When things go wrong, men and women also react differently. A woman looks first to herself as the source of the problem, "What's wrong with me that I can't (fill in the blank)?" It doesn't matter what the problem is – a woman will almost always blame herself. "What's wrong with me that I can't earn more money? What's wrong with me that my child isn't doing well in school? What am I doing wrong?"
A man, on the other hand, looks outward for the answer to problems in his life. "What's wrong here?" he'll ask. "What happened? Why didn't this work like I planned? What the heck happened?" He looks first to find the source of the problem in the situation, not himself.
These are generalizations, of course, but they are pretty typical of male/female differences in how we respond to life events. Some women with a problem feel inadequate within themselves, while a man with a problem feels frustrated by events or other people.
Is it any wonder, then, that we sometimes feel that we are the only one with a problem? We experience self-doubt about being good people; we feel inadequate to balance both work and family; we berate ourselves for what we think are "dumb mistakes." We are often our own worst critics – and to compound that harsh self-judgment, we keep our feelings to ourselves because we sometimes think that we are the only one who ever felt this way? It's a vicious cycle, to be sure.
The first step in soothing and reassuring ourselves that we're NOT alone in our feeling of incompetence is to share our experiences – our stories – with other people. For it is in this sharing that we discover that we're not alone ... and we're not all that incompetent.
Have a great weekend
