Shame Archives - Radiant Wholeness Healing

Step into your Bigness*
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Step into your Bigness*

Step into your Bigness*

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us” – Marianne Williamson

In a recent session, a client who has chronic physical pain saw herself unzipping the small, narrow suit she has been trying to fit into since her childhood, and stepping into a big, unlimited self. Her big self (which can also be seen as her essence, or whole self) was free from old patterns of either needing to collapse to be safe, or fight back to try to assert her autonomy. Her body—and in particular her joints and nerves—had so much more space to breathe when it wasn’t trying to fit into others’ ideas of who she needed to be.

Although the degree can vary widely, all of us have been wounded. As a result, we developed beliefs and coping strategies to help us understand and manage those wounds. When our circumstances change, but our beliefs and strategies do not, the latter end up perpetuating the very thing they were designed to fight against. Crises (physical or emotional, internal or external) and feelings of stuckness are usually an indicator that a part of us is ready to grow and evolve, while another (usually younger) part of us is clinging to the old strategies for dear life, terrified of what the consequences might be if we let go. The way forward is for the young self to feel heard, held and acknowledged, while simultaneously realizing that the situation has changed, and that it’s safe to let go.

Here are five tips for accessing your bigness and stepping into your power.

1. Notice your small self

Start tracking what it feels like when you are triggered, reactive, or shut down. How does your body feel? What is your posture like? What are you believing about yourself and the world? Is there a pattern to what triggers you—such as feeling misunderstood, or like you don’t matter? I invite you to keep a journal for a week or more to take note of this.

2. Explore the origins

When we are triggered, we are usually filtering and reacting to the world through wounded child eyes, even though the arguments we use to justify our reactions may tap into our adult faculties of reasoning. When you are feeling reactive or collapsed, ask yourself “what age is associated with this response?”

If nothing comes up, I invite you think about your childhood. If there was an age when you started learning X (whatever belief you identified in #1), what age/ages might it be? It might also be a timeframe more than one age. What were the situations or the people you were learning that from?

3. Send compassion to your small self

Imagine that your adult self is with that young part of you. What would have been helpful to hear back then? For example, “It’s not your fault.” “I’m proud of you.” “You’re not alone anymore, I’m here.” “You did exactly what you needed to do.”

If it feels appropriate, imagine that you are projecting images of your current life to your young self/selves. Let them know that their situation isn’t going to be like that forever, that things are going to change, and that you have resources they didn’t have.

4. Step into your big self

I invite you to close your eyes, and feel back into that feeling of a small self. Imagine that in front of you is your big, wise, essential self. If that’s hard to call up, you can also bring in a powerful energy/being you feel resonance with. For example a tree, a tiger, a mountain, a spiritual teacher or religious figure. Visualize yourself unzipping your small self, and stepping out of it. You can do that as slowly as you need to, over several days or week if necessary. When you are ready, feel yourself merging with your big and wise self and/or with the powerful being you called in. Notice what that feels like in your body. What does the world feel and look like when you look at it through your wise self eyes? Once you feel somewhat comfortable with this big version of you, you may want to bring up a person or a situation that has felt problematic to you. Does looking at it through these eyes shift your perception?

In a recent session, a client of mine merged with mountain energy. When she looked at people who had always been intimidating to her young self through mountain eyes, they seemed much smaller. She could see how they were trapped in their own pain.

5. Creative depiction

I invite you to find a creative way to further anchor this version of you into your body and subconscious. When I say creative, I’m referring to whatever way you have of accessing a deeper part of yourself. You could do this as a guided meditation, or feel yourself stepping into your bigger self as you are hiking, walking, biking, running, swimming, paragliding… You can draw/paint it, write a poem on the theme, or dance the transition from small self to big self. You could do a body sculpture or mime it. A combination is also possible. I wrote a poem entitled “Ode to my small self,” drew a picture of myself shedding the old patterns and fully stepping into my essential self, and have been visualizing it in some of my daily meditation practices. Just in case the universe didn’t get it the first time.

