Roots of fear

I remember a story that my father often told me. A man comes to the atelier to order a new suit. The tailor takes his measurements and asks him to come back in a week. He comes back a week later to pick up a new suit. However, in the dressing room in front of the mirror, she notices that one sleeve is too short, one leg is too narrow, and the waist is too wide. When he points this out to the tailor, the tailor examines it and says:

No, there is nothing wrong with the suit. You're wearing it the wrong way. Look, first you have to bend your arm like this. Now you need to tighten your leg, like this, and stick out your stomach. Now just look, the suit is just right!

The convinced man limps out of the store in a new suit. He trudges slowly down the street, and two elderly ladies walk by. One says to the other:

“Look, what a poor, unfortunate cripple. Ah, ah, ah, what a pity!

“Yes,” replies the other, “terribly sorry. But what an excellent suit he is wearing!

I had no idea this story was about shame and conditioning. We are all in the role of this innocent poor fellow who came to the studio. And the tailor is culture, parents, teachers, priests, rabbis who raised us. By putting on a costume that did not suit our being, these people convinced us that it fit us. And since then, we've been limping through life, disconnected from our energy and authenticity. Standing in front of the mirror, we knew deep down that the suit didn't fit, but the tailor had too much power.

Our fears have many layers. Some of them are global. These are fears of disappearance in the face of the inevitability of death. They arise from an incredible vulnerability that we can neither eradicate nor ignore. But if we are at ease with ourselves, we can face this truth in trust, joy, and even surrender to its mercy. To face fear, shame must be healed. It robs us of the strength and clarity to face the uncertainties of life. Deprives us of the ability to engage in life wholeheartedly, joyfully, fully and creatively.

In this work, we are dealing with three main sources of fear. The first, the one I discuss in this chapter, is shame. The second, closely related to it, but experienced differently, is shock. The third is the experience of emotional loss, betrayal and abandonment. Lack of the emotional presence we need. These are three profound psychological experiences that have affected the beings of all of us. Gaining the ability to re-enter a natural state of power in which we can face fears involves recognizing and healing the three sources of fear. In the following chapters, I will address each of them separately.

In Eastern mysticism, the journey to find yourself is often described as a journey from the mind to the heart. Much of what keeps us attached to the mind and blocks the heart is the old, conditioned, compromised false self, which somewhere deep down is recognized as unworthy and inadequate. We will call this part of us mind of shame. It is full of negative beliefs about ourselves and life in general. It cuts off energy from us and keeps the spirit imprisoned. Shame has nothing to do with who we really are. It is simply a state of negative self-hypnosis that we subject ourselves to. From the heart, we see ourselves in a completely different way. From there, we can realize that all our judgments about ourselves and others are the product of our conditioning. From the heart, we can begin to rediscover the natural, loving, living, joyful, spontaneous and free part of ourselves. In a certain sense, one can view the return home as a journey from the mind of shame to the mind of the heart (or no-mind, whichever is more true).

Why is our Child inside so impoverished, and why is he in such a panic? Why do we run from ourselves so effectively and inevitably? We are covered in a layer of shame, and shame is painful to face. We were born without feeling unworthy or full of fear. We entered this world as emperors and empresses, potentially powerful. In our core space, which most of us have lost touch with, we were "energetic"—spontaneous, flowing, strong, creative, joyful, silent, and calm. But soon the core was covered with a touch of shame. When I first started reading about shame, I realized that I was always either in it or in compensation for it. A shocking discovery. Getting to know the concept of shame has changed my life. Working through shame is painful, but still not as bad as being buried in the unconscious. It is easy to get lost in the wounds of shame, shock and abandonment. Our Child inside may never be able to understand the pain and deprivation, humiliation and violence that he experienced. And, as I suspect, shame never completely disappears. But when we approach these experiences as part of an attempt to find our true nature, they can be seen as a ritual of passage. Each of us has received his dose of pain, and, undoubtedly, some of it was much more than others. Be that as it may, if we approach working through shame as a ritual of transition, we can become more gentle with ourselves and others. It also allows us to integrate pain.

In childhood, in order to develop self-esteem and self-confidence, we need a positive mirror. This mirror is a person who helps us to see and feel who we are. If we are not solidified in who we are, but instead are molded into the mold of others' expectations and projections, our core core of self-love, enthusiasm, spontaneity, and authenticity is shrouded in a veil of fear, insecurity, and self-sabotage. We find ourselves wrapped in shame. It is impossible to expect from our parents such a highly developed consciousness that they put aside their own values, prejudiced concepts, expectations and beliefs. Set aside to see us. Very few parents are capable of this, and that is why we all find ourselves under the power of shame.

As a child, I wanted to be like my older brother. He was a child prodigy and enjoyed universal recognition in our family. When I was in my senior year, he was awarded an honorary grant to study at Harvard. Naturally, I set myself the same bar, but deep down I was convinced that I was not good enough for this. When I was accepted, I was sure that I was accepted only because my brother was a friend of the dean of the admissions committee. I kept comparing myself to him throughout college, but by the time I graduated, everything was falling apart. I knew I had to change something, but I had no idea what. After graduation, much to my brother's chagrin, I announced that I would not continue my medical education.

Eventually, I had the good sense to stop pursuing achievement (at least for the time being) and went to California to join the counterculture. True, under the guise of a hippie life, I was still at the mercy of habits and still felt sick. Only much later did I realize that all my behavior was a wonderful compensation for the mountains of shame. The shame of a younger brother who could never equal his elder brother in his own eyes. I couldn't appreciate my own talents. Couldn't see my values ​​outside of a spectrum that someone in my family could easily understand. Naturally, at home they wanted to melt me ​​down to the standard of common priorities. The very ones my brother did so wonderfully. My direction was too “foreign” and frightening for those close to me to understand or accept it as valid. Unfortunately, I myself could not realize and recognize the correctness of my own path; it happened only much later.

Shame is the feeling that something inside is fundamentally wrong. This is a deep humiliation, not in anything specific, but in our very being. Because of it, we lose touch with our life energies and receptivity. We don't trust what we feel and lose the ability to feel and express ourselves. Shame persists constantly; some of us feel it all the time, others effectively mask it with good compensations. It comes to the surface every time life strikes us: when we lose love, or we are rejected. close person or we lose our jobs, etc. Then all of our shame-avoidance mechanisms may fall apart, and we will be faced with the task of rebuilding our shattered self-esteem.

Now I understand that shame is ubiquitous. When looking in the mirror, most of us are immediately confronted with voices of shame: “You are too old”, “not handsome enough”, “too serious”, “fat”, “tall”, “skinny”, etc. Whatever assertions, the first impression is always the impression of condemnation. Something is wrong at the very core. Looking in the mirror, we try to fix ourselves, knowing deep down that this cannot be done. Even if we cover up our shame, criticism or rejection can bring the best master of shame compensation to its knees.

Before I learned about shame and gave myself more space to embrace it, my life was one continuous effort to avoid it. I did everything I could to “stay energized” and felt ashamed every time I felt insecure, vulnerable, or awkward. Gradually I realized that trying to always "be energized" did nothing but create more tension and self-judgment. I was constantly manipulating myself, evaluating myself and exhausting myself. When I learned about shame, I shifted my focus and began to observe, feel, and understand. Instead of trying to remake myself, I try moment to moment with acceptance to observe who I am. If I don't feel like I'm in the process, I'm probably in pain. it good time to pay attention to the condemning voices and go in.

Shame comes from the fact that at a very early age our energy was not recognized as valid, and because we were deeply and fundamentally energetically rejected. In the process of finding ourselves, we constantly looked in the mirrors that the “big ones” set up for us - parents, teachers or older brothers and sisters. Our only sense of self can be built on any reflection that emerges from these mirrors. If the mirror were positive, we were loved, and our creativity and feeling were respected and supported, then a good feeling for ourselves would be formed in us.

I was a stranger among my own people and never suspected that another world was possible where I could “fit in”. I adapted to my surroundings at the cost of my own integrity and self-respect, became false with myself; I learned to be superficial in relationships because that's what I saw around me. I learned to win attention and approval by doing everything the best way. The irony was that although I was successful at times, I always felt like a failure inside, and all my achievements created a huge internal pressure. The very premonition of defeat brought me so much fear and squeezed me so much that in tense moments I actually suffered defeat. It was made even more difficult by the fact that I hid shame behind arrogance and "lost" on others the same impatience and criticality that I applied to myself. Also, the shame and pressure I put on myself kept me isolated. I tried to find strength and energy in dry and cold loneliness. I began to believe that no one could ever reach me. I think many suffer from similar effects of shame.

If we do something and positive, accepting energy comes back to us and says, “That's good, keep going,” then we feel accepted, desired, and loved, and this encourages our natural instinct to explore and develop. Whether we explore an early sexual feeling, joy, anger, or fear, if the response is a positive reflection, we develop an early and global trust in those feelings. Primal trust creates the ground, the anchor, the confidence with which we interact with the outside. This gives us confidence in our own energy. We feel connected to the body and trust the responses to external reality. For example, if our earliest sexual exploration is respected and supported, we remain in healthy contact with our own sexuality. If the appropriate expression of anger has not been punished with verbal or physical abuse, we learn to feel our own strength and trust it. The same is true for other senses.

Unfortunately, most of us have not had a positive mirror that reflects us in all our radiance. If, in our initial exploration of any feeling, we receive an overt or indirect message that it is wrong, we cut ourselves off from the feeling explored. As children, we are so sensitive and vulnerable, so in need of the love and approval of those who care for us, that it is very easy to stop unsupported exploration of our own energy. We lived in a world where we were constantly looking for approval in the eyes, facial expressions or energy of the big ones and adjusting to get it. Our survival depended on it. We were given a script based on our parents' values ​​and the culture they lived in. Parents themselves were most often depressed, and the culture looked life-denying. We've all experienced shame in one way or another. The difference could be in the degree of oppression, depending on how intense the negative impact was, and how early it came. Physical abuse in any form is an incredible humiliation for a child, a profound violation of his boundaries and a severe wound inflicted on his self-esteem. Sexual abuse is all of this combined on a grand scale. It creates deep confusion and conflict in love and sexuality. It is beyond the scope and scope of this book to define and discuss what constitutes sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is simply any form of manifestation that the caregiver sees or uses the child as a sexual object.

