Healing Shame and Guilt – Finding Our Authentic Self

We have been on a journey of self-discovery these last few weeks, looking at the roles of guilt and shame that impede our progress to being fully authentic. And so, having found out how to expose shame and guilt to keep them from continuing, we are now going to look at how to get rid of them, and the short answer is forgiveness. When I was thinking about this, it occurred to me that all of these things like love, forgiveness, acceptance – even hypnosis – share one thing in common: they are all states that are of the self: self-love; self-forgiveness, etc. In other words, whatever you think of or do to others, you are projecting what you think about yourself, so in order to change how you perceive everyone else, you have to change what you think of and how you treat yourself. So this is an obtuse way of explaining Oneness and how Ho’oponopono works.

First of all, we need to define the distinction between guilt and shame. Brene Brown says that they can be perceived like this:

GUILT says, “What I did was bad”

SHAME says, “I, myself, am bad”

In her blog, “Forgiving Shame,” on the site “A Spiritual Evolution” Louisa P. says, “When I got sober, I carried a lot of guilt – and rightly so! I’d screwed over just about everyone unlucky enough to have let me into their life. But over the next year or ten, I learned to stop engaging in harmful behaviors (at least, those I can perceive) and seek a life rooted in the values of honor and kindness.

So when I say I still experience times when shame seems imbued in my very cells, when the conviction flares that I’m secretly wrong, bad, even evil, I’m not crying out for help. I’m trying to help us both. Because if you, too, were raised by parents who somehow shamed you or are simply prone to self-criticism, then that same undertone of shame reverberates in your bones as well.

Most of the time, we ignore it like some kind of emotional tinnitus, so the feeling doesn’t register. “What, me? shameful? That’s absurd!” But then life happens. We screw up or feel exposed in some way and ~ BOOM!! That accumulation of denied self-condemnation drops on us like a Monty Python 16-ton weight. We’re flattened, aching from a wound that has far less to do with what just happened than scars buried deep in our soul.”

She continues, “Chronic shame cripples our efforts to live authentically. It hisses that we’re never to question others’ expectations, make waves, or stand out. It’s the voice of fear, not god. To be exactly who we’re created to be, to share our gifts unabashedly with the world – that’s what we’re here for.”

In another blog entitled Overcoming Shame: Forgive Yourself and Let Go by Jennifer Chrisman on , she begins with a unknown quote:

“Stop beating yourself up. You are a work in progress; which means you get there a little at a time, not all at once.” ~Unknown

I haven’t always been the woman I am today. I used to be scared. Of everything. And everyone. Painfully shy and insecure, I saw myself as a victim of my circumstances, and was always waiting, on guard, for the next rejection. I masked my insecurity in a blanket of perfectionism, and worked hard to put forth the image that I had everything together and had it all figured out.

I did a good job looking the part. On the outside most people just saw an attractive, intelligent, successful woman, and had very little awareness or understanding of the pain and fear that was living inside. To further protect myself, I oftentimes took advantage of knowing that others believed my facade. I believed myself to be unworthy of love or loving, and there were times when the only way I knew to feel good about myself was to treat others harshly, often by knowing I could intimidate them just by being my “perfect” self. I had split the world into people that I was either better than or less than.

“ To release that part of your past that you need to forgive, it’s helpful to remember that we’re all doing the best we can in any moment. ”

It’s been said that someone once asked the Buddha whether it was possible to be critical and judgmental of other people and not treat oneself the same way. He said that if one is critical and judgmental of others, it is impossible not to treat oneself the same. And that while at times it appears that people can be judgmental toward others, but seem completely satisfied themselves, this is just not possible. How we treat others is how we treat ourselves, and vice versa.

I’ve spent the last four years working on finding compassion for myself and those who I blamed for my pain, embracing the concept of self-love so that I could find a sense of peace within. I’m proud of myself for how far I’ve come and the life that I lead today. However, it was recently brought to my attention that, despite the hard work I’ve done and the large shifts I’ve made, there are still some people who have a negative perception of me, and some hurtful words were used to describe my qualities and attributes.

When this was shared with me, I immediately felt the stinging pain of rejection and my automatic response was to go to shame. I felt really bad about myself. Aside from the fact that I don’t think it ever feels good to hear that someone doesn’t like you, I’ve spent a long time working to heal these very wounded parts of myself, and in a moment they were all brought back to the surface in a very painful way.