I wish you luck on your journey, and feel free to leave a comment on how that went for you.

The following is a guided meditation for stepping into your wise self.

Step into your Bigness*Jenny Brav2023-06-20T11:50:38+00:00

Healing Childhood and Family Wounds*
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Healing Childhood and Family Wounds*

Healing Childhood and Family Wounds*

Do you feel like your childhood wounds are still interfering with your life? Does being with and/or thinking about your family trigger strong reactions in you?

“When we’re all living in the space of the inner child, loving, honoring, respecting, and embracing its desires, we are at peace.” Kim Ha Campbell

Most of our core wounds come from our childhood experiences. We might have gotten the message that we were too much, not enough, that parts of us weren’t acceptable and had to be hidden. We may have experienced neglect, abuse or other forms of trauma. The beliefs and coping strategies we developed as a result often stay with us long after our circumstances have changed.

Whether we are still in touch with our family or not (and whether our family members/caretakers are alive or not), the holiday season and certain anniversaries can be triggers for all that old stuff to come to the surface. Similarly, the old patterns often rear their heads when we are on the cusp of big transitions, and one part of us (usually the current, adult self) is ready to change, while another part (usually a very young self) is terrified and thinks change means certain death.

The following are five tips for beginning to heal childhood and family wounds:

1. Identify the wounds

Most of the time, we are not even aware of the old programing that is still running our thoughts and our nervous systems. Something happens, and whatever we are feeling and thinking feels like the truth: we are being dismissed, or victimized. Others really don’t care and can’t be trusted. However, these are just beliefs, the lens through which we are interpreting events. The first step is therefore to identify what the wounding and the beliefs are.

Is there a feeling or thought that is often recurring for you? For example, do you have a story that you are not welcome, or that nobody sees you? Perhaps think of a recent situation that triggered a strong reaction, or a difficult interaction with a family member. What were you believing about yourself or the other in that moment? Examples include: “I don’t matter,” “I’m invisible,” “others’ needs matter more than mine,” “I can either honor myself or please others, but not both,” “showing vulnerability is weak, and others will take advantage of me…” Write down your belief.

2. Feel into the emotions

To go more deeply into the wound, I invite you to notice what emotions come up for you when you are believing the words you wrote down in #1. These might include sadness, frustration, helplessness, rage, fear, confusion and so on.

When you access these emotions, check in with your body and notice the physical sensations there. Does any area get tight, achy or jittery? Does any part of your body (or perhaps even the whole body) feel distant or numb? There is no need to try to fix or change it, we are simply exploring and getting curious about what is there, what is wanting our attention.

3. Trace the belief and feelings back in time

Closing your eyes, imagine that you are following the belief, emotions, and physical sensations back in time, to a time, situation or place when you first or most significantly felt something similar. You might get a memory, or just a felt sense of something. You might also access a time period more than a specific incident. What was happening at the time? How was your young self feeling? What was he/she learning about him/herself and the world? What was s/he deciding to do to cope with the situation?

4. Bring love and healing to your young self

The wounding happened because your young self was needing something he/she didn’t get. Common unmet needs include safety, connection, feeling seen/understood, feeling that our voice matters and so on. The best way to begin healing the wounds and upgrading our coping strategies is to start offering that missing experience to the young self. What were they needing that they didn’t get?

Once you have a felt sense of your young self, imagine that your current self is entering the space with your young self. Let them know you are there to support them. Say something to them that would have been really helpful for them to hear at the time. “It’s not your fault.” “I’m here, I’ve got you.” “You are perfect exactly as you are.” “Their inability to be there for you in the way you need reflects on them, it has nothing to do with your needs.” Or if what your younger self is needing is physical presence more than words, you can feel yourself holding that part of you, giving him/her love.

5. Start imprinting new possibilities

Give your younger self an energetic hug. Let them know you will keep on checking in on them. Now imagine that you are fast forwarding in time to a time when you have released that belief about yourself and/or the world. You realized that it was just a belief you developed when you were very young as the best way you could make sense of your experiences at the time. It’s not the actual truth.