Shame also arises from many forms of emotional abuse. Dislike or dislike is the most extreme form of emotional abuse, but it also happens every time our Child's life energy is muted. This happens when any feeling, such as joy, fear, sexuality or anger, is not recognized as existing and is suppressed. When a parent condemns our natural gift and personal qualities and tries to mold us according to their ambitions and values. It is also a form of abuse when a parent does not have time for us, or when he does not listen to what we are talking about, or he condescends to the child, based on the belief that children are too immature to have their own opinions and feelings.

When I started therapy, my therapist asked me about my childhood.

“I had an excellent upbringing,” I replied. “My parents were amazing people and still are.

And then I launched into a lengthy lecture on positive qualities my father and mother. It's still hard for me to comprehend what I've been through because I truly love these two people. I want to defend and justify them. While blaming our parents for their mistakes and failures won't help, we must acknowledge the existence of things that have caused us to lose touch with ourselves deeply. It is vital to our healing to see how we have crossed ourselves out to live their life instead of our own. In order to blossom and find ourselves, we have to re-experience the pain of our Child, who did not receive what he needed. We must learn and experience our own history.

We have adopted fears, repressions, a sense of duty and responsibility from our parents, teachers, priests and politicians. Our evolving identity and authenticity has been crushed by society. We had no choice. We traded our energy, vitality and spontaneity for "love". Instead of blossoming into our nature, we have become what we were expected to be and what we were made to become. Unconsciously, we have compromised for the sake of survival. We have forgotten who we really are. We submitted and became good citizens, good children, and good students. Even our rebellion was only a reaction to external forces. We have lost inner joy, trust and love for ourselves.

Our parents (or anyone else who played a role in our childhood) raised us with the best of intentions. They had no idea how delusional they themselves were. They were also shamed and repressed by their own parents, teachers, and religious figures. Lack of love and understanding, violence and neglect do not come from bad intentions, but from inherited depression. We live in a world where love and freedom are not included in the values ​​of everyday life. Our society, at its very core, is concerned with producing well-functioning and well-adjusted human beings, conforming to norms based on the deep suppression of natural and important energies. Disappointments as a result of these repressions must someday surface. And they pop up in raising a child

In many cases, our parents did everything they could for us and gave us the best childhood they could. What else could they do but raise us on our own values? Many parents sincerely believed that firm discipline and even physical punishment were necessary for a child to have a good character. As Alice Miller has beautifully pointed out, shame is not only caused by the fact that our parents and teachers are depressed and sick; these are social phenomena. Indeed, “shaming” is a form of parenting that is accepted in almost all cultures. By and large, the change will bring - and already brings - only widespread awareness of the work of shame. And also the understanding that children need to develop their own intuitive gifts and form personal values.

Feeling ashamed, we either exploded or buried energy - "inflated" or "deflated". Instead of allowing energy to flow naturally and spontaneously, we compensated or chose to be depressed. Those who were "deflated" came to work on shame more willingly, because in a depressed state it is easier to see and realize what needs to be worked on.

When we do not receive a loving reflection in return, something in our very core begins to shrink. We stop trusting our perceptions and energy. We may lose all connection with feelings or see and feel but not trust ourselves. It's an incredibly deep wound. Instead of flowing in energy authentically and spontaneously, we become shy, confused, overly reserved, and insecure. Shame limits us, and when we find ourselves in relationships or situations, we are unable to express feelings or simply cannot find words. We judge ourselves because we "can't feel" or "can't communicate" and the other may seem much more in tune with their feelings. This leads to comparison and competition. The knot inside becomes tighter and tighter; we don't know how we feel, or we can't express ourselves. We judge ourselves and thereby dig ourselves a hole deeper and deeper. If someone comes and says, "You're too in the head," or "Get back into energy," it doesn't help much. When we are deeply ashamed, we forget that there is no other way to feel than to be humiliated. We have compromised so long and habitually that we simply cannot imagine a state of self-respect and dignity. We are used to being humiliated and abused and expect this. The wound is so deep and so overwhelming that we think it will never be healed.

Even worse, shame perpetuates shame. Chained by shame, we can easily slip into the role of a clown or a beggar. We try to get the attention of those who make us feel inferior. We are in a stupid and humiliating position, the other person rejects us, and we feel even more shame. In such situations, we simply reinforce our own low self-esteem. I remember trying to make the shame go away by being "cool" or trying to "organize everything." It didn't help. I hated myself when I saw how I humiliated myself, but there was nothing I could do.

While one side "deflates" and becomes flattened, the other may "bloat" and develop a style of compensation to cover up shame. It is much more difficult to recognize our inner shame and pain if we have become accustomed to a certain lifestyle—often successful—to avoid feeling or confronting shame. In a world of "winners" and "losers," there is no room for shame exploration. When I look back on my high school and college years, it seems like all I ever did was make amends. I find that the people who on the outside appear to be the most collected and in control of themselves and their circumstances bear the deepest wounds of shame. It is only when a highly compensating person's life begins to fall apart due to rejection in love, failure at work, illness, or accident that they eventually begin to experience shame.

It is an incredible blessing when the bottom of the compensating person's life vessel shows through, and he has to stop and look inside.

I think we are all aware of at least some of the ways we compensate for shame. I devote an entire chapter to this topic. We can use sex appeal, charm, intelligence, ambition, speed, meditativeness—anything that gives us an image of ourselves and rewards us with attention and recognition. We compensate by becoming doers or winners, deciding that we can “improve” or rise to the challenge of life. Our intractable habits are also based on shame compensation. We run from ourselves to escape from shame. The success of the compensating person is driven by tension; it lacks emotional or spiritual wholeness. Because of this overload and compensation, we shame others by remaining insensitive. It is much harder to shame others when we know how it feels.

Whether we are in a flattened or compensatory state, deep down each of us carries basic negative beliefs about ourselves that have come about as a result of shame. They are very powerful because they determine our view of the world, influence our relationships with others, creativity, meditation, the spiritual path and attitude towards life. These beliefs are not obvious. They have to be dug up. The most common ones are: “I can’t”, “I will fail”, “I don’t deserve love”, “I am insufferable”, “I am not attractive”, “I will never get what I need”,

“To be worth anything, I have to be at the top of my abilities,” “If I open up, they will hurt me,” or: “No one will ever understand me.”

Take the time to look at this list and find out what resonates with you. Ask yourself when did you start having these beliefs. Maybe you never questioned them. Ask yourself how they affect your behavior. Negative beliefs become self-fulfilling, deeply embedded in our thought structure. We live like they are the truth, and they seem to be the truth. If we “know” that we are not worth loving, it is as if we are walking around with a sign that says, “Reject me.” And it is very likely that we will be rejected. We do not see that the projection of shame is working in us, and we think that another failure only proves our inadequacy. Our beliefs surround us with an aura of mistrust, sometimes even paranoia.

Beliefs such as, "If I open up, I will be rejected" affect our energy; this is expressed in the feeling that if we lower the level of protection and open up, we will immediately be betrayed. Some form of rejection or punishment did happen in the past, and our Child still harbors that fear. Fear and guilt keep our negative conditionings going and keep us from living our energy. From the Child's point of view, there is no reason to believe that anything else could happen.

To understand shame, it is important to understand how it feels. It can be helpful - although not necessary - to go back in time and unearth all the ways we have been shamed, because they can haunt us to this day. Sometimes someone says something to us and we leave feeling terrible. Every time we feel we are being humiliated, criticized, judged, or teased in a loving and unfriendly way, we experience shame.

I have always been too shamed to react or say anything in return. Instead, I ignored everything. Often there was an echo inside me that said, “Wait a minute, those words about you made me feel bad,” but I kept it to a minimum or ignored it. I told myself that I should be big enough, and such little things don't bother me. I could convince myself that the whole thing is in my tightness and I myself am to blame. The episode just seeped even deeper inside and corroded my already sick self-esteem. Either I did not think of saying anything, or I was too afraid of confronting this person. But by ignoring such things, I did not contribute to the process of restoring my own dignity.

My shame was easily triggered when I was around those who had power over me or whom I felt inferior to. I became obsequious, my voice got stuck in my throat, I stammered, trying to say something, and in the end I said complete nonsense that was not relevant. The person felt my energy and often did worse by rejecting me. I left feeling terrible. Are you familiar with this experience? The first step in healing the wound of shame is to recognize what it is, understand how it feels, and begin to notice the stimuli that trigger it.

In later chapters, we will explore ways to heal shame. I have found that by relying on awareness, understanding, and acceptance, I am gradually creating ground for compassion in my being. Our shame is so deep and all-encompassing that it begins to heal only when it is cared for by love.

Find a comfortable place where nothing will disturb you, and put a pillow in front of you. You can just imagine that you are sitting in front of a pillow. The position you are sitting in is what we will call the position of the observer. Allow yourself to relax and gently enter within yourself. Together we will explore feelings that may not be superficially obvious. In a moment, you will be able to experience what it feels like to step into that energy. This is the energy of shame.

Now gently and gradually come to a standing position. Very, very slowly, step by step, allow yourself to be placed on a cushion of shame. You enter into this energy. Just fully standing on the pillow, take a sitting position. Start feeling the energy. It is like a heavy cloak that envelops you, weighs you down. You may feel very small, feel like a child. You may notice that there is little room for movement around.

Pay attention to what is felt in the body. What happens to energy? What is your feeling about yourself? How do you feel about your sexuality, strength, solidity? How does this affect your ability to speak, to express yourself, to be creative? Notice what beliefs you have about yourself when you put on the cloak of shame.

Perhaps in this position you will notice that you expect harsh, cruel treatment from you, habitually expect humiliation, because this is what you think you deserve. As you allow yourself to sink deeper into this energy, the voices of people who have shamed you in the past, people who have judged you, told you that you are wrong or good for nothing, can come up. Maybe it's the voice of your father or mother: telling you how to behave, insulting, interrupting, not listening to you, making you feel something and do something.

