207 - Artifacts from the past.

Most of our shame feelings don't need to be taken personally by us. Themajority of these feelings are not about us. They are in a real sense artifacts from our unskillful and painful conditioning by shame-driven people who were just doing what they were conditioned to दो and feel.
Peace,
Ken

To comment on this post or any other post click on comment and follow the instructions posted between #197 and #198.

206 - Healing Shame #12

When possible I recommend group counseling for individuals doing shame work. In small group counseling a "safe container" is developed that can facilitate the emergence, sharing and reception of old, deep, previously unconscious feelings of self-rejection and shame/self-hate. If you are interested in group work and for any reason you do not want to join one of my groups let me know and I could recommend an alternative.
Peace,
Ken

To read others comments click on comment and to leave a comment on this email click on comment and follow the instructions for commenting posted between #197 and #198. With the blog we are continuing to develop an on line shame-healing community. Ideally, I would like to know who is commenting but if privacy is a concern for you just make up a name. Thanks.

205 - Healing Shame #11

Without realizing it we will defend against feeling our shame feelings with the following - anger, rage, control, contempt, withdrawal, blame, judgment, denial, depression, or presenting ourselves as perfect or "shameless". We need to feel our shame feelings in order to heal them.
Peace,
Ken

To comment on this post click on Comment and follow the instructions posted between #197 and #198.

204 - Healing Shame #10

One tool that some people find useful in their healing of internalized shame
is inner child work. I think of our inner child as our feeling life and so to
do inner child work is to learn how to treat our feeling life as a "good
enough" parent might. We need to become able to provide for our "inner child"
the understanding, acceptance and compassion we have always needed. We do
this by being in relationship with others who are committed to a similar kind
of healing process and who can, at least initially, provide us with some
understanding, acceptance and compassion.
Peace,
Ken

To comment on these Shame to Self-Acceptance emails for your first time click
on comment and follow the instructions posted between 197 and 198.

203 - Healing Shame #9

Many people tell me that getting a clearer understanding of when and where
they internalized their self-hating and shameful feelings has been helpful to
them in gaining more compassion for themselves more quickly. This clearer
understanding comes from doing regular shame readings five minutes per day
from the suggested shame book list and also by talking about possible times
and places they learned these feelings and self-judgments.
Peace,
Ken

To comment on these Shame to Self-Acceptance emails click on comment and follow the instructions posted between 197 and 198 for your first comment only.

202 - Healing Shame #8

Many of us grew up in families where feelings were denied and/or rejected and
shamed. No blame. Becoming desensitized to our feelings meant losing our
ability to feel feelings in our bodies. It was a matter of survival at the
time. Today feeling our feelings bodily allows us to know ourselves better
and to know more clearly our wants and needs. Practice paying attention to
feelings in your body and as you develop more awareness of your feelings it
will facilitate your healing process.
Peace,
Ken

To comment on these Shame to Self-Acceptance emails click on
Comment and follow the instructions located
between 197 and 198 for your first comment only.

201 - Healing Shame #7

I recommend ten to twenty minutes per day of quiet meditation. Meditation
will facilitate the slowing down of our thoughts, eventually allowing brief
time between thoughts. It helps with anxiety and depression and enabling old
feelings to arise to be shared with your support system. Meditation can
consist of counting exhalations of the breath from one to ten and then start over with one. Don't
worry and be gentle with yourself if you are unable to get to ten without
losing track of counting. Just keep coming back to the breath and the
counting. There is no way to fail in meditation. No blame.
Peace,
Ken

To comment on these Shame to Self-Acceptance emails click on comment and
follow the instructions posted between 197 and 198 for your first comment only.

200 - Healing Shame #6

Children of all ages need parents and other people capable of being
emotionally present for them, compassionate with them, responsive to them and
respectful of them. Our parents were unable to provide these conditions
mainly
because they hadn't experienced their parents as being emotionally present,
etc.
for them. No blame. Those of us who are parents have to varying degrees
been
unable to provide emotional presence, etc. to our children tho this is
changing some.
Again no blame. Today we can begin to learn how to give to each other and
ourselves the gift of emotional presence, compassion, responsiveness and
respect. It is a process and we are in it. Develop a support system,
however small, who knows there is nothing wrong with you except you were
taught in many ways to believe that there was something wrong with you down
deep.
Peace,
Ken

199 - Healing shame #5

Another way to allow the feelings up and out is to journal. This has been
especially useful to me when I lie awake at night unable to sleep. At
these times the culprit is usually shame. You could visualize your feelings
linked by a string from where you are feeling the feelings in your body to
your pen or keyboard.
Peace,
Ken

198 - Healing shame #4

To let go of the feelings and messages usually means to allow them to "come up

and out". We become able to do that through the use of a. our feeling words
(say
them out loud ie. Right now I'm feeling shame.), b. crying, c. visualization
of the
feelings coming up energetically thru our body and out the top of our heads.
We need to
feel felt by others when we share these.
Peace,
Ken

Instructions for leaving comments on my blog

I welcome and appreciate any comments you may have regarding the Shame to
Self-Acceptance postsTo leave your comments on अ post you will need to do the following:
Click on Comments located beneath the post।
Type your comment in the box that opens.