What new belief would you like to replace the old one with? How are you feeling and living your life with this new programming? Feel and imagine it in as much detail as possible. And if it doesn’t feel accessible yet, keep doing the first four suggestions until it does. When you are ready, visualize yourself dropping this image of you operating on this new belief into your crown, and letting it permeate all the neural pathways that have been conditioned to the old belief. Feel it spreading to all the cells, muscles and tissues in your body. Placing your hands on your heart, imagine you are filling your heart with this new belief. When your heart feels full, feel it radiating back out into the universe.

The following is a guided meditation for healing your younger self based on the above tips:

Healing Childhood and Family Wounds*Jenny Brav2023-07-11T11:41:30+00:00

Releasing Limiting Beliefs *
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Releasing Limiting Beliefs *

Releasing Limiting Beliefs *

Is it challenging to create the life you know you deserve? Do you find yourself repeating the same patterns over and over again?

“Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers.” — Mignon McLaughlin

As children, we all experienced some level of wounding due to unmet needs and/or direct trauma. As a result, we subconsciously developed beliefs about ourselves or the world to help explain what we were experiencing. For example: “I’m not enough,” “Others can’t be trusted,” “I can’t make mistakes,” “I need to stay small to be safe,” and “I don’t belong.” These beliefs in turn led us to adopt coping strategies to try to manage in a world where “not belonging” was our daily reality.

While these beliefs have the adaptive function of trying to make sense of our circumstances in the best way we can when we are children, if we don’t become aware of them and actively work on changing them as adults, they can truly hold us back. When old, outdated beliefs are still running us, we may attract situations that serve to reinforce them – until we are able to see them as opportunities for healing and clearing.

The following are 7 tips for releasing limiting beliefs:

1) Notice when you’re contracted

Limiting beliefs are often so difficult to identify, because they feel 100% true in our bodies and psyches, and every instance that triggers those feelings appears to be further proof of their veracity.

In order to become aware of these beliefs, I invite you to start paying attention to your physical sensations. Limiting beliefs are by definition tight and constrictive. Notice when your body feels contracted. What thoughts or emotions (such as fear or anger) are present? What are you telling yourself about the situation? I also invite you to track recurring patterns, as they are generally a sign of a limiting belief needing updating.

2) Identify your beliefs

Now that you’ve started tracking recurring patterns and feelings of contraction, I invite you to jot down beliefs that might be associated with them. For example: “I’m unlovable,” “The world is out to get me,” “I’m only safe when I’m in control,” and “I have to be perfect to be accepted.” Once you have identified the beliefs, you may think about recent (or not so recent) situations that seemed to prove this belief true. How pervasive is this belief in your life?

3) Trace the belief to its origin

If you have listed more than one belief, pick one that feels particularly charged or current. What does it feel like in your body when you feel into that belief? Is there an area that feels tight, achy or fluttery, for example? Or, conversely, do you leave your body? Imagine that you are tracing that feeling back in time, to a time when you first started believing this. Is there a memory or timeframe associated with it? What was happening at the time? If nothing comes up for this question, you can always skip it.

If it feels like you always had that belief and can’t trace it back to a specific time frame or memory, then you may have inherited the belief from your parents, caregivers or other family members. What were their circumstances that might have led to that belief? If you do not know, that’s OK.

4) Identify the wound

We develop beliefs in order to try to compensate for wounds and/or unmet needs. Imagine that you are lifting up the belief you identified (for example, “I can’t rely on anyone but myself”) and looking underneath it. What is the emotion underneath the belief (i.e. grief, terror, anger, loneliness, helplessness, and so forth)? What is the unmet need? This might include the need for safety, love, acknowledgment, connection, autonomy, for example. If you traced the belief back to a family member, you may want to guess what their unmet need was.

5) Send empathy to the belief

I invite you to send empathy to the part of yourself that developed this belief in order to somehow soothe the pain of the unmet need. If you accessed a memory linked to this belief, you can send the empathy to your younger self. You might acknowledge that it was smart to develop this belief as a result of your circumstance. You can do the same with any family member you identified as being associated with this belief. If you didn’t access any memories/ancestors, you may just want to put your hands on the part of your body that feels contracted. Close your eyes. Breathe, and allow yourself to feel the touch in that area. If you wish, you can whisper some words, such as “it’s OK.”

