness suffers so much is that we can tie it really close, or conflate it, with self-esteem.
So self-esteem is how positively or negatively we view ourselves. Fragile self-esteem is when we stake our self-esteem on outcomes or these domains β or our favorites, as you noted, Henry β that we've grasped onto, and that we wanna defend and prove ourselves with. And then self-worth is a sense of our own intrinsic self-worth; that you're of value because you exist, not dependent on your achievements, or performance, or conditions.
So this is closer to our understanding of Enoughness. And some Episodes ago I referenced some work on fragile self-esteem from Dr. Roy Baumeister, and Baumeister really stopped the self-esteem craze in its tracks. He also has some views that I'm not convinced by, but β maybe folks know these, I'm not gonna throw the baby out with the bathwater. He challenged some really key efforts that were happening in the self-esteem movement, mostly in the '80s and '90s β this idea that we just had to build up self-esteem without any kind of context or merit. He saw that work as something unsubstantiated, at best; unhelpful, potentially harmful. And Baumeister and Dr. Kathleen Vohs described, kind of the addiction that can happen here. This was in their paper, "_Narcissism as Addiction to Esteem_." It's really interesting. The idea is, if we're chasing self-esteem and then inflating it through efforts that aren't really true β like being told we're more special than everyone else, or never receiving constructive criticism for fear that it'll shake our self-esteem, just being kind of fueled by this reality-detached praise βwhen we get that stuff, we get a boost of good-mood chemicals; our pleasure system activates; it feels good. But it works for just a short moment, and then it drops quick because there wasn't anything behind it. And so you kind of get used to it, that endless grasping, as you continue to kind of build up that tolerance for these frequent, but hollow, self-esteem boosts; you need a little bit more to get the same boost. So we have to falsely inflate ourselves more, and keep chasing more and more praise; keep grasping onto this promise that the next one will last; it'll hold our self-esteem up, or it'll solve something, and it's just a never-ending cycle. That's the addiction of chasing self-esteem, or chasing these things, to build up our self-worth or a sense of enoughness, and it is really easy to fall into.
[00:16:26] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah. I think someone from another planet or another culture might look at this and wonder , "Why do humans get caught up in all of this?" It's a really reasonable question. What is so important to us that we will give our lifeblood chasing after something that we know, deep down, will not give us what we really want?
[00:16:51] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah.
[00:16:53] Henry Emmons, MD: I think the fundamental human drive, once we've met our basic biological needs, is the desire to belong. We evolved to be tribal creatures, to need others, and for others to need us. We simply have to be part of something larger than ourselves. So we want to be seen, to be appreciated, to be cared about. At the same time, nearly all of us live with the illusion that we are separate from one another; that we go through life essentially alone, and it's up to us to get what we need. That is exhausting, and it creates such a tension. We have this deep need to belong, and at the same time, a strong tendency to go it alone.
I think there's a lesson here from neuroscience, that I just really love. When a new neuron is born in the brain β which happens throughout our lives, by the way, as the brain is constantly in a process of healing and renewal β it immediately extends itself in order to connect with other neurons. If it doesn't become sufficiently connected, that cell simply shrivels up and dies. And I think that's true for us, too. We all need to connect, and to connect enough that we ourselves don't shrivel up and die. Basically, we all share a deep need to be properly loved. And if we don't feel we have that in our lives, we will do almost anything to get it.
[00:18:56] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah, I think that's a really profound example. It is biologically woven into us in a lot of ways. I wanna talk about something that also feels biologically woven into us [which] I referenced earlier: perfectionism. Again, we all have our favorites. We're gonna lean on some work from Doctors Paul Hewitt and Gordon Flett as we dig into this. So Hewitt and Flett identified three types of perfectionism. I think this is really helpful.
First, self-oriented β which is like stereotypical perfectionist β where we have those punishing expectations or standards of ourselves, and these intense drives to be perfect and avoid failure.
Then there's other-oriented, where we have those same rigid standards, but just for other people. And no surprise, this is not great for making friends, hahaha. It can be really hard on relationships and is linked to more loneliness. And we all have bits of these, where you're not β you're not just one type, you know? We all have bits of these.
And then the third is socially-prescribed. This is about believing that other people are demanding your perfection, and will judge you if you don't meet those unrealistic standards. Hewitt and Flett say that socially-prescribed [perfectionism], that last one, is most linked with depression, hopelessness, and possibly suicidal ideations. Yeah, perhaps, maybe the β like, there's a real sense of helplessness in that last one, in that socially-prescribed [perfectionism], 'cause your thinking is that you have to meet these standards, they're impossible, and you haven't even set them.
[00:20:46] Henry Emmons, MD: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and not realizing that we're probably making a lot of this up in our own minds. It's not β people aren't really demanding all of that from us, but we think that they are.
