#romans 3

My Fair Lady: Stanley Holloway & Rex Harrison - 5 Pounds Romans 3:10-12 (NIV) states: “As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks GOD. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.’”

“I’m one of the undeserving poor, that’s what I am. Now, think what that means to a man. It means that he's up against middle-class morality for all of time... I ain’t pretending to be deserving... no... I'm undeserving, and I mean to go on being undeserving. I like it and that's the truth.”

Key Points surrounding this scene:

The Argument: Doolittle argues that his needs are as great as a "deserving" person's, and that he actually needs more because he eats and drinks more heartily.

The Negotiation: He says this while attempting to sell his daughter, Eliza, to Higgins for five pounds, arguing he shouldn't be denied the opportunity to profit just because he is undeserving.

The Reaction: Higgins finds Doolittle's lack of morality amusing and actually gives him ten pounds instead of five, joking that Doolittle is a "natural rhetorician".

None are Righteous: Romans 3:10-12 and 3:23 declare that all have turned away and sinned, meaning no one earns salvation through good behaviour.

Grace is Undeserved: Grace is defined as unearned favour; it is freely given by GOD through JESUS, not achieved.

The Wages of Sin: Romans 6:23 states that what people actually deserve (the "wages") is death, but GOD offers the "free gift" of eternal life instead.

Unworthy Servants: Luke 17:10 suggests even after doing all that is commanded, people should recognize they are merely doing their duty, not earning special merit.

Purpose of the Law: The law was given to show people their sinfulness and inability to be righteous on their own, highlighting the need for a saviour.

Therefore, the biblical theme focuses on human inability to achieve righteousness, shifting the focus from human deservingness to GOD’s mercy and grace.

Do you want to see what AI said when I queried: “I’m undeserving & I plan to keep on being undeserving,” R.C. Sproul was horrified when he learned of this pattern of dismissing your guilt/shame as a college student confessed the condemnation she felt from having relations outside of marriage—all despite being counselled to ignore these feelings as arcane, she still had no remedy to her problem & wanted his honest answer for why she still felt so bad? He began to share of his own experience of shame after having done the same thing, and how the wages of sin is death—no amount of trying to forget/justify his sin helped except receiving forgiveness from GOD HIMSELF. Tim Keller has likened the advice to find your own tribe of supporters as cheerleaders who replace family & have no vested interest in our actual well being but are equally lost & are in need of greater & greater affirmation—the epidemic of the mental health crisis has spread to mobilizing protests/activism/any means possible to decry nay sayers. But even the nay sayers are objectively equally besotted with proving others are the ones in need of forgiveness bc they are the elder brother who pretends to be upstanding.

It sounds like you are experiencing a deeply ingrained, persistent feeling of unworthiness, and you have decided to lean into it rather than fight it. This decision to "plan to keep on being undeserving" is a form of self-sabotage that is often a protective mechanism against disappointment or vulnerability. aHere is an analysis of why someone might feel this way, based on psychological perspectives:

A Familiar Identity: When someone believes they are "undeserving," they are rarely talking about logic; they are talking about identity. Keeping this identity, even if it feels bad, is comfortable and familiar.

Protection Against Disappointment: If you believe you are unworthy, you may not try to achieve your goals or build deep relationships. By staying "undeserving," you protect yourself from the pain of failure or from having someone close to you eventually leave, confirming a long-held belief that you were never enough.

Rooted in Past Trauma: These feelings often start in childhood, stemming from situations where love/approval was conditional/thru experiencing abuse or neglect. This makes it easier to blame oneself than to face the pain of having been unloved.

The Comfort of Self-Pity: s/x self-pity can provide a sense of solace, causing s/o to lean into sadness & avoid difficult work of changing their self-perception. 

What You Can Do: While this is a deeply held conviction, it is not permanent. If you ever feel ready to shift this perspective, the following steps are suggested to break the cycle: 

Acknowledge and Accept: Instead of fighting the feeling, acknowledge it without judgment.

Challenge Negative Self-Talk: Pay attention to your inner dialogue and ask, "Is this thought kind? Is it true?".

Find Professional Support: Therapy (such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) can help identify the root of this feeling and break the pattern of self-betrayal. 

You are not alone in experiencing this, and these patterns are learned, not innate—meaning they can be unlearned if or when you are ready.

How do you deal with feelings of unworthiness? OP: Woah thank you so much to everyone who replied, I’ve read all your comments and although I’m unable to reply to each of them I hope you know that I appreciate your sincere thoughts and I’m truly grateful. I’ll definitely try some of the stuff you’re suggesting. Hope everyone has a great day ♥️

C01: Feelings of unworthiness are central to the mental health issues I deal with. These are some things that have helped me:

Therapy. I believe everyone who has access to therapy could benefit from making use of it sometime, bc whether one has mental illness or not, there is enormous value in simply the support & objective reflection a professional third party can provide. You do the real work of therapy yourself, so a great deal of this benefit can be accessed even without seeing a therapist, by seeking out therapeutic practices/techniques like CBT techniques and practicing them on your own. (I'm currently working my way through a Yoga-CBT workbook for anxiety that I'm getting a lot from.) But I find a therapist is a very valuable tool to help you see where and how your maladaptive beliefs and programming are coming through. Understanding the source of these beliefs and programming in your life is very helpful to learning to see past them, too.

Journaling, and specifically using my journal as a place to consciously reframe the stories I tell myself about myself from stories based in shame to stories based in compassion and acceptance. As someone else in the thread said, feelings of unworthiness are, at their core, essentially manifestations of shame, and shame is something we are programmed to feel by others. But we can practice releasing it and replacing it with a perspective that cherishes and accepts us just as we are. In my journal, I write down my feelings and then I name the programming those thoughts and feelings are coming from and then I actively seek out and write down a compassionate, life-affirming angle on the events or thoughts I am responding to.

