You Are Not Failing: Systems, Shame, and the Context Around Us

You Are Not Failing: Systems, Shame, and the Context Around Us

==Media Links== website: delvepsych.com instagram: @delvepsychchicago youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20 [https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20] substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/ [https://delvepsych.substack.com/] ==Participants== Hosts: Ali McGarel Adam W. Fominaya ==Overview of Big Ideas== * The episode begins with a deceptively simple claim: you may not be failing; the system around you may be failing you. * Individual responsibility can become a convenient place for systems to deposit blame, especially when institutions, markets, and cultures avoid accountability. * Scale matters. A small individual habit may help, but it may be dwarfed by larger structural forces. * Therapy theories often reflect the values of the cultures that produce them. Reality therapy, systems theory, feminist theory, ACT, and psychoanalysis all emerge from particular historical moments. * “Failure” itself is culturally loaded language. It can turn misfortune, exhaustion, and constraint into personal defect. * Context does not erase responsibility. The better frame may be: “It is not your fault, but it is your problem.” * Shame can be a signal that friction exists, but it does not have to be the force that chooses your next action. * Good creative work often requires ruthless editing. Concision is not easier than length; it is usually harder. ==Breakdown of Segments== * Opening and Delve updates: Ali and Adam invite listeners to share the podcast, follow Delve on Instagram, explore the Substack, and reach out through the website for therapy services. * “You are not failing”: Ali introduces the central quote, and the hosts explore how people often blame themselves without seeing the broader systems shaping their choices, limits, and distress. * Individual blame and structural avoidance: Adam uses recycling, energy use, and corporate scale to examine how large systems shift responsibility onto individuals while leaving the bigger machinery intact. * Effect size and misleading claims: Adam critiques the way research and popular psychology often focus on whether something has a “significant” effect while ignoring how large or meaningful that effect actually is. * Culture as transmission: Ali and Adam discuss how culture is not a monolith. It reaches people through parents, schools, media, influencers, religion, therapy, and other messengers. * Therapy reflects its era: Reality therapy becomes a case study in how psychotherapy can absorb the values of its cultural moment, especially individualism, capitalism, and personal responsibility. * History, religion, and selfhood: Adam connects contemporary guilt and productivity pressure to older religious structures, including the Protestant Reformation and the selling of indulgences. * Productivity and moral worth: The hosts challenge the idea that rest, exhaustion, or non-productivity make a person a failure. * Fault versus problem: The conversation turns toward agency without blame. Even when a situation is not your fault, you may still need to decide what to do with it. * Values, shame, and action: Adam describes bombing in improv and learning that shame can be endured without letting it govern behavior. Ali connects this to ACT and values-driven willingness. * The long letter quote: The episode closes with Mark Twain’s line about not having time to write a short letter, leading into a reflection on editing, concision, creative defeat, and the hard work of making something clear. ==AI Recommended References (APA)== Cushman, P. (1990). Why the self is empty: Toward a historically situated psychology. American Psychologist, 45(5), 599-611. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.45.5.599 [https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.45.5.599] Cushman, P. (1995). Constructing the self, constructing America: A cultural history of psychotherapy. Addison-Wesley. Glasser, W. (1965). Reality therapy: A new approach to psychiatry. Harper & Row. Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., & Wilson, K. G. (1999). Acceptance and commitment therapy: An experiential approach to behavior change. Guilford Press.