[00:21:03] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah, and that goes across all the types, right?
[00:21:04] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah, it probably does, doesn't it?
[00:21:06] Aimee Prasek, PhD: These are the narratives that we've created. Yeah.
[00:21:08] Henry Emmons, MD: Yeah. Well, it seems to me that these three types of perfectionism you described all stem from the same root, which is that fundamental fear of not being enough.
[00:21:21] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah.
[00:21:22] Henry Emmons, MD: So with self-oriented perfectionism, we're essentially saying, "If I'm not perfect, then I'm not worthy of belonging." We attack ourselves with impossible standards to try to earn our own respect, our own permission to take up space in this world.
With other-oriented perfectionism, then we project that same fear outward and we demand perfectionism from others, because on some level we believe that's what it takes to matter. It's a way of trying to control whether people will stay close to us.
But then the socially-prescribed perfectionism, the way that you talked about it, Aimee, sounds like the loneliest of the three, because here you're trying to meet standards you didn't even create. You're not driving yourself or others, you're responding to what you believe the world demands of you, even though that belief is something we should call into question. And if you fail to meet those demands, it's not just about your worth; it feels like proof that you'll never belong, or you'll never be acceptable to the people around you.
I think that's why those researchers, Hewitt and Flett, found it so deeply connected to depression and hopelessness perhaps, 'cause like you said, there's kind of a helplessness baked into it. You're trapped in a system you didn't design, playing by rules you didn't agree to. And of course, as you said also, most of us carry some of all three of these. We are hard on ourselves, we are hard on others, and we're constantly trying to read what we think the world wants from us. And that's why this work we're talking about now matters so much, because when we see these patterns clearly, when we can name them, then we have a choice. We can stand back from it a little bit , and perhaps we can loosen the grip that they have on us. So I think that's what this Enoughness is about. It's trying to get freedom from all of these things that we've been talking about. Freedom.
[00:23:44] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah. Freedom and connection. I β Henry, you just also β you highlighted that, maybe it was in that second one of other-oriented perfectionism, but that we β we're sort of demanding these because we want people to sort of meet those standards that might acknowledge their mattering. It just made me think that, you know, with these types of perfectionism, that it is β it's like all coming from this good space of like, "I wanna matter. I want you to matter. I wanna meet those expectations. I wanna matter to you."
[00:24:20] Henry Emmons, MD: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:24:21] Aimee Prasek, PhD: It's β it is about connection, but certainly it's been taken into a space that has become destructivea lot of times when that perfectionism sort of moves into that rigidity or that isolation. But it is coming from goodness. Again, these are things woven into us to connect us; to help us survive and thrive. So...
[00:24:45] Henry Emmons, MD: I really like that.
[00:24:47] Aimee Prasek, PhD: Yeah, really interesting.
So I β maybe just quickly also β I think what can be a pushback on this stuff that we're talking about, enoughness, self-worth, is [the claim] that reinforcing this stuff, you know, working to really believe it, will make us lazily- entitled, or narcissistic. And that might be true if we're chasing self-esteem. Like, take that paper I just noted with Baumeister and Vohs, narcissism is a pattern of addiction with fragile self-esteem. But Enoughness is not the same as self-esteem. I can feel, you know, really negative about myself because I screwed up on something. My self-esteem might be low in a moment, and I can still feel like enough. So Enoughness and self-worth are almost a kind of neutral state. It's like putting our feet back on solid ground so we can connect and grow. And thinking that this stuff will just make us soft or lazy is what, I think, pushed this kind of hollow self-esteem movement and these ridiculous pressures, for example, to feel confident all the time, like we talked about a few Elements ago. That stuff, like, feels like a flex. It has to β it must give us some maxing sort of optimization, or something, is the belief. But as we talked about with Confidence, and Humility before that, that stuff can really breed this fragile self-esteem, those narcissistic tendencies, that inability to take criticism, that sense of entitlement.
When we work to believe that we are enough, then we can take criticism because it doesn't shake our sense of value as a human. We can feel crappy about something we did because we realize that we aren't infallible, and that doesn't mean that we're not worthy. We can open up to other people, and be more permeable, and make mistakes, and apologize because we know that we still belong, even when we get shut out sometimes. So that's what we're working on this month, and we've got a really grounding, nourishing Experiment to help you tap into that sense of Enoughness. So head there after this, or head to JoyLab.coach to see how to access those Experiments if you haven't joined us yet. Let's do this together, because ultimately, if we wanna feel like we're enough, we have to offer that to others. It is a collective Experiment.
So until next time, let's soak in some wisdom from Lao Tzu. Here it is: When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everyone will respect you."
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