“You idiot. Can’t you do anything right? I asked you to do a simple task. And what did you do? You screwed it up big time. What the hell is the matter with you?”

Some people believe that humiliation is a good teacher. You gotta learn. You must not forget. You will be punished if you don’t do it right. Humiliation will make a lesson stick.

These folks are right — humiliation is a good teacher.

But the lesson you learn is not what the teacher is intending. You don’t learn to do things better. You don’t learn to upgrade your skills. You don’t learn to trust your ability to learn.

A recent article published in the Journal of Positive Psychology surveyed the life satisfaction of 99 garbage pickers in León, Nicaragua. Researcher Jose Juan Vazquez interviewed these difficult-to-access individuals and found that not only are they happy, there is no correlation whatsoever to their financial well-being.

This is one of those studies that take a moment to get your mind around.

Imagine you are an itinerant individual living in absolute penury in a third-world country. You survive by going through other people’s garbage and extracting your food for the day as well as other essentials like clothing and footwear. You live your life hand to mouth and what your hand finds are the things others have discarded. You recycle what you can for money, and this considerable effort earns you about $3 a day.

By downward social comparison, almost anyone seeing a person living in these conditions would assume the individuals engaged in this activity would resent their life circumstance and view their life as anything but happy.

But this study shows this is a false assumption.

When we are growing up, we learn from everybody around us. We learn how to interact with others; how to share, how to eat, how to think. We believe most of what we are told growing up, and if we don’t believe it, we might be shouted at, or told we are wrong; and we soon learn not to speak up, to ‘swallow’ others’ opinions we don’t necessarily agree with at the time.

It could be argued that, if we grow up healthily, we are encouraged to question the world.

Ideally, we would be taught to form our own opinions and respect other people’s opinions, but not necessarily subscribe to them. However, if we aren’t encouraged to question things, if we are told lies by adults we look up to and trust, we’ll probably learn to follow what we are told. We will learn to think as we have been told and act on this information without questioning its validity.

If you work with me, you will often hear me say, “The grass may be greener, but it still needs cutting.” This basically means that things can always be better, but you still need to work hard at reaching your goals.

Some people spend too much time comparing their success to others. They see only the wealth, friends, cars, houses or fame others have. They take those differences and conclude that they are somehow deficient, or a failure for not having the same life as these ‘obviously brilliant’ people.

On one level, observing what other people have gained and wanting to aspire to their success is a very human thing. It can be great motivation — if it’s taken as such. If you see other people doing well, reaching their goals and being rewarded for it, then you might want to ask yourself (or ask them) “What is it I need to do in order to follow a similar path to success?”

In the continual quest to find balance in our relationships, we must take time to explore whether we tend toward codependence.

Co-dependence is one of those psychological terms that describes a dysfunctional way of behaving in important relationships in one’s life. It is primarily a learned behavior from our family of origin. Some cultures have it to a greater degree than others — some still see it as a normal way of being.

Yet the costs of co-dependence can include distrust, faulty expectations, passive-aggressiveness, control, self-neglect, over-focus on others, manipulation, and a slew of other unattractive traits.

Wondering if you might be involved in a co-dependent relationship? Read on…

Some people are simply irresponsible.

They may be careless and capricious or outright reckless. They “forget” about appointments. They’re chronically late. They neglect to plan ahead. They’re financially irresponsible. They don’t take care of their stuff. They make rash decisions that get them into trouble. They ignore deadlines. They act as though others should bail them out of whatever trouble they get into.

We all know people like this. And they’re not all adolescents. It could be a friend, a family member or a colleague. We may love them yet we experience them as terribly frustrating. We want to shake them. Yell at them. Knock some sense into their brains. But none of this seems to make a difference to them. They shrug it all off.

Why? Because they have Responsibility Deficit Disorder (RDD), a much-needed diagnostic category that I have just created.

I was just catching up with the latest Lakers news and was interested to see the new drama surrounding Kobe Bryant and Dahntay Jones of the Atlanta Hawks. It turns out that Kobe hurt his ankle after Jones walked into him on a fade-away jumper, and Kobe landed awkwardly, twisting his ankle.