Maybe images will come up, times from the distant or recent past when you felt ashamed. You may be able to see that someone is saying something to you or treating you in a way that makes you feel humiliated. Notice if there are certain people in your life with whom you feel terrible or humiliated. If you look closely, they can, directly or indirectly, provoke shame in you.

Take a closer look at the people in your life who make you feel energized, the people with whom you find it difficult to express yourself. These people may somehow perpetuate your shame. Explore and see how it feels. Maybe you can remember who last treated you badly. Notice how you react. How do you usually react when someone humiliates you, behaves violently or degradingly?

Notice how shame makes you feel when you get close to someone. Notice how feelings of insecurity, vulnerability, and inadequacy can attract rejection and shame to you, how shame creates more shame. Maybe you will notice that you do not feel confident and strong enough to do something, you feel like you are drowning, you are desperate and ready to give up. This is the power of the wound of shame.

Now, very gently, allow yourself to straighten up again and stand up. Gradually, one foot after the other, step off the pillow - sit back in the position in which you sat at the beginning. You have just felt the impact and influence of shame. But you are no longer in that energy, now you are out of it. This energy is not you, it is a cloak, a wound inflicted a long time ago. Let yourself shake it off. In this position of observer, you can assess what happened and begin to recognize the difference between how you feel when you are under the influence of shame and how you feel when you are not.

The second major source of fear is shock. Shame is bad enough, shock is worse. My first introduction to shock came from Charles Whitfield's Healing the Child Within. Since then I have read many other shock reports and have researched my own in some depth. I never knew how shocked I was because I compensated well for it. At the same time, I never truly understood why the expressed or unexpressed anger of another made me so fearful. Why was there so much pressure on me? And why, deep inside, many things terrified me.

When we are in shock, we seem to freeze. In a panic, we cannot communicate with anyone, no matter how hard we try. Before I knew about the shock, I thought that something was wrong with me and that I was defective by nature - a coward, incapable of showing strength in difficult situations, unable to cope with any kind of pressure or come face to face with directed at me by the anger of others.

Fortunately, I found that I was not alone in this. The more I teach people how to deal with shock, the more I realize how common these feelings are. Shame and the inner judge cripple our vitality and self-respect. Shame has to do with how we feel and think about ourselves and how we express ourselves. The shock hits us at such a deep level of the psyche that it even affects the physiology, how our body reacts to the outside. Undoubtedly, shame also affects our energy, but shock affects us most profoundly; it seems to affect us at the cellular level. As with shame, when we are in shock, we have no perspective and no distance. We are engulfed in a conscious state of fear that comes from past traumas. We are in mind of fear.

When we are in shock, we cannot think, we cannot feel, we cannot move, and we cannot speak. There's nothing you can do but be in it. I now realize that many of the situations that have caused me so much pain in the past were situations in which I was in a state of shock but didn't know it. During my school life, my shock manifested itself as "freezing" and inability to think quickly during exams, as premature ejaculation (always a cover for fear) and as poor results during competitions. The cover for these shocks was my anxiety about the outcome. Shock symptoms:

1) you cannot feel;

2) you cannot move;

3) you cannot speak;

4) you can't think.

Everyone has their own symptoms of shock. But there is a certain list of common symptoms: confusion, loss of orientation, memory, speech, rapid pulse, sweat, tossing about, paralysis, chest tightness, shortness of breath, cold sweat, wet fingers, and a feeling of overwhelmed horror. Panic attacks or phobias are, in my opinion, shock reactions. It is sometimes possible to determine the source of the shock, but often it remains a mystery. When we are in shock, there is nothing we can do but accept it. We want to be centered, strong, present, collected, calm, organized, but we can't. The more we judge ourselves for not being able to accept the situation as we would like, the deeper we move into shock.

As crippling and overwhelming as shock is, it has its own value, especially in the spiritual quest. Shock is a wake up call. When I began to realize how often and how long I was in shock, it became obvious how sensitive I was. How sensitive we all are. The shock draws attention to the incredible sensitivity of our soul, to all the unconsciousness around and within us; pulls us out of a protected, closed and isolated world and forces us to live more consciously. The shock awakens us to the original feeling of life and draws us out of the automatic, conditioned, unconscious parts. Shock awakens our vulnerability.

We come into this world in a wonderfully sensitive state, with an innocence and openness that we cannot even imagine. This sensitivity is confronted with such a violent and rough energy that the reaction is to go into shock. To understand the shock, we must put ourselves in the shoes of an innocent, receptive, open and trusting child, looking out into an unfamiliar and strange life.

With a state of complete openness, we met the world. We have caught all the vibrations of our surroundings. It could be the tension of the mother, or the suppressed and unexpressed anger of the father, the screams of the parents at each other, and much more. We felt it all, and it drove us even deeper into shock. In this early and pure state, we can catch the slightest negativity, and a terrible force falls upon our being. Maybe there was something as egregious as physical or sexual abuse.

I think I was born in shock. I couldn't digest my mother's milk and nearly died of dehydration. There's a fancy name for it, neonatal malabsorption syndrome, but I guess I just wanted to say, “What am I doing here? I want to go back to where it was warm and safe!” The shock of entering the body alone is enough, but to this is added a room with too bright light, and some doctor slaps us on the behind ...

In the state of innocence, we are unable to absorb gross energy. Everyone meets it in their own way, according to what resources they brought with them. The society in which we live, regardless of country and place, is not attuned to sensitivity. We learn to hide as we learn to cope with life. We become rougher and no longer feel the innocent child inside, who had to overcome so much to "adjust". As we rediscover the original sensitivity, a shock opens up before us.

It is not always possible or necessary to know what exactly shocked us. The most important thing is to recognize the reality of this experience and to realize that it is not based on our inferiority, but on something very specific and quite existing that happened in the past. Some energy of the present - anger, pressure, or rejection, for example - triggers a reaction within, based on much earlier experiences of encountering a similar energy.

Working with shock, I found that there are many possible sources of shock, and each one has its own. When we encounter one of them in our lives today and it reproduces exactly the energy of the original shock, we relive it all over again. We call it "shock irritant".

The most common of these is open or indirect violence in any form. It can be anger, hostility, judgment or disapproval. Violence is any moment when we feel we have been mistreated, used or treated unfairly. When we feel invaded and our boundaries violated. It doesn't even have to be pronounced; sometimes a feeling is enough to go into shock. Most of us were exposed to expressed or unexpressed anger as children. Anger could come from anywhere: parents, siblings, teachers, classmates. Until we begin to penetrate our own conditioning, we do not realize the anger we are actually facing.

Pressure is the second shock irritant. I felt it and still feel it in the situation of any competition. If I had known about the shock earlier, maybe it would have saved me from a lot of heartache and the eternal feeling that I "lost". But the pressure is much broader than specific situations - it is global. In the face of the highly competitive and patriarchal society in which most of us grew up, the Child within is shocked by the sheer anticipation of having to deal with such a world. After many years of living under oppression, much of the pressure comes from within.

The third important irritant of shock is rejection, deep loss or abandonment. Most of us do not remember the sources of the wound of abandonment, and I will explore the issue of abandonment in depth in the next chapter. This is the root aspect of healing our codependency. Breakups are quite painful, and if they are combined with a feeling of rejection, they can easily provoke shock. Experiencing loss due to the death of a loved one or the end of an intimate relationship opens up a space within that forces us to enter the core of our Child's pain. This brings us face to face not only with the wounds of our Child, but also with the emptiness at the very roots of our soul.

The fourth irritant that can cause shock is condemnation or criticism. In fact, it is a form of verbal abuse. Most of us are so accustomed to living in fear and experiencing judgment that we take it for granted. We don't realize the deep shock this brings to our Inner Child. Much of our behavior is geared toward avoiding or reacting to criticism.

The next irritant of shock is the receipt of a "contradictory message." For example, we are told that we should do what is best for us, while implicitly implying our personal expectations. Such conflicting messages shock us because we do not see the direction in which to move. And we stop trusting our own feelings. The child begins to see the outside world as a dangerous place that causes confusion. Nothing makes any sense inside or outside.

And the last, sixth shock irritant is unpredictable, irrational or hysterical behavior. A few years ago, I was with a girl who became hysterical when she was angry or upset. I didn't know enough about the Inner Child then to understand where these behaviors come from and how I provoke them. All I understood was that I had to physically run. I felt like I was going crazy. Nothing she said seemed to make sense, and nothing I could say would make a difference. As if in a nightmare, I found myself paralyzed. Many clients and participants have shared with me similar childhood experiences in which one of their parents reacted hysterically or irrationally to them.

If our parents or parent were alcoholics or drug abusers, we went into shock because we could not rely on the consistency of their behavior. They could become angry or manic for no reason, and often directed unpredictable or disturbing behavior at us. Our Child was shaken to the core. The world is falling apart before our eyes, and there is no protection and security. Shock triggers:

1) violence - direct or indirect;

2) pressure;

3) loss or abandonment;

4) condemnation or criticism;

5) conflicting signals;

6) hysteria or insanity.

Working with my own shock and with the shock of others, I explored its effect on each of our energy centers. For example, we may have a shock that profoundly affects our ability to feel and open up to sexuality. Childhood traumas, especially sexual abuse, are often hidden in our unconscious and can fill us with tremendous fear every time we encounter a sexual situation. In my work, I have found that this shock is common almost everywhere and manifests itself differently in each of us. In my experience, anxiety about being a "good lover," problems with orgasm, penetration, premature ejaculation, or impotence is associated with sexual shock.

There is also the shock of abandonment, which energetically affects the lower abdomen and heart. It arises from early experiences of rejection and emotional or physical loneliness. The impact of this shock makes it very difficult for us to open up and share our energy. We are afraid of being abandoned, and retreat into our own world. This happens unconsciously, and we do not associate our emotional and sensual difficulties with the shock of abandonment. It takes an awareness of shock to realize that this isolation is not our natural state.

A solar plexus shock is a shock to our ability to feel and express anger and affirmation. It came from some form of violence, energetic or physical, that we experienced very early in life. We were frozen in terror. It takes incredible patience and perseverance to overcome the fear of feeling and asserting yourself. When I first started working with this aspect of shock, and I had to face someone who scared me, I was trembling all over. It helped me a lot to know that I was in shock. In each such situation, I approached myself with great compassion.

