Edmund Hilary

Michael Beckwith

How to Release Shame and Stop Feeling Fundamentally Flawed

“But shame is like a wound that is never exposed and therefore never heals.” ~Andreas Eschbach
Shame. Everybody has it. Nobody wants to talk about it. The less we talk about it, the more power it has over us.
Shame goes to the core of a person and makes them feel there is something inherently wrong with them.
I remember when I was a young girl, I struggled so much with feeling I was ‘less than’ others.
There were many nights when I would say prayers to help change me. I didn’t like my freckles. I was so embarrassed by my body. I hated the fact that I had a lisp. My skin was either pale as a ghost or the color of a tomato. I would get blotchy when I was the center of attention. This list could truly go on and on. What I was really experiencing was a strong sense of shame.
Shame is often the trademark in hurting families, and almost always part of the underlying matrix of psychological conditions.
It may start with someone not owning their own feelings and making it about someone else. I was such a sensitive kid. I would get made fun of for having emotions, and this eventually led to my own struggles with insecurity that surfaced as depression and anxiety.
In our society, shame and guilt are often intertwined. However, these two emotions are quite different.
Guilt’s focus is on behavior. It’s about what we do. When we experience guilt, we have gone against our own code of ethics.
Guilt tells me that I am not doing what has been expected of me. This emotion usually serves as being an internal conscience. It helps me to not act on harmful impulses. The great thing about guilt is our values get reaffirmed. There is a possibility of repair. We can learn and grow.
Shame’s focus is on the self. It’s not that I did something bad, but that I am bad. It gives us the sense that we do not measure up to others. We are defective. We are damaged goods.
A person cannot grow while they are in a space of shame, and they cannot shame others to change. This concept is like saying “you are worthless and incapable of change, but change anyway.”
When we’re in shame, we don’t see the bigger picture. We feel alone, exposed, and deeply flawed.
Oftentimes, we will respond to shame by moving away from it, moving toward it, or moving against it. Moving away from it means to withdraw, hide, and/or stay silent. Moving toward would be appeasing and/or pleasing others. Moving against suggests we try to gain power over others. We use shame to fight shame.
As human beings, we are wired for connection. We come into the world needing connection in order to survive. When we are in shame we unravel our ability to connect. Our first reaction to shame is to hide.
This may mean we work all the time, attach to someone in an unhealthy relationship, or withdraw from our community. More so, we may have difficulty with healthy levels of self-esteem. We may fluctuate between arrogance, grandiosity, and low self-worth. As a result of this dynamic, we are either one up or one down in a relationship. Relationships lack substance, honesty and meaning.

 
According to the research of Brené Brown, shame needs three things to survive: silence, secrecy, and judgment.
Shame thrives on being undetected. The only thing shame cannot possibly survive is empathy.
We have to find courage to talk about shame. When we dig past the surface, we find that shame is what drives our fear of rejection, to not take risks, to hate our bodies, and to worry about the judgment of others.
We are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviors or to attack others. When we are honest about our struggles, we are less likely to get stuck in the black tar of shame. Shame cannot hold on when we name it.
So, how do we become aware of shame? And, what can we do about it?

Well, we first have to name shame when we are feeling it.

When I make statements like “I am an embarrassment” or “I am such a failure,” what I’m really feeling is shame. When I attack my being, I need to recognize the shame and reframe the belief. “I am not an embarrassment, I just did an embarrassing thing.”

The next step is to develop more awareness about when I am experiencing shame.

We have to become mindful of our triggers to shame. Our feelings, beliefs, and actions are motivated by these triggers whether we acknowledge them or not. So, when we are feeling shame, we want to interrupt it with more positive thought patterns.

Ego repair comes next.

We have to track and replace that negative internal dialogue, and put ourselves around positive and meaningful influences. It’s important at this stage to practice loving-kindness to ourselves and others. A great practical tool is talking to and treating yourself the way you would someone you love dearly. You would never call someone worthless, right? So, why do that to yourself?

Name and return shame.

I was picked on a lot as a kid for being overweight. I experienced shame in my gut and in my chest. I would often feel sick to my stomach. Eventually, I developed beliefs that I was “worthless and unlovable.” These came from an ample amount of being hurt by my peers.
As I grew into an adult, I lost a good amount of weight, but still held onto those beliefs. Of course, I learned that weight has nothing to do with worth and love. I was able to name where that shame came from, and put it back on my peers who hurt me out of their own ignorance, pain, or confusion.
If we are unable to put shame back in its place, we will continue to attract people and situations that validate those negative beliefs and recreate shame in our lives.

Avoid negative situations and build positive supports.

