Embracing Shame & Guilt Leads To Finding Your Authenticity

So,

I carried huge amounts of shame and guilt within my body because I experienced a lot of abuse and bullying as a child.

So one thing is I was being bullied pretty much every day.

And another one was I have a narcissistic mother who manipulated me a lot to believe that I am an evil and selfish son so that she could get everything she wants from me.

And I was very threatening and aggressive and she used a lot of shame,

Shaming me and gaslighting me to control me and gave me this feeling of responsibility that I'm responsible for her depression and it's my life's mission to cure her depression and make her happy.

And so from all of those years of intense gaslighting and being made to feel responsible for well-being,

She even said if I don't help her she will kill herself one day and I will regret it for the rest of my life.

I carried such intense guilt inside of me that was controlling everything in my life actually.

Oh,

Hey Jennifer,

Nice to see you here again.

And that shame and guilt within me was unconscious.

I wasn't even aware that there was so much shame and guilt within me for most of my life.

And once I started to get in contact with it,

It just seemed like it's endless because it was just like years and years and years of abuse,

Like years and years and years of being shamed and being guilt-tripped.

And so the way how I healed from this abuse was actually by embracing my shame and guilt counterintuitively because it was like this thing that I was so hard trying to prove that I'm not a bad person,

That I'm not this bad person,

Not this evil person that my mother made me believe I am.

And because I was trying to prove myself,

That was making me neglect my own needs.

You know,

I became so like selfless.

I wanted to portray to myself that I'm generous and giving,

And so I started to neglect my own needs because that would just bring me a relief,

You know,

Like when I would receive appreciation and words from other people that they were affirming me that I'm a good person.

It just made my inner child feel like,

Oh,

What my mother said about me is not the case.

And so the only problem with that was that it was burning me out and I was neglecting myself and I wasn't making decisions based on what I really need and what would be beneficial for me,

But I was making decisions based on what would please other people.

And I wasn't really myself.

I wasn't living a life that's authentic to me because I was so influenced by this trauma.

And what I discovered was that actually the shame and guilt,

The shame and guilt wasn't actually the problem.

It was actually my resistance towards feeling the shame and guilt that made me act in these ways.

So I was people-pleasing,

I was overextending myself so that I didn't feel the shame and guilt.

So the solution was actually to embrace the shame and guilt and be at peace with it.

And what I discovered was that through that I got in touch with the deeper reasons for why the shame and guilt were there.

They were basically protecting me from being attacked,

From being judged,

From being hurt.

And I could,

By feeling the shame and guilt,

I could get in touch with this original wound within me,

How I felt so hurt or how I felt so scared.

And through getting in touch with this wound and paying attention to it and loving it,

I was able to heal and it opened the doors to all kinds of other emotions,

Like feeling powerless,

Feeling sad,

Feeling,

Wishing to receive love,

Feeling anger,

All these other things,

All these other needs and emotions would arise from opening myself up to this shame and guilt within me.

And so this is why I'm starting this series on deep healing with shame and guilt because whatever we feel shame and guilt around,

That is really where there's the greatest potential for healing.

And so if you have shame and guilt within you,

Then I'm excited for you because that means there's a lot of healing potential there and a lot of life-changing potential there that can come about by opening yourself up to these emotions.

And the reason why I'm excited about it is because in my life,

Actually,

A lot of joy,

A lot of relief,

A lot of peace and bliss came about by opening myself up to these suppressed emotions.

And often the first layer upon these suppressed emotions is a feeling of shame and guilt and then we learn to hide these feelings from ourselves and from the world.

So it's very powerful to feel into shame and guilt,

It can open up a lot of things.

So as I will be guiding you through this meditation,

You might get in touch with other emotions,

Underlying emotions,

Things that you maybe even have forgotten about,

Memories,

Things that happened to you and it can bring up feelings of pain,

Heartbreak,

Discomfort,

All kinds of things,

Loneliness,

Because often we were lonely when we experienced these things.