Shock also lives in us and energetically affects the center of the throat, resulting in an inability to creatively speak and express ourselves. This shock comes from feelings of humiliation or criticism, and also from a lack of support. The energy gets stuck in the throat and we can't get it out. This is deeply disappointing. I have found that the most healing approach to overcoming this block is to recognize this shock, uncover its roots, and continue to take risks and express yourself.

If we look in the mirror for a moment, we can see, especially in the left eye, evidence of shock. Now it is hidden and obscured by all the defenses that we, fortunately, managed to build. The shock came upon us so early and so overwhelmed us that it became almost incomprehensible. It is buried deep in the unconscious. Even if the mind does not retain the memory of the events that brought the shock, its effects are noted in the body. To deeply understand the Inner Child, we need to know how this is affecting us now. A stimulus from our current life, whether it be violence, pressure, loss, rejection, or irrational behavior, triggers certain bodily manifestations of shock.

I remember one incident that happened a few years ago. Even now, thinking about him, I still feel shame and anger. Some of my acquaintances regularly gathered in the same house in the evenings. There was always a lot of humor and joy there, and people loved to go there. It was the "right" place to visit. For me, it always caused mixed feelings. I wanted to participate in this, but, according to my feelings, something was not quite right. There was always a lot of teasing each other. One evening when I was visiting there, the owners of the house began to "playfully" tease me. I managed to play along with them, but when I left, I felt like I had been raped. I judged myself for not responding and keeping my dignity. Now I realize that I was completely shocked. In this state, little comes to mind, let alone the right words. I realized that shame brought me into the zone of shock and I was paralyzed.

Shame causes shock, shock leads to more shame, and it becomes a vicious cycle. When we feel like we're being invaded, whether it's anger, pressure, or judgment, our energy and self-respect fall apart. Buried under the shock are feelings of rage and grief, and if we recognize and acknowledge the shock, they begin to surface.

Understanding shock plays a fundamental role in developing compassion for our Inner Child. If the shock is triggered by a stimulus, there is no way to "dissuade" yourself from it. Many experience the frustration of seeing their energy and capacity plummet, seeing self-sabotage and feeling unable to do anything about it. It hurts. When we try to do something and get shocked, everything seems to go from bad to worse. The slightest sign of pressure, from outside or inside, sends us into shock even deeper.

In a relationship, shock happens all the time. Usually, one person is more shocked than the other, and it may be more difficult for them to express feelings, especially anger. Most often, one who is not afraid of anger becomes irritated or impatient; the other goes into shock. The one who is angry wants a reaction. He usually seeks to receive some kind of energy of anger in return. The pressure brings the one who is in shock into more shock.

This kind of downward spiral can unfold in any situation where one person wants some energy from another. This often happens in sex. Someone who is in shock feels pressured or abused and their energy freezes. And he can't do anything. But if he does not recognize and express what is happening, the other feels alienated and loses his temper. Then both of them lose their temper. No mental manipulation can bring healing. It comes from recognizing the state of shock and expressing it.

Shock also takes its toll when we get creative or move into unfamiliar areas. The slightest pressure or criticism can shock us, no matter how well we understand what and why is happening inside. I remember several times from my childhood when I was in shock and completely lost the ability to act. Now I have learned to be aware when I am in shock. I can’t always catch it right away, but I know exactly how it feels, and I understand that this feeling is exactly a shock. When he comes, there is nothing I can do but stay with him, accept him, feel and observe what stimulus triggered him. We can recreate experiences that provoke shock, just as we did with shame.

Understanding shock has given me the tools to deal with it. I like to compare the process of healing the Inner Child to going through different rooms- each with its own level of awareness. (Of course, these stages overlap with each other, since real life is not so neat.)

1. Before becoming aware of the Inner Child and all that it has experienced, we live in the room of our automatic, unconscious masks and compensations.

2. Once we become aware of shame and shock, we enter the room of shame and shock—feeling numb, depressed, fearful, and other bodily symptoms that accompany shame and shock.

3. After a while, anger, buried under shame and shock, begins to surface, and we enter the room of rage and reaction.

4. If we can stay with the energetic experience of this rage, then we go deeper and connect with the feelings underneath - the incredible suffering and pain from all the abuse we have ever experienced. We are in the grief room.

Often we don't remember the original trauma that caused the shock. They are so painful that we close. But the body registers shock in the form of asthma, eczema, panic attacks, phobias, and many other somatic symptoms. Sometimes, when we go into shock, we fail to notice any obvious stimulus, or the stimulus seems insignificant. But the shock is deep and complex. It is enough to trust the symptoms and realize that something once set them in motion. Shock connects us to the deepest, most hidden, most frightening abuse of our Inner Child. We must approach this subject with the utmost compassion and space.

You need to start with the awareness and recognition of the existence of this shock. When we go into shock, it's enough just to say to ourselves, "I'm in shock right now." This in itself has a healing effect. And sometimes we have to get out of the shock before we realize we were in it at all.

In my job, I have to travel a lot. Often when transferring from one train to another or at the airport, I felt that my Child inside was in shock. I keep forgetting things, sweating, rushing, and constantly checking my schedule to make sure I have enough time. I know it's irrational, but nothing helps except talking to my Inner Child. I tell him that I understand that these situations and places are frightening, impersonal and speedy, and he has reason to be afraid. I try to find time to sit down and turn my attention inward.

As I became more aware of the shock, the anger that had been buried under it began to surface. The grievances I've been holding inside come to the surface, sometimes as mild annoyance, sometimes as wildfire. In a sense, it is much healthier to react with anger than to collapse in shock. We want to be sure that we can say "no" very firmly, and after so many years of being overwhelmed, feel empowered and know that we are able to stand up for ourselves.

Our reactions are always contaminated by projections, but expressing anger is a necessary step and must be passed through. In the next chapter, I will discuss in more detail the process by which we learn to set limits. It is very important to realize that we are recreating the original shock in our lives today in order to process it. In our relationships with loved ones and friends, we often go into shock in the same way that we originally did. And it gives us endless possibilities for healing.

Maybe we have learned to compensate for shock in many ways, just as we learned to compensate for shame. Running away from the panic inside, we can pick up the pace, become angry, "fly away" or retreat deep within. Just like with shame, it's not always easy to get in touch with shock because most of us have compensated for it all our lives. We never knew that fear and anxiety inside is a signal that our vulnerability is in a state of shock. I think our entire western culture is one big shock compensation. You can see it anywhere and everywhere. Pressure and work for results have become the main values ​​​​of society, and the violence with which people treat each other is ubiquitous and unconscious. As evidence, it is enough to read a newspaper or listen to a politician's speech. One has only to turn to the world of the Inner Child and you can see what this sensitive and vulnerable part of us is constantly experiencing.

When we are shocked or under the influence of shame, this experience cuts us off from ourselves. The pain is so great that we move away from the body and lose touch with our energy. As a result, we are no longer in the center. When we are not in the center, or not in energy, we feel some kind of hole inside. It interferes, and we are looking for ways to fill it with something external. This is what makes us codependent.

Moreover, when we are ashamed or shocked, we cannot interact or express ourselves clearly. We get lost in the other person and don't know who we are, what we want or how we feel. Without the other, we are helpless. We believe that we lack the resources to find ourselves. Our emotional relationships become confusing like pasta, with a gradual loss of boundaries and identity. We try to compensate for all this by abruptly cutting off contact, striving for more space, or demanding more energy from the other. We blame all relationship or partner problems. The only way out of this situation is to heal the wound of shame and shock. Through awareness, feeling and acceptance.

“You are constantly missing something, something that you knew but forgot. A faded memory, a lost memory, it's not just an empty gap - it's a wound, and it hurts. When you were born, you brought something into the world with you, and somewhere along the way it was lost. And it seems impossible to find it again in this crowded universe. But until that happens, your life is futile—suffering, pain, a vain longing, a futile passion, a craving that you feel is unquenchable. This is the greatest crime that society commits against every child. No other crime compares to this. To poison a child's trust is to poison his whole life, because trust is so precious, and the moment you lose it, you lose contact with your whole being. Trust is the bridge between you and existence. Trust is the purest form of love."

(Osho. A new dawn)

When dealing with shock, we focus on the following.

1.First of all, how does shock affect our lives today, and what are our personal, unique symptoms of shock? What serves as an irritant for our shock? What judgments do we have about ourselves and being in shock? How do we compensate for the shock?

As an exercise, I suggest listing the symptoms of shock and discovering what triggers your shock. Look at how you usually avoid feeling shock and what judgments you have about being in shock.

2.Second, what in the past could have caused this shock? This is a sensitive topic and should be dealt with in a protected environment, under the guidance of people experienced in handling shock. In our workshops, we create a direct experience of shock by going into a trance, going back in time, and remembering the events that may have caused the shock. Many people in this work discover sexual or physical abuse, or they dream about it. These memories were previously blocked in the mind. Many of the most painful and traumatic childhood experiences remain lost to our memory, and we must move towards them very slowly, in a safe, supportive environment. It doesn't have to be done alone.

I have discovered that there is something even deeper than shame and shock that causes our fear. These are wounds of abandonment, dissatisfaction and emptiness. Three different sides of the same phenomenon.

Therefore, we are faced with a dilemma. We want to open up, but we don't want to feel pain. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees in existence. On the contrary, if we open up, we may again find ourselves abandoned, betrayed, or emotionally deprived. No matter how close and caring another is to us, they cannot fill all the holes we have. In love, we open our wounds again, time after time, because we have to go through this pain - deeply and carefully. For us, these are doors to our own depth and acceptance of our own loneliness. On the other hand, the prospect of entering this pain is terrifying.

During my most recent abandonment crisis, I found a space inside where there was a lot of darkness and emptiness. Instead of avoiding these feelings, as I would have done in the past, I decided to go into them. I touched a place of emptiness that seemed to have nothing to do with the drama of love and with another person. The parting with my beloved opened up a feeling inside me that was far beyond the circumstances that caused it.

