Emotions like guilt and shame do not exist in a vacuum. They are part of a long process of actions involving people and situations that have created these emotions. All we remember is the end of this process, how terrible we feel and these have been repeated often enough to prevent us from moving forward as soon as we sense a hint of them. But if we stop the cycle when it starts, release the fear that we have around feeling guilt or being shamed, they move into the background of our responses and go back into the past, where they began.
Guilt is one way that we are manipulated by others. Parents often use guilt to control their children, believing that by showing them the consequences their behavior has on others that they will learn to be considerate and compassionate. It’s a backwards way of saying that we should be aware of our connections. But then we avoid acting by trying to minimize the guilt we will feel when we put our needs and desires over those of others and we lose our perspective about what is important to us.
Shame is such a destructive form of manipulation because it takes guilt one step further. If we disregard the guilt ploy then we get moved into shame. Now we are a bad person, inconsiderate, selfish, or self serving by ignoring others’ needs. Our desires become a source of shaming by those who feel their needs are more important. Within the guilt/shame cycle, if we can overcome guilt and proudly declare our intention to serve our needs, we are attacked at our core and our being. Shame moves blame from what we are doing to who we are. Few of us can withstand this type of attack, so we absorb the shame and it becomes part of our belief system.
When we have learned these principles well, we use the guilt/shame cycle on ourselves. After a few passes with it, we do not need someone to guilt and shame us, we know what to do. So when we put our desires forward, we look at what others want or expect of us and decide whether the guilt is worth the effort. If we decide it is, then risk shame if we make a choice whose outcome ripples energetically around us, as it will. Now comes the hard part, can we step out of this cycle, see the interplay of these energies and use our heart to ask “what do I want’ instead assessing each choice through what it will cost us in terms of our guilt and shame?
The Worst that can Happen
Guilt and shame take us on internal journeys of fear, where they convince us that whatever they represent is the worst thing that can happen. Like all fearful things, they are the debris of the past, so they have no real power other than that which we give them. But as with all things that reside in our imagination and harness the power of our mind and thinking, guilt and shame are powerful creators of our reality. They can also block us at every turn until we move beyond the belief that their imaginings are the worst that can happen because there is something worse than our guilt and shame.
How can anything be worse than shame and guilt? The paralysis that they create within us which prevents us from taking any action whose outcome they could be connected to. For guilt, these are outcomes that risk our feeling guilty about our actions or being made to feel guilty by someone else. Remember that guilt is about manipulation, so if we want to do something that benefits us, the fear of having someone telling us that we are bad or wrong, because they would have preferred we make the effort, spend the time or use the energy on their behalf.
Shame connects to our fear of abandonment, rejection and ultimately, death. Our fear of being shamed has long roots in our primal fear of being left alone, without support, and dying. This could be physical death but it can also be emotional death, where we have no one to love or care for us. In today’s world this fear can seem silly but we’re dealing on the level of the mind, past lifetimes and cellular memory. So from that perspective these fears are very real and will lead us to do anything to avoid shame and its potentially disastrous results.
What’s the worst that can happen to you? Probably nothing as serious or as terrible as you think. Are you going to allow that fear to paralyze you? So often what keeps us stuck is the fear of the worst that arises from our guilt and shame. Guilt and shame are a denial of your divinity. Let these fears rise to the surface, make peace with them and then confidently move forward on your path, knowing that from your point of truth everything is possible and when you stand in that truth, the worst never happens.
