Shame on… Me?

I’ve been contemplating many things over the past few years – when my health began to take a turn with chronic pain when I had two Frozen Shoulders several years ago. I began to take notice of my emotions and fears. Dealing with chronic pain was new to me and I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. My body wasn’t happy and I have taken years to get it to a place where I feel I may finally be getting better, more aligned and balanced. This journey has taken many twists and turns – frozen shoulders were just the beginning and it was a reminder that I need to be more conscious of what is happening to my body.

Since then and especially this past two years I have learned a lot about my fears associated with me. One area has always been my weight and I didn’t fully appreciate the connection weight has to food, exercise or even hormones until recently. And when it comes to weight gain – I have noticed that we have a great deal of shame associated with our bodies. We see the way media portrays health and although models seem unhealthy to me the media seems to have made such models the dreams of every young girl – and recently boys – and these dreams seem to be connected to our thoughts about our body image and how in many cases we try to or fail to achieve the ‘ideal body image’. And why is this? There is a lot at play here but ‘addiction’ is one such challenge.

When it comes to addictions – food – is the one area we can’t just stop. We have to eat. Smoking, drug abuse, excessive streaming are areas that we can stop cold turkey (albeit not easily). But food, stopping eating – not so easy. Recognition of addictions are key to understanding how we sooth ourselves when feeling uncomfortable. Emotional eating is something many struggle with – and this is the kind of eating we do when we feel uncomfortable. And we could be uncomfortable about many things in our lives. And with comfort eating may come comfort weight gain but that is not actually very comfortable at all because the shame associated with weight or our body image is unbelievable!

We are the only one to blame when it comes to our weight. We can play the victim and say it is genes – or blame the processed food industry etc. – but ultimately we know that we are at fault. And so what do we do? We shame ourselves for appearing the way we do.

When it comes to food we have little control over our ego’s needs and desires. In fact we probably don’t even realize how insidious our ego is when we feel sad, depressed or out of control – and then we reach for food (or whatever is our vice) to comfort us. It becomes an automatic response to our emotions. Our ego spends an inordinate amount of time focusing on what we shouldn’t be eating. Eventually it wears us down and we reach for something that will soothe our emotional state.

Once we reach for something to soothe us we begin the cycle of shame and guilt. We give in and often feel we have “no willpower” to make better choices. This leads to a downward spiral often leaving us depressed and unhappy. We offer statements to life that “next time or next week I’ll do better”. We don’t realize that our ego is sabotaging us at every turn – it’s that insufferable voice that creates fear by shaming and triggering our reactions. Trying not to give in becomes an obsession as that is all our mind can think about. For periods of time we can do better and we feel we are in control. But our ego is often in control of our lives; using fear to control and sabotage our best efforts. And it is our fears via ego that ultimately take control or our reactions. However, it is the shame out of most of the emotions that overwhelms us and makes us fall back into our old patterns of reactions.

With the overabundance of information on diets and food it is no wonder we are confused – what is best for us – low fat, low sugar, celery juice, keto, Atkins and the list goes on and on. However science seems to be clarifying our understanding as we now know, for example, that sugar is really a drug and GMO products are interfering with the balance of our internal body systems. Then we take into consideration the multiple food intolerances that are changing how our bodies interact with food and there is also our gut health which has become so crucial to how we tolerate and process food. Yet when we feel uncomfortable – stressed, depressed, saddened – we reach for something comforting. And then focuses on something to distract us from whatever it is that is making us feel uncomfortable.  And that is why ‘comfort food’ eating happens: it’s a distraction. Question: Is it our ego determines our eating patterns?

However, it is the shame that seemingly defines us. It is the shame that makes us want to hide instead of participate in life. Shame stops us from acknowledging how our ego is sabotaging us. Shame is a powerful emotion that forces us to continue to hurt ourselves. How do you come to a place of acceptance when you feel so ashamed of who you are? How do you forgive yourself for something that you feel so ashamed about?