I decided to ask for help. It has been a long time since I last consulted a therapist. Once again I began to work with a feeling of emotional hunger, rooted in childhood. It was this feeling that provoked parting with the woman he loved. Despite many years of therapy in the past, I discovered new chapter in understanding what my Inner Child experienced. This experience brought me into contact with a space within that had no psychological underpinnings. The cavity in the solar plexus felt new and terrifying. I woke up in the morning and felt like I didn't know who I was. I had experienced disassociation and depression before and was well aware of them, but this was different. I realized that I was entering a space that every seeker on the path to truth must pass through, a space of feeling emptiness, "nothingness."

I continued to explore this space, bringing more acceptance into it and expanding its boundaries within. Understanding it in the context of spirituality allowed me to go deeper and created much more inner space. The uncomfortable feelings passed, but through this experience, something seemed to change. First of all, my fears have become closer to the surface and easier to provoke, but there is more space to remain vulnerable.

Life brings us all the time to face the wounds of abandonment, dissatisfaction and emptiness, whether we like it or not. AT different forms, in large or small doses, pain can come when a partner leaves us, when a loved one dies, when something that gave our life meaning is lost. We are entering forgotten territory. This space inside was always there, but it was obscured by compensation and denial. When it opens, it overwhelms and devastates.

The terms "abandonment", "dissatisfaction" and "emptiness" mean three forms in which we can see the same wound, and three ways in which a hole inside can open. Each of these aspects gives us more depth in understanding this process.

Our Inner Child once experienced being physically or emotionally abandoned. The pain was so overwhelming that we buried it deep in the unconscious. All of our survival mechanisms were an attempt to recover from this attack. But healing cannot happen until we bring these early experiences back into consciousness. We must, one way or another, open the wound, and the way to do this is provided, first of all, by our close relationships. When we experience loss or rejection, we recreate the wound of abandonment. In fact, the fear of reliving abandonment is the main reason we avoid intimacy. Instead of taking risks, we make relationships frivolous, theatrical, or confrontational. Unconsciously, we act in such a way that we do not open up and do not trust. We have an unconscious feeling that betrayal follows openness and trust, and we already experienced this in childhood. For myself, I suddenly discovered that my anti-addiction strategies were a cover for this deep fear inside.

For our Inner Child, the situation of abandonment brings to the surface the strongest fears of not getting what we need. When, for example, a love partner leaves us or threatens to leave us, we come face to face with unconscious memories of abandonment that have been “buried”. For the Child, this is not only the departure of a loved one, it feels like the father or mother has left. This is not rational. And terrifies. For our Child, the event remains as frightening as ever. (Remember, our Inner Child is still living in the time when the wound happened) Fear manifests itself in the body and can bring physical illness. It affects our dreams. It can cause so much anxiety in our daily lives that we risk not being able to cope with it. The more unconscious we are in the experience of abandonment, the more it manifests itself in bodily reactions.

Rejection provokes feelings of shame and unworthiness. Both wounds hit us at the same time because they are interconnected. I remember the anguish that haunted me during a similar crisis in my life. My mind was giving out every judgment I could imagine, and my body was in a panic. How often do we imagine our partner making love to someone else and compare ourselves to them, often to our disadvantage? All the insecurities that we have come to the surface, and we are convinced that each of these judgments is gospel truth. Every time we meet a former love partner or their new partner, it becomes a nightmare of shame. Sometimes it can take many months for the symptoms of fear to subside and the judgmental mind to fall silent.

At first, I never appreciated that the devastating experiences were also a powerful support for me to go deeper. Over time, I became grateful, because as a result, each time I came out of these experiences a new person. Existence gave me a powerful impetus to go up the stairs of consciousness. It seems that some powerful impulse is needed to bring us to consciousness. I am convinced that on highest level of consciousness, we actually create abandonment crises to take us deeper. In search of truth, the experience of abandonment gives us a whole new perspective. For the inner Child, this is abandonment, but for the seeker in us, it is the entrance to the void that we all have to face sooner or later. Encountering her can open up a deep space of trust.

By dissatisfaction here I mean abandonment in a smaller dose, but in a chronic form. If someone does not listen when we speak, or if we are not given time and attention, support or touch, we feel dissatisfied.

Each of us has our own such wound, the characteristics of which depend on what we experienced in childhood and what we did not receive. If we want to know our history of dissatisfaction, we need to ask ourselves what it is in our lives today that makes us feel betrayed. My wound is provoked by events in which I appear unnoticed, disrespected or unrecognized, and instead of being supported, I am controlled or manipulated. We often re-create the pattern of our unique dissatisfaction in all significant respects. Our love partners (and close friends) for some reason begin to treat us the way we were treated as children. In many ways, they subject us to emotional hunger in exactly the same way.

How can they? we say. “After all, they are friends, to love us, not to subject us to hardships.

But just as we play abandonment, we also deal with dissatisfaction. It may be that our love partner hasn't abandoned us, but within a relationship we are re-enacting our story, often unconsciously. And we get furious, we fall into depression or insanity. The saving grace is to accept that our stories of abandonment and dissatisfaction will continue until we begin to heal them.

Beneath the psychological experiences of abandonment and dissatisfaction lies the experience of emptiness. It is also triggered when we experience loss. In the space of emptiness, we are captured by the loss of the meaning of life. This experience seems to be waiting for us as we go deeper. Deeper than clinging to a huge number of unimportant things in search of meaning. When they start to collapse, it creates a terrible empty gap. I know that I am very attached to my roles and many components of my image, but in moments of clarity I see how small they are. For example, I tend to be enthusiastic and busy in many ways to cover up feelings of emptiness, although some of my enthusiasm is genuine creativity and vitality. The path inward naturally and inevitably takes us away from attachment to roles, entangled material pursuits and busyness, and forces us to enter the void. Traveling there can bring a lot of fear, because often we have not yet found a replacement for habitual identities. My master has said many times that if we want to be free, we will have to pass through what the mystics called "the dark night of the soul." In this discovery, my continued association with the master and his teachings has been the most important support. Somehow I knew and felt that in front of me was a man who had been in all dark places and not only survived, but also came out of them in all radiance and with all the purity of love. He constantly encouraged me to keep going despite pain and hardship.

Our Inner Child does not have the resources to deal with wounds. He just feels panic. But the meditating part of us has them. This part of us can provide the space, clarity, and distance to deal with intense fears as they arise. She has an understanding of what is happening and how important it is for our inner growth. Our meditator helps to avoid the immediate movement into the habitual and unconscious panic and reactivity of the frightened Child.

What happens when a love partner or life doesn't meet our expectations? Usually the first thing we do is react, that is, we perform a response action. We blame and complain, we flatten and shrink, we withdraw into ourselves. Behind this reaction is a lot of anger, frustration, and maybe feelings of despair or hopelessness. These feelings are provoked by our Inner Child experiencing dissatisfaction and loneliness. In fact, this is the source of many if not all of the conflicts that arise between love partners. Jealousy, in its roots, is nothing more than a constant rekindling of memories of how we were once abandoned.

For example, we have a great connection with a love partner, and suddenly, for some reason, his energy moves away. We feel deprivation and react automatically. The emotional hunger that comes at this moment provokes a state similar to that experienced in the past. Wound provoked. This happens often, for example, when we cannot fulfill sexual needs or expectations. Sexual needs from within concern primitive feelings. I recently had a session with a couple who had to deal with a similar problem. She felt resentment and anger because she felt that he was insensitive while making love. He felt angry because every time her complaints cut off his energy flow. Deeper, it was revealed that she had suffered sexual abuse as a child. He was subordinate to the domineering mother. They provoked wounds of dissatisfaction in each other.

Violence creates depression and dissatisfaction. Our Child wants love that he never received, but instead, just like in childhood, we face rejection. In fact, every time someone doesn't live up to our expectations, we feel abandoned and unsatisfied. For our frightened Child, every disappointment feels like a deep sense of loss.

Much of the time we are obsessed and complain that our love partner or friend is missing something from us. In these situations, instead of looking outside for relief, we must turn our focus inward and work on our own wound of dissatisfaction. Recall a recent situation with a love partner or close friend in which you felt deprived or abandoned and didn't get what you wanted. How did you react to this disappointment? Have you accepted the pain or taken action?

In fact, every time we experience disappointment, we have a choice. We can move into a demanding Child and start blaming, manipulating, planning revenge, trying to control, begging. In a word, everything that we do most often. Or, we can go into provoked feelings, whatever they are: sadness, anger, despair, hopelessness. It takes all the awareness at our disposal not to automatically move into demandingness and reaction every time we fail in our expectations. Every time we want to change someone else in some way or complain that life does not give us something, we avoid feeling the pain of dissatisfaction and abandonment. If it seems to us that the other is not sensitive enough, sexy, meditative, spontaneous, strong, responsible, collected, and so on, we feel abandoned. The same is true for other situations in life - the weather, the environment, our workplace... All the energy we put into trying to change something, blame, manipulate or control, is actually a cover for terrifying fears of abandonment, dissatisfaction and emptiness.

I depict this choice in a simple drawing. Imagine two circles, one inside the other. The inner circle is the inner path. We take feelings and go inside with them. In the outer circle, we are focused on the outer. We are trying to change the environment, or somehow distract ourselves in order to escape feelings. The outer circle is the energy of drama, the inner circle is the energy of feeling. The outer circle symbolizes all our ways and mechanisms of escaping from ourselves: strategies of exactingness, accusations, dumping emotions on another, addictions, cynicism. Within the central circle, we may simply feel anxiety or panic, emptiness, dissatisfaction and abandonment, loneliness, despair, helplessness, hopelessness, resentment and pain of separation, or even anger at the universe. In the outer circle, we are engaged in an endless effort to control or change the world in order to avoid pain. Inside we accept it and feel it.

It often takes life to hurt us very deeply before we finally decide to go in and feel. When, for example, a love partner disappoints us or does not meet our conscious and unconscious expectations, we may cling to the hope that things will still change. We have periods of hope and despair. There is still someone to project our frustrations onto. We can blame the other and continue to live in the illusion that something will change in him. Often in this kind of emotional starvation, we never face our pain. In the end, having lost hope of changing this partner, we start a relationship with another, and the whole game is played again.

