Category Archives: guilt

Why Is It So Hard

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

Why is it so hard
to say, “I fucked you over”?
How do you even know
Who you are
If you can’t own it?

Is it worth losing people?
People who loved you?
A son, a lover
Because the shame is so strong
For what?

Hold onto that shame
And lose everyone who ever loved you.
Lose everything that ever meant anything.
Because you can’t stand the shame
so you lie, you steal
You rewrite history
To avoid feeling the shame.

Your son has no father
Your wife has no husband
You have your pet shame
You hide it in the closet,
But with every word you say
The closet door cracks open
And the shame creeps out and
Stinks up your world.

Would that you could own it.
And we could embrace you
And tell you we are ok.
And tell you we loved you anyway
And that shame is no friend.

Lies, fear, shame,
Causing so many people so much pain.
Why? Because you can’t own it.
So no one ever trusts you.
No one ever knows you.
Not me, not her, not him.
So you walk through this world alone.
Your whole life
Miserable, unhappy.
Believing shame, when it tells you
You don’t belong
and you don’t deserve love.

If you only knew
If you only could see
How simple it is to leave it.

Let it go, own it
Send it to the universe
To atone.
Join life again.

Stardust Connection

Posted on by learning to live like water

We-Are-Stardust

It’s another weird late December morning.  It will reach 60° again today, though it looks like the last warm day.  The world is shrouded in fog, and my head too is a little foggy from the late night last night and the wine.  It’s a peaceful kind of foggy though.

No pressure today, no ghosts of the past filling me with longing this morning.  Nor the demons of shame, or guilt, for my part in what happened.  I loved, that’s all.  I loved deeply, intensely, without limit, beyond reason.  I don’t now, I will again. And today, I will let it go at that.

It’s easy to see our flaws when we look backward.  It’s easy to chastise ourselves.  But why?  We are all the same thing, the universe manifesting itself through us.  We are here to evolve, to grow, to learn.  Bitterness will take away the beauty of the lessons we learn.  I choose to hold them dear to my heart, so that as the future unfolds, greater joy will come into it because I didn’t waste the lessons.  I didn’t waste the time.

Like my current favorite teacher Brene Brown says, (and I am paraphrasing), we are hard-wired for struggle, we come into this life that way.  But we are also, from the moment of our conception and for no reason other than we exist, worthy of love and belonging.

I have read  a few blogs this morning about shame, our personal shame, and how excruciating it is.  Let me say, that verbalizing the shame, and not burying it, is the only way through it.  Allow others to feel empathy for us, because empathy is the death of shame.  Iyanla Van Zant says those things that we bury do not die.  They rot and they fester and they will make us sick.

I believe in putting our shameful experiences out there.  I believe in sending the energy to the universe, and that the universe, as a loving parent of us all, will atone, and make right what we did.  I believe that in owning our stories, we gain strength, and perspective, and understanding and compassion.  More importantly, we also make connection possible.

Shame isolates us.  Owning our stories, and letting go of the shame connects us.  To feel isolated, is to feel separate from others.  How can we be separate, when we are all created from the same stardust?   Shame, and isolation is us not believing we are worthy.

We are.  Each and everyone of us.

 

 

Guilt vs. Shame

Posted on by learning to live like water

Guilt-vs-shame-1024x744.jpg

I’m unsettled this morning, though I don’t know why.  I’m irritated I broke my tail light lense on something I couldn’t even see in an unlit parking lot.  Backing up and turning.  This morning it’s raining so I’ll have to tape it up with plastic to keep the rain out ofit.  Grr.

I haven’t talked to my bff about her plan to put together some program that will benefit seniors, so I need to do that today.  I know that will help me move forward more than anything.

Last night the book club talked about why people who lie, and take, and deceive do it.  We all had someone in our lives that have done that. Was it for the thrill, for getting away with it?  Was it for the power, to feel “in control” of things?  I said, I really believe in Marianne Williamson’s and A Course in Miracles stand, that what is not love is fear.  And fear gives the ego rise.  The ego will convince someone who has doubt, that they are not worthy.  That the only way they can have people in their life is to manipulate them in, to lie to them.  The belief that you are not worthy of love and belonging, causes shame, it causes the belief that you are not worthy.

And shame…. is the most destructive of all human emotions.  Guilt can be productive, guilt says, “What I did was bad.”  Shame says, “I am bad.”

Those that purport to wish to be alone, like my ex-husband, really only believe they are not worthy of love, and are alone to hide their shame.  Better he should be alone, I guess, than trying to do to someone else what he did to me.  But the best outcome, would be if he could recognize his own worth, the beauty of his own soul, and let it shine.

S said to me, when he was trying to get me to help him with Betty, “I know I will pay 5 lifetimes for what I did to you.”  He doesn’t understand that at any point, even now, he can choose to change, he can own, and apologize and try to make right, and thus learn the lesson that he obviously missed.  Karma isn’t about paying.  It’s about learning the lesson, and if you don’t, you will repeat it, until you do.  The same situations will appear and reappear until you learn the lesson.

S was so similar to my ex, I believe that he showed up in my life to finish teaching the lesson that my ex started.  I hope I’ve learned the whole lesson now.

I think the first part, with my ex, was the power of unconditional love manifested in setting my son free.  The second part was to love yourself with that love, enough to learn not to give yourself away, to make a person earn the trust.  To honor yourself, first, always.

I hope I’m done with this lesson, and with men who can’t love.

The lesson, whatever it may be…..while hard to learn, is such a beautiful thing, and life can change so dramatically when you learn to honor and love yourself, and let that spread to others.

Shame is not necessary.  We all do better when we know better, that’s called evolving.  Guilt, for something you have done wrong, is a message from your soul, telling you to change.

One day at work, someone asked me a to do something that clearly was their job, and clearly not mine, and I was already overwhelmed with the work I had to do.  I very unkindly told this person that it was their job to do, and not to get me involved, etc. etc.  Making them feel stupid, I’m sure.  Even though I was right, I was cruel.  I hung up the phone, (I was in a different part of the building) and within less than a minute realized what I’d done.

I called this person back, and said, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to be such a bitch.

Guilt….made me see what I did to her.  Not shame, I didn’t feel shame that I did it, I felt guilt.  And the guilt drove me to fix it.  My co-worker and I laughed about it later.

I believe the only way to get rid of shame, is to stop listening to the ego tell you you are not worthy, and begin to reconnect with your soul, your true spirit, which in all of us, is connected to the one great thing.  Love. Begin that journey, and watch your life change.

Guess I’m feeling philosophical this morning, lol.  Book club is good for me.