Click on Select Profile----You will later need one of the accounts on the list
in order to register and post your comment. To use Google as an example click on Google on the Profile list.

Click on Post Comment. It then opens to the word verification screen.

Type the word as instructed in word verification and then click finish.

It then opens to the Blogger page where it tells you to sign in to your Google
acct if you have one and if you don't have one, click on Create An Account
Now. It is free and takes only 5 minutes to complete the process. An
alternative to opening a Google account is to click on Open ID on the Profile
List. You will find instructions for Open ID at http://openid.net/get/ although I
found that more complicated for me.

After you complete opening a google account click on Continue and your comment
will be posted. Comments after your first one is much quicker.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if it does or doesn't.
Ken

197 - Healing shame #3

Our goal in shame work is to let go of shame feelings and toxic messages. It
is not to change ourselves. As our shame reservoir slowly empties we will grow
in self-acceptance. As self-acceptance grows our self-hurting and
hurting others behaviors diminish. Learn the words that go with your feelings.
Practicing this will support you in letting go of old toxic feelings and
messages. Many people find a feelings list useful.
Peace,
Ken

196 - How to heal shame #2

The greater awareness we have of shame the greater possibility we have for
more freedom, comfort and authenticity. We all have numerous opportunities
daily to notice shame and fear of shame in
ourselves and others. If you are not noticing shame many times a day look more closely.
Ex. When I feel anger I know I am defending
against feeling shame or fear or sadness or a combination of those feelings
but it is usually shame.
Peace,
Ken

195 - How to heal shame #1

Denial/blindness to our shame keeps us prisoners of it. Most people are blind
to most of our shame because it largely does not come from anything we
have done or not done. Most of our shame comes from overt and covert messages
that we have internalized throughout our lives especially during the formative
years of childhood. These messages come to us from many sources but for now I
refer you to shame reading materials I have recommended at other times for
sources. I will discuss sources of our shame again later in these emails but
for now I want to focus on a series of recommendations over the next 10 or 15
emails on how to heal internalized shame.
Peace,
Ken

194 - Tired of working on yourself?

Are you tired of working on yourself? If you are, remember it is impossible
to do enough to feel good about ourselves when we are in our "not right
minds", or "in the soup" or when we are run by shame and the inner judge. On
the other hand, when we are in our "right minds" and not believing the inner
judge we will know and feel there is nothing wrong with us and can feel
accepting of ourselves without needing to "do enough".
Peace,
Ken

193 - Transfering of shame

When we shame others, intentionally or unintentionally, it occurs when we are
experiencing shame ourselves. It is usually out of our awareness. We often
transfer shame back and forth between each other without realizing it.
Peace,
Ken

192 - Misunderstandings

Often when we have shame triggered by others, it is that we have heard what
they said and we have interpreted it through our own conditioning. If we
don't check these out with the other person we can easily misinterpret the
meaning and assume an incorrect motivation for the event. Many times it is
useful to ask the other what they were wanting to communicate to us.
Peace,
Ken

191 - A more conscious motivation.

Many of us need to learn to bring a deeper attention to our internal processes
as a way of making our feelings and our needs a more conscious part of
what motivates us. In doing so we discover the "real self" inside rather than
the voice of shame and we give the self a greater chance to grow.

Peace,
Ken

190 - Learning to distinguish and name

It's useful for us to learn how to distinguish and accurately name our
specific feelings and specific interpersonal needs.
This enables our shame-bound feelings and interpersonal needs to become
validated and accepted which facilitates our healing in these areas. This
also leads to more of a sense of inner mastery, competence and
self-acceptance.

Peace,
Ken

189 - Contagion of emotions.

All strong emotion is contagious. Therefore we are daily impacting others
feelings and being impacted by others feelings whether we know it or not.
Developing our awareness of our shared feelings is part of getting a handle on
working through our shame and other strong emotions.
Ken

188 - Shamelessness #2

Shamelessness behavior includes striving for power and control, rage,
arrogance, criticism, blame, judgmentalness and moralizing, contempt,
patronizing. These are ways we can transfer (consciously or unconsciously)
shame to others enabling us to avoid feeling our shame.
Ken

187 - Shamelessness

Was anyone able to access an attachment I included in email #169. It was a hand-out by Ann Smith titled Reducing Shame. Please let me know by reply.

When a person acts "shamelessly" it is a defense against feeling their shame. As that occurs shame will be triggered in people around them.
Ken

186 - Awareness brings choice.

When we think, say or do things that are hurtful to ourselves or others, we
are likely experiencing shame with or without awareness. Without awareness of
the shame we will automatically transfer this shame to others through
criticism, judgment and blame. With awareness we can notice, acknowledge and
even share the shame with someone who knows their own shame, thereby healing
it and avoiding the transferring of it.
Ken