6) Upgrade your belief

Although the limiting beliefs we develop are often adaptive, when we don’t update them, we may end up recreating the very situation that wounded us in the first place. For instance, let’s say a child has parents who are so busy they don’t have time to pay attention to her. She might feel sad and lonely because her need for connection and affection isn’t being met. She develops the belief that she is unlovable. Due to that belief, whenever there’s an opportunity for her to get close to somebody she does something (unconsciously) to push them away. As a result, the belief she is unlovable and her feelings of sadness/loneliness are reinforced.

Ask yourself if you are ready to let go of this old belief. If you feel any tightening, anxiety, or doubt, then it probably means that part of you isn’t ready. I invite you to continue tracking the impact of the belief, and giving yourself empathy. If you feel an opening internally, lightness or a feeling of excitement in response to the question, then it means you are ready for the upgrade – to install the 2.0 version of the belief that matches your current circumstances.

What new belief would you like to have to replace the old one? For example, “it’s safe for me to ask for help.” You may want to write down the old belief, cross it off (or tear it up) and write the new belief. This could also be done as a ritual (i.e. lighting a candle, with a picture of your younger self) if that is a practice that resonates with you.

7) Find other ways to meet the unmet need

If you identified an unmet need, ask yourself if are there other ways you could try to meet that need. In the above example, if the emotion was loneliness and the unmet need was connection, what are ways you might meet that need? And as the outside world is often a reflection of our internal state, I invite you first to make a list of ways you might connect to yourself more. For example by reducing distractions, and making time for things that are nourishing for your mind, body and soul. Make a list of things you love doing, such as dancing, working out, eating good food, getting a massage, etc. See if you can do at least one a week. Once you feel more connected to yourself, you can make a list of things you could do to start building a sense of community.

Wishing you the best of luck in releasing the old beliefs and accessing your full potential.

Releasing Limiting Beliefs *Jenny Brav2023-07-25T15:27:40+00:00

Lessons from my Lost Fingertip
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Lessons from my Lost Fingertip

Lessons from my Lost Fingertip

(Or 5 tips for checking back into your life)

Have you ever felt that there are moments when you are checked out of your own life? Do distractions, worries, and/or the busy-ness of life make it difficult for you to be fully present and focused?

“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.”
― Eckhart Tolle

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A moment of inattention

A few months ago, I sliced off the side of my left fingertip in a moment of inattention. I had been suffering from a virus for the past two weeks and was feeling depleted. The day before, I had attended a powerful 12-hour healing workshop. I woke up the next morning feeling exhausted but motivated. I had managed to block off five hours to write in my novel, and decided to make a big pot of soup before I started to sustain me through the day. Listening to a Pema Chodron podcast on “uncovering warmth in our hearts,” I started chopping kale. My knife was a little blunt, so I got out a new knife my housemate had just bought. A moment later, I was in excruciating pain, and a ½ inch of skin was on the chopping board, nestled in a piece of kale. My plans to write went out the window, as I spent the next weeks nursing my finger.

Being someone who takes pride in living mindfully, I felt shame at having hurt myself so mindlessly. And yet the incident taught me invaluable lessons in surrendering to what is, and releasing any expectation of how I thought things should be. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the point I shaved off is the first point on the Large Intestine meridian, which is associated with letting go. In the weeks following the mishap, I worked on releasing remaining layers of old fears from my childhood around being visible and fully present in my body. I also cleared some old ancestral beliefs (especially in my paternal lineage) that it’s not safe to pursue one’s dreams. That the only way to survive is to stay under the radar and not be too visible. My father broke that trend when he moved to Paris to be a writer in the early 1960s, but his failure to achieve his dream weighed heavily on him. He died young of a heart attack, and doing my healing work I realized that I had absorbed some of his ambivalent energy towards writing and following his purpose.

