The Struggle for Self-Worth, Part V – The Impact of the Compensatory Belief System on Self-Worth

The story so far…

In parts I through IV we learned that self-worth is a critical human resource we often confuse with what is known as “conditional acceptance.” This provisional approval requires us to earn our worthiness moment by moment, day by day. It is a fragile state of acceptance that presumes we are unacceptable because we are innately less than. This sense of being “less than” emanates from the wholeness within us that lies still undiscovered. Like living in only one-third of the actual square footage of our home, we are aware of a greater expansiveness, and this awareness amplifies the sense that we are settling for so much less. “Inherent worth,” however, means we are worthy from the beginning because we are here. Self-worth is a birthright woven into our existence.

We also learned that chasing self-improvement illusions seems to be more important to us than owning the worth that is ours through the process of self-discovery. It can often appear as though we love our illusions more than we love our worth. These illusions surround our tendency to prefer the pursuit of control and dominion. We learned that self-discovery presupposes that instead of building something toward a state of completion that, here in this life, we are trying to uncover something that has always been complete. We also discovered that we tend to believe authority figures outside of us are more qualified to see the truth about our identity and our worth. We are trained, it seems, to hang on every word coming from these supposed experts, but, alas, it turns out that these appointed authors are woefully unqualified. In truth we find that these authority figures do not have the position nor the vision to see the truth about the worth and purpose of our inner being.

We learned that the core belief system is a major contributing factor to the struggle for self-worth. These beliefs create the “less than” or conditional acceptance illusions that distract us from the truth that our worthiness exists within us. This means that we learn to view our souls from the lens of scarcity rather than abundance. Our training in external locus of control then facilitates our devotion to these identity and worth illusions. This fostered dependence on validation from external authority figures then leads us to all roads compensatory.

What is the nature and purpose of the Compensatory Belief System?

The psychology of compensatory archetypes and their specific thinking systems is rooted in the belief that we can free ourselves from our core belief definitions. This belief proposes that this independence can be achieved by proving we are better or different from the core belief definition. The proof of this comes in the form of a compensatory archetype employed by individuals in the singular pursuit of claiming independence from core beliefs and the authorities who saddled us with those identity and worth convictions. Our goal is to use these archetypes to increase our soul-worth by offsetting core belief worth deficits with merit or performance-based achievements. This collection of archetypal characters that are devoted to compensating adhere to predetermined systems of thought. This suggests our minds have a blueprint of archetypal characters that themselves hold psyche software. This software was created with predesigned codes and agendas. Archetypal templates exist within the soul of each sentient being. Rather than artificial intelligence (AI), this blueprint – which is an essential part of the psyche’s natural architecture – might well be called organic intelligence (or “OI”).

When we understand we employ these compensatory archetypes to counteract core-belief deficits by improving on our pre-determined identity and worth definitions, we can see that one agenda we have is to change the outcome of our identity and worth. This suggests these compensatory thinking systems are also used to generate alterations and/or improvements that will give us the freedom and ability to redefine ourselves. These alternate beliefs are modeled to prove or disprove core beliefs and are constructed much like erecting a building. In time we find, in response to every core belief, we have erected an entire city devoted to compensating.

This compensatory city becomes a system of thought that often demands Herculean standards of achievement and productivity. These achievement and productivity demands are engaged to generate excessive expectations in areas such as work levels, suffering measures, entitlement pursuits, justice reckonings, perfectionism standards, performance excellence, correctness constancy, cleanliness consistency, persistent order, securing righteousness, victim positioning, and pursuing reward. These excessive standards of excellence push back against core belief definitions giving us the impression that we have overcome our core beliefs. In all these efforts, however, we become servants to our compensatory masters. We wake up one day to find there seems to be no way to get off this compensatory treadmill. The compensatory machine we once employed is now employing us – we have become oppressed within our own mind by these compensatory characters.

What are the names of these Compensatory Characters?

There are 20 primary compensatory archetypes we might employ to do the work of providing us with some form of conditional acceptance, and this conditional acceptance becomes vital to our daily existence. These compensatory pathways include:

• Entitlement
• Power
• Control
• Superiority
• Grandiosity
• Consumption
• Possession
• Workaholic/Martyr
• Perfectionism
• Righteousness
• Warrior
• Justice
• Fairness
• Punishment
• Suffering
• Uniqueness
• Dependence
• Victim Position
• Doubt/Skepticism
• Sloth

Each archetypal pathway is made up of tasking agendas, directing the focus and energy of the individual. These agendas focus individual attention on specific duties and assignments that serve the missions of that specific character-driven code.

