Archive for guilt and shame
Mental Health Recovery ~ Ten Necessary Changes
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I had to get it sorted out. I had to separate the real from the imagined; the true from the false; the facts from the fiction and it all had to be looked at from a new perspective; the true perspective. The way things really had been. These are a few of the necessary things that I did in order to give myself some space to come out of the fog enough to see clearly and begin to heal. This is part two; continued from “The Recovery Journey ~ Common Bonds“
~ I decided that my version of the truth was not really mine and that I didn’t know the truth at all. I gave myself permission to examine the truth and to realize that my survivor mode was a leftover from childhood. I was strong enough to know the REAL TRUTH now.
~ I decided to spend some time with myself, to invest in myself and my health and to pay attention to me and give myself some of the value that I had shown to others.
~ I decided that I was not going to be responsible or accountable for other people’s feelings during this process.
~ I put aside my constant obsession with guilt and shame over not having enough faith (because if I had enough faith, I would be healed) and over not being grateful for my wonderful life (because I thought that I didn’t even deserve the good things I had) and put aside my obsession with doing things “the right way” (the right way according to who??)
~ I stopped trying to look at things as a mature adult who was responsible for the results of my own life and just looked at what my own life had somehow become.
~ I stopped feeling sorry for my parents and making excuses for their behavior and decided that I was going to just open my eyes and LOOK at the truth.
~ I gave myself permission to feel however I really felt. If that meant feeling angry; fine. If resentment came up, then that was fine too. I had to allow those feelings long enough to really feel them, so that I could let them go and become able to get over them.
~ I decided to put aside the whole forgiveness issue. I did not think about forgiveness, I made a decision NOT to think about it until I had time to sort a bunch of things out because by then it had gotten really complicated. I was beating myself up for not forgiving and hiding the fact that I had not forgiven.
~I decided to put the time and effort into the process no matter what, because life the way that it was ~ was not worth living. I decided that I was going to at least find out what my “worth” was even if that meant that I was going to be disappointed. (I was so afraid that “they” were right about me, that really I wasn’t worth it. There is NO SUCH TRUTH!
~ Somehow I knew that doing all these things~ including putting my faith aside~ to examine the truth about faith itself and my faith, would not get me thrown into hell. I decided that I had to clear all that clutter, so that I could start fresh, with a clean slate, without all the garbage that was on my old slate.
Most of these decisions were not conscious. I made many of them along the way. My therapist had to tell me many times that I didn’t deserve to be so disregarded. He had to tell me many times that I had a right to have been protected and that the abuse was not my fault. It was in believing him that I was able to start to look at the truth. It was in seeing how my belief system formed, that I was motivated to change it. It was in taking everything apart that I was able to be put back together. When I was able to make a beginning on even the first few of these decisions I began to see the road ahead. Eventually, I walked into a world of freedom that I never thought possible. I was able to own my value; I not only felt my worth, but I knew it, and I found my purpose.
How does this post make you feel?
To Your Freedom on the Journey to Wholeness,
Darlene Ouimet
Adult Children and the Skewed Definition of Respect
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- Let go of the Reins
Why do adult children find it so hard to ignore the opinion of a parent?
When I was pregnant with my third child, my husband and I went over to his parents to tell them our exciting news but my father in law was not excited for us. He was angry. He didn’t say anything positive; in fact he stayed strangely quiet. My mother in law didn’t say too much either but I got the feeling that it had something to do with her husband’s reaction.
The next day, my father in law dropped by to see us and said that his wife had told him that his reaction to our news was not fair to us and that he should apologize. He launched into his “I’m sorry but it’s just that …” and then he proceeded to tell us all his judgements about us having a third child, and why this was such a terrible idea. He didn’t bother to hide his opinion that it was my fault and entirely my decision; as though my husband was a victim of a surprise pregnancy or as though he was not a participant in the event that got me pregnant! Even though I was 36 years old at the time and both my husband and I were excited about this new child coming and we had never made the decision to stop at two children, we didn’t stand up to my father in law. We pretty much both just sat there and took it. We didn’t say that it was none of his business. It didn’t occur to us that he was actually insinuating that we were not smart enough, mature enough or responsible enough to decide on our own how many children we could or should have and that as always, he was reminding my husband that he should never make a decision without his father’s approval.
The bottom line is that it was not his decision, nor was it his place to give his opinion of why we should stop having children, but at some level we thought it would be disrespectful to go against him. The thing is though, what was our alternative? I was pregnant. We were in a no win situation. We were having a baby with or without his approval. The whole thing just hurt.
