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.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Down the Rabbit Hole

by | Jun 19, 2023 | Blog | 0 comments

Down the Rabbit Hole

Deep down you’ve known something wasn’t quite right inside. So you read a little and you understand a little more.

You decide – I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I must be able to fix it. So you reach out and find a professional to hold your hand through their process to understand a little more. 

You spend a few months, maybe a few years. Maybe its helped your mind understand that maybe your parents yelling profanities in your face had a little to do with it and your first love broke your trust in the opposite sex and that definitely had something to do with it. It’s still gnawing at your insides – something still isn’t quite right.

You decide – I don’t want to feel this way anymore. I must be able to fix it. So get a little help from your search engine and you find something else. You book your first consultation for whoo-whoo energy healing session with a lady who burns incense and judging from her room –  has an endless fascination with colourful rocks. You don’t buy in but you’re willing to try it. After all you must be able to fix it.

You spend a few months, indulging her whimsical dispositions. You feel a little different, maybe a month, maybe two. You saw your folks last December, it comes up again. I must be able to fix it. You hear of something that will definitely help for sure, something that is a little bit out of character. A microdose of an unfamiliar substance. It sounds like a far-reach, but if it comes in a pill form – it surely works. You gather details together with the product. Its been a few good months, you’ve been better and then your partner wants a divorce. You feel it again. Something isn’t quite right. I must be able to fix it.

Your spouse leaves. You feel worst off than you start off. The pain is unbearable and your parents screaming profanities had nothing to do with it this time. There are no more pills left, you gone as far as you can go and the low you’ve hit tops rock bottom. You get under the covers and stay there – it’s been 3 whole days of unrelenting tears and pain turned to body ache. You can’t eat – you’re too busy digesting all these emotions. It comes through, your lifetime of denying these feelings. You offer them up on your alter, one by one as they pour out of every pore

Two hands reaching out to each other, symbolizing openness and connection in human relationships.
A person in deep thought reflecting on communication and connection.

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.

Human Connection

Human Connection

by | Jun 12, 2023 | Blog | 0 comments

There is so much to human relating and communication. One thing no one teaches us is how to CONNECT with another, how to FEEL another, and how to RECEIVE another. Being present is a lot more than being with someone in the body. It’s a deep LISTENING to what someone is saying, but also what they are not saying. It’s tuning into their emotions and their story, their subtle movements when a part of their story is uncomfortable to relay, paying attention to their shiftiness as they try to hide their embarrassment or shame, the conviction in their eyes as they try to avoid their pain.

Have you ever sat with someone and truly allowed yourself to be their witness? To witness who they are, what they are saying beyond their words, beyond the account of their story? This is the receptive mode that allows us to open ourselves beyond the perceptions of our own stories and understandings to truly connect with another human. 

When we practice this deep listening with someone, we not only suspend our own narratives, irritations, and need to respond to what they are conveying, but we create safety from a place of presence. This foundation of safety leads to deep trust and they are the elements of building a strong relationship. It is the place that encourages sharing, not only exchanging words and accounts but sharing who we truly other with the other, sharing what matters to us, what makes us cry, what brings us ecstasy, what we fear the most, and where our deepest passions lie. 

If you practice this deep listening with someone, you also encourage them to do the same, you hold them to a higher standard. However, can you also allow yourself to be received by another? Can you allow yourself to be vulnerable enough to share your story and allow yourself to be held by another (without judging yourself or judging another for the manner in which they choose to hold you?). Watch how you may try to censor yourself to try and protect yourself from the risk of being judged or feeling uncomfortable. Watch how you may experience fear of being truly seen as you open to another human being. Watch as you experience shame in sharing your experience with another.

Bear in mind, human relating is DYNAMIC, so you may not get the same as you give (we are all at different places with relating to ourselves and that will show up in our relating with others). Being the pioneer to encourage deeper connecting in your relating makes you brave and will only leave you feeling good about yourself and your relationships.

Reflections:

  • How open is your heart to connection?
  • How receptive are you to receiving another?
  • How willing are you to be truly seen by another human being and how willing are you to truly open your eyes to see another?

Two hands reaching out to each other, symbolizing openness and connection in human relationships.
A person in deep thought reflecting on communication and connection.

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.

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