And your body can even start reacting,

Your body can start shaking a little bit,

Your heart can beat faster,

All these things can start happening.

The most important thing is just to know that whatever happens during this meditation,

It's all part of the healing process.

So however your body wants to react,

You can let it react that way.

So if you feel a little bit shaky,

You can allow that to be there.

If you all of a sudden start to feel like you want to breathe in more deeply,

You can allow that to happen.

You know,

If tears come,

You can allow them to flow.

Basically whatever happens is part of the healing.

And a big part of the healing is to learn to trust our body again.

Because we've been so trained in distrusting our body and to suppress the natural impulses of our body,

To suppress the shaking,

Suppress the crying,

Suppress any natural reactions that the body might have.

And it's understandable that we do that because often we were judged for having reactions like this.

But these are all natural release mechanisms of the body.

And the more you can allow them and surrender to them,

The greater of a healing experience you will have.

And you will actually,

With time,

You will even be able to learn to enjoy these expressions of your body.

And you can actually start to enjoy all this alive energy moving through you.

And it's a little bit,

It can be likened to a physical detox.

If you've ever been having a detoxing experience,

Like a juice fast or water fast or something of that nature,

You know it can,

When you're embarking on a fast like this,

It can bring up a lot of physical symptoms.

But those symptoms are actually part of the self-healing of the body.

And what we're doing here is sort of like an emotional healing and as part of this healing it can bring up emotions.

But that's a good sign.

If emotions or physical reactions arise,

It means there's some deep healing happening here.

So I just wanted to preface this and I will guide you through this process.

So if resistance has come up,

If fear has come up at any point,

That's perfect.

That's all part of the process.

So there's no wrong emotions that can come up in this.

Whatever's happening is exactly what your body wants to feel,

Exactly what your body wants to experience for its healing to take place.

Okay,

Thank you Emily.

Then we can get started.

So you can make yourself comfortable,

Put yourself into a comfortable position.

You can either sit or you can also lie down if you want to,

Whatever is more comfortable for you.

And you can close your eyes,

Turn your attention inwards,

And you can internally just give yourself permission that for the duration of this meditation you can let go of all the practical concerns and allowing some space for your healing,

For your well-being.

Just a space for you of self-love.

And later you can go back again to all the practical day-to-day concerns.

For now it's just you and your body,

You and your experience,

Going through this healing experience.

And you can start by taking a deep breath in and breathing out,

And taking another deep breath in and breathing out.

And then you can take a moment to feel into your body,

Feeling whatever you're feeling right now.

If you're feeling any nervousness,

You're allowed to feel nervous.

If you're feeling excitement,

You're allowed to feel excited.

Whatever is inside of you is allowed to be there.

And this meditation will give you the opportunity to love yourself unconditionally,

To love each emotion that arises,

Each sensation that arises.

The purest expression of love is just to allow everything to be there,

Exactly as it is.

So you can start by traveling back in time to a memory,

To a thought,

To a feeling,

To a memory,

To a moment in time where you felt the strongest shame or guilt that you can remember,

Whatever moment comes to your mind.

You're allowed to remember what happened in this experience,

Where you were,

What you were,

And how you felt at that time.

And you can welcome the feelings that this brings up.

You can welcome the shame and guilt and any other emotion that this might bring up.

And as you're experiencing this,

You can say to yourself,

I'm allowed to feel shame.

I'm allowed to feel guilt.

I'm allowed to feel shame.

I'm allowed to feel guilt.

And allowing your body to react to this statement.

If your body starts shaking a little bit,

It's allowed to do that.

If your breathing changes,

It's allowed to do that.

If you feel a tension,

It's allowed to feel that.

I'm allowed to feel shame.

I'm allowed to feel guilt.

To whatever is happening in your body right now is exactly what wants to happen.

If there's pain,

If there's sadness,

Whatever is there,

It's all there.

To be welcomed.

You're allowed to feel these emotions and sensations like a child would experience them.

Pure openness.

In their fullest aliveness.