Love as a Verb: Risk, Generosity, and Slowing Down

==Media Links== website: delvepsych.com instagram: @delvepsychchicago youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20 [https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20] substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/ [https://delvepsych.substack.com/] ==Participants== Ali McGarel Adam W. Fominaya ==Overview of Big Ideas== * Ethan Hawke’s quote becomes a springboard for thinking about love as something you do, not just something you feel. * Unrequited love can be painful, but loving openly is not inherently foolish; chasing someone who is not participating is a different problem. * A relationship is built through mutual agreements, not private fantasies or one person selecting the other into a prewritten life. * “Falling out of love” can be a thin explanation when love is treated only as a feeling rather than an ongoing commitment. * Guardedness may protect against heartbreak, but it can also prevent the very intimacy people are seeking. * Generosity, complimenting, helping, giving, and noticing others can be a real salve for loneliness and low mood. * In conflict, urgency is often misleading. Anything truly worth fighting over will probably still matter in three days. ==Breakdown of Segments== * Opening and Delve updates: social links, Substack reflections, and the Baader-Meinhof frequency illusion. * Ethan Hawke and unrequited love: “the one who loves wins” as a statement about aliveness, risk, and generosity. * Love versus chasing: how to love freely without begging, self-erasing, or trying to force reciprocity. * Dating and agency: why “are they interested back?” is the first dealbreaker. * Love as a verb: commitment, care, negotiation, and the difference between liking how someone makes you feel versus caring about them. * The yard-work example: how small conflicts can reveal larger values, shared dreams, and relational cooperation. * Guarded dating: how past hurt can make people closed off, and why that can sabotage new connection. * Fantasy versus negotiation: imagining a future is normal; building one requires conversation and consent. * Everyday generosity: compliments, soccer stories, Ali’s first goal, and the lasting power of being seen. * Conflict pacing: “drop it, but don’t drop it forever”; waiting before sending the text; slowing down when emotionally activated. ==AI Recommended References (APA)== Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Gotham Books. Fromm, E. (1956). The art of loving. Harper & Brothers. Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. Crown Publishers. Post, S. G. (2005). Altruism, happiness, and health: It’s good to be good. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 12(2), 66-77.

If You Do What You Love, You Might Lose the Love

Website: delvepsych.com Instagram: @delvepsychchicago YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20 [https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20] Substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/ [https://delvepsych.substack.com/] ==Participants== Ali McGarel Adam W. Fominaya ==Overview of Big Ideas== * “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day” sounds wise, but work remains work, even when it involves something meaningful. * Turning a beloved activity into a job can change its psychological texture: money, status, proof, performance, and output start to crowd out intrinsic joy. * Self-determination theory offers a better map for job satisfaction: autonomy, growing competence, and social connection. * External rewards can produce short-term compliance while weakening long-term motivation. * Good management often means setting clear standards, then giving people room to think, play, relate, and improve. * Loving your work is possible, but it requires protecting the conditions that keep motivation alive. * Material goals, status objects, and “base-building” often promise happiness while diverting people from connection, experience, and growth. * Relationship skills cannot be “jinxed”; the task is to keep practicing, noticing, repairing, and acting with agency. ==Breakdown of Segments== * Delve updates and calls to action: share the podcast, follow Delve on Instagram, and reach out for therapy services in Illinois. * The familiar quote: Ali and Adam question the maxim “If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” * Acting, therapy, and the cost of proving yourself: how career pressures can alter the experience of a once-beloved vocation. * Behaviorism, capitalism, and reward logic: why it feels obvious that rewards should increase motivation, and why psychology complicates that assumption. * Self-determination theory: Adam introduces autonomy, growing competence, and social connection as core ingredients of intrinsic motivation. * Extrinsic rewards and lost love: examples include basketball, grades, pizza-for-reading programs, and the shift from curiosity to performance. * Managing for motivation: retail stories illustrate how social connection, autonomy, and play can make work more effective and less deadening. * How to keep loving your work: distance from dollar-for-dollar thinking, meet basic financial needs, preserve autonomy, and invest in people. * Owning less, connecting more: a critique of materialism, housing/status consumption, and the fantasy that things will deliver lasting happiness. * Relationship skills and agency: a closing reflection on trusting skills, not catastrophizing relationships, and continuing to practice. ==AI Recommended References== Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Plenum. Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627-668. Kasser, T. (2002). The high price of materialism. MIT Press. Kohn, A. (1993). Punished by rewards: The trouble with gold stars, incentive plans, A’s, praise, and other bribes. Houghton Mifflin. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68-78.