But when we are subjected to too much testing, such as when a loved one rejects us or dies, life teaches us a lesson in which we can no longer avoid facing the wound. We are forced to feel it. There is no way to escape. The fear can be almost overwhelming. In my experience, it is with fear, not with pain, that it is so hard to be face to face. Once I "failed" and experienced fear, I still created an inner space to feel the pain, loss and shame that comes with it. But to overcome my fear, I needed support and guidance.

For a helpless, innocent and completely dependent Child, any violence, any form of intolerance and manifestation of lack of attention is experienced as abandonment. We feel that there is no one around who would provide us with the most necessary things. This creates panic. When the wounds open, our Child remembers only past times when he was possessed by devastating fear.

It is often difficult to trace the source of a wound. For those of us who have actually been abandoned by one or both parents, or those who have been physically or sexually abused, the reason is more obvious. But for others, it may not be so obvious. It was very difficult for me to identify the source of my own dissatisfaction until I entered therapy and over the years gradually discovered areas of deeply traumatic limitation at each of the most important stages of my development.

From the point of view of the healing of our wounded Child, it is not necessary to reveal how it all happened. But it is important to recognize that it has happened and to realize how it extends into our lives today, especially in the area of ​​relationships. Sure, the intensity of panic and abandonment is different for each of us, but essentially we are all in the same boat. Some of us may have found more effective ways cover, deny or compensate for this wound, but we all bear it. It takes incredible courage to feel it instead of running from it.

Here are some ways that have helped me deal with the wound of abandonment.

1. Realize that our exactingness covers up fears of abandonment and dissatisfaction.

At its core, the wound of abandonment is the primary source of all key points codependency. Resistance, automatic responses, demands, attempts to control the other, dominate and manipulate - all this is nothing more than an escape from the wound of abandonment. Understanding this brings about a radical change in how we behave in relationships.

Unconsciously, our Inner Child hopes that eventually he will find someone who will satisfy all his needs that were not met in childhood. The adult part of us may rationally realize that this is impossible, but our Child never gives up hope. And hope, most often unconsciously, is projected onto a love partner and life in general. The moment we begin to feel that our needs are not being met, the wound of abandonment is provoked.

The first step is to understand what caused the wound. For our Child, what is happening in the present is a real abandonment. He cannot distinguish between stimulus and source. When pain is provoked, it is as intense and obvious to our Child as it once was.

2. Accept fear and pain and give them space.

The more open we are to facing the wound, the easier it is to deal with it. As long as our expectations for life do not include a decision to deal with a wound, we are looking for a problem. If we use relationships to avoid feeling empty, we are running from ourselves. And our relationship will never work. The conscious mind does not want to enter this void; we are convinced that we should be happy. But with this approach, there is no space to experience fear and feel pain. Conditioned to believe in romantic fantasy, we unconsciously hope that our love partner will give us everything that we did not receive in childhood. But our higher consciousness strives for something completely different. It wants us to become free, and the only way to become free is to go through the fear and pain of abandonment, dissatisfaction and emptiness.

As soon as a relationship moves beyond the honeymoon stage—in which everything is wonderful and our love partner embodies all of our major needs and desires—we are headed for inevitable disappointment. It can be expressed in sex, in intimacy, in spontaneity, in the mind, in spirituality, in any manifestation. That's when the difficulties begin. We live in denial or adjust for a while, but we start to accumulate resentment latently. This resentment can be expressed in many ways: in sarcasm, criticism and judgment, or indirect acts of revenge. Relationships are filled with bitterness. We complain about a love partner to friends or express resentment directly in the form of physical or emotional abuse. Maybe we end up breaking off the relationship after convincing ourselves that this person has failed to meet our needs.

What we lack is the awareness that any relationship in one way or another provokes dissatisfaction and abandonment in us. No one can fill the holes inside. Experiencing the pain of abandonment and emotional hunger with awareness is how we can gradually fill our holes. This, in turn, can help us accept our loneliness. Our first encounters with loneliness are often experienced as dissatisfaction. Disappointment and frustration in life always stare us in the face, especially in relationships. Existence has invited us not to satisfy our expectations, but to make us free. We are often stubborn and resistant. Intimacy brings nourishment, but also pain. Only when we face this fact can we find some harmony in our love life and some grace in our life journey. Healing wounds is the door to our deeper being. Until they are healed and we have learned to accept our loneliness unconditionally, we cannot be free. Knowing this helps us not fight so hard when the wound opens.

3. Invite support.

An open wound can cause incredible anxiety. Sometimes the darkness and loneliness seem bottomless, endless, and there is a fear that we might go crazy or kill ourselves. We can become deeply depressed, become highly self-critical, and the general negativity and loss of trust will cloud all of our waking hours. The more severe the irritant, the more severe these symptoms.

In this state, I took a chance and reached out for support, and it helped me. I didn't expect anyone to take my pain away, but I wanted to feel less alone. Many of us suffer pain in isolation but believe we have to deal with it on our own. It is a false loneliness based on contraction rather than expansion, on fear and distrust instead of openness. There is a voice inside that says, “No one can be there when I feel like this,” or “I burden others,” and so on. But our healing comes precisely when we reach out in difficult moments. Once I found the courage to go outside, much of the fear dissipated.

4. A little help from meditation.

It seems that meditation develops within the consciousness that any painful period will pass. He came early and left. This time, he too will pass. My experience has been that each time it actually gets easier. Each time I went through pain, I became stronger, less isolated, and I had more space inside to feel and be with anxiety and pain.

Facing loneliness, dissatisfaction, and emptiness, great or small, is a confrontation with a space within where we feel unprotected, unloved, and unwanted. It's a black hole we don't really want to go into. When I'm in the pain of abandonment, I don't feel the joy of being alone, at least not at first. I am in fear and pain, which I skillfully avoided, remaining anti-dependent. Opening the space of love invites the pain of loss. It's safer to stay closed and never experience this pain. But then we live without love. Either way, we hurt. If we experience pain, it will eventually resolve. If not, it stays with us all our lives. There is no way to avoid the pain of love.

At the very core, we have a deep longing to be filled and whole. The pain of abandonment and dissatisfaction simply opens up this deep longing inside that we usually project onto a love partner. But no partner can satisfy her. It is the deepest part of our being, because we strive to return to the source. This is the very heart of our spiritual search, and by mistake it is directed towards the other person. Abandonment provokes this thirst. We often experience it as a frightening feeling of loneliness. My master often talked about going through a painful transition, starting with feeling lonely and eventually coming to enjoy that loneliness, rediscovering inner bliss and trust in life. Instead of universal love and a mystical sense of place and purpose in life, waves of intense heaviness and darkness usually come first. If we hadn't suffered childhood abandonment, this probably wouldn't have happened; but we have suffered, and therefore we need to go through this transitional period.

Facing loneliness is one of the places where the spiritual path loses its romantic and idealistic fantasies. This experience is not like visiting a New Age bookstore or holistic center. healthy eating. When a wound floats to the surface, we are in the line of fire. It hurts, and every fiber of our conscious mind wants to avoid the pain. Until we choose to face loneliness, our relationship with life and with others will be controlled by our reactive-demanding Child. We meet pain, disappointment, and frustration with anger and expectation. Our journey through life is neither deep nor blissful, but relationships are superficial and yet hide mountains of secret grievances. We will never find a person who will protect us from fear and pain. We need only withdraw our expectations and we will actually share with others the path of finding truth. Up to this point, a love partner is not yet a friend, but someone on whom we project our pain in order to relive it.

“Loneliness is in our nature. You are born alone, you die alone. And you live alone, not understanding it, not fully realizing it. You misunderstand loneliness as feeling that you are lonely; it's just a misunderstanding. You are sufficient on your own. The transition period is a bit painful and difficult due to old habits, but it won't be long. And the way to make it shorter, less unbearable, is to enjoy being alone more and more. You can make your loneliness stronger and stronger. So the whole effort should be very positive. Feed and nurture loneliness with everything you have, pour love into it, and you will be surprised that these gaps of sadness and resentment no longer come, because you have no energy for them, and you are no longer a space that welcomes them. .

In fact, only a person who lives in beautiful solitude is capable of a beautiful relationship, because for him this is not a need. He is not a beggar, he does not ask you for anything - not even your company. He gives. From his abundance of joy, peace, silence and bliss, he shares. Then love has a completely different flavor; then it is generosity. And if both people know the beauty of loneliness, then love reaches its highest point, which is rarely possible. Then it touches the very stars in the sky.

Loneliness doesn't mean you're incapable of relationships. It simply means that you are going to be in a relationship in a completely different way, and they will not create suffering and unhappiness, they will not create conflict, they will not be attempts - direct or indirect - to dominate the other, to enslave the other. Since they do not come from fear, this is real life.”

(Osho. A new dawn)

Place a pillow in front of you and let it symbolize the person who makes you feel the most emotional today. Behind her, place two more pillows: one for the "role" of the mother, the other for the "role" of the father. Close your eyes and with your mind focused on the first pillow, your lover, past or present, remember all the times you felt deprived, disappointed or frustrated by this person.

Review all sources of dissatisfaction - sexual, emotional, energetic, spiritual. All forms in which you feel like you are not getting what you need and want. Feel them. Feel how it affects you. Go beyond anger and allow yourself to feel hopeless that these needs can even come true. Just feel: they are not satisfied. Spend some time with each of these needs, with each significant source of emotional hunger, feeling it and allowing yourself to see what effect it has on the inside.

Now bring your attention to the pillows behind you, to your mother and father. If you didn't have one of these as a child, imagine that this pillow is empty. If there were other significant people who cared about you, put another pillow for them. Feeling the Child inside, allow yourself to mentally experience all the situations in which one of them deprived you of something. Take care again to learn what you have been missing. Maybe you have been deprived of nourishment, misunderstood, ignored, rejected, abused, pressured, manipulated, humiliated or judged. Notice and feel. Notice the similarities between "now" and "then." This is your history of dissatisfaction. It is it that you are destined to repeat, re-feel and bring to light.