As I witnessed the miracle of my skin growing back a little bit each day, I could feel myself start to inhabit my body more fully. And the next time I sat down to write, I felt the words start flowing more easily, as though they were coming from a different part of my being. I wasn’t trying to make something happen, but rather was opening up to what wanted to come. And the remaining ball of tender scar tissue is a daily reminder to return to myself.

The following is an invitation for you to explore how you check out and why, as well as tips (no pun intended) for being more present.

1) Recognize your distraction pattern

We live in an era where distractions abound, and it takes dedication and effort to be truly present with ourselves and others. What are your favorite ways to check out or distract? This could include working overtime, shopping, eating, checking social media, playing Pokemon, binge-watching on Netflix, obsessing over the elections, etc. Although the line between what we do for entertainment and ways we distract can be blurred, the latter is often characterized by excess/difficulty finding an off switch, and feelings of shame afterwards. Start identifying what kinds of emotions and situations increase your distraction patterns (for example, stress at work, feelings of loneliness, an argument with your partner, and so on).

2) Identify your triggers

Now that you are paying attention to how you distract, think of what kinds of situations make you want to distract. Is it external demands, feeling overwhelmed, a feeling of not being enough for the task at hand? Do you tend to distract more at a certain time of day? Trace this feeling back in time. When did you first start checking out or distracting? What was happening back then, and what were you feeling about it?

3) Track your excuses/justifications

Notice the excuses you make to justify the patterns. For example “I’ve worked hard, I deserve this.” Underlying the excuse is a belief about yourself and/or the world. It may be that you are all alone, that the world is unfair, that you need to fight to get what’s yours, or that you are not enough. As with the triggers, there is a reason you developed those beliefs.

4) Acknowledge the distraction for how it has helped you

Distraction patterns are indicators of parts of us that didn’t feel safe or welcome. For anyone who has suffered from trauma, dissociating may have been key to surviving. In any case, you learned to distract or check out as a way of avoiding something, for example to numb the pain of having parents who weren’t present (physically and/or emotionally), or who were fighting all the time. Send gratitude to this pattern for all the ways it has served you.

5) Practice staying with what is arising

Although checking out can bring momentary relief, whenever we leave ourselves it creates an internal vacuum. Upon returning, we may have an even deeper sense of despair or shame, giving us little incentive to want to stay present with what is.

I know that mindfulness and presence have become buzzwords, but they really are the only way through the things we are wanting to avoid. So when you feel the pull to distract, or your habitual thought patterns pulling you into worry or anxiety, I invite you to breathe. Stay right where you are. Notice any discomfort that arises, and breathe into the discomfort. Feel into what is wanting to hide, what you are trying to avoid. You might want to squeeze or pat up and down your body, since presence is an embodied state, and this is a way to delineate the contours of your body. And start feeling into the possibility of letting go of some of the old habitual patterns that served you once, but are now only keeping you from what you are most wanting. Connection. Wholeness. Aliveness. Permission to be fully yourself.

Presence is my breath nudging its way into the logjam of my thoughts;

It is the syncing of my nervous system, my mind and my heart,

And the contours of my world coming into sharper focus.

Presence is a reminder to be patient and to trust;

It is the loosening of my stranglehold on control;

And an opening to limitlessness.

Lessons from my Lost FingertipJenny Brav2017-06-23T02:16:02+00:00

Healing Shame *
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Healing Shame *

Healing Shame *

Do you ever feel you need to hide certain parts of yourself to be accepted – that if people truly knew you, they would not like you? Do you have a strong inner critic trying to keep you in check?

“Shame corrodes the very part of us that believes we are capable of change.” Brené Brown

Unlike some other emotions like anger, sadness and fear, shame can be a difficult emotion to identify, especially since it is so often connected to and/or masked by other emotions, and because many of us have developed strategies to keep the shame at bay. Carl Jung called shame “a soul eating emotion.” Dr. Brené Brown – one of the leading researchers on shame – defines it as “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing we are flawed and therefore unworthy of acceptance and belonging.” At its very root, shame is linked to us disowning certain parts of ourselves or our experience, and thus leads to an internal split. Having a strong inner critic is usually a good indicator of deep-seated shame.