Shame is an emotion that we find challenging to deal with. We may have learned to not take it personally when someone is ashamed of us – like families or friends. However, we find it almost impossible to make choices – healthy choices – when we are ashamed of ourselves. The thing is we can’t allow shame to shame us. We are exactly where we are supposed to be. If we are learning about body image and healthy foods for our digestive system – it is an ongoing process.

I think it is time we realize that the world we live in is so much more than we acknowledge. This world is Magical and Beautiful. We are the center of our world and we can choose how to respond. So don’t allow your ego to trick and sabotage your intention for a healthy life. Become educated about YOU. If you can’t make changes to your diet immediately – or fail to follow a program perfectly – acknowledge that it is part of the journey and don’t let any temporary sense of failure derail you. Find a way to unconsciously Love and Accept who you are right NOW. Don’t worry about the past or the future. Change happens in the moment. Connect to your Inner Goddess/God and Breathe. You can choose how you want to respond to your ego and your cravings. You can choose to BE without shame because where you are right now is the only way to embrace YOU.

This entry was posted in Blog and tagged addictions, Body Confidence, Fear and Ego, Laurie Huston, Love and Acceptance, Shame, Shame on... Me?, Weight Loss. Bookmark the permalink.

Content Source- https://www.intuitivesoul.com/shame-on-me#more-8906

Motivation

This has been an interesting month – many people are finding 2019 challenging so far. I have been excited and looking forward to spring and as I write this today we are just entering spring equinox. When considering the Canadian seasons winter, although often beautiful, is just too dark and cold most of the time. Once we reach equinox and have almost equal light to darkness (we get a few minutes more light at that time of the year) it is very welcomed – especially if it is sunny. What does any of this have to do with motivation? Well, we become motivated by many different things – for some of us it is shaking off the cold, short days of winter with the higher temperatures and enjoying the sunshine to motivate us to do spring cleaning – and of course stepping outside for more activities and focusing on a healthier lifestyle.

Yet often our motivation is through our fears. We often want a healthier lifestyle because we have had a health scare and we consider what we don’t want … like disease, excess weight, aging symptoms or aches and pains. Unfortunately this fear-based motivation isn’t a motivation that will sustain us through our desired outcome. Fear doesn’t motivate us enough to change; partially because we are always focused on what we don’t want. Whenever we are trying to change something within ourselves we continue to see, feel, hear, taste and smell the problem. For example: when we are experiencing pain we become focused on the pain and it is almost impossible to feel anything other than the physical pain we are hoping to alleviate.

Unfortunately fear-based motivation isn’t a motivation that will sustain us through our desired outcome.

Also, our negative ego is often engaged when we are motivated through our fears. Our ego uses old patterns from our childhood such as the need to justify we are ‘right’, the need to think that we need to manipulate to get what we want, and the need to fix the things we identify as ‘problems’. Once our ego is engaged – and it is virtually impossible to make a desired change without our ego – we sabotage our efforts to change. We begin by ‘doing’ something that will often bring us full circle back to maintaining the problem because our motivation is from our fears.

However how many people consider what our motivation is for change? As a society we are prone to measure our self-worth by ridiculous standards. Once we identify something as a problem – it is almost impossible to not be focused on it as a problem.

Our need to make changes is a worthy goal as we desire to Grow Up. But the problem lies in our intention and motivation. Our Intention and Motivation often are a result of our fears – it shows through the choices we make or whether we are judging or comparing ourselves and our self-worth through others. We identify a problem and we automatically consider what we can ‘do’ differently. This is our ego at its best.

So where do we start? What is our intention to change? What will motivate us to sustain change? Is it to Grow towards Love or fall prey to trying to evade those things that are impressed on us such as our fears or the negative things that we are willing to believe.

When we consider changing ourselves is it because there is shame, guilt, humiliation, and anger – or it is because we “blame” ourself or someone else? Are we thinking ourselves not good enough to live up to someone else’s standards or the ridiculous social standards that are really a way to control and conform us to their way – whoever ‘they’ are?

