Guilt, Resentment and Shame — Three powerful brothers who keep us tied to the past!

From the day we are born we are learning about the world - what is good and what is bad, how to act so we are accepted and what not to do to avoid being rejected. Our self-esteem has been shaped and programmed by daily experiences in which we were either praised for our actions or criticized for them, lovingly shown how to modify our behaviors, or harshly and coldly punished and judged.

Shame is a perception we learned from childhood, and it is the feeling that everything about us is wrong. This affects our self-esteem in a profound way and makes us feel inadequate and incapable all throughout our life.

If the environment in which we grew up was characterized by many moments of “tough” love, aggressive words and constant criticism about our way of being, or by the total absence of interest on the part of our parents, we create a self-image based on limiting beliefs about being inadequate, inferior, insufficient and undeserving, i.e. ashamed of who we are. As we grow older, we become more sensitive to what feels like criticism, even if it isn’t, causing us to feel rejected by others, reaffirming the perception of self-loathing and worthlessness. The consequence of feeling this deep “shame” of who we are, may be the origin of behavioral patterns of self-aggression and self-punishment, where we become violent, depressed or turn to alcohol or drugs.

As a consequence of feeling this deep shame, throughout the various stages of our human experience, it is highly likely that we have had moments when we have hurt other people or ourselves with our actions or words or when we have felt attacked, betrayed or abandoned. The stories related to each of these events generate additional feelings of guilt and resentment, which, of course remain deeply stored at the subconscious level of mind, as powerful imprints with which we continue to re-create similar situations in the present and we feel powerless due to the perception of not having a way to change these patterns or letting go of the resentment that poisons us daily.

So we now we carry guilt as well as all of the previous shame and resentment. Guilt for what we did or said. We continue to feed that resentment daily as we create more instances of the same - people come to our life that we perceive to have hurt us. And, while we remain tied to the past, we are the victim of each of those events and we find ourselves repeating the same patterns in a circle that seems to have no end.

Now here is the good news!

It is possible to free ourselves from these 3 powerful brothers.

While we cannot change the events of the past, we can change how we perceive ourselves, how we perceive the environment in which we grew up, how we perceive our parents, as well as each person with whom we have interacted during those events. As Rob Williams, the Originator of PSYCH-K® likes to say, “With PSYCH-K®, it’s never too late to have a functional childhood!”.

The bridge to re-signify the past and create a more harmonious, balanced and compassionate present is to access the subconscious mind and give it new information about how we perceive what happened.

For example, consider how your life would change if you could have these new beliefs or perceptions at the subconscious level of mind:

• Believe that you are a source of peace and joy for yourself and for everyone around you (Principle of Harmony) instead of sustaining the addiction to creating situations of pain as a way of self-punishment

• Accept responsibility for the choices you have made in your life and for the results (Principle of Cause and Effect) instead of feeding the guilt and resentment that keep you in the victim mode

• Act consciously, choosing how to treat yourself and others, with the clarity that we are all connected (Principle of Interconnectedness) instead of sustaining the reactive or aggressive patterns learned in childhood.

• Find harmony, even in difficult situations (Principle of Harmony) to recover your personal power and re-signify the past based on forgiveness and gratitude (at the subconscious level of mind instead of trying to forgive, which actually leads you to not forget!)

• Honor and respect the feelings of others as well as yours (Principle of Interconnectedness) to understand that the people you consider have hurt you or who you have hurt in the past, acted from what they knew at that time. This gives you the power to learn the lessons, grow and be grateful and as a result, stop being the victim and free them from your mind.

If you are interested in learning how to go from being a victim of the past to being an architect of your daily destiny, get in touch!

Having Self Worth issues? - You have the solution within you

School, parents, society, everyone forces upon us an 'interpretation' of what our self-worth and self-image should be. How we see ourselves and how much we value ourselves is being heavily dictated by our environment. In our current state of society there is a constant and powerful bombarding of conditioning and solidifying (propaganda-type) of what our perception of ourselves should be: advertising, media, news, shop windows, government rules and regulations, how other people look, speak and behave.

Pause for a moment to reflect on the amount of precious time and energy we spend entertaining the need to meet the criteria that others have imposed... And we do this blindly, lead by the subconscious fear of being judged and shamed etc. This fear of being judged (of which we are not even aware most of the time) makes us go through life looking to satisfy the cultural criteria about how we should look or behave, and there seems to always be a need for something else, nothing is ever good enough, and consequently we are never really happy.

Let´s consider some questions:

– Does being thin and wrinkle-free improve the perception about your body?

– Does wearing certain clothes and accessories boost your self-esteem?

– Does having a new car or a big house make you feel better?

Whereas the answer might be yes for these examples, the point is to find out what is the starting point, what is it that truly motivates and drives our behavior.  Do we act based on a loving and accepting self-image and as a consequence we create a life of wellbeing or do we believe our joy and happiness depend on how we look, how much money we have or the things we can buy with it, as well as on the external/social approval we receive based on these? Are we coming from a happy loving space or do these desires fulfil some neediness and fear of lack?

Mother Nature is a beautiful source of inspiration with very simple and effective examples on how easy it is to create a joyful way of being: a lavender plant would not dream of changing its aroma to smell better in the eyes of another lavender plant, a cow would not think of losing weight to please a partner, and certainly you’ve never seen a dolphin want a speedboat to go faster in the water.