What are some examples of these Compensatory Archetypes?

One such compensatory archetype is the Perfectionism coach which is a system of thought that demands persistent improvement surrounding the highest standards of perpetual excellence. Under this single thinking system program, this Perfection Coach can identify 13 separate excellence agendas, targeting 13 different perfection pursuits including: Order, Organization, Cleanliness, Spot, Shape, Correctness, Appearance, Performance, Achievement, Size, Weight, Competency, and Beauty. Individuals who follow the code of the perfection archetype tend to gravitate toward the notion that everything could be better or somehow improved.

A second example is the Martyr Archetype or the Workaholic which follows the six Creeds of the Martyr: 1) I will work harder and longer than anyone else; 2) I will generate and produce an above average exemplary product or service; 3) I will take on responsibilities that do not belong to me; 4) I will fear disapproval and crave approval; 5) I will self-sacrifice; and 6) I will suffer in silence. The Martyr is fueled by excessive quantities of adrenaline in the bloodstream which is where individuals who follow this code get their energy to complete these over-the-top workloads. This adrenaline accumulates often preventing the individual from even short periods of rest or relaxation. The psychology of this archetype seeks to generate to-do list after endless to-do list, leading the Workaholic toward disordered adrenaline levels that seem to take on a life of their own.

Why are these archetypes unable to help us increase our sense of worthiness?

Compensatory archetypes are less effective at generating self-worth because they are generated from a platform of illusion. The false belief is that we might earn what has already been gifted to us. This misleading assumption suggests we might improve our worth using the honor we receive for our achievements. However, in practice, we note praise certainly seems to have a shelf life. The fleeting warmth from mortal accolades may indicate that inherent worthiness is quite different. The boundaries of admiration and approval—even as affirmed by those graced with fame and fortune—suggest that genuine worth is existential in nature and cannot be substituted with merit‑based praise or recognition.

This takes us back to the differentiation between self-worth and self-esteem. Self-esteem is about our achievements, and our achievements give us that intrinsic sense of skill mastery. While skill mastery may feel like worthiness it is more akin to the rewarding inner experience of building capability, competence, and self-confidence. This sense is linked more directly with our sense of purpose than it is our sense of worth. This means that these compensatory beliefs are not delivering on their worthiness promises. It seems that they can only help us to break even in the worthiness department.

Another reason that these compensatory protocols are fictitious is because the standards and expectations within these archetypal agendas are both unattainable and unsustainable. The idea is that if we are super productive rather than just productive, we might achieve an improved sense of worthiness. The intent of the characters is to use performance, productivity, and achievement to erase or override the baseline soul value found in our core belief system. The daily striving required by these compensatory agendas looks to replace this internalized value estimate. However, this is not possible due to the truth that we cannot unlearn these original worthiness impressions. This means that those younger selves that live within us still believe in that initial worthiness brand with the blind faith of a child. While there is a way to evaporate that core-belief brand, the method of compensating does not have the science to execute that task.

Why would we employ these Compensatory Archetypes if they are not working?

The reason we are hard pressed to give up allegiance to our compensatory characters is due to our sense that we are making progress towards accumulated worth. This suggests compensatory archetypes directly facilitate the illusion that we are in control of our worthiness. It seems we would rather achieve dominion over worthiness than cultivate relationship with worthiness. The Martyr archetype, for example, seeks to merit worthiness with acts of service and sacrifice. This agenda strives for a worth that depends on acts that earn worthiness. The idea is that we can credit ourselves with this process of worthiness production and generate the sense that we are filling up our worthiness tanks independently. Thus, we tend to engage in worthiness manipulation rather than worthiness appreciation. This takes us back to our human tendency to prefer the pursuit of dominion over the discovery of worth, which is to say chasing something that we do not have is preferred over discovering that which we already have.

In the next and final installment of our investigation of self-worth, we will explore surviving with conditional acceptance and reductionism or thriving with inherent worth and self-growth.