In this chapter we’ll be looking at the specific reasons WHY most people end up feeling the negative aspect of shame, rather than remorse – the positive side of shame.

And one point to keep in mind – shame exists on a continuum. From remorse, on the high end, to debilitating and imprisoning shame on the low end.  You could be anywhere on this scale – from the liberating and character-building remorse all the way down to the gut-wrenching and crushing shame that damages you in so many ways.

Here’s the four main categories of why we so often end up somewhere on the low end of the shame continuum.

(And as you’ll see, all four of these ways interrelate to one other.  You can’t have one without the other.)

1. We’ve been taught and conditioned to feel the painful shame, instead of remorse.

Our parents, for the most part, were shamed by THEIR parents.  And our grandparents were shamed by our great-grandparents. And they were shamed by their parents.  And the cycle started long before then.  Where it all began, nobody knows…

Each generation passes down their shame to the next one. It’s passed down as part of the HERITAGE.  It’s not genetic.  It’s tradition.  It’s patterns of behavior.

And it’s going to continue to be passed down, until individuals make the conscious effort to STOP the shameful behavior.  (Which we’ll be looking at in later chapters.)

Getting back to the parents..

When a person is filled with shame, they often go looking for another shame-based person to take away the shame they deny is even there. Once they find someone, it commonly becomes a case of  ‘love at first sight’. There’s often an immediate fascination with the other person.

Usually, a shame-based person will pair up with another shame-based person. Each expecting the other to take away their shame.  When it doesn’t happen (because it’s not even possible) then the couple may decide to have a child.

“If we just have a baby, that child will somehow take away the shame we won’t even admit we have.”

Then once they have the child, they begin to dump their shame onto that child.  And there you are; the recipient of shame from parents who would never even admit to having any shame in the first place.

Everyone has some shame. But the shame-based person, the person most afflicted with negative shame, denies having ANY shame.  They are ’shame-less’.

And this shamelessness exhibits itself through the act of dumping the unrecognized shame onto others. Usually, it’s dumped onto those who can do absolutely nothing about it; such as young children.

A few people in the world were able to shrug off their parent’s shame, or else it wasn’t too severe.  But for most of us, we were saddled with either a debilitating or a wounding or an imprisoning shame.

The shamelessness expresses itself in one of two ways.

(1) Acting as the super-human, the more-than-human parent.

Perhaps this ’super-human’ behavior comes from trying to be perfect.

“I’m not going to be like my parents. I’m going to everything perfectly.”

“I’m going to be the perfect parent.”

This super-human parent will make no mistakes.  Or rather, they will not admit to making any mistakes.  So if there’s something wrong with the child, “hey, it’s not my fault!  I did everything perfectly!”

Or, they could be the controlling parent.

“I’m going to control every aspect of my child’s life so they will HAVE to turn out right.”

“I won’t let them out of my sight.  I’ll know everything they do at all times.”

Since control doesn’t work anyway, they have no chance of succeeding.  And the child who’s not perfect again gets the blame for being human, instead of being some sort of fantasy ‘perfect child’.

A third way of acting super-human involves righteous behavior.  The parent who’s always right. Who never makes a mistake.  The parent who’s never wrong.  Always acting righteous – whether it’s righteous anger, righteous indignation, righteous hurt, or some other expression of their ‘right-ness’.

And finally, some parents become the overachieving parent.  The super mom or super dad who ‘works hard and plays hard’.  Always driven to excel and achieve.  And always expecting the child to follow in their footsteps.

Now whether you were the ‘perfect child’ or the ‘controlled child’ or the ‘righteous child’ or the ‘overachieving child’ – you can’t possibly feel good about yourself.  You’ll feel hollow and empty and always believe “there’s something wrong with me”.

Because you were forced to live up to demands you couldn’t possibly live up to.  You were forced to be responsible for things you couldn’t possibly be responsible for.

You had to be responsible for your parent’s shame.  You had to be an object they could show off to others.  You had to take away their shame.  And since you can’t do that, you end up feeling flawed and defective.

And all you wanted to do was be a kid…

One final point: just because your parents acted as ‘controlling parents’ – for example – that doesn’t mean that you will end up as a controlling person yourself.  Often times, the child will attempt to ‘push off’ from their parents and act in opposite ways.  So it’s not always a ’straight-line’ relationship.

And the super-human parent can produce a sub-human child (and vice-versa.)

(2) The second way to be shameless – the sub-human parent.

This is the more commonly understood type of shame-based parent.  For example, the raging parent who explodes at the slightest provocation.  Screaming and yelling over nothing.

So you, as a child, must always watch everything you say and do, or incur their wrath.  If you spill the milk, or do any of a hundred other things that kids always to do, it’s like the world has come to an end.

You’re not allowed to be a kid and make mistakes.

A second kind of sub-human behavior: the abusive parent, which so often comes out of the rage.  It could be the obvious physical abuse, or verbal abuse, or sexual abuse, but also the less-obvious emotional and mental abuse.

Another type of sub-human behavior comes from the abandoning parent.  Sometimes it’s physical abandonment, where one parent just up and leaves.  Or it could be they simply retreat in whatever way – so it becomes a case of emotional and mental abandonment.

Whether your parents were sub-human or super-human, the end result is the same.  You are TAUGHT – you are given the message – that you are no good, you’ll never amount to anything, and you’ll never measure up to some sort of imaginary standards.

2. We’ve been abandoned – and that produces shame.

The second way we end up feeling shame instead of remorse comes from being abandoned.  Every person who suffers from shame was abandoned in some way.  Either one or both parents left, or else they retreated in some other fashion.  Even the death of a parent produces feelings of shame in a child.

Or the parents could retreat into work, or drinking, or some other obsessive or addictive behavior.  They could retreat into pity or judgments or blame or rage or…

But in some way, they were not present.

And this act of abandonment not only teaches the child “there’s some problem with me or they wouldn’t have left” but it also infuses shame into the child.  Like taking a needle and filling it with shame and injecting it into the child’s arm.

3. The act of abuse itself also produces feelings of shame.

Abuse goes way beyond just teaching someone they’re bad and wrong and defective.  Abuse, like abandonment,  injects shame into its victims.

It’s very easy to overlook instances of abuse.  You might remember repetitive statements such as  “you’ll never amount to anything”.  Or, “what’s wrong with you?  Why can’t you do anything right?”

But abuse also comes from forcing a child to be the mommy or daddy in the family.  Or forcing the child to be responsible in other ways for things only a grown up can be responsible for.

Or trying to make the child be responsible for the parent’s shame.

Or it could be something like not giving kids the privacy they need.  Making sexist statements.  Projecting certain unhealthy attitudes onto the children.

Many offhand statements that would not affect another grownup can cause severe, long-lasting shame when said to a child.

Keep in mind, that to a small child,  parental statements can seem like irrefutable truths.  Young children, especially, look up to their parents as being god-like figures.  The comments that parents make sink in.

Because of this a lot of abuse goes unrecognized.

4.  The act of being wronged produces feelings of shame.

As if teaching shame, abandoning and abuse weren’t enough, just the fact that they are WRONG also produces its own shame.