These examples could serve as an invitation for us to realize that over the course of our life we have involuntarily learned and stored in our subconscious mind a series of perceptions, behaviors, attitudes and habits from the people and environment around us. And because they are subconscious, first we are unaware of them and second, they create our life. We downloaded these while we were very young and could not properly discern. In other words, we are actually a series of programs that others have believed to be right for us, and now we run them automatically. Certainly, many of these programs are useful and functional for our mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being, while others are at the root of our daily limitations, barriers and difficulties.

Here is a practical experiment, in order to recognize if you are running automatic programs that condition your self-image. Let´s think of the last time you bought new clothes, a new phone, or a new tv, and ask yourself some of these questions:

• Did your self-image improve? Did your life improve in significant ways? Are you satisfied with the time and energy you had to put into obtaining this? Did others change their perception about you?

If the answer was “not really”… then you know that the “need” for these items is a program, a way to fulfill our lack of self-worth through material things.

Here is how Mother Nature can provide us with the perfect antidotes to the lack of self-esteem, the distorted perception of ourselves and the feeling of not being enough, along with some of the Principles that make it such a wonderful example of sustainable success.

• Adaptability: recognizing when a change is necessary for us and being able to adapt in a natural and effortless way. 

• Balance: the ability to use the masculine and feminine aspects of your life to achieve a balanced view of things, including the time devoted to work and to your personal life. 

• More is not always better: being able to recognize that you already have enough and that you can make better choices by selecting quality products that last over time.

If you are ready to take charge of your life and change the subconscious programs that keep you from seeing yourself with the eyes of “I am enough” and “I love myself”, so that you can enter a new level of expanded awareness and sustainable wellbeing, you can consider choosing PSYCH-K® as a way to internalize millions of years of Mother Nature´s wisdom.

My 16 Major Transformations - all done using PSYCH-K® in less than a year

You are probably thinking "What on Earth is PSYCH-K®?" so let me start with clarifying that question.

PSYCH-K® is a process of identifying the dis-empowering beliefs that one has (about themselves, about the world around, etc) and re-writing them with empowering ones for success, for happiness etc. During a PSYCH-K® balancing process, we communicate with the subconscious mind where these limiting beliefs are stored and we gently replace them with beliefs that serve our goals.

I have written more about PSYCH-K® in previous posts on this blog so feel free to explore further. Alternatively, you can find out more in the book written by the Originator, Rob Williams (link is at the side of the blog).

Now let me go on to my list of 21 Major Transformations I've had since I became a PSYCH-K® facilitator almost a year ago. But before that, here is a brief description of what I used to be:

The woman I was a year ago used to put up a facade of a super successful and confident person but on the inside, I was in fact very shy, I worried about the smallest of issues, I went out of my way to please others and sought their approval on a daily basis, etc... You can imagine the picture.

Needless to say I am none of the above any more! Thanks Goodness for that! Here are my biggest transformations.

1. Improved confidence in every aspect of my life.

2. Overcame deep depression after my divorce.

3. Dealt with anxiety and can now control any minor stress issues.

4. Dealt with overwhelm caused by the amount of workload with regards to my teaching job.

5. Sorted my money worries. My budget is still limited (yet) but I am not worrying sick about making ends meet like I used to. I now know that I am in control of my money flow and it is just a matter of some more time before I would generate more income for my family.

6. I now put my needs first and look after myself easily.

7. I was able to fix my daughter's cracked laptop LCD screen, despite having no prior computer knowledge whatsoever. I just did the PSYCH-K® balancing process every step of the way and as a result, we have a working computer at a minimal price.

8. I now trust my inner judgement and intuition about most things. I seem to just "know" things.

9. Improved productivity and focus.

10. Cleared my severe allergies - I could not eat a crumb of blue cheese without turning into what looks like a puffer fish with a swollen face and slits for eyes and I also had hay fever which is now completely gone.

11. I wrote an eBook. I have just finished the second revised edition of my book too.

12. With regards to the business, I dealt with major visibility issues.

13. Confident at decision making ( I made my own website and I maintain it myself. I know exactly what I want it to be like).

14. Was able to transform the learning abilities of two children (one of them is my daughter who used to struggle with maths but now enjoys the subject and has become very motivated).

15. Improved my relationship with my teenage children.

16. Major mind shift from a victim mentality to "I am in control of my own life" mindset.

A lot more can be written about each and every one of these 16 aspects of my new ME. However, it will take a long time to elaborate here so it seems a better idea to take each one of them and turn them into separate posts, some time in the next couple of weeks.

I also want to thank Darren from ProBlogger.com for setting up this challenge and I hope to be able to complete his 7 tasks even though I am going on holiday and it might turn quite difficult with access to internet etc.

Until tomorrow, when the next challenge arrives, maybe you can tell me about YOUR transformations in life, big or small. I would love to hear and read about them.

Rob Williams Personal History and Philosophy of PSYCH-K®

Thanks to PSYCH-K® I survived a deep depression after divorce, I cleared my allergies and turned my daughter from a child who struggles with maths to a skillful mathematician.

Parents, what lasting, miraculous changes would you like to make to your life?