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Feeling Fractured: How to Heal Guilt & Shame

We are born whole, free and absolutely perfect. Yet oftentimes, during the course of our lives, we get shut down in that natural process.

Imagine when you were a toddler, expressing yourself with creativity and love while doing what comes naturally through curiosity and exploration, such as singing loudly or shrieking in pure joy. Then, because you happened to be in a place where behavior such as this is deemed inappropriate (such as a church service or public location), a parent or adult steps in and scolds you. Confused by this reaction, you begin to learn that being your authentic self will get you in trouble and so you begin to shut down that part of yourself. You shove that joyful part of yourself to the side, questioning:

“If I’m not supposed to be who I am naturally and authentically, then who am I supposed to be being? Who am I supposed to be, if I’m not supposed to be me?”

Three Simple Exercises to Invite the Extraordinary Life

I can think of no greater encouragement than the self-evident Truth that there dwells in each of us the opportunity to explore and know the Extraordinary Life. The meaning of Extraordinary I wish to convey points to the immutable and inexhaustible source that is the secret center of each of us: a timeless resource open and available to anyone who would seek this Life that sits behind life as we know it. Will we spend our lives in mere dreams of winning a limitless life, or will we do the inner- work of awakening from this dream? Choosing the Extraordinary Life begins with our conscious work to realize it, which the following special practices help to ensure.

1. Let Nagging Questions Go Unanswered: In stressful moments, listen to what life is trying to tell you about you instead of searching anxiously for familiar answers to make life feel "right" again. All fearful, doubt-filled moments are secret reflections of what we have yet to understand about life and ourselves, not life's rejection of us or our wish for happiness. Choose to go consciously quiet whenever there is a riot in you. Refuse to take part in the search to repair what you fear may be coming undone. Let go and watch what happens when you consciously sacrifice the fear-filled self. This new action allows the Extraordinary Life to enter into you where its presence alone proves that all is well.

There is one symptom of the fear of un-lovability and unworthiness and that is sadness and depression. This wound of un-lovability expresses itself in the feeling of depression. The reason sadness arises from the experience of unworthiness is that it is untrue, yet you believe it. Lack of worth, lack of acceptance, lack of lovability is the great fallacy in life. But you hold worthlessness as a belief on some level and as long as that false belief is in place you will feel the symptoms of sadness and depression.

You believe you are unlovable not because you truly are experiencing yourself authentically that way but because you are gauging and judging your worth based upon the conditioning and experiences of parents, teachers, society, friends, family and spiritual beliefs. You have to fit in, excel, look, act, respond and think like they want you to in order for them to love you. And that is an impossible job with an unattainable result. You live in-authentically to be loved and you dis-connect yourself from your essential self, always living in a created self, seeking to be loved.

When you don’t get what you want you react with anger or you hide yourself away. Either way, deep inside you feel a deep and ever-present sadness. You can’t achieve being loved outside and you aren’t experiencing it inside, where it truly exists, because you are dis-connected to your essential self. As this cycle continues sadness turns to depression.

Relationships can be approached from 2 directions; need or as two fulfilled people sharing life. In relationship there should be both support and space. Looking to another to fulfill you will never work because fulfillment is a personal, internal experience. Share life, but have a life, each your own. Relationship that smothers or binds another or covers another with expectations will suffocate the other in need. It becomes energetically stifling.

Relationships serve as one of the strongest vehicles to bring into awareness all that is hidden. At the same time it allows you to connect to your essential self and feel the love there and focus and share that love with another. Love is always an internal experience, even though another can inspire your inner connection and allow you to get in touch with your inner love.