What does this have to do with mental health?

Well, it’s interesting listening to sports analysts talking about this as a ‘dirty play’ and debating whether Jones is a ‘dirty player.’ Similarly, people often begin to depress themselves by rating their whole self negatively for making mistakes in their lives.

This self-rating doesn’t make any sense, and is totally illogical. What these TV reports do, though, is reinforce the idea that if we do something wrong, our whole being is now judged as wrong. And because this type of reporting is on so many TV channels, repeated over and over again, it is easy to understand why we, as people, have bought into this illogical nonsense of self-rating.

Into every life a little rain must fall. Does your rain come from a stray cloud on an otherwise sunny day, or is it from a gray, overcast sky that never goes away? Personal forecasts of sunny days and sunny moods contribute positively to a person’s health.

It is no surprise that a contented mind and cheerful spirit improve physiological functioning. We know the opposites — stress, depression and anxiety — can cause physical illnesses. Stress and depression both can lead to heart disease and heart attacks. People with heavy job stress have 50 percent higher health care costs.

It is a common misperception that life will always be better in the future: when we have a larger home, a nicer car, a corner office; when we are married, have children, or get divorced; once we finish a difficult task at work, or change jobs altogether.

In truth, life is always full of challenges. We must decide to be happy in spite of circumstances.

Traditional psychoanalysis has the patient coming to treatment three to four times a week, lying on a couch and free-associating to whatever comes to mind.

The theory behind this treatment is that free-association increases awareness of what is in the unconscious mind. Once you make the unconscious conscious, patients should, theoretically, become less neurotic.

That type of treatment seemed to work well for the idle rich in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

But does it work well in the digital era?

Washington-based dermatologist Dr. Eric Finzi has released what The New York Times has praised as “the first authorized biography” of Botox, a book investigating how a traditionally cosmetic treatment could be actually be a depression cure.

In The Face of Emotion, Finzi suggests that up to half of all wrinkle-busting procedures can dramatically improve moods, as well as our relationships with others.

And I absolutely agree with his theory — I’ve been researching this link myself since 2008.

Botox is a cosmetic dermatology practice, where Botulinum Toxin A (Botox is just one brand of this) is injected into frown muscles. This paralyzes them for up to six months. Patients can expect to see smoother, less-lined foreheads, with wrinkles seemingly disappearing to reveal a more youthful look.

Frown muscles are responsible for lines, but are also important in expressing normally negative emotions such as sadness, fear, anger and distress. A Botoxed patient can’t physically form the expressions necessary to portray these emotions; the procedure renders it impossible.

Evelyn “Champagne” King’s top 10 dance hit “Shame” from 1978 is not only enjoyable and freeing to dance to, it includes a very emotionally freeing sentiment. She proclaims with confidence, “Love is in my heart, tearing the rules apart, so why should I be ashamed?” Isn’t that the truth! What frees more completely than unconditional love?

Emotional freedom involves understanding the difference between “healthy” and “unhealthy” shame.

If we are feeling guilt over an act that hurt someone, that is the healthy version of shame. That feeling is telling us that something went against our value system. It’s a signal to make amends and rectify the situation so that we can renew our state of well-being. Once we’ve forgiven (if we were wronged) or asked for forgiveness (if we were the hurtful one), then let it go.

Unhealthy shame, on the other hand, is when we allow ourselves to be defined by a weakness or something we have no control over.

Shame really should be on the list of deadly diseases. It may not actually murder a physical body, but it has the capacity to barrage the soul to the point of psychological imprisonment. It attacks our sense of self-worth and destroys our ability to be fully alive.

If it were actually effective, I would wholeheartedly join you in your strike against shame, holding signs to keep it out of the psyche and saying, “Shame on you, shame.” But from my experience, it usually just grows into an angry beast. It haunts us day and night until we do something about it.

Pushing away the shame isn’t the answer. So what is?

Sharing the shame with a trusted person is what will heal us.