In their fullest intensity.

You're allowed to have intense emotions.

You're allowed to have intense bodily reactions.

You can welcome the intensity of experience.

And if resistance arises at any point,

That resistance is also completely welcome.

And you can say to yourself,

I'm allowed to feel resistance or to feel tension.

If sadness arises,

You can say,

I'm allowed to be sad.

If a blockage arises,

You can say,

I'm allowed to feel blocked.

If fear arises,

You can say,

I'm allowed to be scared.

If anger arises,

You can say,

I'm allowed to be angry.

You're allowed to be emotional.

And if there are no emotions,

You're also allowed to feel numb.

As you're feeling these emotions,

Memories might appear of things that happened to you,

Where you felt ashamed,

Embarrassed or guilty.

All those memories are also allowed to be there.

All those memories might bring pain,

And also this pain is allowed to be there.

You're allowed to feel in pain.

You're allowed to feel hurt for the things that happened to you.

A greater self-love is to allow yourself to see and feel all the emotions inside of you,

Acknowledging them and acknowledging the pain that you,

As a child,

Experienced.

Acknowledging the pain that you,

As a child,

Feel,

All the emotions that it feels.

You can imagine your younger self going through these experiences,

Feeling ashamed,

Feeling guilty,

Feeling hurt,

Feeling scared.

And you can love the inner child completely,

While it's experiencing all these intense emotions.

Every emotion is here to protect you from something.

The shame and guilt is here to protect you.

And you can even start thanking your emotions.

Thank you,

Shame,

For protecting me.

Thank you,

Guilt,

For protecting me.

Thank you,

Resistance,

For protecting me.

Thank you,

Pain,

For protecting me.

You're allowed to love yourself completely,

To love every single emotion that arises within you.

You're allowed to love yourself so unconditionally,

That you even embrace the pain and the shame and the guilt and all other emotions.

You don't even need to understand what you're feeling or why you're feeling it.

You can just allow whatever is inside of you to be there.

Whatever is happening is part of the self-healing of the body.

And you can completely trust that whatever your body is experiencing is a part of the self-healing.

You can allow your body to do whatever it wants to do,

Opening yourself up to any experience that your body might want to have right now,

To any movement,

Any reaction your body might want to have right now.

If your breathing changes,

Your breathing is allowed to change.

If your heartbeat changes,

Your heartbeat is allowed to change.

As you're opening yourself up to these deep emotions within you,

Your body might start shaking,

Your body might start moving in certain ways,

You might start feeling tension all over the body,

But whatever is happening is welcome.

You can repeat to yourself again,

I'm allowed to feel shame.

I'm allowed to feel guilt.

And I'm allowed to feel all emotions that my body wants to feel right now.

I'm allowed to feel all reactions that my body wants to experience right now.

I'm allowed to be me unconditionally.

Life is allowing you to be exactly the way you are.

Life is already allowing you to have all the emotions that you experience right now.

And life was always present in each experience that you made.

And life was holding you in each of these experiences.

And even though people might have rejected you and your emotions,

Life has always allowed you to have any emotion,

Any experience.

And each of your emotions are an expression of life itself,

Of the life force energy within you.

And you can allow this life force energy within you to move through you and express itself inside of you however it wants to express itself inside of you.

Everything is life moving through you.

And if you're feeling a little bit vulnerable right now,

Feeling all these emotions,

You're also allowed to feel vulnerable.

And you're allowed to feel and acknowledge the impact these experiences had on you.

You're allowed to see how these things that happened in your past,

In your childhood,

In your teenage years,

In your adult years,

You're allowed to see how these affected you.

And you're allowed to be affected by these experiences.

You're allowed to be touched and moved and shaken and influenced by these experiences.

You're allowed to be affected by your past.

And by allowing yourself to see how all these experiences affected you,

Affected you in a child,

A lot of self-compassion can arise.

And maybe you can get in touch with the innocence of your being,

With the innocence of your inner child,

And how you did the best that you could in each moment,

With everything that you knew,

With everything that was given to you.