Some things are just plain wrong.  Some behavior is wrong.  Some actions are wrong.  And when you are wronged, that in itself produces shame.

Some behavior cannot be justified or rationalized away.

“Well, the parents had their own shame, that’s why they passed it on.”

No one HAS to pass on shame.  It’s always a choice.

Many times, the energy of ‘wrongness’ itself gets passed on from the offender to the victim.  But to a child, the energy gets perverted into – “I am the wrong one.”

“I am wrong.  I must be.  My parents wouldn’t treat me this way unless there was something wrong with me.”

The wrongness of the events become twisted and distorted and internalized until the child believes THEY are the wrong ones, instead of the events themselves being wrong.

TAUGHT.  ABANDONED.  ABUSED.  WRONGED.  These four ways always intertwine with each other.  You can’t have one without the other.  Taken together, they produce feelings of shame in a child, instead of the healthy feelings of remorse.

They produce feelings of being flawed, defective, ‘not good enough’, undeserving, unworthy. 

These feelings ‘prove’ there’s something wrong with you.

At some point, when the shame becomes too much, the emotion of shame becomes the STATE of BEING of shame.  It’s like you no longer feel shame, but instead you become shame.

Everyone feels shame, but not all take it to this extreme of becoming shame.  If you get to this extreme state of ‘being’ the shame, it will eventually kill you.  People die from shame all the time.

In the next chapter, we’ll look at exactly WHAT shame does to you…  all the ways it hurts you and damages you.

In the meantime, if you’d like some personal attention in dealing with shame, it would be my pleasure to help you.  Just go to -

http://www.join-the-fun.com/consult-with-me.html

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Life can be tough.  It tends to generate a lot of pain for people.  Especially during childhood; when we’re all victims to one degree or another.

And nobody wants to feel that pain.  In fact, we go to great lengths to NOT feel the pain.

When you’re a child, and painful situations come up, you have to do something with that pain.  Certainly, much of it is felt.  But not all of it.

Some of it – maybe the majority – has to be put into some kind of container.

Yes, it ends up in the shadow.  Without a doubt.  There’s a ton of shame and pain and fear and many other things that end up in the shadow.  Locked away… waiting for you to deal with.  And when you’re ready, you will.  When you’re sick and tired of dealing with the same old issues; when you’re REALLY sick and tired.

When you’re ready, you WILL forgive yourself, and perhaps even go to your shadow, rather than waiting for it to come to you.

But for now, I want to talk about HOW we containerize our pain, so that it can even drop down into the shadow in the first place.

Bottom line:

The pain and emotion and issues we don’t want to deal with have to be put into some sort of container, or receptacle.  We have to ‘bag them up’ if we want to avoid them.  Just like we’d have to bag up anything else we didn’t want to deal with.

I’m tempted to use the example of bagging up your garbage, but this pain is most certainly NOT garbage.  This pain is a part of you, and it holds so much of your power.  You NEED that power.

(That’s why you have a ’shadow self’ – to hold the pain for you until you’re ready to take your power back from it.)

Anyway, you have some sort of container. And that’s what I want to talk about.

So what do you suppose your container consists of?  What does it look like?  Where does it come from?  How does it work?

Well, it’s made up of your six raw materials.  (Obviously!)  Your beliefs, your thoughts and feelings, and the other three.

These raw materials come together to form a story.

You weave your raw materials together into a story.  Like weaving a basket, or knitting a blanket, or making cloth on a loom.

The ‘yarn’ of your story consists of your six raw materials.

And what is your story?

I don’t know.  But you do.

It consists of the most basic assumptions you make about life. The assumptions you never question.  It’s the story you tell yourself every day.

It’s the explanation you give yourself.  About ‘how life is’ and about ‘how MY life is’.

Why I can’t be happy.  Why I can’t get ahead.  Why I can’t have a loving relationship. Why I can’t…

Because I’m too fat or too thin or too young or too old or too broke or too rich or too…

Because I’m not good enough, or else I’m too good for everybody else…

Because the world’s out to get me… I really am a victim…  I really am helpless… I really am unloved…

My problems really are worse than everybody else’s… my childhood really was worse… I really am special…

And on and on it goes.

For most people, it’s the first thing they think about when they wake up in the morning.  Then they repeat it to themselves all day long.  Then it’s the last thing they think about before they drift off to sleep.  And it’s also what wakes them up in the middle of the night.

We’re like a fish, and our story is like the water we live in.

Sadly, because we’re so immersed in it, it often does unrecognized and unacknowledged.  And besides, the story is a major part of our foundation for life.  It often goes unquestioned; for to question our story is blasphemy.  Just bumping up against it can cause a severe emotional reaction of anger and hurt and pain.

Every story is unique.  And yet, every story is the same.

I know I had a good one going.  Hey, I LOVED my story.  And I would have gotten VERY angry if someone had dared suggest I even had a story.  Maybe even hostile.

I NEEDED that story.  (That’s part of the story!) And attacking someone else who might dare suggest I even had a story, well, that’s just my survival instincts kicking in…

Because to give up my story would surely be the end of me.  I would die without my story.  (Again, that’s part of the story.)

Parts of it are still with me today.  That’s how insidious this is.

The story has many chapters.  And you can only deal with it one chapter at a time.  But keep this in mind:

Your story serves a valuable function.  It holds your pain.

And you absolutely needed a container at one time in your life.  For so many of us (certainly for me) we just had too much pain.  We couldn’t possibly deal with it all.  We HAD to put that pain somewhere.

So we wrapped it up in a story of shame and pity and martyr and judgment and blame and righteousness.  We needed a way to make sense of the pain.

So, for me, I had to tell myself I wasn’t good enough.  I had to believe I was only getting what I deserved.  I had to blame myself.

I would have gone insane otherwise.  Or worse.

My story saved my life. It gave me freedom.

Now, it’s become my prison.

I’ve outgrown my story.

The walls of my prison stayed the same.  The story never changed.  It’s still the same old line of bullshit that I told myself as a child.

But I’m grown up now.  I’m trying to be an adult.  I’ve grown too big for my story.

So, like a patchwork quilt, I look at one part of my story at a time. That’s how I work with it.  That’s how YOU can work with it.

It’s too threatening to try to end the story completely, all at once.  Or it was for me.

So I just took bite-sized pieces and worked with them.

And I always start from where I am. (Now there’s some profound advice!)

In other words, what’s pissing me off right now?

Let’s take that one source of irritation or frustration, and dig down into it – deeper and deeper – until we get to the root of the problem.

Don’t scatter your energy.  Just focus your energy on what’s in front of you.   If you look at the whole story, you’ll get overwhelmed.

***

Now, there’s nothing wrong with writing out the whole story – in fact I suggest you do.  But when it comes time to work with it, and END it, you have to take it piece by piece.

***

Take the SMALLEST piece you can get your hands around, metaphorically speaking.  Take the smallest piece you can chew.  Take one patch of that patchwork quilt.  Take one piece of that yarn.

