Control and Shame

Control and Shame

by | Jun 26, 2023 | Blog | 0 comments

Control and Shame

 

Sometimes when we are so concerned with controlling every aspect of our lives, the people in it and how things go. We’re actually dealing with deep shame that lives at the center of that control. We may think it’s just the way we are, it’s just that we like things to be a certain way and we expect a higher standard from people. All the while we are actually ashamed of who and how we are, and we use control as the mechanism to bypass feeling how we truly feel. Let me illustrate this point.

I was thinking back to my childhood and how an incident with receiving a Barbie doll caused me deep shame and how later, this shame was actually managed through the mechanism of control. I remembered that I hadn’t received the doll because my caregivers got it out of their own free will, but I received it because I manipulated them into it.

I was 7 at the time. I remember going grocery shopping with my family and seeing a doll I really, really wanted. Of course, my family was not going to stop and get it so I did what a lot of 7-year-olds do sometimes –  I threw a tantrum on the floor of the grocery store. Arms wailing, voice screeching and tears rolling down my face, I completely embarrassed my family! Those of you with little children may identify with this scene. Those of you who ever witnessed someone else’s child do this, have felt the embarrassment of the mother/father and felt your own judgments come up about their parenting style. It’s an eyesore!

I remember the drive back home being quiet as I successfully manipulated, or embarrassed, my family into getting me the doll. However, I didn’t feel a sense of satisfaction. As a 7-year-old, I felt horrified and disgusted by my own behavior. I knew that it wasn’t the ‘right thing to do’ and very soon I started feeling awful about myself. So what did I do?

The next time we went grocery shopping I made sure I behaved like a ‘good girl’ and that I never threw a tantrum again. It didn’t stop there, it was a thought pattern, that was born in my 7-year-old self and maneuvered its way into adulthood, as I began controlling what I allowed myself in situations with people and things.  The shame of thinking I was a ‘bad girl’ was so overwhelming I would make sure that I behaved in a way that was more resonant of someone good. I kept myself in line. 

We do this when we feel deep shame. We make ourselves bad and wrong for being a certain way, based on what society says is valuable and acceptable, or not. We try to control the outcomes in our lives just so that we can avoid feeling that awful feeling of being ‘bad’ and ‘wrong’. Shame erodes our sense of self; it erodes our sense of being in the world. When we feel shame we cause a split within ourselves and what develops from there are all sorts of fanciful alterations to who we are, just to avoid being ‘wrong’. These can stay with us for a really long time. We may start people pleasing, just so that we can feel ‘good’ again, even when it is to our detriment. We may start suppressing our voice and our truth, just so that we can feel like we belong. This may start to feel painful. Essentially all the pain we feel is due to us separating from our sense of wholeness. 

So what can we do in order to move out of shame? 

  • We can get honest with ourselves about how we feel about the situation.
  • We can get honest about what we really feel beyond our need to control ourselves, our environment, and our loved ones. 
  • We can find people who are loving, kind, and supportive as we speak out on our shame. 
  • We can open to our wholeness and allow ourselves to receive good things from people in our lives and from life itself.
  • We can stop apologizing for taking up space and instead say thank you to the people who are willing to hold us in our pain.

 

In love and gratitude,

Need more guidance?

If you want to work with me 1:1 CLICK HERE to  enroll for my coaching program where I tailor a process specifically for YOUR transformation.

Needs VS Neediness

Needs VS Neediness

by | Apr 10, 2023 | Blog | 0 comments

It’s taken me a long time to share what I have discovered about relationships (2 years in fact) – I wanted to ensure I had integrated PROPERLY all that I had learned.

We look to partner, mostly, because we’re looking to fulfill something within ourselves. There’s a kind of neediness that pervades our romantic relationships (whether you’re anxiously attached or not).

We chase after love and affection from our distant partners, we try to be ‘good’ for them in every way possible and when they don’t return our displays of affection and love we feel terrible. It is cyclical and can chip away at our self-worth.

What’s really going on, typically, has very little to do with our partners – it has more to do with ourselves and that feeling of incompleteness we may feel that drives the entire thing.

When we start to first address that feeling and tend to our own feelings of emptiness, we can start seeing through the hormone-driven illusory nature of it all and our true needs become apparent. The relationship itself then takes its rightful place (this may mean that the relationship is not the right one for you) and some real conversation will need to take place.

How do we even recognize when we are chasing something?

  • It will be a strong compulsion towards winning someone else’s love or affection.
  • You feel drained when you’re with the other person, yet you stay.
  • There is little to no reciprocation of your energy and spirit of giving.
  • Most of your time is consumed by a preoccupation with the other person and the connection itself.
  • Your boundaries are not firm with the other person.
  • You can not be yourself in the relationship (you have to become someone else to win over their love and affection).

We ALWAYS complete ourselves first and only then can we make space for what is truly a fit for us.

In love and gratitude,

Need more guidance?