Or do we just not ‘do’ anything because it suggests that we are focused on the problem? Of course not! However, we have to look at the differences between ‘doing’ which comes from our head/ego and ‘Being’ which comes from who we are, our hearts and from how we are responding based on our feelings. This means that if we can find a way to BE happy, kind, loving, compassionate or peaceful while ‘doing’ what is required to change then we are coming from a state of BEing that comes from who we are. If we are ‘doing’ because we need to change and we are doing this because of our fears – like blame, shame, guilt, anger, humiliation or manipulation – then we won’t likely be able to sustain any of the changes we desire because we will be more focused on the negative aspects and this is hardly motivating. It may seem like semantics or too subtle to make a difference – but when it comes to motivation this is the difference between success and failure.

If we can find a way to BE happy, kind, loving, compassionate or peaceful while ‘doing’ what is required to change then we are coming from a state of BEing that comes from who we are.

Although a true spiritual teacher may say there is no such thing as success and failure as everything happens for a reason and everything is an opportunity to grow – I recognize that there is necessity in our lives for success. We want to live a long, healthy, happy and pain-free life.

We want to BE the best we can be while living. And change is usually necessary for us to experience this ‘best’. Change is part of Growing Up. And it is so difficult to grow up if we are desperately holding onto – as in ‘addicted’ – to anything that prohibits us from living our Best Life Possible. And that which prohibits us from living such lives could be anything that we feel we must hold onto firmly: sugar, drugs, sex, TV, manipulating others to getting what we want and more. (This would be too long a list to bring them all in so for further reading about addictions search for:

“Addictions to Wholeness” or one of my interviews with Tom Campbell.)

So, what are you inspired to change with the turning of the seasons? More importantly: what is your motivation for changing? And since we are often guided by fear first – can you discover a way to be motivated through Love while acknowledging your fears as well? Can you shift what you want to change so that you can be motivated by BEing Loving, Compassionate and Kind to yourself? Can you focus on how you want to Feel instead of why you want to change – as focussing on why you want to change may bring up all your fears.

Let go of the fears that sabotage and Create a way to Live Your Greatest Life through how you want to BE! BE that! BE Love! Choose Love. Always! 

This entry was posted in Blog and tagged Fear and Ego, fear vs love, Laurie Huston, motivation, News for the Heart, News for the Heart Radio, Tom Campbell. Bookmark the permalink.

Article Source -https://www.intuitivesoul.com/motivation

Failure and Responsibility

This month’s inspiration came again from Emmanuel Dagher and my beginning work with Peace Mother Geeta Sacred Song. I think about many concepts in my mind as I grow on this journey. Last month I touched on Failure in Feelings vs Emotions. Since then the Fear of Failure has become a theme in my work. This is always a sign about the importance of something entering my life. And I pride myself on being a Leader by Example. When I go through something I know I can assist others. So the Fear of Failure is one of our deep core fears that can be responsible for blocking us from Thriving in this life. Plus: Responsibility is something I have examined many times – as I knew that this term “responsibility” carried a heavy weight. Emmanuel in our last Healing Session from Club Miracles shared that Lack of Prosperity often is because we feel too much “responsibility” in our lives and this ‘heaviness’ is closely related to our Fear of Failure.

Fear of Failure is one of our deep core fears that can be responsible for blocking us from Thriving in this life.

Let’s look at this concept of responsibility. When we feel a responsibility towards something or someone we feel obligated and can feel guilty or shame when we don’t measure up or perceive ourselves as a ‘failure’! I remember working at the Government and feeling the heavy weight of ‘responsibility’ towards colleagues, staff, clients and society as a whole. Then I would examine my anxiety around the responsibilities toward family obligations and even cleaning (as I have allergies with dust so cleaning would create other problems). This concept I had over ‘responsibility’ was way too dense and heavy energetically. I would begin to feel anxious at any hint of responsibility … until I figured it out and then I began to understand that it was my perceptions of responsibility that was to blame and not my work, family and home that was the problem. And I thought I had shifted it; clarified my relationship with responsibility. However, when Emmanuel was sharing our perceptions around financial freedom and that it is our fear of responsibility that is causing the blocks – I remembered my earlier understandings and realized that responsibility still plays a HUGE role in my fear around financial freedom. I look at Income Tax and specifically HST as a block – which is a responsibility that I don’t want.  However I also feel responsible to my clients, my listeners and the audience of my website. When something goes wrong I feel responsible for it.