And don’t lose sight of why you’re even doing this in the first place.

Your story HOLDS your pain.  Your pain holds your power.  Your lost power keeps you stuck.

Also – when you separate from your power, that in itself creates pain.

Keeping the story in place INCREASES the pain.  That’s why pain always spreads.  Because it feeds upon itself.

Left unattended, pain always grows.

So the stories have to grow.

Eventually it kills you.

That’s why it’s so important to work with the stories.

As you unravel and work with your story, yes it will be painful.  But that pain comes up and then goes away.  It no longer lingers around, contributing to a slow painful death.

When you unravel your story and get to the root of a part of it, I call it ‘hitting a gusher’.  The emotion gushes up and it’s a little intense for an hour or a day, but then it all settles down as the emotion and the pain bleed off.

And YOU are smarter, happier, freer.  You see things a little more clearly.  You’re a little more powerful.  And you’re a little better equipped to deal with the next part of the story.

See?  It does get easier!

Starting is the hardest part.

I’ll be glad to help you.  As you might imagine, I’m somewhat of an expert on shame and pain and suffering and misery.  More importantly, I’m an expert at ENDING that shame and pain and suffering and misery.

I had to fight and claw my way out.  I know what works and what doesn’t work.  I know the short-cuts and I know the dead-ends.  I know how to help you. And I don’t sugar-coat anything.

If you’re ready to get some help from someone who healed himself, then just click the link below to get started -

http://www.join-the-fun.com/consult-with-me.html

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Regret.  Remorse.  The words sound alike  They even begin alike.  But they’re so different.  And they offer a valuable lesson in learning how to FEEL your feelings, rather than telling yourself a story about them.

I’ve already talked about remorse in the last chapter.  You can read about it here -

http://www.emotional-times.com/2010/07/the-good-side-of-shame.html

So what about regret?

It’s common for people to say they have no regrets in life.

Oh, how I used to envy those people!

Cause I lived with a TON of regrets.  My life was one big regret. About what a failure I was, about how I wasted my life being an underachiever, about how I was too scared to even interact with people, about how pathetic I was, about how…  and I could go on and on and on.  And on.

I didn’t understand.  First of all, I didn’t understand how much pain was hidden behind the words of saying “I have no regrets in life.”  How much denial.

I didn’t understand regret was often present in other people, but it usually stayed unrecognized and unacknowledged.

Just say you have no regrets in life as a way to not feel the pain.  Then you don’t have to think about the unresolved past.  Just shut it off instead.  Shut it down.  Don’t think about it.  Don’t feel it.  Deny any sense of regret.

Which wouldn’t be a bad idea if it worked.  Here’s why it doesn’t:

You have a shadow self.

A part of you exists (a part of your soul, really) that could best be described as ‘your shadow’.

Your shadow picks up and holds all the thoughts and feelings you deny.  It saves these energies until you’re ready to deal with them.  It saves all the goodness, truth and beauty you deny.  It holds so much of your beauty.  It also holds all the love and joy and happiness you refuse to feel.  And it holds so much of your power.

Conversely, it also holds the ugly qualities we deny in ourselves.  It holds shame.  It holds pain.  It holds fear.  It holds many other unresolved energies from the past.

“Well great!  Now I don’t have to deal with it!”

Yeah, I’m getting to that…

See, when we have regrets, and don’t feel them, those regrets come at us as ‘the way of the world’.  Whatever we deny and shove down into our shadow comes back at us.  It gets thrust in our faces.  So we can’t deny them. And if we do deny it, then they get shoved in our faces again.  And again.  And again.  Until we take responsibility for them.

How much regret have you stuffed down in those dark dank catacombs that so few have the courage to explore?

***

By the way, you can retrieve your lost courage from your shadow.  You can substantially reduce your fears and anxieties.  And you can also help yourself in ANY area of your life
by going to your shadow.

Just yesterday morning, in fact, my shadow filled me with a beautiful delicate white snow – which represented the energy of renewal and regeneration.  It felt delicious.  I still taste it today.

Your shadow can blow your mind in so many wonderful ways as it heals whatever needs to be healed inside you.

When you’re ready, go to -

http://creative-visualization.com/working-with-your-shadow-meditation.html

***

Getting back to regret… (boy, do I love talking about the shadow!)

I didn’t understand the damage I was doing to myself by living a life of regret.

For one thing, I was always looking in the rear view mirror, instead of keeping my eyes on the road in front of me.

I was living in the past.  Regret does that to a person.

It’s kind of like throwing your money out the window as you travel through life.  I was giving what little power I had to a past that didn’t even exist.  I was already weak.  Regret made me weaker.

Plus, regret opens the door to pity and blame and judgments and all those other energies that separate me from myself, and separate me from my spirituality, and separate me from my SOURCE OF POWER – my emotions.

If that’s not enough, regret also locks in a lack of forgiveness.  Regret keeps me from gathering the ’substance’ of what needs to be forgiven.

And I NEED forgiveness!  I need to feel that raw, powerful energy  – that ineffable energy – if I want to change myself.  If I truly want to grow and heal and change my life – if I want to end the pain, if I want to stop obsessing, if I want to get over the past, if I want to stop REPEATING the past, then I need to tap into the magic of forgiveness.

***

Learn how to forgive yourself by going to -

http://www.forgive-yourself.com

***

I need to re-connect with the gentle healing waters of forgiveness.

Regret can block me from going there.

So what is regret, exactly?

It’s a story about the past that may or not be true, but always shames myself in some way.  Or it shames another.  It’s a way to keep me from feeling my true feelings.  It’s a way to block me from making changes.  But mainly….

Regret distracts me from what’s real.

Now, most regrets are small, and thus create just a little shame.  Other regrets are quite huge.  And can even change the direction of your life.  (Not in a good way!)

Small regrets can be turned into remorse and released.

I can start by looking at my regret, perhaps even writing it out.  (Always a good idea.) In as much detail as I can muster.  Then, I can simply feel the energy behind the story… which would go something like this:

“No matter what I do, I can’t change what happened.  And I am deeply sorry it happened.”

Not so much to TELL yourself those two statements, but to FEEL those two statements.  That’s remorse, in a nutshell.  The feeling of those statements.  (Or something similar – it doesn’t have to be those exact words.)

The key is to FEEL rather than to EXPLAIN or RATIONALIZE or JUSTIFY or EXCUSE.

The feeling is remorse.

The explaining, rationalizing, justifying, excusing; that’s regret.

This illustrates the classic example I’m fond of giving – on the difference between feeling your feelings, versus telling yourself stories about your feelings.

Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with feeling regret.  In fact, that’s often where it starts:

“If only I’d seen what was coming.  If only I hadn’t been so stupid.  If only I’d kept my eyes open.  If only I hadn’t believed what so-and-so said..  If only….”

That’s where it starts.  The big question is:

Now what?

Do I stay stuck here, stuck in the past, stuck thinking the same old thoughts over and over?  For DECADES???

Or do I simply FEEL the energy behind those thoughts?  Be done with it, and move on to bigger and better things.
Tough choice, huh?

