Alex B. Overcoming shame

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Question

I have something that happend in my past that I keep beating myself up for. I tend to feel a lot of shame for doing this and have trouble forgiving myself. Should I keep digging and journaling about this subject? Is there any techniques to forgiving myself for this and getting this out of my system?

Do you have to find the one thing in your life or repression to get over the hump?

 

Answer

Thanks for posting. This is a really common problem faced by TMS sufferers. Almost all of my clients have a tendency to focus on events from their past that bring up feelings of shame and self-abuse. So first of all, it's important not to get too down on yourself for falling into this habit: you are not alone.

In treating TMS we often talk about the "inner bully", the part of your sub-conscious that continually punishes you, judges you and makes you feel small. In your case, this part of yourself is looking at what has happened in the past and using it as ammunition against you; a way to keep you feeling powerless, fearful and weak. This tendency to come down on yourself is on the other end of the self-treatment spectrum from the loving stance we want to encourage you to take towards yourself. When you think of these past events that have caused you problems, the ideal response would be to give yourself compassion, to recognize that there is hurt and grief and that you are need of support and care. However, in this case it seems that you are giving yourself the exact opposite! You are using this past event as a weapon to continue to punish yourself, long after the actual incident has occurred.

It is crucial to recognize that no one deserves this kind of brutal treatment. It is time to stand up to the bully that continues to dominate you and tell it that you are sick and tired of it making you feel unworthy of care and love. And finally, of course, it is time for you to give yourself that self-care that you seem to long for.

Often it is not one single incident, but a lifetime pattern of self-abuse that contributes to the symptoms of TMS. But your response and approach with regards to this one past event can serve to demonstrate how you treat yourself overall. See if you can spot the abuse for what it is and remember to give yourself the compassion you deserve.

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Guest, by coincidence, the advice from Alex about giving yourself compassion is the subject of a book
I am now reading by Christopher Germer, a clinical psychologist in private practice. His book is
titled The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion. I want to spend a few days reading the Kindle edition of the book and then will
report on it in one of the wiki subforums. I'll let you know when and where I post it.

My own thoughts on your problem is that you probably know what that big shame is that keeps
haunting you and makes you feel bad about yourself. I think you just need to let go of it now and
forgive yourself. Once we ask God to forgive us from a misdeed, He forgives, and we don't have to
keep asking him for forgiveness. It's the same with our own selves. We recognize the cause of the shame
and ask ourselves to let up on us, and we give ourselves self-compassion.

Here is a web site on self-compassion with some videos that I think will be of interest to you.

http://www.self-compassion.org/

 

Thanks for the link Walt, this is a really good site.

 

Germere has a lot of good stuff in his book and I will be posting about some of it later today
and in the days ahead. Some great techniques for self-compassion and meditation.