It is crucial to place yourself around healthy and loving people. When I am active in my shame, I often want to cocoon. During these times of isolation, I feel more alone and shameful. If I am able to simply communicate what is happening with me to someone who loves me, the power of my shame diminishes.
In order to understand where we are and where we want to go, we have to have self-acceptance about who we are. Shame can make for discomfort in relationships with others. If we could work on developing a loving relationship with ourselves, our ability to be intimate and authentic increases.
It is vital that we learn to separate shame from the person.
We need to understand that shame is an emotion. The concern, though, is many people have turned shame from an emotion to a state of being. We want to be able to transform it back into a feeling. All of our emotions have functions. Shame, similar to other feelings, is attempting to protect us from some sort of threat. However, it often is a misperceived threat.
We cannot become resistant to shame, but we can develop resilience to it.
We have to help one another know we are not alone in our experiences and in our feelings. It is helpful to have corrective, validating, and emotional experiences with someone we love. We have to understand that part of our shared humanity is having parts of our selves we are scared to show, but we have to be brave enough to show it anyway.

By Lauren Golombek

Zig Ziglar

Zig Ziglar

Tony Robbins

Take Control of Your Habits and Discover How Powerful You Really Are - Jack Canfield

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, 
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits, 
Your habits become your values, 
Your values become your destiny.”

― Mahatma Gandhi

 

The reality is that you – and the life you lead today – are the result of your habits. Changing habits can seem difficult to accomplish at first, but success is a result of your habits.
If you think about it, you’re living out your habits every day. From how early you get out of bed, to your morning routine, how you dress, walk, exercise, interact with others and even what you habitually think about and how you respond to the world.
These habits got you to where you are today...
The fact is that habits are necessary. They free up your mind so you can concentrate on how to survive day to day. For instance, you don't have to think about how to drive your car – which allows you instead to be on the lookout for danger while you're driving.
Unfortunately, habits can also keep you locked in self-destructive patterns, which limit your success. Becoming successful is a result of changing habits. You’ll need to eliminate bad habits and develop new ones that are in alignment with the life you want to live.
The life you want to live won’t just materialize one day... your habits determine your outcomes!

What is Keeping You From Achieving Your Goals?

What are the habits that you live with every day that are keeping you from achieving your goals?
What habits are keeping you from achieving your goals?
I encourage you to be really honest with yourself here...

• Are you always running late?
• Do you forget to return phone calls within 24 hours?
• Do you stay up late and never get enough sleep?
• Do you often break promises to your friends and family?
• Do you resist planning out your day?
• Do you spend money you don’t have?
• Do you avoid putting important tasks and events in your calendar?
• Do you drink alcohol more than once a week – and do you have more than two drinks per day?

Imagine the Result of You Changing Habits

• What would your life be like if you ate healthy meals, exercised and got enough sleep?
• What if you saved your money, stopped using credit cards, and paid cash for everything?
• What if you stopped procrastinating, overcame your fears, and began networking with people in your field?
• What if you created a detailed annual plan for success – then chunked it down into monthly, weekly, and daily plans to ensure you stayed on track to achieving your goals?

Would your life be different if you changed your habits? I bet it would!

The 2 Steps to Changing Habits

My suggested action step for you is to write down some productive habits you could visualize, then adopt in your life. Step two is to 'act as if' you were living these new habits right now!
To help you get moving toward creating more successful habits right away, I'd like to recommend that you develop four new success habits each year, one for each quarter.
Once you determine the new habit you're ready to adopt, next you'll want to create a method that will support your new habit.
Here are some ideas to get you started:

• You could write it down on a card that you keep with you and read several times a day.
• You could make it a part of your daily visualization.
• You could also enlist the help of an accountability partner who has habits they also want to change, or work with a personal coach who can keep you on track.

Make a 100% Commitment to You New Habit

It's important to make a 100% commitment to your new habit, so be specific about the steps that you're willing to take in order to drop an old habit and adopt a new one. Don't be vague about how you will change your habits. Spell it out for yourself so you can put yourself in situations that will motivate you to act upon your new habit.
Just developing four good habits a year will dramatically shift your life to be more in line with achieving your vision. And the more focused you are, the easier your other, not-so-good habits will be to replace. Your perspective will shift and you’ll see more clearly how your old habits just aren't serving you anymore.
Make the decision. Make the commitment. Then watch your new, positive life unfold!
I want to leave you with a bit of homework to complete after you’re done reading. Write down the four habits that you want to develop over the next year. Make a 100% commitment to each of your new habits and watch great things happen.



source - http://jackcanfield.com/take-control-of-your-habits/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=blog&utm_content=nov3016-blog-take-control-of-your-habits-og