You’d think so, just by looking at and listening to others.

We love stories.  Especially when they’re about us.  And ESPECIALLY when they abdicate responsibility.

“Hey if there’s some way – any way – where I don’t have to be responsible for my own thoughts and feelings – I’m all over it.  Like white on rice.”

But that’s only because we tell ourselves stories about responsibility!  We believe in the false version of it, rather than experiencing the true life-changing wonder of REAL responsibility.

***

To end the false responsibility, and start living the wonder, go to -

http://creative-visualization.com/end-self-punishment.html

***

Anyway, if you’re ready to end the stories about some particular regret, it’s fairly straightforward.  Just feel the energy behind the stories. Feel and release them.

(To leave room for the next batch of stories around the next regret that comes up…!)

Speaking of which, regret can become a rather ingrained habit.  Just like blame and pity and so many other bad habits.  By taking the time to write out your regrets, and turning them into remorse, you can work on breaking that habit.

So what about the great big regrets?  The huge, obsessive regrets that suck all our power and energy? What about those?

They may have to be unraveled, one piece at a time.   If you have one great big regret that dominates your life, then you may have to break it apart into many small regrets.

“I hate the way my life has turned out.”

Well, let’s take a closer look.  What do you hate?

“Everything!”

Okay, let’s start by looking at one thing.  What jumps out first?

“I can’t get a loving relationship!”

Why do you suppose you can’t get a loving relationship?

“I don’t know!”

What’s your best guess?

“Because of what my parents did to me – I can never let someone get close to me!”

Now we’re getting somewhere.

And of course, in the above example, you could still break it down some more.

See how it goes?

If you have one BIG regret – you need to break it down.  Find the first layer, and work with that.  Then systematically work through each layer.  That’s how you deal with an overwhelming regret – break it down.

And I realize it’s easy for me to just sit here and say these words!

It’s easier said than done.  But you get the idea:

Chip away at the regrets, piece by piece.

Which really amount to little slivers of shame; shaming yourself.

We’ll be talking a lot more about technique in the upcoming chapters.

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Everyone has shame, to one degree or another. Some people experience the positive side of shame, and use it to better their lives.  This part of shame I love.

But for most people, shame has become a painful prison.  That’s the part I hate.

Before we delve too deeply into shame and all its debilitating effects, I want to say a few words about the good side of shame – the positive shame.

Shame was never meant to be a destructive force.  In fact, it’s essential to developing your true potential as a human being.  You NEED shame to reach your full potential.

Shame is a real emotion.  And like all real emotions, shame has a positive side when felt and expressed and released.  Also, just like every other real emotion, shame has a dark, negative side when it’s NOT felt and expressed and released.

Positive shame goes by the term REMORSE.

Remorse – the positive side of shame.

Here’s why you need remorse:

1. It allows you to make mistakes. It allows you to be human, in other words.  Remember the phrase?

“It’s human to make mistakes.”

Remorse makes it okay to make those mistakes.  You screw up; you feel remorse; you move on.

2. It’s the foundation and the motivation for all forgiveness. If you’ve already got a copy of The Magic Of Forgiveness, then you know remorse stands as an integral step in the forgiveness process.

(And if you don’t have a copy, then stop reading right now, scamper on over to http://www.forgive-yourself.com and get one!)

Wow, that was quick.

Now, as I was saying, you NEED to feel remorse for whatever you’re forgiving.  It’s not the only step, but it’s an essential one.

If you feel no remorse, you won’t truly be able to forgive.  You may go through the motions, but you won’t feel the magic that forgiveness offers.

Without remorse, you’ve got nothing to forgive, and nothing to be forgiven for.

3. It helps you know where you’re prepared in life.

“I thought I had a handle on this, I thought I had my plan together, but it all fell apart.   Guess I wasn’t really prepared after all.”

Remorse lets you know where you stand.

4. It creates the friction that allows you to have wants and needs, and to know what those wants and needs are.

That heat – the uncomfortability, the longing, the frustration – that comes from not getting what you want – that heat will stay painful.  You can get stuck in the pain without the remorse.

Plus, with remorse, you KNOW what you want.

5. It motivates choice and change.

When you see something about yourself you don’t like, it creates a feeling of ‘being ashamed’.

When you don’t take a shower for a week, you’re supposed to be embarrassed to be seen around others.  And out of that embarrassment, you take a shower!

6. It combines with your principles to produce character.

An example of a principle:  “I will tell the truth.”

Your character refers to how well you adhere to that principle.

For example, f I have a principle of telling the truth, but I go around lying to myself and others, then I have no character.

That’s how you define character.  If you’ve already got your copy of Self Esteem Secrets, then you already know all about ideals and principles and character.

(And if you DON’T have a copy, you know what to do…  We’ll wait for you…

http://www.self-esteem-secrets.com )

Wow!  You ARE fast.

Anyway, when you don’t adhere to your principles, you feel remorse.  And out of that remorse, you vow to do better next time.  At least, that’s the idea.

7. It plants the seeds of self-awareness and self-realization; two essential ingredients of your human value.

Self-awareness:  “I have impact.”

Self-realization:  “I can direct my impact.”

The seven parts of human value consist of:

Self-Awareness
Self-Worth
Self-Esteem
Self-Love
Self-Confidence
Self-Respect
Self-Realization

For more information on value and the Valued Self, I refer you to the copy of Self Esteem Secrets you so wisely purchased a minute ago from http://www.self-esteem-secrets.com

Anyway, with remorse, I can build my value.

WithOUT remorse, my value will always be lacking.

In fact, without feeling remorse, I stunt myself in many ways.  Because if I don’t feel remorse, then I feel the negative side of shame instead.

And then:

1.  You’re not allowed to make mistakes. Any time a mistake happens, you beat yourself up.  In fact, for some people, they ARE a mistake.  Or so they believe.

2.  You are not forgivable. Not only for what you’ve done, but for WHO YOU ARE.  You can try to forgive yourself, but don’t expect much in the way of results.

3.  You’re never prepared for life. Instead, you feel isolated and alienated from life.  You feel separate from everything and everybody.  You just try to get through life the best you can.

4.  Your wants and needs become sources of shame. You have to hide and deny them.  I’m too ashamed to admit that I want what every normal person in the world wants.

5.  You can’t change. Everything stays the same.  And change comes only with great effort, or by chance.  But certainly not by choice.  Choices don’t matter to a person riddled with shame.

6.  You have little or no character. Life becomes a series of expedient events.  I do whatever I have to do to get by.

7.  You’re cut off from your own value, and you’re also cut off from any true spirituality. You can say the right words, join with the right people, go to the right meetings, but you can never really experience the juicy value that only comes from knowing you’re loved by your Creator.

Shame separates you. It separates you from yourself.  From being human.  From forgivability.  From being prepared for life.  From your own wants and needs.  From change and choice.  From developing character.  And it separates you from your own value and your own Creator.

Admittedly, these are extreme cases.  For most people, the separation will not be overwhelming.  Plus, we all have our unique relationship with shame.  Some arenas of life produce much greater shame than other areas.