Responsibility is a heavy burden that blocks us from living a stress free life. Emmanuel suggests that the only responsibility we have is to our Soul/Heart/I Am Presence and making our Sacred Self happy and expressing what It wants. Everything else is just irrelevant and noise in our life that blocks us from experiencing Unconditional Love and Acceptance. Now bring in our ‘Fear of Failure’ and ‘Responsibility’ and we see that they play a BIG role. Responsibility pushes us to DO what society or our own guilt and shame believes is ‘right’ and when that doesn’t happen or because we want to be ‘socially acceptable’ this triggers Fear of Failure. As a core fear, Failure/Success or Right/Wrong are intricately ingrained in Fear of Failure. This Fear of Failure is also ingrained in our Ego and in our mind’s attempt to control us, it pushes us to ‘do’ things – to fix, heal or manipulate our environment – it’s a fear we create where we perceive we aren’t successful or fear our own success as it all culminates in Fear of Failure. It is an interesting slide into propagating a core fear – Failure.

We perceive so many things – including relationships – as Failures yet nothing is a failure from our Highest Perspective. Our Higher Self knows that everything is perfect – that there is nothing to Do and all we need is to BE our Sacred Self. Yet how do we get to the place where we can understand how our fears wiggle into our minds and block us from expressing the Essence of Who we Are? We often don’t even see how core fears impact us. When I thought about failure I would not see that I feared failure because I felt successful in what I do. I feel so blessed that I can do what I love and no longer fear basic survival needs being met. However, if I look at ‘responsibility’ along with ‘Failure’, I can see that Fear of Failure is alive and well. It lies underneath where I haven’t allowed access consciously. Yet now I see it everywhere and showing up where it is unexpected. They say you are never given anything you can’t deal with but what happens when you don’t see it? Unfortunately the fears don’t go away because you don’t see them. And of course if we are serious about Growing Up then when we are ready teachers or teachings come into our lives to help us understand ourselves better and uncover our fears.

Our Higher Self knows that everything is perfect – that there is nothing to Do and all we need is to BE our Sacred Self.

I invite you to begin to recognize when you may have a fear hidden in your unconscious waiting to become conscious so that you can work with it. Peace Mother offered a wonderful tool when helping us observe our fears – by making lists of people or situations that still hold energy that is unloved within us. For as long as I can remember I get upset when things don’t go the way I wanted, my fear of Responsibility showing up, and this is because I have felt betrayed by teachers and anyone who should provide reliable service. It was my fear of being betrayed and disappointed due to my own fears around Responsibility. Peace Mother suggested creating lists of people and situations that still hold some energy and pray, bless and find forgiveness for each one. I believe part of the dilemma we have is that we don’t always know what fears we have and how the core fears – Fear of being alone, Fear of Failure, Fear of losing something (death), and Fear of the Unknown – are underlying our thoughts and feelings and are unconscious within us. I invite you to find a way to check in with your Sacred Self and ask what our Higher Self/Soul really wants instead of what our ego wants. My Heart to Yours.

This entry was posted in Blog and tagged Core Fears, Emmanuel Dagher, Failure and Responsibility, Fear and Ego, Laurie Huston, love vs fear, Peace Mother, Peace Mother Geeta Sacred Song, Tom Campbell.

Content Source- https://www.intuitivesoul.com/failure-and-responsibility

Emotions and Core Fears

Like everyone I am always trying to better myself or ‘Grow Up’ as Tom Campbell would say. And one of the things I do is partake in Emmanuel Dagher’s Club Miracles where we have a live healing meditation each month. This past month the healing meditation was on core fears which Emmanuel believes are Fear of being alone, Fear of Failure, Fear of losing something (death), and Fear of the Unknown. He also looked at how our emotions are just our mind/ego’s way of distracting us from our deeper core fears that our unconscious believes are too painful.

