I have added this video to the sections of gugogs.org on Toxic Shame and Healing our Jekyll/Hyde Divided Self. You may also find this article from Tara entitled ‘The Trance of Unworthiness’ relevant and useful. The interview below is about 30 minutes and full of insights and wisdom on this crucial topic that helps us move from being pain killers to pain healers. – Bruce M.
On Sunday, November 9, 2025, after meditation we shared an interview with meditation teacher, Tara Brach, entitled “Waking Up from the Trance of Unworthiness.”
In her conversation with Tammy Simon, Tara Brach explores the roots of shame, the path of radical self-acceptance, and how awakening from the cycle of self-judgment reveals the freedom of no-self.
Brach says that through decades of teaching she discovered a shared core of suffering — the pervasive belief of not enough. She calls this the “trance of unworthiness,” a subtle but powerful conditioning that keeps people measuring themselves against imagined ideals. Beneath daily activity, many live with a background hum of self-judgment — the feeling of falling short. This trance, she explains, closes the heart and limits our capacity for love, creativity, and peace.
The first step out of this trance is often suffering itself, when we realize how self-aversion keeps us from connection. Healing begins with a pause — recognizing what’s happening and allowing space around it. Brach calls this the “ouch moment,” when we stop running from pain and instead meet it with tenderness. If direct self-kindness feels unreachable, she suggests invoking an image of loving presence — a wise or sacred energy that can hold the pain until we can.
Self-trust, she clarifies, does not mean trusting every impulse of the ego but reconnecting with the deeper, loving awareness within. Through this connection, we rediscover what is most trustworthy in our nature — the capacity to love and care. She tells the story of a mother who felt unworthy because she often lost her temper. Only when she recognized her deep love for her child could she sense her innate goodness again.
Brach teaches the RAIN practice — Recognize, Allow, Investigate (with kindness), and Non-identification — as a framework for awakening compassion and loosening identification with the “unworthy self.”
She notes that while our brains’ negativity bias predisposes us toward self-criticism, modern culture amplifies it through competition, fear, and consumerism. What’s needed are practices that restore our natural capacity to “tend and befriend” — cultivating empathy and belonging both within and among us.
In the final part of the conversation, Brach addresses a seeming paradox: if Buddhism teaches no fixed self, how can one “accept the self”? She explains that self-acceptance is really about embracing the life that’s here — the fear, sadness, or joy arising in each moment — rather than affirming a solid, separate identity. As we bring presence and compassion to each experience, the sense of a separate self naturally dissolves. True acceptance, she says, reveals that “we are way beyond any story we’ve ever told about ourselves.”
True self-acceptance, she concludes, is not about perfecting ourselves but realizing our belonging in the vast, loving awareness that has always been home.
Scroll down to listen to the full recording of Dr. Brach’s talk. Happy Learning!
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