For example, I may feel quite good about forming intimate relationships, but I may be filled with shame when it comes to my ability to have money.   Or I may feel good about making money, but ashamed by the way I spend it all so fast.  Or maybe I’m good at meeting people, but I can’t follow up and stay connected with them.

The successful areas of my life are the areas where I don’t feel the negative shame, but instead I am able to feel remorse.

Remorse brings you closer to success.

But if you’re feeling the negative side of shame, then you won’t be feeling much remorse at all.

In the next installment, we’ll be looking at how all the negative shame started.  But it’s important to understand, shame does have a positive side.

In fact, once you heal the negative shame, you can experience the wonderful feeling of the positive side of shame – remorse.

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Even though my job is to talk to people and give them advice about their problems, I’m in therapy myself.  I don’t always like it, because sometimes I have to look at things I’d rather not look at.

But isn’t that what it’s all about?

I have no medical background myself, and ironically enough, my therapist doesn’t either.  My therapist is, quite literally, the world I perceive around me.  My therapy comes from feeling and observing the world around me.

Before you dismiss this as just a flowery metaphor (which it is!) let me assure you I am serious.  This is more than a metaphor – much more.

Let me explain.

First of all, I believe – I CHOOSE to believe – that I create my own reality.  When you choose to believe you create your own reality, that opens up a whole new can of worms.

I have to start telling myself the truth.

“I don’t get to blame my problems on you anymore.”

Or if I do, then I know I’m lying to myself.  Either way it kinda sucks.

Cause then I have to be responsible for what happens to me.  I have to accept that I created my mediocre life; or my painful life.  As the case may be.

But what if I start to see everything in my world as just a data stream?  (Which it is.)

If I create my own reality, that means everything I experience is simply a reflection of what I’ve created.

If I have the courage to accept that statement, a whole new world opens up.  Now I don’t have to beat myself up.  I don’t have to blame myself or others.  I don’t have to be a victim.  Unless I want to.

And I can start USING that feedback – that data stream – to help me.

I get to observe the world around me and study it and learn from it.  I can use it to heal and grow and change.  I can become MORE of who I really am, and less of who I’m not.

And isn’t that what therapy is all about?

It’s easy to say the words.  It’s even easy to explain the concept.  But what does it really mean to say I use the world around me as my therapist?

It helps to first know HOW I’m creating my own reality.  Duh.

I need to know what forces and energies come into play.  I need to know what I’m doing that actually results in the creation and manifestation of my life.  I need to know the interplay between my thoughts and feelings, my love, my beliefs, my desires and my imagination.

How do they all work together to create what happens to me?

If I don’t know the basics, then it’s going to be kind of hard to go much further.

That’s why I wrote the e-book on How To Create Your Own Reality – to explain all the basics – the ‘nuts and bolts’ of reality creation.  You can find out more here -

http://www.create-reality.com

Anyway, I next need to know all the reasons why I BLOCK myself from creating things the way I want – which is also covered in the e-book.  (How convenient!)

Next, I need to approach my current reality in the most healthy way possible.

“Hey look, I got problems.  I’m in all sorts of pain.  I don’t know what to do.  I’m overwhelmed, in fact.  And it really looks like the world is ‘doing it to me’ – instead of me doing it to myself.”

“How in the world am I gonna fix all that???”

And I would suggest reframing the entire situation.  Start with a fresh perspective.

Know that you’re going to have to be a warrior.  No two ways about it.  You MUST be a warrior!  But that doesn’t mean you need to start beating people up, or go around ‘on guard’ all the time.

It means you have to be an INNER warrior.

It means you need to go to war with your own limitations.  Stand up to the parts of YOU that aren’t really you. Or rather, they’re ‘lesser’ parts of you.  Such as the ego.

Everybody would benefit from learning about their ego.  It’s fundamental to growing and changing and healing.  That’s why I recorded three audio files on working with your ego:

http://creative-visualization.com/healing-your-ego.html

And it means facing the truth about yourself.  Admitting the games you’re playing and the lies you’re telling yourself.

It means having the courage to stand and face yourself – naked and exposed – vulnerable to yourself.

It means STARTING WHERE YOU ARE.

If that’s in the pit of depression, or the twists of chauvinism and victimhood, or the howl of despair, or the rotten stench of your own morbid fears – then so be it.

Being a warrior means you have the courage to look down at your feet to see where you’re standing.  Not to blame or feel sorry for yourself or to judge yourself – but to simply OBSERVE.

Being a warrior means being your own best friend.  It means KNOWING yourself – and knowing how difficult it is to accept yourself, but you’re going to work on accepting yourself anyway.  Not to excuse or justify or settle, but to use it as a springboard to rise above.

You accept yourself so you can become more of who you really are.

Next, you realize that at first, yes, responsibility sucks.  It’s not fun to admit you created things the way they are.

BUT ONCE YOU DO…

You’ve opened up a whole new world of possibility.

You’ve opened a door.  And you’re letting in a fresh breeze.  It might smell a little bit at first, but that’s only because there’s a little stale air – a little stagnant energy – that needs to be cleaned out.

But the wider you open the door of responsibility, the quicker that stagnant energy can move through you and you can start feeling ‘the good stuff’.

I open the door by opening my heart – full and wide.  As much as I possibly can, I open my heart to WHATEVER I’m confronted with.  Even the hate mail I get.  Even that is a gourmet meal.

In other words, I try my best to FEEL everything I’m confronted with.  The good, the bad, the ugly, the mediocre…  the beautiful.  The love.  The hate.  The anger. The joy. Whatever is happening around me, I try to simply take it in.

Because the more I take it in, the more alive I feel.

The more I open my heart, the more empowered I become.  And it actually creates a FLOW of energy – so I never get stuck.  I never get stuck in my feelings when I open my heart.

I used to have a wall around my heart.  It became a wall of pain and it limited me in many ways.  Once I removed that wall, it was like a breath of fresh air, and my perspective – in fact my whole life – changed.

You can find out more about removing the wall around YOUR heart (if it’s there) by going to -

http://www.healing-emotional-pain.com/page3.htm

So anyway, my therapy consists of opening my heart and feeling the world around me.  And of course, OBSERVING the world around me!

And always keeping it in perspective.

“This is just feedback, Mark.  This is just part of the data stream.”

I’m the one who assigns MEANING to that data stream.

I decide – I GET to decide – what it all means.  Since I understand how I create my own reality, if there’s something I don’t like, then I know how to change it.  Not by manipulating the form (the people and situations and events) but by changing the basic stuff of reality creation.  Like my beliefs and thoughts and many other things.

That’s how I use the world as my therapist.

You can too.

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I hate shame with a passion.

I’ve seen what it does to people – how it ravages their lives.  How it kills their dreams, their motivation and drive, and their very reason to live.

How it can leave them as an empty shell of a human being.  And then they have to hide that emptiness from the world.   And then they die.

People die from shame every single day.

Shame can come in and possess you like a demon.  And then you don’t even know who you are.  It separates you from yourself.  Which leads to loneliness, depression, apathy, anxiety and fear, and rage…  among many other things.