If you want to work with me 1:1 CLICK HERE to  enroll for my coaching program where I tailor a process specifically for YOUR transformation.

Change Through Kindness

Change Through Kindness

by | Mar 6, 2023 | Blog | 0 comments

Have you ever tried to change an unhealthy behavior or a limiting belief by beating yourself with a stick?

You know what I’m talking about – when we treat ourselves like a bad child, we reprimand ourselves and berate ourselves for how badly we’ve done. Raking ourselves over the coals with our own harsh judgments. If you’ve ever tried to quit smoking or lose weight, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. 

What happens when we do this is we create a negative child-parent relationship within ourselves. We become the harsh authority figure we need to rebel against. Any progress we do make from this judgemental space within us is short-lived and unsustainable. We may successfully diet and exercise for a week, but we can’t sustain it because the ‘’child’’ wants to rebel against that authority figure we’ve created. We go back to our unhealthy eating habits and give up on exercise altogether. 

This happens because we’ve denied the part of ourselves that seeks comfort in unhealthy food. We’ve denied the part of ourselves that is looking for love and kindness. The part that is asking for ease and comfort. 

Now notice what happens when you reflect on the habit or belief you want to change from a place of understanding. More like the loving, supportive parent. Suddenly change becomes a bit easier to implement, once you understand why you were doing what you were doing in the first place. Once we approach ourselves in a kind way, change becomes a lot more possible. If you are kind to yourself and have a fallback, you don’t give up on your process or yourself, you understand that falling is part of the process and you make adjustments that you need to make, cheer yourself on, and get back up.

This was my experience with smoking. I had been a smoker for years and always wanted to quit. I would only get so far until another stressful sh*tuation would happen and I was back to it, pulling on a nicotine stick for my fix, to ease the tension and worry. Until I realized why I was smoking in the first place. I was getting a payoff from smoking, or that was the belief. Every time I would experience stress or worry, my cigarette would make me feel like I was experiencing relief (later I realized it was just the act of sitting outside and allowing myself to breathe deeply, that really brought that ease to me).

I lost count of how many times I heard myself say ‘’It’s my last one, I’m trying to quit”. I got tired of the cycle and thought I’d approach it from a different perspective. I got more curious about how my smoking habit was helping me survive, or what I believed my cigarette was doing for me. When I realized my smoking helped me get through so many stressful situations and really was a bit of a companion during those times, I started looking at myself and my habit with a kinder lens. 

I started smoking intentionally. I would roll my cigarette (yeah, I smoked rolling tobacco) and decide why I was smoking it before I would light up. I would also thank my freshly rolled smoke for having been a companion during tough times for so long. I would then light up with a commitment to my intention in mind. For the entire duration of my smoke break, I would keep my intention in my mind until I was done. That process lasted a few months and I found I smoked a lot less and eventually I didn’t need to smoke anymore. I never went back! 

What you can’t achieve with harshness, can be achieved with kindness!

Need more guidance?

If you want to work with me 1:1 CLICK HERE to  enroll for my coaching program where I tailor a process specifically for YOUR transformation.

Have you identified your values?

Have you identified your values?

by | Feb 27, 2023 | Blog | 0 comments

I have been finding that we create from our values. What we prioritize in our day or in our lives will usually give us an indication of how much value we place on that behavior or thing. For example, you are not going to place a high value on eating brussels sprouts if the chocolate bar gives you more pleasure. Essentially you’re valuing sensory pleasure more than you are nutrition. 

The entire process happens within a nanosecond, and we usually aren’t aware of the fact that we are making a choice in the first place. It happens at warp speed. It’s all been automated for you by your sensory experience and/or the values we adopted from our parents/caregivers. Sometimes we wonder why, when we have a clear intention, we still aren’t achieving what we set out to achieve. 

What I have found is that a lot of the time, there is an internal conflict between our intentions and our values about that particular thing/person/behavior.  We may have a strong and clear intention to save our money but we ‘just can’t help ourselves’ at eating out a few times per month because we really like the social element of eating out. In this situation, we’re placing a higher value on socializing than we are on saving money. There is a value misalignment between what we find valuable and our intention.

How can we streamline this process?

  • We have to check our values and make sure that all of our parts are on board with our intention.
  • We need to look at how receiving that thing or achieving that outcome is going to be valuable to us, how is it going to serve our lives. How is going to add to our lives?
  • Define your values for yourself – what motivates you to do the things you do? Don’t bullsh*t yourself or tell yourself lies. Be honest about what motivates you.
  • Pinpoint how exactly your intention fits in with your values. For example, I would like to lose 5kg because I want to look and feel healthier. (intention) I would have to then prioritize health and value my evening walks instead of the high value I put on relaxing in front of the television.

Getting our values and intentions aligned may require us to make behavior the necessary behavior changes and if your intention is clear, you will have all the willpower to exercise over this process.