The Seduction of Ridicule

==Media Links== Website: delvepsych.com Instagram: @delvepsychchicago YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20 [https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20] Substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/ [https://delvepsych.substack.com/] ==Participants== Ali McGarel Adam W. Fominaya ==Overview of Big Ideas== * Ridicule can feel powerful because it moves shame outward: if I can criticize you, I do not have to feel what hurts in me. * Some people turn shame inward through self-attack, depression, or perfectionism; others turn it outward through blame, criticism, and contempt. * Projection can make the world look crueler than it is: if I constantly judge others, I may assume everyone is judging me too. * Self-deprecation can also be seductive because it feels like beating others to the punch. * The antidote is not simply “be nicer.” It is becoming more able to sit with shame without fleeing, attacking, or collapsing. * Owning what feels embarrassing can reduce its power. Comedy and improvisation become examples of practicing shame-tolerance. * Meditation offers a related lesson: noticing distraction is not failure; the second injury is shaming yourself for having wandered. ==Breakdown of Segments== * Opening and Delve updates: Ali and Adam invite listeners to share the podcast, follow Delve on Instagram, and tolerate a little human imperfection along the way. * Therapists as imperfect people: they discuss the fantasy that therapists are all-knowing, and the reality that clinicians often study what they themselves are still trying to understand. * Why therapists specialize: the conversation turns to how personal struggle, referral patterns, and repeated clinical exposure shape what therapists become good at. * The seduction of ridicule: Ali and Adam explore criticism as a way to evade vulnerability, shame, and self-scrutiny. * Self-blame versus other-blame: they distinguish people who reflexively attack themselves from those who reflexively attack others, while tracing both back to shame. * Projection and confirmation bias: Adam describes how people who ridicule others may assume others are doing the same to them. * Self-deprecation as defense: Ali notes that criticizing yourself first can feel protective, even when it deepens shame. * Shame, enemies, and acceptance: they discuss the impossibility of being liked by everyone and the need to tolerate some disapproval. * Comedy, improv, and ownership: Ali’s standup example shows how naming embarrassment can transform it from a weapon into something owned. * Meditation and the second arrow: the episode closes with distraction, self-shaming, and the choice not to compound pain with ridicule. ==AI Recommended References== Brown, B. (2006). Shame resilience theory: A grounded theory study on women and shame. Families in Society, 87(1), 43-52. Freud, A. (1936). The ego and the mechanisms of defense. Hogarth Press. Gilbert, P. (1997). The evolution of social attractiveness and its role in shame, humiliation, guilt and therapy. British Journal of Medical Psychology, 70(2), 113-147. Neff, K. D. (2003). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self and Identity, 2(2), 85-101. Tangney, J. P., & Dearing, R. L. (2002). Shame and guilt. Guilford Press.

You Are Allowed to Keep Doing What You’re Doing

==Media Links== Website: delvepsych.com Instagram: @delvepsychchicago YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20 [https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20] Substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/ [https://delvepsych.substack.com/] ==Participants== Ali McGarel Adam W. Fominaya ==Overview of Big Ideas== * The 50th episode opens with Ali and Adam reflecting on the podcast itself: the pleasure of dialogue, public thinking, and watching ideas become sharper over time. * The central claim: insight does not automatically require change. Understanding why you do something does not mean you must stop doing it. * Psychodynamic work can reveal how childhood strategies were adaptive in their original context, even if they now create friction. * Change and non-change both carry consequences. The question is not “What is the correct choice?” but “Which consequences are you willing to live with?” * Client autonomy matters. Therapists can notice, question, and challenge, but they should not coerce clients into the therapist’s preferred values. * A therapist can “fight” for a client’s stated goals, but that is different from imposing goals the client has not chosen. * In relationships, repeatedly asking someone to change may eventually require accepting that they have declined. Then the question becomes what you will do with that reality. ==Breakdown of Segments== * 50th episode reflection: Ali and Adam exchange appreciation, discuss the podcast’s growth, and reflect on dialogue as a way to build clearer ideas. * Why insight is not the same as change: Adam distinguishes psychodynamic awareness from behavioral change; Ali names the missing step of choosing whether to act. * Childhood adaptation and adult context: emotional guardedness may have once helped someone survive their family system, while later frustrating a romantic partner. * The right to remain the same: the hosts explore a person who understands their emotional avoidance but still chooses not to become highly emotionally expressive. * Consequences either way: changing can cost something; not changing can cost something; neither path is consequence-free. * Autonomy in therapy: a testing anecdote illustrates that clients can stop, refuse, or choose against the clinician’s preference. * When challenge is ethical: Adam describes challenging clients when their behavior conflicts with goals they have clearly stated. * Fighting for the client’s values: the therapist’s pressure is framed as legitimate only when it serves the client’s own chosen direction. * Relationship impasse: the closing quote turns the theme outward: if someone keeps declining your request that they change, your remaining task is deciding what you will do. ==AI Recommended References== Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior. Plenum. Miller, W. R., & Rollnick, S. (2013). Motivational interviewing: Helping people change (3rd ed.). Guilford Press. Prochaska, J. O., Norcross, J. C., & DiClemente, C. C. (1994). Changing for good. William Morrow.