Unfortunately, shame often goes unrecognized and unacknowledged.  Just as fish in the sea can’t really recognize the water, so we too have a hard time seeing what surrounds us.

We see the effects of shame – and we certainly feel the results of it, but the shame itself remains invisible, or at least hazy and nebulous.

I’ve seen what shame has done in my own life.  I can see its effects.  I’ll never forget the gut wrenching pain I went through.  Or the decades I wasted being imprisoned by it.

I wish I could wrap my fingers around shame and choke it – kill it with my bare hands.  Like it almost killed me.  I would if I could, with no remorse.  But I can’t.

Instead, I’m left to write these words.  While shame itself lives on.

At least, for the most part, I’ve conquered my own shame.  But the tiny bit that still remains will never leave as long as I hate it with so much passion.  I keep it ‘alive and well’ with my hate.  Maybe during the course of writing this e-book, I can forgive myself and finally be done with that last one or two percent – for good.

It’s completely up to me.

So what is the nature of shame?  What’s the ‘big picture’ view?

Shame comes down to believing lies about yourself.

Shame is when you believe lies.  You believe them so completely, so thoroughly, so deeply, that you cannot imagine things being any differently.  You cannot imagine a different reality than the current one that’s based on statements that aren’t even true.

That’s the bottom line.

So where do the lies come from?

Shame starts when someone else injects their false stories into you.  It’s like your mother or your father or some other ‘bigger, stronger, smarter’ person takes a hypodermic needle, and gives you a shot of their own painful bullshit.  Because they’re trying to get rid of their own pain.

They inject their lies into you.  And it hurts like hell.

Shame is a transference of emotion.  (Just like salesmanship – which is kind of interesting, if you think about it.)

You’ve been ’sold’.  You were sold a package of lies.  Statements such as -

“I’m not good enough.”

“I’m not worthy.”

“I’ll never amount to anything.”

“Nobody would ever love me.”

“I can never be seen.”

“There’s something fundamentally wrong with me.”

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, you were ’sold’.  But then, you had to ‘buy’ the lies.  As a child, you really had no choice.  You were a sponge.  And if these God-like creatures told you that you’d never amount to anything, you believed them. You didn’t know any better.

But you’re not a child anymore.  So now we come to the really insidious part of shame.  You have to keep it alive inside yourself by continuously repeating the lies.  Cause if you stopped, the shame would end.

Negativity is weak and dumb and boring and repetitive.  It’s not intricate or involved.  It’s not even clever.  It’s dumb as a box of rocks.  Most of the time, it doesn’t even make sense.

The problem is, though, shame becomes too much a part of a person’s identity.

“I don’t know who I’d be if I gave up my shame.”

We don’t think that thought; instead we live our lives out of it.  Just like a fish doesn’t think about the water.

I’m trapped between the pain and the fear.  The pain of the shame, on one hand, and the fear of the loss of my identity on the other hand.  The pain usually wins out.  I say I hate it – I hate the shame and the pain it causes, but on the other hand, I’m too scared of living a life without it.

The shame is all I know.

If I ended the shame, it would leave a big gap in my identity.  There would be a gaping hole if I pulled this painful tooth.  That scares me.  I think I’ll distract myself from even considering I could truly live a life without shame.  I’ll burrow a little deeper into my poisons and prisons.  I’ll go back to sleep.  I’ll deal with it tomorrow.

That’s the problem.

The simple answer is to just stop believing the lies.  But it’s not that simple, is it?  Maybe you’ve already tried to distance yourself from your shame.  And you found out ending shame isn’t simple.

It’s easy to describe the problem.  But ending it, well, that takes a lot of work.  Most people don’t have what it takes to end their shame.  They’ll live an empty, meaningless life, and then they’ll die from their own shame.  Like choking to death from their own excrement.

I don’t want that to happen to you.  That’s why I’m writing this e-book.

I’m starting to understand how wonderful life can be.  The joy, the fun, the sheer ecstasy of waking up in the morning and not suffering from shame; that’s priceless.  And not only do you feel great, but you see the world so much more clearly.  You see the shame in others.  Also, you feel the love.  You feel life the way it was MEANT to be.

Life becomes fun – the way it’s supposed to be.

And you find that gaping hole fills immediately with more of ‘you’.  You don’t really lose your identity.  You gain it.  You get back yourself.  You reunite with yourself.

You become more of who you really are.  Then, all the loneliness, the pain, the anxiety, even the depression, can lift like a morning fog.  Or at least it can lift with a minimum of effort.   It happened to me.  And it’s happening to many others as you read these words.

I’ll tell you everything you need to know about shame.  And then some!

You’ll learn exactly how to end it.  If you have the courage to risk losing a part of your current identity, then you CAN end shame.  Or at least, the negative shame.  Because as you’ll soon see, shame has a positive side that’s rarely discussed.

You NEED that positive side.  That’s why shame exists on this planet.  Do you know what it is?  I mentioned it briefly already.

We’ll look at it more closely in the next chapter.

In the meantime, if you’d like some personal help with this, or any other emotional issue, sign up for a private consultation by going to -

http://www.join-the-fun.com/consult-with-me.html

all the best,

Mark

Mark Ivar Myhre
The Emotional Healing Wizard

PS – In case you missed it, here’s that last e-book, on ending self-punishment -

http://www.ivar.info/SelfPunishment.pdf

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Sometimes no matter what you do, a problem just won’t end.

Usually, it’s one you’ve been dealing with for decades.

It’s happened to me on more than one occasion.

Maybe the problem becomes a huge ugly prison with painful walls that surround me.

But – stubborn as I am – I keep whittling away at it.  And maybe I get it down to a manageable size, so I can visualize myself holding it in my hand.  In fact, often times my goal is to be able to sense it as the size of a grapefruit that I can hold in one hand.  And then…

***

Have you heard the story about how they catch monkeys in India?  (Or wherever monkeys grow.)

They take a big heavy bottle with a small opening at the top, and drop some candy or food into it.  The monkey sees the treat, reaches his hand in, but because he’s made a fist, he can’t get his hand out without letting go of the food.

As the story goes, the monkey just can’t seem to let go of the food, and he’s stuck. Even when he’s facing eminent danger, he can’t bring himself to open his fist so he can escape.

***

I don’t know if the story is true or not, but that’s how I feel sometimes. I do all this work to shrink my problem, but I just can’t take it that last little bit – to completely end it.

So the problem will be just as present in my life as if I’d done nothing at all to heal it.  THAT’S FRUSTRATING.

I just can’t let it go. It’s like that grapefruit has grown into my hand.  They have merged into one.

(“Ah yes… sensing the oneness of it all,” he said sarcastically.)

Why I can’t seem to let the problem go:

• Maybe the problem has become too much of my identity.  If I let it go, then who will I be?

• Or maybe I’m getting too much of my value from it.  I derive meaning and significance in my life from the constant struggle – going back and forth – playing tug of war with my problem.  And I NEED value!