This wound is buried under our attempts to control. Often the first way to get in touch with it is to notice how we feel when we don't get what we want. Allow yourself to recall the last time you felt disappointed or angry with your love partner, or when you were annoyed by them. Can you identify what caused these feelings? Maybe it was a touch on your wound of abandonment.

Imagine that someone you love is simply withdrawing energy from you for some reason. Maybe you can remember the last time this happened. How does it feel? What is your reaction? Now, as you take the energy out of the reaction, can you feel what's underneath? Is there any fear? See if you can feel this fear.

Going deeper, see if you can remember a time, long or recent, when someone you loved died. Let these feelings come to the surface. Feeling the pain of loss, realizing that you will never see that person again... Allowing these feelings to just be... Giving them space, allowing the pain and feeling of loss... Letting go, maybe entering the space of accepting that there is... Feeling the energy in the heart, the expansion in the heart when you let go, when you accept, when you allow things to be as they are. Maybe even feeling space and sadness, even a feeling of joy in trust, in allowing.

Shame is a negatively colored feeling, the object of which is some act or quality of the subject.

Shame is associated with a sense of social unacceptability of what one is ashamed of.

There are times when they want to impute this feeling to you, that is, how to convey it, for example, saying the words: “Shame on you. Someone wants you to take this shame, and he relieves himself of responsibility. i.e. stays away

Shame is self-judgment.

It turns out that you are ashamed to be yourself, to experience what you feel, because someone once said that this is bad, but this is good. Because you kind of apologize for your existence, t .e you are afraid to be yourself because of the fear of judgment and if you have a desire and you pushed it away, because it was not accepted by someone and when it was.

In fact, there is a belief that you need to be different, and being the way you are is wrong.

Why?

This also implies that I feel guilty because I do not meet other people's expectations.

“Shame is not an innate emotion. Babies have in their arsenal an inborn, behaviorally quite simple, state of fear, and they still have to master the complex behavior of shame. Shame is usually learned at the age of 3 to 7 years, adopting stereotyped or creative patterns from other children, sometimes older ones. The experience of shame is usually used to protect oneself from censure of others for mistakes in one's behavior. "Well, are you ashamed?" - "Ashamed…". That's it, the adults are lagging behind. With repetition, the feeling of shame begins to turn on involuntarily in situations that are understood as "it's a shame", "it's a shame"

We don’t want to accept ourselves completely, with all our flaws, and we punish ourselves with alcohol and drugs, smoking, overeating, whatever. These are all different ways of beating yourself up for your own imperfection. »

Why is it so scary to be imperfect and different from someone else? After all, it is our differences that make each person unique.

“An analysis of the feeling of shame indicates that this feeling is more destructive than the feeling of guilt. This is due to the fact that the feeling of guilt is more specific, it concerns a certain action, deed, activity, or vice versa, the absence of such. The feeling of shame affects the “I” of a person and forms his low self-esteem. ("I do bad things and I can't do good things because I'm bad").

In addition, it is the feeling of shame that underlies excess weight, because it is shameful to be yourself.

The main feature of shame is turning inward. This is a kind of anger at oneself. Shame manifests itself as dissatisfaction with oneself, one's actions, thoughts; condemnation of oneself, self-criticism, regret about what has been done. In some cases, shame can also provoke feelings of inferiority.

“It’s hard for all of us to admit our own shortcomings, and the more we put in to look perfect, the scarier it is to face the truth. That’s why shame loves perfectionists so much—it’s easy to silence them.

In addition to the fear of disappointing or alienating people, we are also afraid of breaking down under the weight of a single unpleasant experience or mistake.

Shame and guilt

What is the difference between shame and guilt? Most agree that the difference between shame and guilt is the same as the difference between saying "I'm bad" and "I did bad."

Guilt = I did a bad thing - we feel guilty about our actions.

Shame = I'm bad - we're ashamed of who we are.

When it comes time to answer how we defend against shame, I look back with great respect to the research of psychologist Linda Hartling.

According to her, in order to cope with shame:

Some of us step aside, hide, hush up what happened and keep it a secret.

Others, on the contrary, try to please and please everyone.

And finally, the rest seek to subjugate others to themselves, behave aggressively and use shaming opponents to combat shame (for example, sending them malicious letters).

Most of us use all three strategies - with different people, on different occasions, and for different reasons.

Check yourself:

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• THIS IS A DESCRIPTION OF THE CHARACTER OF THE "UNHAPPY" PERSON

  • Its 2 main problems: 1) chronic dissatisfaction of needs, 2) the inability to direct his anger outward, restraining him, and with it restraining all warm feelings, every year makes him more and more desperate: no matter what he does, it doesn’t get better, on the contrary, only worse. The reason is that he does a lot, but not that.

    If nothing is done, then, over time, either a person will “burn out at work”, loading himself more and more - until he is completely exhausted; either his own Self will be emptied and impoverished, unbearable self-hatred will appear, a refusal to take care of oneself, in the long term - even self-hygiene.

    A person becomes like a house from which the bailiffs took out the furniture.

    Against the background of hopelessness, despair and exhaustion, there is no strength, no energy even for thinking.

    Complete loss of the ability to love. He wants to live, but begins to die: sleep, metabolism are disturbed ...

    It is difficult to understand what he lacks precisely because we are not talking about the deprivation of possession of someone or something. On the contrary, he has the possession of deprivation, and he is not able to understand what he is deprived of. Lost is his own I. It is unbearably painful and empty for him: and he cannot even put it into words.

    If you recognize yourself in the description and want to change something, you urgently need to learn two things:

    1. Learn the following text by heart and repeat it all the time until you can use the results of these new beliefs:

    • I am entitled to needs. I am, and I am me.
    • I have the right to need and satisfy needs.
    • I have the right to ask for satisfaction, the right to get what I need.
    • I have the right to crave love and love others.
    • I have the right to a decent organization of life.
    • I have the right to express dissatisfaction.
    • I have a right to regret and sympathy.
    • ... by birthright.
    • I may get rejected. I can be alone.
    • I'll take care of myself anyway.

    I want to draw the attention of my readers to the fact that the task of "learning the text" is not an end in itself. Auto-training by itself will not give any sustainable results. It is important to live each phrase, to feel it, to find its confirmation in life. It is important that a person wants to believe that the world can be arranged somehow differently, and not just the way he used to imagine it to himself. That it depends on him, on his ideas about the world and about himself in this world, how he will live this life. And these phrases are just an occasion for reflection, reflection and search for one's own, new "truths".

    2. Learn to direct aggression to the one to whom it is actually addressed.

    …then it will be possible to experience and express warm feelings to people. Realize that anger is not destructive and can be presented.

    WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS NOT ENOUGH FOR A PERSON TO BECOME HAPPY?

    YOU CAN SIGN UP FOR A CONSULTATION FROM THIS LINK:

    FOR K EVERY “NEGATIVE EMOTION” IS A NEED OR DESIRE, THE SATISFACTION OF WHICH IS THE KEY TO CHANGE IN LIFE…

    TO SEARCH THESE TREASURES I INVITE YOU TO MY CONSULTATION:

    YOU CAN SIGN UP FOR A CONSULTATION FROM THIS LINK:

    Psychosomatic diseases (it will be more correct) are those disorders in our body, which are based on psychological causes. psychological causes are our reactions to traumatic (difficult) life events, our thoughts, feelings, emotions that do not find timely, correct expression for a particular person.

    Mental defenses work, we forget about this event after a while, and sometimes instantly, but the body and the unconscious part of the psyche remember everything and send us signals in the form of disorders and diseases

    Sometimes the call may be to respond to some events from the past, to bring “buried” feelings out, or the symptom simply symbolizes what we forbid ourselves.

    YOU CAN SIGN UP FOR A CONSULTATION FROM THIS LINK:

    The negative impact of stress on the human body, and especially distress, is enormous. Stress and the likelihood of developing diseases are closely related. Suffice it to say that stress can reduce immunity by about 70%. Obviously, such a decrease in immunity can result in anything. And it’s also good if it’s just colds, but what if oncological diseases or asthma, the treatment of which is already extremely difficult?

Shame is one of the most common feelings a person experiences. Almost all of us are familiar with it. When we experience shame, we want to hide, run away, we feel that we are naked and vulnerable. The main message that a person who feels shame receives

I am wrong. As I am, I cannot be accepted.

The state of shame most often occurs when your behavior, appearance, position in society, environment does not correspond to your ideas about yourself, according to your expectations. Feelings of shame increase when we look at ourselves through someone else's eyes.

Shame is a disagreement with what I should be according to my own ideas about myself (ideal "I") and what I really am in this situation. In other words, shame indicates that here and now, under these circumstances, I am not what I should be.

Shame has a very wide variation in the intensity of its manifestation: from banal awkwardness, which turns into embarrassment, and then into shame. The highest manifestation of shame is the feeling of shame.

How does shame arise?

Each of us has an idea about ourselves, about our personality traits, character, behavior, about how to look in our own eyes and in the eyes of others, about the environment, about our own expectations in a given situation. All this is called the self-concept. Disagreement with the self-concept is experienced as shame.

What stimulates shame?

If it rests on stubbornness in which we refuse to recognize the freedom and choice of another person, then feeling shame, we deny our own freedom, refusing to accept ourselves as we really are. In shame, we do not give ourselves the right to be what we are at this particular moment in this or that situation. In other words, shame arises from the inability to match one's ideal "I", i.e. self intolerance.

Why do we need to feel shame?

Shame as an emotion performs an adaptive function in communication. With the help of shame, people control each other. Shame is an active way to control a person by appealing to shame. By shaming a person, we point out to him his inappropriate behavior and evaluate him (behavior) as unworthy. Shaming assumes that the person is actually better than he or she is behaving in the situation.

Shame is a powerful social regulator, it controls our behavior. In a sense, we can say that shame is forced socialization, since the feeling of shame involves orienting oneself in one's actions to the surrounding people, society. In life, we can observe that people who are most prone to shame, they are, as a rule, very socially oriented, strive to please everyone, be “good”, put public interests higher than personal ones.

Shame stands guard over our "Inner Self". When we are ashamed, we are very sensitive to the opinions of others, both criticism and praise. Having become sensitive to other people's opinions, we seem to look at ourselves through the eyes of others. Sensitivity to other people's opinions makes us vulnerable. In protecting our Self, we break contact or follow the impulse to flee because we are vulnerable.