So again, why do adult children find it so hard to ignore the opinion of a parent? Why didn’t my husband tell his father to mind his own business about how many babies we were going to have? Why did we just sit there and listen to him go on and on? Why did we let him communicate to us that we were not smart enough to decide on our own how many kids we could or should have? Well for one thing our definition of respect was skewed.
The only reason he didn’t want us to have any more kids was because it interfered with his plans for my husband. My husband was his father’s hired man even though we had our own farm. Having children interfered with my husband’s work hours. So who was it really “best” for if we didn’t have any more kids? It had nothing to do with my husband and I. Growing up, our parents had not empowered us to transition from child to independent adult. We had rarely been validated in our decisions. We were never approved of and were caught in the spin of always seeking approval; always trying to please. Therefore when we got a lecture about why we should not have another baby, we were well conditioned to accept judgement and reprimand. We have a different definition of respect today and we strive not to pass the old family systems on to our children.
Just another truth I discovered along the journey.
Darlene Ouimet
Freedom from “Nose to Tail” Surviving
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I went trail riding last summer as part of my vacation. I’m not an avid horse-rider, and though I have this admiring affection for them, I was still afraid. The guides assured me that these horses had ridden this trail a thousand times- they knew exactly what to do and where to go and there shouldn’t be any surprises. It was true. Though some parts of the trail were more open and gave a little bit of freedom, these horses fell into a predictable nose to tail pattern. We switch-backed down through a steep valley; they plodded along with steady, consistent rhythm. But what had intimidated me at the beginning of the trip was there all along; these were big creatures, strong and powerful. And even though they were controlled day by day with reins and the predictability of the trail path, they had all the potential to break free and take me for the gallop of my life.
Nose to tail, nose to tail… plodding along the same path. What happens when a person’s full potential isn’t valued? What happens when a person is actually valued for being less than all that they are, or for doing things (or not doing things) that please only someone else? Value is placed on the wrong thing. In the powerful dynamic between a child and a parent, the child will automatically strive to be more of what their parents value. As a child, I knew I was valued for being good and right, so I strived to be that way. Or what if there is little interest shown at all? Maybe a parent is physically present, but shares no emotional interaction, doesn’t give of themselves or seek to know, really know, their child? The child assumes that she isn’t worth pursuing, her whole self isn’t worth pursuing. Or maybe, her whole self is “too much” to handle, too much to pursue, not worth the effort.
These were the deep conclusions I had drawn about myself that were at the root of my depression. Over time, what I was valued for was becoming far too cumbersome and burdensome to maintain. Like weights around my shoulders, pulling me down… All my effort to be right and good created endless shoulds and should nots and guilt guards and striving . What I was not valued for was still deep down inside, but so afraid to come out, unaccustomed to interacting with others, unsure of whether or not it would be accepted. I did not know that it was valuable, and I didn’t know how to value it myself.
This is the work I am doing. Chiselling out more understanding, more understanding, deeper and deeper. Uncovering these root beliefs truly is the door to freedom for everyone still plodding along nose to tail, nose to tail. We are each filled with unique and amazing potential and value beyond this trail.
Off the Guilty Path
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(Part Two from my post The Guilty Way)
Imagine that as you journey along, a destination, a place you would like to be, flashes like a picture into your mind. You can see it. You can see it so clearly… You have this strong sense deep down of what this place is like. You naturally have this urge of wanting to be there, wanting to reach it, this desire coming from the uniqueness of you. You picture this place and feel the desire to be there all in one flash, one spontaneous moment. This is an aim of your heart.
You contemplate moving towards your destination but suddenly you also have this doubt… this strong palpable doubt that what you have pictured is really, well, okay. Is really… good enough. You’ve heard other people describe their picture and suddenly yours seems a little dull. Maybe the vision cast in your mind is faulty. You start to feel anxiety and a sad kind of disappointment all at the same time (you really liked your own picture… in that flash of a moment it was really yours, it was a worthy destination…) Or, you start to doubt if you can make real what you see in your head, if you can actually go from here to there. You’ve never bridged that gap before, never spanned the distance. Maybe you should ask everyone else around you how to get there because they definitely would know better than you do. Oh, YIKES- everyone has a different suggestion! Everyone has a different experience to offer you with different advice! You try to take steps towards your picture but you get pulled this way, that way, updside-down, downside up. Maybe without you even asking, the Guilt Guards say, “But your aim isn’t the right one!! It’s not valiant, virtuous, perfect enough!!” They slam their spears into the ground and block your way.
Voices all cry out at once and the more you listen to them the more they cloud your picture, that picture that at one time was so clear and desirable, just a moment away. Eventually you decide that the mine field between you and your destination is just far too treacherous. The Guilty Way has befuddled your desire to live out what is on the true inside of you (this analogy could relate to many other things besides guilt, but it’s all in the same pot).
