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

==Media Links==website: delvepsych.cominstagram: @delvepsychchicagoyoutube: https://www.youtube.com/@DelvePsych20substack: https://delvepsych.substack.com/==Participants==Hosts:Ali McGarelAdam 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.45.5.599Cushman, 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.