For society as a whole, shame is of great importance, because with the help of shame, the process of socialization of each of its members takes place, shame also contributes to the formation and development of emotional ties between people. Through their own shame, which is experienced by each individual, the interests of other people are taken into account, which contributes to the strengthening of society.

There is a saying in Russian: "No shame, no conscience." We are talking about those who put their own interests above the public. The idea of ​​individualism just destroys social ties and society as a whole. A society where there is no shame is not viable, which we actually observe. "Shame culture" is replaced by "guilt culture". Hence such phenomena as the removal of sexual taboos, intimacy, increased anxiety and distrust of others.

How to get rid of shame?

Despite the positive functions of shame, subjectively, this feeling is experienced as discomfort, since it is felt by us as awkwardness, blocks our behavior, and we become overly sensitive to the assessments of others. In addition, shame is often accompanied by guilt, and many people confuse the two. There are quite clear distinction between shame and guilt , knowing which, you can control your behavior.

All these factors together push us to avoid this feeling, to get rid of it, not to experience it. In a strict sense, it is impossible to get rid of feelings, otherwise people would choose only “good” feelings for themselves, and get rid of “bad” ones. Feelings are our biological mechanism, these are our reactions that we cannot control. Manage feelings also impossible to manage directly. Feelings can only be influenced indirectly, through actions and thoughts. Shame can be overcome only by reflecting on it, i.e. perform some mental actions to recognize and realize this feeling.

Overcoming shame includes 3 stages

1. Knowing Shame
2. suspension
3. Refusal to compare

Knowing Shame

The knowledge of shame involves the awareness of one's own expectations regarding oneself, one's state, abilities, behavior, belonging, environment. Comparison of expectations and reality and detection of mismatch. The following questions may help:

• What should I be so that I would not be ashamed?
• What was I like when I was ashamed?
• What were the expectations of other people in front of whom I am ashamed? To what extent are they realistic?

Having answered these questions for yourself, you will be able to “separate” your shame from yourself, make it an object of observation, and, consequently, reduce its impact on yourself.

suspension

This point involves detachment from expectations about yourself. It will be easier to step back if you understand the source of the origin of expectations about yourself. Usually, our expectations about ourselves are learned in the family, in communication with significant people. And here it is useful to ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the reason that significant people thought this way about me?
• Thinking about me like that, did these people take into account my capabilities and individual characteristics?
• Did they accept me not only as "good" but also as "bad"?

Refusal to compare

Comparing yourself with your ideal "I" to shame adds a sense of guilt. Refusing to compare your behavior with your own and other people's expectations weakens the effects of shame. Shame is the price we pay for judging ourselves.

The radical way out of shame is to admit that you are imperfect. Love yourself "bad".

The progression of the addictive process is largely associated with the desire to get rid of the psychological discomfort caused by the feeling of shame. The feeling of shame occupies a central place in the structure of addiction, so let's dwell on it in more detail.

An analysis of feelings of shame indicates that this feeling is more destructive than guilt. This is due to the fact that the feeling of guilt is more specific, it concerns a certain action, deed, activity, or vice versa, the absence of such. The feeling of shame affects the I of a person and forms his low self-esteem. ("I do bad things and I can't do good things because I'm bad").

All emotional sensations and states of a person are subjected to cognitive evaluation. Reflection of emotional states at the same time is a reflection of the I-state, indicating how a person evaluates himself. The primary emotions experienced by a person are further evaluated by him in conjunction with the evaluations of others. Analysis from this point of view of the feeling of shame requires an initial comparison of human behavior with some kind of conventional norm. This norm can be subjective, established by the person himself for himself, or generally accepted, imposed on him by society and other people. If a person's behavior does not correspond to a subjective or social norm, he has a feeling of shame.

In addictive states, we are dealing with a person's inconsistency with both one and the other norms. Inconsistencies lead to shame. The emergence of a sense of shame is influenced by the fact that others pay attention to the behavior and condition of a person, to his own attitude towards this. What matters is fixing a person's attention on how they are perceived and evaluated by others. If he experiences a sense of shame in connection with the discrepancy, it seems to him that others notice this discrepancy and consider him inferior. This contributes to increased suspicion that others may notice a violation of the norm and condemn it.

Most shame events are not an automatic process and do not occur on their own. For example, it may be associated with situations where successful functioning within the framework of socially acclaimed role behavior is contrary to one's own moral criteria. To understand the reasons for the origin of the feeling of shame, it is necessary “to read the complex social interactions between people, since the component of evaluation by others, especially significant person, is always of great importance here.

A person's awareness of the attention paid to him can lead to an increase in suspicion, typical of addictive individuals. Such suspicion, associated with a sense of shame, is one of the mechanisms for isolating addicts. The fear of being fully understood by others activates the mechanism of breaking contacts with many people. Related to this is the avoidance by addicts of any deep contact, because the deeper the contact, the more likely it is that their addictive nature will be recognized, and the more likely the addict's reaction of shame will increase. There is a fear of possible experiences about the breakup of relationships. Therefore, in the correctional work carried out with addicts, it is necessary to analyze the mechanism of breaking contacts with people and the feeling of shame that these people may experience.

According to Charles Darwin, guilt is regretting one's mistake. The same author owns the expression that the feeling of regret for a mistake, when other people are included in this process, can turn a feeling of guilt into a feeling of shame. We are talking about the need to analyze the social significance of the action, as a result of which a person, perceived through the eyes of others, may experience a sense of shame. Naturally, being in a state of loneliness, a person can also experience a sense of shame, but in the first case, there is always an assessment of oneself by other people, the thought that others thought about his behavior.

Phenomenological psychiatry describes depression of self-torture (Leonhard, Izard), which is based on a sense of shame. Its development is facilitated by the constant analysis of feelings of shame and possible punishment.

Shame leads to inhibition and blockade of many desires.. From the point of view of Tomkins (1963), shame inhibits pleasure and motivation. Embarrassment can be caused by many things: setbacks, professional defeats, loss of significant relationships, friendships, etc. Addicts experience these losses deeply but do not admit it. The cause of shame may be one's own unattractiveness, when a person loses the ability to be proud of his body, appearance, etc.

In a person experiencing a sense of shame, spheres of interest are reduced. Izard (1972) draws attention to the fact that shame is accompanied by heightened self-awareness. We are talking about an unusual form of self-perception, perception of oneself as helpless, small, incapable of anything, frozen, emotionally vulnerable.

Lewis (1979,1993) noted that shame is a state of loss of self-value. The cause of this state is current external influences, however, this process is more complex, it can be formed on early stages development. Shame is directly related to the awareness of the Self, the idea of ​​how this Self looks in the perception and feelings of other people. The author highlights the feeling of shame associated with the feeling of one's own Self and the feeling of guilt, in which we are talking about a specific action. The development of a sense of shame leads to an experience about yourself, about how you look. The irritant that provokes the emergence of this feeling are reflections of the I about myself, disapproval of something very important in myself, a decrease in self-esteem.

Associated with a sense of shame is a feeling of worthlessness, insignificance, self-contempt. This feeling is laid in childhood and is easily provoked by the specific behavior of people. The feeling of shame is formed under the influence of the neglectful attitude of parents, the lack of the necessary intellectual and emotional support, constant condemnation. Against this background, any negative assessments that are not related to either parents or family are perceived as overvalued and lead to the activation of a dormant rudiment.

Diagnosis of the presence of a sense of shame is based on the discovery in a person of a desire to be invisible, hide, disappear; on the appearance of incomprehensible outbursts of anger, on a feeling of psychological pain, fear, guilt. Outbreaks of activity and aggressiveness are replaced by depression, depression, lack of a sense of joy, constant dissatisfaction. Feelings of shame can provoke suicidal thoughts. An analysis of depressed patients who attempted suicide by Lewis (1993) showed that these individuals had expressed feeling shame. Frequent suicide attempts among addicts are also "tied" to this feeling. Thus, the feeling of shame is directly related to the development of addictive behavior.

Feeling of shame puts» selfie in a difficult position. Self loses the ability to act constructively, as shame blocks activity. Instead of necessary action, the self begins to concentrate on itself, it turns out to be immersed in self-esteem, which interferes with the manifestation of activity. There is a violation of adaptation, a loss of the ability to think clearly, speak out and, moreover, act rationally.

A sense of shame contributes to a person's reassessment of everything that happens. He attaches importance to things that do not have this significance and, on the contrary, underestimates the significance of phenomena that are really important to him. Therefore, the feeling of shame makes the behavior irrational.

The structural difference between shame and guilt is as follows. If a person has a feeling of guilt, some part of the self is the subject. Most of the self is, as it were, outside and evaluates this subject as a part of his Self that did wrong.

In contrast, the feeling of shame closes» self-object circle. The bearer of this feeling thinks something like this: “How can I evaluate myself if I am not worthy to evaluate myself?”

The effect of shame on blockade of motivation has been studied by Plutchik (1980). He compares the process to " stop» signal. If a person starts to do something, a “stop” signal is triggered, which calls into question the confidence in the correctness of the activity being undertaken, interrupting his actions. If we confine ourselves to analyzing only this part of the process, then in this case we are talking about a feeling of guilt about a specific violation. Further analysis can be made using the following reasoning: You act badly because you cannot help but do it, simply because you yourself - bad person ". This is how the second violation system looks like - the second "stop" signal, which blocks all activity. Therefore, the analysis of the feeling of shame should be carried out not only with an emphasis on the specific actions of a person, but, above all, on the study of his Self.

The feeling of shame can be analyzed through the prism of a religious paradigm. The theme of shame is reflected in the Bible. When God asked Adam and Eve why they were hiding, they replied that the reason was their nakedness. Having committed original sin by eating the apple from the tree of knowledge, they felt that they should be condemned. The story of Adam and Eve's disobedience predetermined the punishment and the importance of their shame.

The following points come to the fore in this topic. Disobedience to God on the part of Adam and Eve was due to their curiosity, tk. they were primarily attracted by the knowledge of the unknown. