Tag: guilt

Insomnia: The Pot of Guilt at The End of My Sleepless Rainbow

For the past few weeks my ability to stay asleep at night has been very much hit-or-miss. I have played with varying bedtimes, reducing my overall caffeine intake and screen/TV times at night, while increasing my night time meditation. I’ve also tried dietary changes including increased magnesium intake (through oil and citrate), and even taking Valerian some nights. All with varying effects that were inconsistent, at best as I was still awake most nights at 0300 and unable to shut off my mind even with use of guided meditations. Well, I discovered a connection that has helped to completely change my nighttime waking.

For just over a month, I have been using The Insight Timer App for timed and guided meditations. This week, I stumbled upon a meditation theme of healing guilt & shame that really resonated with me. It was a long meditation, and I identified with many things discussed during it. Afterwards, I felt refreshed and as if a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders.

Feeling this relief, I began to notice more feelings of guilt bubbling up. Wanting a shorter meditation, I did a search for “guilt” and about 4 out of 10-12 search results referred to insomnia or sleeplessness in the title, but not guilt. Curious, I listened to several and found that guilt has been the thief in the night, stealing my restful sleep. Honestly, I am still a little surprised by this and yet so grateful to now have this piece of the sleeplessness puzzle solved or at least knowing where to focus my efforts!

Following several meditations, I have been having some of the best sleep I’ve had in several months. If I wake up at 0300-something, I have been playing one of the (many) guided meditations on guilt (sleep specific or not) and find I fall back to sleep before the meditation ends and I stay there until my alarm sounds off in the morning. This is an A-M-A-Z-I-N-G improvement for me!

Over this week, I worked through guilt that I’ve been carrying about my divorce, children, work, finances, relationships, personal needs and life in general. This has also had physical benefits, as I am able to more freely move my head and neck, probably from having many emotional burdens lifted from my shoulders.

I am absolutely astounded as to how much guilt there was and still is. In another meditation about guilt, the speaker talked to how feeling bad (aka guilt) is an expectation. WOW! So guilt is so ingrained that we do not seem to know what it even looks like?! She also spoke to letting go of statements such as “I could have done better at ….” While this statement CAN help us to improve ourselves and our condition, if we perseverate on it (which I find I do, a LOT), it can lead us straight down the halls of guilt.

These meditations have been life changing for me. I feel as if I have unlocked more rooms in my secret vaults; able to see the unconscious drive. For instance, I have noticed how many of my decisions I make based on guilt avoidance instead of doing something because it is the right thing to do in my heart.

Intention sets the tone for our outcomes, with intentions based on fear instead of love, we are setting the stage for more problems than solutions. I’m changing that. This includes feeling bad for how I’m feeling; this just compounds the guilt!

I highly encourage you to take a peek inside at the guilt you may be carrying. If you’ve had a strong emotional response, including resistance, this may be a sign that you need this more than you think.

Namaste & May you Return to a Greater Sense of Peace and Restful Sleep

Handling Regret Using Empathy (Guided meditation)

P.S. The Insight Timer app is free and filled with many amazing meditations to suit your time, and your goals. There are zero agreements between myself and the developers to say these things. Happy Growing!

5

Culture of Punishment: It’s a Shame

Motivation through punishment makes things harder if our goal is to become our greatness. Self-flagellation tears at our flesh. Wounds then need tending and time to heal. Furthermore, how can we climb the peaks of our greatest potentials when we have a backpack filled with shame, guilt and other “unpacked” emotions? Leave the kitchen sink (and everything else) in the kitchen!

When I started graduate school I told myself that “good grad students” don’t study with the TV or radio on. Even though I learned in High School that I needed to occupy part of my (monkey) mind by having music or TV on, suddenly in graduate school I was to be “cured of this.” I almost failed out in my first class! So I quickly learned to change my strategy. Soon enough, I was pulling up my grade by studying again with the TV or radio on. I shamed myself into believing that to be better, I needed to “work harder.”

In essence, I was fighting myself. I was blocking my own nature with the “idea” of what a “good graduate student looked like.” In taking away the radio, I was setting myself up for failure by trying to make myself conform to some crazy notion of what “I should be.” This is shame folks. It’s hidden shame that makes us sound like we’re doing the right thing. It’s shame that is showing us that what we are “is not right.” 

It was as if I feared success. For if I truly wanted to do well, then why was I making things harder? I have feared doing well. So often successful people are torn down by others. Shame folks. This is shame at its finest! Being a trailblazer is a lonely life. So why would I want to get ahead?

Another example is where I get frustrated with the gap between how I want to be an excellent mom and where reality often falls. Role models like “Mrs. Brady” or “Mrs. Clever” who were the perfect moms with all the right answers “in every single moment.” Ignoring that they had a team of writers to think for them and how many takes and edits did they get for each episode?! 

So I punish myself for being “less than.” I tell myself I’m a bad mother for being human and getting impatient. I’m a bad mother for not loving my children enough to know how to handle each and every situation perfectly the very first time. By shaming myself, I keep myself blind to different options. I also block my own compassion towards my children…no winners here.

So by setting the bar higher when I’m already feeling down, how am I helping myself to climb out of this pit and see how I can do things differently? Add to this the mental self-flagellation. Beating myself down only keeps me from being able to climb out of this hell!

Now I ask you, where are you punishing yourself? Where do you desire to be a better person, yet beat yourself down? How can you stop pushing your own face in the mud? Eagles don’t soar my sticking their faces in the dirt. Eagles soar by allowing themselves to rise up, not by weighing themselves down with guilt and shame.

Today, how can we begin to love and nurture our strengths without making our weaknesses weaker?

Let’s find a new way to motivate ourselves. Let’s be our own greatest cheerleaders. After all, what effective team (anywhere) has cheerleaders telling players they are terrible? The best way to get ahead is to set our sight on our goals and to stop beating ourselves the eff down. Focus on your greatness! 


Image: Google

23

Letter to The Creator: Leap of Faith

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Creator,

If You created Everything and Everything is You, then We are all You. We are ALL One. If You are Love, then to Be is to Love.

We are all cut from the same fabric, so although We can appear different and act different from One another Our origin is the same, You.

You created Us, and gave Us the ability to pro-create through making love (if You are Love, then we are Making more of You, is that not one of the best ways to connect with You?)

So tell me, please, why is it that so many find the body, Your Temple and pro-creation of more bodies as sinful, egregious and shameful?

If We are You, and You made Us in Your Image, and through making love We create more images of You, then how is this bad? How is sharing Love and creating more of You/Us a sin?

Better yet, what is sin? It would stand to reason that sin would be defined as anything against You, and You are Love, and we are You, then sin (by this reasoning) would be not-Love or Hatred of You/Ourselves.

So if Self-Hatred is the sin, then so are shame and guilt, and hating our bodies and what they can do and what they can create (both through making love and our life purposes). Sin would also be hating others, as You also created Them and They are Us (even though They are different versions of Us).

So for Us to live in peace down here, what We really need to do is learn to Love Ourselves, Our bodies and STOP the guilting and the shaming and the hating of Ourselves and Others, as these are the ways that we turn away from You.

Thank You for tuning in and helping me through this sequence.

Warmly,
Tiffany

Author’s note: This is addressed to You, the reader, for each of us is part of The Creator. (A great movie along this thread is “Nine,” you might find it interesting). Happy Creating!

Namaste.

Photo by suphakit73 at freedigitalphotos.net

 

16

Attention Seeking Part I

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It is unceremoniously and without much ado that I share with you my desire for having consistent and continuous male attention. On the surface the attention is physical. Yet it is my deeper desire to be desired by a man who finds me spiritually and intellectually attractive, not just sexually or physically.

After feeling that this post was complete and scheduling its release, I found the following quotes on the blog by Desirable Love, they summarize “my deeper desire.”

It’s easy to take off your clothes and have sex; people do it all the time, but opening up your soul to someone, letting them into your spirit, thoughts, fears, future, hopes, and dreams… that’s being naked.
~ Excerpt from Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality, written by Rob Bell

If you can’t get naked, you’ll never know love.
~Desirable Love

This male quest seems elusive. Dating sites bring more weeds than fruit, where so many seek FWB, D2F and those who just want to message and sext. Bars and clubs bring drunken escapades, the risk of STDs and the potential for unwanted sexual encounters. Intellectual, emotional and spiritual needs remain unmet in most of these cases, as well.

So I wear my comfortable clothes, rarely flaunting my figure or physical assets. There’s so much more to me than the physical, yet that seems to be the hook.

Alone in my desires, I often feel despair: it is a lonely place to be most of the time when I allow myself to dwell there. In the silent times I query, are my standards too high? Do I seek for love in the wrong places? Am I just not ready for this, though I long to be?

It can be a challenge to see others so content in their relationships. Yes, it appears that I am indeed “peanut butter and jealous.”Deep down I know this comparison only brings me misery, yet it can be a trip that is a challenge to avoid, particularly around the holidays.

Once I realize that I want to be free of this desire for attention and the jealousy of couples, I sit in stillness. Inside myself, I light a candle. It is the flame of knowledge that what I seek is already present within me. I fill my cup with the validation and love that I seek for externally.

Taking my lesson a step further, I find within the places where I have blocked love. I find places where I invalidate and loathe myself. Filling the open wounds with validation and love, I see again where I have within, that which I seek externally.

In the next part of this series, The Fairy Tale of Storybook Romance: Seeking Attention Part II, I explore another level of awareness related to my desire for male attention. In Part III I ask, How bad is it, really? Attention Seeking Part III. In a post hoc conclusion I share what I learned about myself in the process in Now I Begin to See: Attention Seeking Part IV.

May we all be free of the loneliness that prevails deep within. May we be free to connect with ourselves, especially where we have learned to disconnect. May we free ourselves of the obstacles to our own love, to our own light, to our own infinite value, so that we may each connect more deeply with others without barriers.

Sanskrit Mantra: “Lokah Samastha Sukhino Bhavantu”
May all beings everywhere be happy and free, and may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life contribute in some way to that happiness and to that freedom for all.

Namaste.

Photo by Stuart Miles at freedigitalphotos.net

7

Divorce: Emotional Aftermath

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I didn’t say yes to later say no.
Now the dissolution has been finalized.
Unresolved issues bubble to the surface.

Gone is the promise of so many dreams.
16 years of marriage; 14 celebrated.
Like water held in your hand; all escaped.

Sleepless nights.
Feeling all alone.
No shoulder to cry on now.

Hard to look upon the shiny Rockwellian newsreels
without pangs of guilt and shame.
Seeking to live the dream once sought.

Waking from a night of tumultuous sleep,
eyes red from dried up tears.
What happened to all of those years?

The relationship long gone,
Yet the dream still lingers.
The desire for connection still present.

So I sit with the shame,
allowing it to envelop me like a shroud.
With each moment of focus, the threads dissolve.

It is then that I begin to see again,
more clearly.
I am strong again, in me.

Now to find solace,
in the lessons I have learned.
So that I do not repeat them.

Namaste.

Photo by Serge Bertasius Photography at freedigitalphotos.net

5

Letting Go of Fears

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It can sometimes be a challenge to dig under the veneer of our fears. There seems to be an emotional roadblock that can develop when we refuse to peer underneath the surface. On the other hand, freedom is easily granted to those who are willing to scratch the surface.

Over the past weekend, I saw where I was ashamed of my basic needs for food, shelter and comfort. It was only when I sat with the feeling that I was able to see its face clearly. Once I was able to see the underlying belief, I was able to talk back to it. Most importantly, it was then that I was able to release it.

It can be hard to dive into the water and see past the surface. It can be scary. How can you ever expect to find your sunken treasures if you never leave the safety of the boat?

It is once we leave the safety that we can discover the key to our freedom. Often times the very thing we resist is the place where we need to be.

Go ahead, jump in! The water, and your treasures, await!

Namaste.

Photo by Chaiwat at freedigitalphotos.net

1

Forty-eight Pounds

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10 pounds of shame & guilt
10 pounds of blame
10 pounds of self-loathing & self-disgust
10 pounds of anger
8 pounds of sadness
Saying hello and welcome to 48 pounds of gold in the form of self-love! Today, I love me.
Namaste’
Image courtesy of dan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
1

Giving the gift of giving

ID-100179140“Gracious acceptance is an art – an art which most never bother to cultivate. We think that we have to learn how to give, but we forget about accepting things, which can be much harder than giving…. Accepting another person’s gift is allowing him to express his feelings for you.” – Alexander McCall Smith, Love Over Scotland

It is amazing for me to see how many who are service-minded have such trouble in receiving even an ounce of what they give to others day in and day out. This is not a balanced way to live. Does the grapevine, in producing its fruits for the world to enjoy shun the sunlight, water and nutrients it needs in which to thrive? If it did, it would not produce good fruit for long. Why, then, my lovely friends do we shy away from receiving from others all that we so willingly give to them?

In order for us to thrive, we need to learn to receive. If we continue on this path of only giving, our vines will produce raisins and not luscious grapes. We cannot make wine from raisins!

I encourage each of us to begin to learn to receive. We need our cups to be filled in order to be able to fill, or even share, with others. So when others want to give you something, please receive their gift. If you can, receive it graciously. You, my friend, are worthy of self-love and self-care. Only giving and not receiving is an unbalanced equation.

Give someone else the gift of giving to you.

Namaste.

Image courtesy of Stoonn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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