Feels like something died.
As I continue to work through my recovery, the difference between that scenario and the next all hinges on the work I’m doing at the foundations of what I know to be true about who I am. Living from these new foundations, my interactions with life (big and small) are growing more and more infused with freedom…
Re-imagine your picture… And this time there’s a clear path straight to it. In sorting through the lies and the truth, you have this growing sense within you, this sense that knows “I have what it takes to live my life. I have that good heart. I can trust it!” You still know you’re not perfect but you accept that as part of the journey and not as a means to discount yourself. So, you see your picture and nothing holds you back anymore. You don’t need to give in to the Guilt Guards to protect you because you now know that the freedom beyond your current borders is a place you can thrive in, and a place you are worthy to thrive in! The Guilt Guards and the Guilty Way just disappear. You bridge the gap and make it to your destination. You feel… alive. You have manifested what was inside of you, outside. You didn’t deaden yourself with pretensions and conventions. You acted out of your own unique spontaneity and were relieved from being pulled in all the directions of the other voices and extra-terrestrial rules. You make it to your picture and breathe in the satisfaction of being there… You did it. And you do it again, and again and again, striding forward towards the aims of your true, good heart. You are free to fly, free to learn, free to grow. This transcends the Guilty Way. This is the Freedom Way!
Big encouragement to everyone as we continue on in our journeys.
~Carla
The Guilty Way
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The Guilty Way is one of many ways of coping that starts with the lie that says: the core of who you are is messed up, not good, not reliable, not able.
The lie might at first be spoken directly, verbally, by a parent or a relative, a friend or a preacher or a teacher. It might be communicated indirectly, more subtly, through over-protectiveness or unreasonable discipline. The lie is different than a benevolent guardian saying, “I want you to benefit from some correction and direction from me because I want you to be able to live your life to the full.” It attacks the heart; it plants deep seeds of doubt about the wholeness of simply being human.
It teaches the follower to doubt everything about themselves. Their feelings, their thoughts are never quite right, never quite good enough. They have little sense of how to navigate through their own life because how can they trust themselves? They are a beating heart that believes they beat the wrong way. The Guilty Way teaches them to survive by either following other people or following idealistic “rules” outside of themselves. It creates a constant ongoing checklist in the mind, a constant and fearful battle to figure out the next little step. Sometimes those around us who have labored in it longer than we have cheer us on. Many times they do so in jest… or more blatantly with little comments, facial expressions or reactions.
It can tinge in almost any situation. In making choices about what to wear, what to eat, what to say… who to invite, who to call, who to visit… where to buy groceries, how often to clean the house, how to arrange the furniture… what kind of job to have, what kind of friends to have, what kind of wedding to have… where to go on vacation, what kind of bathing suit to wear, what kind of activities to do… what kind of haircut to get, what kind of makeup to wear, what kind of music to listen to, what kind of movies to watch… who to talk to at the party, where to sit in church, how much to charge your customers [if you’re acquainted with this Guilty Way as I am, feel free to add to this list in a comment!... ]
It can become so insidious and accepted that we live our lives turned inside out. We live to exclusively please others or fulfill impossible expectations because we doubt that it’s good enough for us to make choices with our own happiness in mind. We doubt that paying attention to our real desires and thoughts can lead us towards the good life. The Guilty Way wraps around our hearts like a snake, squishing out our life, our spontaneity, the vibrant, good and healthy us. And it is never quite satisfied.
More on a DIFFERENT way this Friday…
Transformation and Understanding
Posted by: | CommentsTaking a thinking break, I looked over to my calendar. The saying for February was about growing quietly but persistently… I liked that one. Suddenly I realized that it was time to turn it over to March! Pulling it off my cubicle wall, I excitedly peeled up the next page to read this month’s quote. It read:
“The most powerful agent of growth and transformation is something much more basic than any technique; a change of heart.” ~John Welwood
In a split second, I took my pen, crossed out “heart” and wrote a different word underneath.
A change of heart… My heart has to change? How?…
It was as if I was a little girl in church again and the pastor was telling me that I needed to change my heart. Feet dangling above the floor… innocent eyes and ears drinking in every detail, every voice inflection, every verse read, every song sung. Change my heart? Make it somehow… better?