So let’s consider this: every time we react out of anger, frustration, pain, sadness, guilt, shame or despair etc. we are actually suppressing a deeper core fear. For example, I, like many women, struggle with sabotaging my health and weight and after reading Jessica Ortner’s best-selling book: The Tapping Solution for Weight Loss and Body Confidence (on sale right now) I was able to identify with the deep shame women often feel who are overweight because we all are told how it is our lack of willpower and how we sabotage ourselves to get where we are (she discloses some deep truths in this book that are hard to accept as it reveals such painful truths). I mean we are where we are because we choose to be that way, right? However, taking it a step further: that betrayal I felt and the eating I have done to distract myself from a betrayal I perceive (whether it is personal to me or through reading or streaming movies), is actually suppressing a deeper core fear … or four. After listening to Emmanuel’s meditation the last piece fell together. I have felt like a failure, which blocks me and I feel alone.

every time we react out of anger, frustration, pain, sadness, guilt, shame or despair etc. we are actually suppressing a deeper core fear

I always understood the Fear of being alone: that abandonment aspect has been a core pattern that I have identified for most of my life. However what I didn’t see was that underneath this fear – or attached to this fear – is the Fear of Failure. I could identify with the story that has been a prime focus in my life around abandonment and betrayal (which has run deep and it was through reading Jessica’s book I could identify with how the betrayal originally settled in around food) but I never felt like a failure or that core fear never felt that strong until I read her book and followed up with Emmanuel’s meditation. I love that when we truly search for an answer the Universe will grant it with whatever will resonate with you best to fully integrate your learning.

So the opportunity that arises for us is to identify when we are reacting to something or someone: what is the deeper core fear that we don’t feel safe feeling? Or what are the deeper core fears attached to these distracting emotions? As in my case there were two core fears that I need to be aware of, and for some there may be three or all four fears that are being triggered or distracted from feeling. And as we share in my interviews with Tom Campbell we need to have courage to face our fears. We just need to dive in and allow expression of these fears and to acknowledge that our higher aspects of Self knows that these fears are irrational and NOT truth. By allowing ourselves the opportunity to actually feel into these core fears grants us the ability to disperse the energy that these fears have been holding within us. And once we completely Let Go of this energy it will no longer cause us angst or have power over us to keep us in the pattern we used to distract ourselves from this or these fears. The released energy will allow us to be fully conscious of the choices we have made and allow us to consciously discharge the energy blocks that have kept our unconscious need to distract ourselves from the perceived discomfort. It will allow us to make better choices instead of choices based on fears.

our ego tries to save us from the perceived pain that our core fears have over us

Our Spirit is infinitely aware of all; it knows without a shadow of a doubt that we are never truly alone, never a failure, never lost or dead and there is nothing unknown. However, our ego tries to save us from the perceived pain that our core fears have over us. But instead of the deeper core fears we even try to distract ourselves from our experienced emotions – which are just another trick of our ego. But isn’t it fascinating that our emotions, the ones we distract ourselves from with our addictions: food, alcohol, sugar, reading, binge watching – anything that we currently do to distract ourselves from feeling uncomfortable – are just distracting us from an even deeper fear? We all do it, we all use some form of addiction to distract ourselves when feeling uncomfortable. And underneath that discomfort is an even deeper core fear, a fear that you may never have been conscious of if you didn’t dig deeper or allowed the emotion to be felt so that you could then observe and learn from the deeper fear/s associated with this emotion you are trying to repress.

I think that we live in really exciting times and feel Blessed to have these opportunities to Grow towards Love by examining all my fears. As we peel the layers to our emotions that are a reaction to a deeper fear – we are offered this incredible Gift. We can truly be in charge of our emotions and our choices. This isn’t easy work. However it can be an opportunity to expand our consciousness and connect into the Infinite Love, Acceptance and Joy that is within us at all times. It delivers us the ability to remove everything that blocks us from our own Truth and Inner Being that is who we are! Join me on this incredible journey Home.

This entry was posted in Blog and tagged Body Confidence, Clearing and Healing Techniques, Core Fears, Emmanuel Dagher, Fear and Ego, Intuitive Counseling, intuitive counselor, Jessica Ortner, Laurie Huston, Love over Fear, Self, Tom Campbell, Weight Loss.