For many of us, perhaps the hardest thing of all is to believe that "I am a good person." We can climb mountains, work hard, acquire many skills, act ethically - but truly feel that one is good deep down? Nah!
We end up not feeling like a good person in a number of ways. For example, I once knew a little girl who'd been displaced by her baby brother and fended off and scolded by her mother who was worn down and busy caring for an infant. This girl was angry at her brother and parents, plus lost and disheartened and feeling cast out and unloved. She'd been watching cartoons in which the soldiers of an evil queen attacked innocent villagers, and one day she said sadly, "Mommy, I feel like a bad soldier."
Later in life - whether in school or adulthood - shamings, moral indictments, religious chastising, and other criticisms come in many shapes and sizes. Feeling morally compromised - the essence of not believing you're a good person - is fed by related though different experiences of worthlessness, inadequacy, and unlovableness: as my ranch-born father would say, "feeling like you're the runt of the litter."
I've also known people - including myself - who have done bad things, or said them or thought them. Things like hitting an animal, risking the lives of their children while driving buzzed, being mean to a vulnerable person, stealing from a store, feeling contemptuous, or cheating on a partner. These don't need to be felony offenses to make one feel guilty or ashamed.
In effect, to simplify, it's as if the psyche has three parts to it: one part says, "you're not good"; another part says, "you're good"; and a third part - the one we identify with - listens. The problem is that the critical, dismissive, shaming voice is usually much louder than the protecting, encouraging, valuing one.
Sure, there is a place for healthy remorse. But shining through our lapses of integrity, no matter how great, is an underlying and pervading goodness. Yes it may be obscured; I am not letting myself or others - from panhandlers to CEOs and Presidents - off the moral hook. But deep down, all intentions are positive, even if they are expressed problematic ways. When we are not disturbed by pain or loss or fear, the human brain defaults to a basic equilibrium of calm, contentment, and caring. And in ways that feel mysterious, even numinous, you can sense profound benevolence at your core.
Really, the truth, the fact, is that you are a good person. (Me, too.)
When you feel deep down like a bad soldier - or simply not like a good person - you're more likely to act this way, to be casually snippy, self-indulgent, selfish, or hurtful. On the other hand, when you feel your own natural goodness, you are more likely to act in good ways. Knowing your own goodness, you're more able to recognize it in others. Seeing the good in yourself and others, you're more likely to do what you can to build the good in the world we share together.
How?
I've learned five good ways to feel like a good person - and there are probably more!
Enjoy this beautiful goodness, so real and so true.
Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, a Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and a New York Times best-selling author. His books are available in 26 languages and include Hardwiring Happiness, Buddha’s Brain, Just One Thing, and Mother Nurture. He edits the Wise Brain Bulletin and has numerous audio programs. A summa cum laude graduate of UCLA and founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, he’s been an invited speaker at NASA, Oxford, Stanford, Harvard, and other major universities, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. His work has been featured on the BBC, CBS, and NPR, and he offers the free Just One Thing newsletter with over 114,000 subscribers, plus the online Foundations of Well-Being program in positive neuroplasticity that anyone with financial need can do for free.