When memories arise of behaviors and situations we’re not proud of, it can be easy to turn to shame. However, shame has very little usefulness, as it oftentimes serves to shut us down, isolate, and close ourselves off from others and our own healing.”

So how do you forgive yourself? In an article in Psychology Today entitled How to Forgive Yourself and Move on From the Past, Matt James says, “Understanding why self-forgiveness is difficult can give us clues to make it easier:
He then goes on to give 4 ways, each one prefaced by a quote:

1) “God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won’t.” – Alfred Korzybski

When we’ve done something “wrong,” we register it in our nervous system. An injury to someone else might be accompanied by guilt. A mistake that costs us something we want might have sadness attached to it. When we’ve done something we regret, we often connect it to a limiting belief like, “I’m always saying the wrong things” or “I’ll never be able to cover my bills.”

If we try to forgive ourselves for something without releasing the underlying emotion or belief we’ve attached to it, the forgiveness just doesn’t take. No matter how hard you try to forgive, you continue to beat yourself up for whatever happened— because your nervous system tells you to!

What to do about that? Identify the limiting belief or negative emotion you’ve attached to what you’re trying to forgive in yourself. Release that first and you’ll find that forgiving yourself is not that difficult.

2) “Forgiveness means letting go of the past.” – Gerald Jampolsky

We tend to think of ourselves as a continuum: a human being that begins with our past, moves briefly through our present and heads toward our future. Letting go of our own past—or the past that we have created in our heads—can feel shaky and “ungrounded,” like a boat that has slipped its mooring.

When we try to forgive ourselves, we’re trying to release something that feels like it is part of us. We’re releasing who we were in the moment that we did whatever it was. When we forgive what someone else has done, in a sense it feels easier. We’re releasing a part of our past that isn’t essentially who we are—unless we’ve told the story of that hurt so frequently that we’ve built our identity around it! In that case, it becomes hard to forgive the other person because the transgression and our reaction has become central to how we define ourselves.

To release that part of your past that you need to forgive, it’s helpful to remember that we’re all doing the best we can in any moment. If you had known that your action would cause pain to others or yourself, you probably wouldn’t have done it, right? And even if you knew that you were causing damage at the time, you had no idea how much you would regret it in the future.

3) Retain what you learned from the event but release everything else.

“The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them—especially not from yourself.” – Daniel Dennett
To many of us, seeing ourselves as flawed feels vulnerable and even scary. We’re basically wired to survive, and beings that  make too many mistakes typically get ousted from the gene pool! Even our educational system tells us that anything that is not “right,” is “bad” and deserves some form of punishment. So we try to avoid mistakes at all costs, and when we do make a misstep, our first impulse is to hide it.

In order to forgive ourselves, we first have to admit to ourselves that we blew it. We have to take ownership and acknowledge the flaw or mistake—and that feels almost counter to our sense of survival!
It’s helpful to remember that mistakes, failures and even incredibly stupid acts are part of being human. It’s how we learn and grow. If you’re never embarrassed or wrong and if you never make a mistake, you’re probably staying within a pretty narrow comfort zone.

4) Appreciate your missteps for what they are: a stepping stone on your path.

“One forgives to the degree that one loves.” – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

When you really love someone, isn’t it easier to forgive them? If you have a trusting, loving relationship and your friend or significant other does something that hurts you, aren’t you more likely to see that transgression as a one-time event? Don’t you refer back to the goodness you love in them?

A lot of us don’t have that loving, trusting relationship with ourselves. Many of us are much more critical of ourselves than we are of others. We’ll give other people the benefit of the doubt, but won’t give ourselves any slack at all. When you’re dealing with a person you don’t trust or like, most often you can choose to forgive, release the hurt, and simply not maintain contact with them anymore. With yourself? Not an option. You don’t get to quit, divorce or walk away from yourself. If you don’t love and appreciate yourself, somehow you have to get your relationship with you to be more positive.”

That last sentence is so easy for him to say, but so hard for us to do.

I want to finish this week with a quote by Leo Buscaglia that takes us back to the Oneness we began with in the beginning. He said:

“Love yourself – accept yourself – forgive yourself – and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.”