Incremental changes are how we improve and transform any aspect of our lives.

Need more guidance?

If you want to work with me 1:1 CLICK HERE to  enroll for my coaching program where I tailor a process specifically for YOUR transformation.

Your Body Doesn’t Want What Your Mind Wants

Your Body Doesn’t Want What Your Mind Wants

by | Jul 7, 2022 | Blog | 0 comments

What your body wants isn’t necessarily what your mind craves. Sounds a little trippy. I was talking to my good friend in Texas last night and we have both been on a similar journey of re-evaluating what we put into our bodies and how we choose to nourish our bodies. We both have given up caffeine and sugar and both of us are doing the cold shower thing. Although I have to give him massive credit for having taken it to the extreme of ice baths.

We talked for a while about how amazing the results have been. It seems that both of us are feeling the same – nothing short of amazing! I will speak for myself when I say, I was completely addicted to sugar. I grew up amongst other sugar addicts and we even had dedicated cupboard space just for our treats. I remember my father doing the shopping at month-end and sure-as-shit, the chocolates, and sweets were on the grocery list too (before any of the essentials). As a result, I had frequent dentist visits. I had cavities galore!

It was only until later in my life that I started learning about how my body was responding to food, after having serious health issues. My husband at the time was into everything healthy and I’d get the beady eye every time I chose a chocolate instead of a banana. He was the one that went to the gym, carried his water bottle everywhere he went, and always had a healthy snack in hand. I did not want to hear his gentle prodding to quit sugar, I could not even fathom that such a thing was possible. After we separated, I started rethinking my behaviors, especially around my body. I was not only feeling shitty emotionally, but my body was really battling to process all the sugar. Like most things it was cyclical in nature:  feel tired and depressed, reach for a chocolate or two, feel tired…you get where I’m going with this. I was in a feedback loop.

I started gradually becoming introduced to the link between sugary substances and the body and decided to get my body moving through running. I reduced my sugar intake to a modicum of mildly appropriate. I felt a lot happier with my body and how I was feeling in overall. Now I know we grow in awareness through time, and I also know we fall back into our old patterns and habits especially when we aren’t addressing the underlying emotions that we are carrying. Needless to say, just as gradually as I progressed to being healthier and more active, I regressed with the same intensity because I was not looking at the emotional aspect of my life. It wasn’t before long that my stomach and skin issues persisted. 

Fast-forward a few years, I started really looking into my emotional baggage, that I was putting off for a while. Ok, let me clarify, in the past I was doing spiritual course after spiritual course, devouring self-help books, and seeing a psychologist on the regular, but I was still avoiding facing the deeper emotions that were there. It was only after I really started getting my hands dirty that I saw progress, and it finally freed up space for me to feel my body. I started becoming aware of my sensitivity to certain foods, music, situations, and people. I started making very slow and delicate alterations to where I would place my body but this time, I had the backing of my emotional resilience. The more I started taking note of what I was eating daily and how I was or was not moving my body. Things started to shift as I grew in my awareness that I no longer needed the sugar or the coffee to support me emotionally. I was already doing that by being more introspective and not trying to use sugar as a means to cope and self-soothe. 

I started noticing just how beautifully intelligent my body was and that it, and I, deserved to feel good every day. So, I decided to quit sugar and caffeine completely. Not only that, I started working out every day. Then I started tuning in deeper and really listening to what my body wanted. It wanted cold showers in the mornings! Yikes! Was that the biggest shift for me! I used to like my showers nothing short of scolding hot, for my entire existence up until this point. But I went with my own insanity and paid attention to the way I felt when I was done. I felt more alive like I had a newly cleaned and reset PC. I was more functional and alert and I felt so much ease. All my little aches disappeared. This is now becoming my usual way of doing things, not because I don’t want something a tad bit sweet or a nice comforting shower, and of course I have a healthy medium when it’s called for, but I am leaning into what is good for my body and my mind. The stuff that yields more longer-term results. Because I have dealt with my emotional baggage, I no longer need the quick-fix solutions that can not be sustained long-term, without hurting me. 

Our bodies want to feel good so that our minds can feel good. When they are working as a team, we are in an optimal state of being. When they are working in opposition to each other, we experience what is undesirable and that can not be long-lived because of the toll it takes on us.

Action Steps: 

  • I invite you to start being curious about your choices around WHY you are choosing the foods or activities you are? 
  • Are they adding to you or are they taking away from you? 
  • Perhaps keep a journal and track what you eat and how you move your body and then at the end of the day write down how you feel. 
  • After a week or two, you’ll have enough evidence to make a more informed choice about your body and your mind!

‘’Your mind, emotions, and body are instruments, and the way you align and tune them determines how well you play life.’’ ~Harbhajan Singh Yogi

Need more guidance?

If you want to work with me 1:1 CLICK HERE to  enroll for my coaching program where I tailor a process specifically for YOUR transformation.

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