Practicing radical acceptance. Mindfulness specifically helps me with this a lot. Observing in-the-moment reality helps me release judgment, and once I release judgment it is easier for me to accept things as they are.

Releasing judgment as a general practice, relatedly. The book Nonviolent Communication helped me understand a different way of relating with people and the world than through judgment by helping me understand what judgment really is and what it looks like moment-to-moment in our thoughts, versus what observational and non-judgmental thoughts look like. I do not judge others, and that makes it easier not to judge myself.

A regular practice of gratitude and affirmations. I alternate between these depending on which feels like it will do the most to "shore up" my mindset on a given day, but each morning I section off a specific section of my to-do list page and fill it with either affirmations or things I'm grateful for. I also regularly do affirmation-based meditations, where I will start meditating and then once I've reached a very present state I'll speak aloud whatever affirmations come to me.

C02: The universe does not care about worth. The concept of worthiness is a human construct. It is not real, it's an illusion. How do you define your worth? You don't need to. You are who you are, and that is enough. How others see your worthiness is completely irrelevant. Because that depends solely on their subjective criteria, which do not matter. Stop worrying about worth.

C03: I connect to my animal body

C04: There’s a great Worthiness meditation on the Calm App in the “relationship with yourself” series. You are inherently worthy. You are perfect as you are. Just like a baby or a child, you are inherently worthy of care, respect, and love.

C05: Poorly

C06: Gratitude and metta.

For gratitude I come up with tiered lists of general things to feel grateful for as a guide

Living with my basic needs fulfilled - shelter, food, warmth, access to water

Having had someone take care of me as a child

Having family, friends, relationships, etc.

Living in the age I'm in - electricity, tv, internet, etc

List of accomplishments and things I've done

I'll also skim through r/gratitude

I'll contemplate how rare some of the things are. Some of the knowledge now freely available online would've been unthinkable, even a few decades ago.

I focus on the growing feeling of luckiness, not any particular analytic reasoning.

I combine all this into an ongoing gratitude powerpoint with pics so I can just hit play - much easier when I'm feeling low.

For metta:

I start sending compassion to the easiest things - cute animals. If I have trouble I scroll r/aww

I send compassion to friends and family that are easy to send it to

I send it to protagonists of books or tv shows, as they are created to be sympathetic

Send it to neutral characters

I focus on expanding the feeling of compassion, and use the carryover momentum to send it to less sympathetic people

I focus on flexing the muscle of compassion to send it to difficult people

Then I send it to myself

Some tips: It's easier to send it to people if you view them as caught in a web of causality. Bullies are usually bullies because of a reason, like a bad home environment. It doesn't matter if you know the reason, but know there is a reason - make one up if you have to in order to engage compassion

Anger and frustration at people are often caused because they abut up against your own sense of identity - they hurt YOU, they're not acting like YOU would want them to. Try to summon up an impersonal, universal love

The hardest thing for me is sending love to myself. I use all the above tricks, and then try sending love to different times of my life. Me as a child is easy to send compassion to. Keep going - send it to you as a teen, as a young adult, different ages where it's easier to look back at that person as a third person caught in the web, who really couldn't have done otherwise. Then finally bring it all to yourself now.

C07: Practice metta meditation. It helped me with this issue more than anything else I've done. Simply wish yourself and others well as a practice everyday as a ritual. My mind started looking for reasons why I was wishing myself to be happy when it thought I didn't deserve it. Slowly it started noticing small reasons which grew into bigger ones. Sometimes the emotion follows the action rather than the other way around. I had an easier time wishing random strangers well than myself and it was because I'd compare my life's bloopers reel to their highlights reel. Wishing you well now friend.

C08: Feelings of unworthiness are very painful. Capitalism values money and fame. Which most of us don't have. The propaganda is non stop in the Media. I deal with unworthiness by practicing Buddhism and studying the Dharma.

C09: Analyze why you feel that way, if those feelings are justified, and what you can do to rectify the situation.

C10: As with most uncomfortable feelings, look at them, look at why they are wrong. Look at how they hurt you, how that doesn't help you, and how unworthiness as a concept is false. You are loved, you are worthy. Getting over the shame society tells you to feel is a big hurdle to jump over [this is RC Sproul's contention against therapy & Keller's observation of finding a new tribe of supporters online or otherwise]. Looking at it directly and fully examining and accepting yourself is one path out of the shame trap, which is ultimately connected to the ego.

C11: That's just the ego. Not the real situation.

C12: Love your dark thoughts, as Ram Dass says. Ask yourself. Who is unworthy? Simply observe it all with love. For me, a half smile helps. Love everything and watch how it comes and goes. Find what remains. What is always present. Your emotions are stories wrapped around sensations. Feel more. Think less.

C13: You are worthy. Simple as that. Reach deep down inside you, and root yourself in truth. Unworthiness is a lie.

C14: Unworthiness is a feeling that comes from shame. Shame is a worthless emotional state that only exists as a result of us doing something that society has deemed "wrong" or not living up to some standard that we believe that we should be able to. If you are feeling "unworthy", ask yourself who's standard is it that you aren't measuring up to? Who's rules on how to be are you not following? Do those rules and standards actually matter to You? You are allowed to just be perfectly you. You are not required to live up to anyone else's measuring stick of success.

R01: Hygiene, ha. I have skipped showering plenty of times in my life, could be days, weeks, even months. Now, I can say Im progressing.