Does this mean I have to change how I feel? Yes, I guess it must be that. I have to have better feelings. So some feelings are bad, and some feelings are good. Okay… so how do I change the bad feelings to good feelings? Because that “good” heart?- that’s what I want. Oh, and having a change of heart means I need to be good on the outside too? Maybe that will help… Okay, give me the list of what’s good and I will work very hard at it. Very hard! If I can work hard enough at this list, then will I get that good heart? Where do I go for the stamp of approval? What signs can I look for to know that my heart really has changed for the better?
I don’t think the writer meant for his words to be taken in quite this way… but that is how they struck me today. Instead of the phrase change of heart, I’ll be looking at the phrase change of understanding for this coming month.
Understanding. After I wrote it, I thought about that word. I pictured something strong standing up on the inside of me, strong legs and strong arms holding up my heart, holding it in place, letting it breath, letting it pump and flow and give and receive and BE alive. Understanding. Knowing that way before it got so confused with other people’s versions of “good”, my heart was good. It was born that way. It’s not my heart that needs to change. The thing that creates the vitality of transformation is a change in the underpinnings of what I believe about myself and a new understanding of where the faulty underpinnings came from in the first place.
~Carla~
The Power of Acceptance
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This week I felt a real mixture of things. Restlessness… mixed with this sense of acceptance of exactly where I am right now. I’ve never been in this kind of place before. I’ve felt content at certain parts of my journey, but this contentment was usually dependent on an outside condition, a person or something that I felt defined me as me. And it didn’t last.
So this acceptance is something different. It’s rooted from something deep down… It’s starting to happen more and more. Sometimes it unnerves me. For most of my life, I relied on pain to motivate me. Guilt. Shame. I pushed and pushed myself to achieve or be some kind of idealized person, striving to satisfy other people’s expectations of me, the church’s expectations, what I thought God’s expectations of me were… (more on guilt in another post!)
In my process of healing, I am learning to trust my heart. A huge part of my old belief system was this belief that I was inherently bad at my core. I believed all my motivations and intentions were purely selfish and that I couldn’t trust myself to be good without really trying hard to be good, to act good. Digging out this lie and believing instead that I am good deep down without having to try changes how my growth is motivated. Though I still struggle with that old belief system from time to time, I am becoming motivated to continue growing now because I believe I deserve to be truly happy and fulfilled, not because I feel so guilty about how bad I am.
Acceptance of my current place, my current stage, my current “being” is very powerful. I’m saying to myself, “Here is where you are, and you are good. If you didn’t change a single thing about yourself from here on in, you would still be okay. You don’t have to work harder to increase or prove your value.”
I remember just after I had come home from college I was struggling with this truth. I had gained 20 pounds over my last year there. I had always believed I had to be slim in order to be okay, so this extra weight caused me a lot of anxiety. I remember the feelings, looking at myself in the mirror from all angles, needing to buy bigger clothes, feeling my stomach when I laid in bed at night, trying to test if I really was “fat”… Sometimes I would actually grab my waist in anger until it hurt. I felt disgust towards myself.
I decided to start exercising to lose the weight. But something powerful happened before that habit really started helping me. I was starting out on one of my first walks outside and suddenly just knew that I had to let go of this self-hatred related to my weight gain. It was dragging me down, making my efforts counter-productive, like a big iron plow I was dragging behind me all the time. I remember this feeling of acceptance washing over me, acceptance of exactly where I was at. I actually physically hugged myself and somehow in that moment was able to let go of the slave-master, self bullying way of motivating myself to change. The compassion that was living deep down inside awakened and overtook me at just the right moment, freeing me. Coming to that place of acceptance totally changed how I felt inside. I carried out my new exercising habits with this attitude of love for myself rather than hate and guilt.
I believe we were all created to thrive, and as I continue to remain true to my heart and where it is leading me, I will never stop growing. I don’t have to be afraid of feeling content in the “now.” This acceptance isn’t resigned or numb or deadened. It’s part of how I love myself. It’s an inspiring place to be, having a dynamic of peace mixed with a dynamic of being excited to move on to the next thing. Each stage of growth involves a plateau afterwards (and sometimes before!), a place to celebrate and rest and regroup for the next stage of the journey.
Redeemable Ruts
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In brokenness, I was so busy trying to keep myself together that any mistakes I made were monstrous and threatening. Clinging to the ideal of perfection as my ultimate redeemer, I wallowed in my mistakes. I re-lived them over and over in my mind, feeling this deep shame and guilt in knowing that I had messed up. Ultimately, I was linking my mistakes to my identity. I believed that if I made bad mistakes, then I must be bad too.