• Or perhaps I still have some hidden payoff.  Like a thief hiding in the bushes.  I secretly want to avoid being powerful or responsible or intimate with myself…

or it could be any number of other covert reasons.

Anyway, when I’m sensing the oneness of it all (sarcastically speaking) that’s when I have to turn to my ace in the hole.

Oh, I don’t WANT to – not at all.  But I didn’t come into this life to be thwarted by ANY problem.

And that’s when I have to pull out my ace.

It’s my last resort.  When I’m stuck and I can’t go any further, no matter what I do.

That’s when I turn to a Higher Power.

Because when it comes right down to it,  I’m really just one ant in an anthill.  The problem I obsess over – the one that seems so big and important and so PRESENT in my life… well, in the grand scheme of things…

I matter. I know that.  And I can always ask for help.  I know that too.  But it always seems to be a last resort.  When nothing else works.

I guess it’s that stubbornness – I ‘have’ to solve my own problems.

“I don’t need any help!”

What a joke.  But the joke’s on me.  Sometimes it’s stupid to not ask for help.  If I’ve worked so hard to get my problem down to size, and it will shrink no further, and it’s still a problem no matter what I do…

wouldn’t it be dumb to NOT ask a Higher Power for help?

It’s like a little kid refusing to receive a beautiful shiny new bicycle for Christmas.

Honestly, I’ve been that stupid before.  All I can do now is look back and shake my head.

And say, “What was I THINKING??”

Ah, but that’s what forgiveness is for.  So I can learn from my stupidity, and hopefully not keep making the same mistakes over and over and over.

There’s a lot of hidden dynamics to a problem that won’t seem to end.

Sometimes you’ll never know all the little details – and how they fit together to frustrate you.  And thwart your best efforts.

Fortunately, there’s always that ace in the hole.  That dirty grapefruit I’ve been holding – the one that’s merged with the palm of my hand – I can ask for help to release it.

Sometimes a miracle happens. And it truly is lifted and it ends; either in an instant, or in a few days.

Other times I guess I’m just not really ready to let it go.  So I go back to work, processing and programming and trying again.  Maybe there’s some hidden treasure locked up in the problem.

But I NEVER say -

• This is what I deserve.

• This is my lot in life.

• I’m destined to suffer this problem till the day I die.

Because I know that’s always coming from my ego, or some other ‘lesser’ part of me that does NOT have my best interest at heart.

Even if I was born with this problem, it is never my destiny to suffer or struggle. It’s never what I ‘deserve’.  Quite the opposite.  If the problem came in with me at birth, all the more reason why I came here to END it.

Or at the very least, MAKE MY PEACE WITH IT.

And all the more reason to ask for help.

Especially from a Higher Power.

And if I ask for the problem to be lifted, and if nothing happens, then I always come back with asking for the UNDERSTANDING of the problem.

In fact, I find myself asking for understanding more than anything else.  Because I’m usually even more willing to understand  than I am to actually end the problem.

So determine what you’re willing to have – and ask for that. Ask for what you’re willing to have.

That’s what I do.  That’s my ace in the hole.

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So what happens when a polar bear happens upon a canine?  Check out these amazing photos.

I put these up to remind you – anything is possible.

Norbert Rosing’s striking images of a wild polar bear coming upon
tethered sled dogs in the wilds of Canada ’s Hudson Bay.

This could get ugly. You can see the dogs barking.

What's the bear doing with its paw?

All of a sudden they're friends.

They're playing around. Don't try this at home.

Even polar bears need a good hug every now and then. Again, don't try this at home.

Did they mate? Or are they 'just friends'?

The photographer reports the polar bear returned every night for a week to play with the dogs.

It just goes to show you – anything can happen in this world.

So you may as well THING BIG.

I’ll still keep my distance from polar bears, though.  Just in case.

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I’m manic depressive.  Or bipolar.  Or whatever the heck you want to call it.

But it’s been years since I’ve felt depression, or the mania that comes with it.  And I know I’ll not be feeling it any more. If by some chance mania or depression were to show up, it would not last a day.

Am I arrogant?  Or stupid?  Perhaps.  Or maybe I know something….

See,  I said I was manic depressive, but more clearly stated, a PART of me is manic depressive.  It’s not ALL of me, just a part of me.

I have many parts to my consciousness.  I have an ego, an inner child, an inner adolescent,  an inner victim, a martyr, a shame-based ‘Broken Man’, a beast of rage, a ‘limp guy’, an inner outlaw, an inner addict, a ‘negative guy’….  the list goes on and on.

But I also have many positive parts of my consciousness as well.  I have a Dreamer, a future self, a miracle maker, a magical child, a soul, a spirit, a Truer Self, a Sacred Self,  a Valued Self, a Loving Self… again, the list goes on and on.

Therefore, the bipolar guy – the Maniac (as I call him) – is really only one small part of my consciousness.

Now, he used to be a very BIG part of my life.  Most of my life, I functioned as a combination of the Maniac, the Broken Man, the inner victim, the ego, and the inner child.  With a few other parts thrown in, just for good measure.

They were driving my life.  I spent my time in the back seat, scared out of my mind, because I never knew what they would pull next.  I truly was helpless and powerless, and life was no fun.

Then I discovered the ‘emotional wellspring’.  I found out that thoughts AND feelings were constantly flowing into me.   And I found out that was the very source of my power.

Eventually I came to understand all the ways I’d been manipulating my feelings, in a failed attempt to simply feel better.  I understood the source of all emotional pain comes from restricting that natural flow of feelings.

But here’s the kicker:

Those feelings have to go somewhere.  If I deny them, if I refused to feel them myself, then some other part of me will be taking that flow.  If I refuse to be powerful, then some other part of me will claim that power.  If I won’t drive my life, then some other part of me will HAVE to.

And it will never be the positive, expansive, ‘more’ parts of me, such as the Empowered Self, the soul or the spirit.  Because they love me too much to do something like that.

So, because some part of me must take in that energy, that leaves only the wayward, ‘lesser’ parts of me.  In a sense, it’s not like my ego or Maniac has elbowed me out of the way in a mad grab for power.  Rather, I hid behind my inner child, my inner victim, and whatever other parts I’ve thrust out in front of me.

Some of those parts of me got to liking that control, though, and they ended up huddled around that emotional wellspring lapping up MY flow of feelings.  And I lose the sense of who I am.

I don’t know who I am anymore.  Am I a Broken Man?  Am I a Maniac?  Am I a victim?

Or a child?  Or a crazy, deranged ego?  I don’t know.

All I know is that I’m completely out of control.  Helpless… a victim, at the mercy and the whims of forces I don’t understand.

I don’t see the pack of hyenas circled around MY emotional wellspring.  Taking MY power and feeling what should be MY feelings.  I become like a scared child, where the world seems so big and overwhelming.

And I lose a sense of who I am, because at any time, I could be wearing the ‘mental constructs’ of a victim, or a martyr, or a beast of rage…  It’s like I wear the mental constructs of these parts of me just like I put on a certain outfit or suit of clothes.  But I don’t know how to take the clothes off at the end of the day.

