How To Break Free From Inferiority Complex
Growing up, I can think of many moments when I wished I was White, not as a colour but as a race. The world I believed in was from movies (I watched many), made me resent a part of my existence that I was Black, and to make matters worse, that I was Nigerian.
If we are not careful, there is an inferiority complex that may descend upon us earlier on in life and make us resent where we are from, who we were born to, and how we have come to grow up, and the list is endless.
For most of us, these feelings of insecurity and insufficiency (such as being unable to reach an intended goal) are highly situational or occasional. When they arise, we may, for example, brood about them for a time and then move on, deal with them by reminding ourselves that we have other strengths, or use them as motivation to master the underlying problem, says James E. Maddux, PhD, psychologist and author of Subjective Well-Being and Life Satisfaction and coauthor of Psychopathology: Foundations for a Contemporary Understanding.
‘Complex’ refers to a mental state made up of different emotions, and ideas and is entirely different from the ‘feeling of inferiority.’
Feeling inferior is a fleeting feeling and allows you to look beyond your imperfections and strive for growth. It also refers to the state when you say that ‘Had this happened/not happened, I would have achieved this/that.’
Had I thought that since ‘I am a guy from the wrong country or race, I could never be respected or even noticed in society,’ is what can be referred to as an inferiority complex?
These complexities that we suffer from can come in different form and shape like your voice isn’t good enough, your food is tasteless, your cultural background is weird, you are not as civilized as others, not as attractive, not as intelligent, and so on, so forth.
When you give an excuse for not doing something, that’s when you should know that it’s not normal, and need to be worked on. While an inferiority complex blocks you and makes you curse everything around you when the problem is not the environment but ‘You’.
Society may have been psychologically conditioned to make us feel like that — interiorization tactics are mainly used to convince their victims that they are oppressed, but we need to understand that society plays a big part in making us feel inferior. We can break free from this complex. To feel low, we do not need to feel worthless, to kill our spirit, or keep us down as well as others around us.
I may have grown up to love who I am now, but it has not always been so. I’m not going to lie and act like the thought of changing my race and culture hasn’t crossed my mind. Most people may not know this is happening, but as they grow, they subliminally suffer from something that may tell them that something better is out there.
Realize that you are not alone. This is a bad place to be, but here is a suggestion, “Give importance to your identity, including your height, weight, skin colour, and features, as well as your thoughts, dreams, family, and knowledge. These elements create you and make you an individual.
Another proven technique that could help is to talk to somebody — seek help and look for a community that can help you grow — don’t sit in idleness and wallow in self-pity, it does not help. Lastly, you can turn to the scriptures, look for and gather words that describe you and how you want to see yourself, and let them be your words of affirmation.
The more you keep reading and meditating on those words, the more you believe them, and the more it redefines how you see and perceive yourself.
If you need somebody to talk to or need somebody to speak to a group of boys on this topic, you can reach out to us at thebridgehub@gmail.com.
This post was first published in The Bridge Hub. You can view other articles through the link.