In rebuilding the foundation of what I believe about myself and working through where the lies came from that I was coping with, I have a new sense of freedom when it comes to my mistakes. I have a new belief about the goodness of my heart, and I can operate from a platform of valuing myself as I am, for who I am. Because of this, my mistakes lose their power to whack me on the head. I realize 2 things: I can take responsibility for the mental ruts I fall into now (as Darlene has said in a previous post, “The more that I repeated this process, the more I realized that I was the one in my own way and that underneath those other voices, was my own voice telling me that I was not really valuable, or loveable or capable etc.”) and secondly, becoming aware of the ruts I find myself in creates the opportunity for me to compassionately decide on a better way. I am free to choose; I’m not in bondage to the old mistakes and coping habits anymore. Though this might feel overwhelming at first, it is a healing freedom. In wholeness, we have the power to redeem our ruts… even if it takes numerous attempts to create new habits.
In this light, here’s a fun little story about the process of change by Portia Nelson: An Autobiography in Five Short Chapters. I doodled some pictures for your enjoyment, though in the future I may have to hire an artist! ~All power to you as you walk down your new streets~
AUTOBIOGRAPHY IN FIVE SHORT CHAPTERS by Portia Nelson
I
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.
II
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place
but, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
IV
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
V
I walk down another street.
Happiness on This Side of the Rainbow
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve played the piano since I was six and still enjoy playing for pleasure. My favorite book for the past couple years has been a collection of Eva Cassidy arrangements, and the most turned-to page of this book is the song “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” (words by E Y Harburg):
Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high, in a land that I heard of once in a lullaby… Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dared to dream really do come true….
Eva ends her arrangement with a longing-filled ending… If happy little blue birds fly above the rainbow why, oh why, can’t I?
Today I spent about 5 hours doing a long-anticipated bedroom cleanup. I still had some gifts to find a place for, garbages to empty, recycling to cart up and down the stairs, laundry to do, clothes to sort. I began with grand illusions of deep cleaning absolutely every corner of my room, sorting through EVERYTHING, recycling or bagging stuff up for the Sally Anne, dusting the baseboards, arranging my cd collection, loading up my new ipod, figuring out my new alarm clock, re-organizing my bathroom cabinet, oh, and sorting through ALL my desk stuff, bills, receipts, notes etc. At the end, every little detail would be in spic and span shape, and I would recline and feel excellent.
About halfway through I felt overwhelmed. The clock seemed to be moving faster than normal. I cleaned out 2 drawers of a dresser that I don’t think I had sorted through since I moved in a year and a half ago! I started to hear those old voices, the guilty ones. “Man you collect a lot of stuff… if you would just keep on top of your organization, you wouldn’t have such a mess to deal with… you should be giving some of this stuff to poor people who really need it… you need to let go… and look at all the books on your shelf that you haven’t read yet!”
And at the same time I was thinking of the other things I still wanted to do today- write, get cleaned up myself, visit my brother at his new place for dinner. I started downsizing my organization. Pile everything on the desk to sort through another day… same with the cds… and the laundry. By the end, even though I had worked hard for 5 hours, this song was going through my head… Somewhere over the rainbow…
A rainbow is a beautiful thing, a sign of hope, of renewal, of new rain. But a somewhere over the rainbow has been one of the biggest hurtles for me. Grand illusions, standards of perfection that are never attainable, a wistful romantic picture of circumstances in which I will finally find unending, supreme happiness…
It’s not life, and it’s not truth. And I’m tired of getting wonked in the forehead by rainbows…
I stop and take the time to look at myself. 5 hours of cleaning is a pretty great accomplishment. And in the bigger picture, what I’m doing with my life right now is great as well. I am flying. I am flying NOW. Wistfully sitting on the ground, envying “happy little bluebirds” or anguishing over not being able to fly over some insurmountable rainbow robs me of my true accomplishments and value, and only serves to keep me on the ground. Accepting and affirming my own wings in action today will fuel a long and fulfilling journey in the best possible way.
I think it’s time for a new favorite song. 
Ten Differences between living Broken and living Whole
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This list is a comparison of how my life used to be, compared to how it is today. ~Darlene
Brokenness:
~the oppression of depression
~the guilt and shame of mental illness
~the guilt and shame of emotional abuse (or any other type of abuse)
~the weight and responsibility of the world
~self hate
~the darkness that hangs over days and nights
~questioning self worth, validity and value
~not accepting or understanding having a right to equality
~difficulty trusting others
~false definition (misunderstanding) of what love is
Wholeness:
~the joy of waking up to a new day
~unfathomable energy to accomplish tasks
~laughter straight from the depth of the soul
~embracing the truth and leaving the lies behind
~owning individuality and self worth
~realizing my soul purpose and embracing it
~facing fear; knowing the truth about fear
~trusting self, loving self
~ability to accept love and ability to love
~living life to the fullest