You can imagine yourself as a small child.

And maybe you can see how innocent you are,

This precious being that is so impressionable and so sensitive to everything that's happening.

You're allowed to be there now for this younger version of yourself.

Maybe as no one else was able to be there for you,

You can be here for yourself now,

Loving your inner child,

Giving your inner child everything it might need,

Allowing your inner child to express itself and to say all the things it wasn't allowed to say,

To share all its pain,

All its emotions,

So you can listen with open ears.

And giving your inner child a space of no judgment,

Of unconditional love,

Because all the inner child ever wanted was just to be itself.

You can give your inner child this gift now.

It's the most precious of gifts,

Of allowing your inner child to be exactly the way it is,

Exactly the way it is.

Your body knows every single thing that happened to you,

Can remember each experience that the conscious mind might have forgotten or pushed away.

Everything is stored within your body.

And if you feel that it's difficult to connect to your inner child,

To your emotions,

If you feel that there is a blockage,

That your inner child doesn't want to open up,

You can also allow that to be there,

Allowing your inner child,

Allowing your emotions to be scared of opening up and to feel blocked completely.

Closing down the blockage is equally allowed to be there.

Any blockage,

Any tension in your body is completely allowed to be there.

And your body is allowed to feel blocked for as long as it wants to.

The blockage is here to protect you,

To keep you safe.

It wants nothing but the best for you.

And all of your emotions,

Including blockages and resistance,

They want the best for you.

They want to protect you from things that happen to you.

You can imagine all of your emotions,

Including the resistance,

Including the blockage,

They're all like your children,

And all they want is to be seen,

To be heard,

To be loved.

And you're allowed to love every single part of you.

You're allowed to love the shame.

You're allowed to love the guilt.

You're allowed to love the blockage,

The resistance,

The pain,

The sadness,

The fear,

The need and desire,

The anger.

Everything about you can be loved.

Just like you were completely lovable and adorable as a small child,

You're just as lovable and adorable now,

And just as innocent as you were the same being,

The same essence.

And then,

Whenever you're ready,

In your own time,

You can slowly open your eyes again,

And you might still feel a little bit of emotion and sensations moving in your body.

Maybe you feel still a little bit vulnerable.

And that's all perfect.

And as your day goes on,

You might feel other emotions arise,

Memories arise,

Thoughts arise,

Maybe things that have been suppressed or hidden from your consciousness for a long time.

And as these things arise,

You can embrace them,

Just like we did now,

And use them as opportunities for self-love,

For unconditional self-love.

And you might also start to feel joy arise and relief arise,

And peace arise for no apparent reason,

Or a lot of love arise.

And these are also allowed to be there.

I was working with someone on feeling the shame and guilt,

And he was saying he felt so much joy afterwards he was dancing in his apartment.

So,

It's like when the inner child is seen and heard,

It brings a lot of joy as well.

And the meditations that I'm facilitating in the next days,

They can also assist you in this healing process.

Thank you,

Noni,

For your beautiful words.

I'm glad this resonates.

Yeah,

I'm happy to hear from you if you want to share anything.

Feel free to write in the comments how you're feeling now,

Anything that you experienced during the meditation,

Anything that you might still be experiencing now,

Anything that might feel unsettling as well,

Or any relief or joy.

Feel free to share.

I love to hear about this.

The journey within is so rewarding.

It's like there's a whole universe inside of us,

A whole world that wants to be explored.

And so,

If you experience strong resistance arising in this meditation or blockage,

It's also totally allowed to be there.

That's also part of the healing,

If that arises.

So,

Even if you didn't feel a lot of emotions,

That's also perfect.

There can be a resistance that arises and that the body can tense up,

Block,

When emotions arise.

And when that happens,

It sometimes can feel like,

Oh,

It's not working,

Or I'm not feeling any emotions,

I'm doing something wrong.

But that is all part of the process,

Welcoming the resistance,

Welcoming the blockage.