While allowing for and feeling other emotions can often enable us to move through them, staying with our shame may lead us to a dissociative place that is hard for us to return from, as we spiral down into a loop of shame, guilt and blame. In the case of trauma, shame is one of the factors that can make it difficult to heal from the experience, and can keep us stuck in dissociative and/or reactive responses.

The following are a four tips for beginning to identify and move through shame.

#1. Become familiar with your shame patterns.

In my experience, one of the antidotes to shame is curiosity. Rather than feeling ashamed of our shame, getting curious can give us the distance we need to have compassion for ourselves and move through the emotion. As such, I invite you to start tracking the shame:

What kinds of situations bring up a sense of shame? For example, does shame arise when you feel criticized, make a mistake, or are in the spotlight?
What are the physiological indicators of shame in your body? For example, your cheeks flush, your heart races, your shoulders round inwards…
What thoughts arise when you feel shame? What does your inner critic have to say about yourself and the world?
What other emotions are present with the shame? Do you feel anger, fear, sadness, hurt, confusion? These emotions may be buried underneath the shame, or may arise to try to protect you from the shame.
What is your response to feeling shame? Do you shut down and get depressed? Do you blame others and lash out? Do you escape by turning to distractive and/or addictive habits?

Keeping a shame journal for a week or more may be helpful for understanding your patterns. To avoid getting pulled into the shame, imagine that you are a social scientist studying your experience. If any judgment comes up about yourself, send yourself and the judgment compassion.

#2. Follow the shame to its root.

Once you start understanding you own shame patterns, you can go a little deeper.

If there was an age associated with when you first started feeling shame, what age would that be (if possible, let a number pop into your head)? What was happening at the time? Was there a difficult situation at home, at school, or in the external environment you were growing up in?
What beliefs did you start developing about yourself and the world based on what you were experiencing? For example, “I’m not enough,” “I can only rely on myself,” “I have to be perfect to get love…”
Do you associate your shame with anyone in your family? For example, was one of your parents/guardians hyper critical and/or rageful? Or depressed and unsure of themselves? Shame is often an inherited emotion which our younger selves absorb without even realizing.
What is the shame trying to protect you from? Although this may be counter-intuitive, because shame is so unpleasant, the emotion is there for a reason and is trying to achieve something for us. Usually, it wants to avoid feeling vulnerable, judged, not enough, and so on.

#3. Notice the internal split.

Where there is shame, there is an internal split. Always. Now that you have a sense of how you started developing the sense of shame, you can begin to feel into the split that arises in you when you feel shame. Usually, you can identify the split because there are two (or more) parts of you that are arguing with each other or having opposite responses. A common split is between the part of us that wants safety (and/or connection), and the part of us that wants autonomy and freedom. The first part might be compliant and conflict avoidant, while the second part might want to fight and push back.

When you feel yourself splitting off, take a moment and acknowledge the different parts. See if you can identify what each is trying to achieve for you. Send gratitude to both, and then ask them if they can start supporting each other instead of working against each other.

#4. Send compassion to your shame.
Most of us have learned that the only way to deal with shame and the parts of us we are ashamed of is by disconnecting from, indulging in, or punishing them. However, in my experience, the only way to heal shame is to send the parts you are ashamed of and disconnected from love and compassion.

Feel into your younger self, when you first started feeling shame. There may be several ages that come up – in that case, pick the one that feels more charged, or the youngest. And give them love. Let them know that whatever is happening, it’s not their fault. Let them know that they are lovable and OK, exactly as they are. Thank them for the courage they had to take on the shame as their own, and let them know it’s safe to let go now. It’s no longer theirs to carry. And invite the different parts that you have disconnected from to start coming back. Until you feel more whole and centered in yourself, and able to hold your ground even in the face of doubt, or negativity directed at you.

Healing Shame *Jenny Brav2022-10-04T10:15:18+00:00