And that’s the problem.  I think I’m stuck in my feelings, but really I’m stuck in the clothes of a martyr or a Maniac or an ego or an inner child.  I’m stuck in THEIR feelings.  It’s like a big bulky space suit I can’t seem to remove.  It surrounds me.  I feel trapped.

So if you find yourself in this situation, what in the world can you DO about it?

First, get a sense of the big picture.  Get a sense of what’s happened to you.  Understand how you’ve given away your power to these ‘lesser’ parts of you.

And keep in mind, this didn’t start last Tuesday.  No, patterns like this start at a very early age, when you really had little choice because you were most likely just TRYING TO SURVIVE.

When you’re hurting, you reach for any tool you have.  As a child, you have very few tools available to you.  Letting the ego run your life seems like a very efficient, workable solution to the pain.

“I can’t deal with my life, I can’t deal with this pain.”

So I’ll retreat, and let my ego take over.

That’s one possible scenario.  The bottom line is, the pattern becomes very ingrained.  To begin the healing and changing of this pattern, first really let it in.  Let these words really sink in.

“I’m not bad and wrong, I’ve just developed patterns that leave me powerless.”

Think about your own life, and what aspects of your consciousness have been running the show up till now.

Then work on taking your power back from those aspects.  It’s YOUR power.

You won’t heal it in a day, but you can START today.

I’ll probably be writing more about this in the future, but in the meantime, if you’d like to talk to me privately about this, I’m available for personal consultations.  For more information, go to -

http://www.join-the-fun.com/consult-with-me.html

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Recently I got the following letter:

“In terms of obtaining emotional wellness, I get overwhelmed
with all the information available. I wish there was a guide
that was simple and step-by-step that would be a road map
to emotional well-being.

“This seminar, this course, this therapy, this pill, it is too
much; I call it information overload. Anyway, if you have
something you recommend, it is appreciated. Again, thank
you for the work that you do. You make a difference it
people’s lives.”

So where do you begin?

One thing to keep in mind – everyone is different and we each have distinct blockages that keep us from emotional wellness. We have our unique problems. We have our own individual demons. And what I need to feel better may not be what you need. What helps me may not help you. The seminar or course or book that I loved may mean nothing at all to you. And vice versa. What you love, I may be apathetic towards.

The second thing to remember – life is not simple. It’s very complex, in fact. Emotional problems and issues often seem a complicated mess. With good reason. They usually are!

What I teach involves unraveling and ‘breaking apart’ the big problem into many small, manageable parts. Because when a problem stays ’simple’ – it often becomes too big to get a handle on it. When you can’t get a handle on it, then it becomes overwhelming. When it becomes overwhelming, then you retreat. At this stage, when you retreat, then drugs seem more and more appealing.

So I don’t advise seeking the simple answer for these two reasons:

1. We’re all unique.

2. Emotional problems are complex. They need to be broken apart so you can deal with the parts one at a time.

Instead, I’d suggest working on your foundation. Your foundation includes a few dozen different energies that all interplay and intertwine with each other. Such as your attitudes, your beliefs, your degree of self-acceptance, your willingness, and so on.

But to START the work of strengthening your foundation, you can work with only two:

1. Your thoughts.

2. Your feelings.

(Now there’s a little simplicity for you!)

I’m going to assume you’ve read the Emotional Healing Quick Start Guide and you’re developing a new attitude – in fact, a whole new outlook – towards your emotions:

Emotions are why you live and emotions are why you die.

Emotions are the source of your power.

And yet, when misused, emotions can kill you.

Many, if not most, people in the world die a slow death from the pain of an unhealthy relationship with their emotions.

I don’t want that to happen to you.

So I always say, start by processing your thoughts and feelings. Get some cheap paper and a pen and start writing – furiously – whatever comes out. Whatever pops up. Write and write and write.

It’s the best way I know of to start developing a healthier relationship with your emotions.

But it forces you to think. And it forces you to feel. Many people don’t like that. Many people prefer to distance themselves as much as possible from what’s going on inside. Which leads to pain.

When I first started, I bought an expensive journal from the bookstore. Got a fancy pen. Wrote maybe one paragraph. Stopped. Never wrote anything else. Eventually lost the journal.

I didn’t want to bleed all over those nice white pages. I preferred to keep the pain inside. And I concluded writing out my thoughts and feelings wasn’t such a great idea after all.

That was in 1973. It took me twelve years to return to this deceptively easy but highly effective technique of self improvement. I dabbled with it for a year or two, then stopped again. I just wasn’t willing to dig deep into myself. I didn’t see the VALUE in processing.

And I still saw emotions as the enemy; as an adversary; something to avoid at all costs.

It would be another ten years before I got serious with my processing. Something clicked inside my head. I guess I finally got fed up with the constant pain. And I couldn’t find anything else that really worked.

Oh, I tried plenty of other stuff. But slick advertising does not a worthy product make. I was suckered time and again by well written ads that promised to improve my life.

“Just get up on the log… we’ll push you off.”

I’d be crazy not to buy their products. Push-button solutions. No effort on my part. No accountability. And certainly no delving into my own pain. Just surgically remove it for $19.95. No responsibility required.

I was a sucker.

I wasted so much time looking for a shortcut. I endured over two decades of emotional pain that could’ve been avoided. If only I’d had the courage to look at myself right from the beginning…. rather than trying to make some product or some other person responsible for my life.

Often times when people write me asking for help with their problems, I’ll tell them to write me all the details. Get back with me with a ‘fleshed-out’ version of exactly what their problem is.

Over half the time they never write back. So in those cases, I know they’re more interested in perpetuating the pity (or whatever else it there) rather than actually solving the problem.

Which is alright.

Everyone has the right to feel sorry for themselves. It punishes those who love you; and whoever loves you the most gets punished the most; but still, you have that right.

But what about those who do write back?

Sometimes something magical happens. If they’re sincere about wanting to improve their condition – and they do write out all the details to me – they might end up telling me they feel better just by fully ‘dimensionalizing’ the problem:

Giving it height, width, depth. Giving it dimension.

Exploring the dimensions of a problem can magically heal it.

CAN. Not WILL. But the potential is very real for healing just by doing that simple exercise.

When you want to stay in pity, however, NO WAY are you going to dimensionalize your problem. No way you’ll break it apart and analyze it and feel the feelings hiding behind and attached to your problem.

Nope, it’ll just stay an overwhelming blob of amorphous energy.

As always, the choice is up to you.

So to sum it up: I’d say no matter what the problem is, the first step involves turning to the greatest tool of self improvement – your trusty pen and cheap paper.

Even if you’ve bought – or are considering buying – some product I sell; I’d still say your best bet is to process out your situation.

My three best sellers – Forgive Yourself, Reduce Fear, and Create Your Own Reality – each provides detailed instructions on how to process. (Each with their own unique twist, depending on whether you’re trying to forgive, working to reduce fear, or choosing to create your own reality.)

But the underlying energy and purpose in each case remains the same:

To think and feel as much as you can about the problem or situation – without the pity or judgments.

And to take back your power from what’s bugging you.

Remember, the choice is always up to you.

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