I'm so happy to hear that,

Noni,

That you feel affirmed,

That you've been shown a way to pure self-love and acceptance.

It's quite radical,

What we just did.

Radical,

Unconditional self-love.

Because usually what we learn is conditional self-love.

So we learn that,

Okay,

Once I achieve this,

Or once I do this,

Or once I feel this way,

Then I can love myself,

Then I'm allowed to feel good about myself.

And this unconditional self-love is something very rare,

But it's what we all long for,

In a way.

I'm just reading through the comments.

Thank you,

Pam,

For sharing so openly about your experience.

It's amazing that you could allow the shaking to happen.

It's very deep.

It's so beautiful.

You could get in touch with the pain and you found some joy through that.

Isn't that a miracle?

That's what I love about this.

By actually opening up to the suppressed parts in ourselves,

It actually opens the way for joy and peace and love and all these beautiful things to come about.

And that's also the experience that I made and I continue to make.

It's that actually,

In everything that I learned to push away and to try to remove myself from,

That is actually what wants to be seen,

What wants to be felt.

And that's actually where my joy is hiding and my peace and my self-love is hiding.

It's in all these emotions that I learned to suppress.

And that's such a beautiful realization,

Such a beautiful experience to make over and over again.

A lot of teachers,

You've probably heard this many times,

Are speaking about the oneness,

The oneness of all experiences.

And what is kind of amusing is that it's often believed that this great oneness is separate from our human emotions,

That it feels like,

Oh,

I first need to resolve these emotions or purify these emotions or get rid of them.

And then I can experience this oneness.

But what I've actually discovered is that it's the other way around,

That by allowing myself to feel all the shame,

All the guilt,

All the suppressed emotions,

That is where I found the oneness,

That's where I found the completeness.

Because it's like we are already complete and it's just that we learn to reject certain parts of ourselves.

So it's actually by bringing those parts closer to us that we find the completeness and the wholeness and the oneness that we're looking for.

Oh,

Thank you,

Vidal,

So glad to hear that.

So oneness,

Life,

We could also just say life,

Is expressing itself through us.

And it's expressing itself as shame and guilt,

And it's expressing itself as resistance,

And it's expressing itself as pain and sadness and grief and anger and hurt.

So life is within all these experiences.

I emphasize that a lot in my live streams because that's what I've found to be the greatest difficulty and challenge for people,

Including myself.

I have worked with a lot of people from all over the world and I've always found that the most difficult part in their meditation practice,

In their healing practice,

Is to be with the emotions and the sensations that arise during the practice.

And the more challenging.

.

.

So the good news about that is that the more challenging an emotion is that might arise or a reaction that might arise,

The more healing it will be to allow that emotion,

To allow that reaction.

And at the same time there is no rush.

The healing process can't be rushed.

It can't be forced.

It can't be even controlled.

It happens in its own time,

When the body feels safe enough,

When the body feels ready.

So you can completely relax wherever you are.

It's exactly perfect.

And your body will allow you to experience things to whatever degree you are ready to experience them.

A big part of this is just trusting the body and letting the body do its thing because the body actually knows how to heal.

And the body is actually wanting to heal itself in each moment,

Wanting to reorganize,

Realign itself in each moment.

So all we really need to do is to trust the body,

To trust ourselves.

So more than a doing,

It's actually what I've discovered.

It's actually more about not doing anything and letting the body do the work.

We learn so much to control the experience of what's happening.

And the mind will often come in and want to control what's happening.

And the mind will want to know what is happening right now.

What am I feeling right now?

What will happen next?

Is it okay that I'm feeling this?

Am I allowed to feel this?

Is it normal to feel this?

Should I be feeling something else?

That's also perfect if those thoughts arise.

And just over time I just gain more and more trust that whatever my body wants to feel in this moment is exactly perfect,

Is exactly the experience that needs to happen right now for healing.

And often what I've noticed,

Like in myself and also the people I work with,

When it comes to meditation or healing,

There can often be the sense of wanting to get to an end goal,

Like I want to be at peace,

Or I want to be healed,

Or I want to be loving myself completely.

And it's beautiful to want that.

It's very beautiful to want that.

And then what can sometimes happen is that there's a feeling like,

Oh,

I'm not there yet.

I'm not healed yet.

I'm not at peace yet.

I'm not in love with myself yet.

And it's like,

Oh,

When will it happen?

Why is it taking so long?

And there can be a sense of urgency and wanting to rush the process and basically wanting to get to the end of it,

Like I want to get to the end of my healing journey.

I want to get to the end of my meditation journey.

And what I found is that actually the more I slow down,

The deeper the healing goes,

The deeper the meditation goes.

So that can also be kind of counterintuitive.

So instead of me wanting to get to the end result,

Or I want to get to the release of the emotion,

Or I want to get to the part of the meditation where I feel the peace and the joy and the bliss,

And right now I'm feeling this pain,

Or right now I'm feeling this tension,

What I found is actually while slowing down,

Right now I'm feeling this pain,

Right now I'm feeling this tension,

And right now I'm feeling this shame and guilt,

And kind of being with that for a moment,

Like,

Okay,

Let me just be with that for a moment.

Let me be with the part that feels not at peace and that doesn't love itself yet.

Let me be with the maybe self-resentment,

Self-hatred,

Self-criticism,

And see what is there,

Because actually that is the path to healing.

So whatever seems to be in the way of your healing,

Of your peace of mind,

Of your self-love,

Whatever seems to be blocking it,

Is actually the way towards it.

So if there is a blockage,

Actually feeling the blockage is the way to deeper healing.

If there is pain,

Actually feeling that pain is the way to deeper self-love and deeper peace.

And that can take some time to see that.

So oftentimes in my meditation practice,

I would meditate and then I'm like,

Oh,

Now I'm feeling the sadness.

Am I not supposed to feel happy?

Am I not supposed to feel blissful?

Am I not supposed to feel love for everyone and everything?

And then I might feel anger,

And I'm like,

Oh,

What's happening now?

Is this okay?

Is it okay for me to experience anger?

Is it okay for me to experience resistance,

Loneliness,

Boredom?

It felt like I'm meditating and I'm wanting to experience peace and clarity and oneness and all these things.

And then,

Oh,

I'm experiencing these things that I don't really want to experience.

And then it felt like,

Oh,

Maybe I need a different meditation practice.

Maybe I need a different practice,

Different approach.

But actually then after some time I was like,

Oh,

Maybe that sadness is what wants to be felt.

Maybe that sadness is part of my practice.

Or maybe that pain is part of my practice.

Maybe that resistance is actually part of my practice.

So with time I was able to see that these things that seemed to be in the way and blocking me were actually pointing towards my healing,

Towards what wants attention and what wants loving and what wants my loving awareness.

I'm so happy to be with you all here.

I see like your faces at the bottom of my screen pop up.

And I'm really happy to share this space with you.

I just love doing this.

I could do this all day long.

It's my greatest passion.

And I have some other commitments,

Some sessions come up.

But you're welcome to join again.

So tomorrow I will have another live stream at the same time.

And we will be going into heavy feelings,

Which I'm excited about,

Because by embracing those heavy feelings that's actually how a lot of lightness came about.

So I look forward to guiding you through that,

If that works for you time-wise.

And you can also click on my profile and follow me.

Then you will be notified about any upcoming live streams I do,

Any meditations I will upload here.

And there's also my profile,

Where you can read a little bit more about my healing journey,

If you're interested.

And you're also welcome to reach out to me personally on my profile.

You can actually send me a message.

I would love to hear from you,

If you want to share how this meditation was for you,

Or if you want to share anything about your healing journey,

Your shadow journey,

Your self-love journey.

I'd love to hear from you.

I'd love to be connected to you.

Thank you all so much.

And I wish you a beautiful day.

And I wish you so much self-love and healing.

Namaste.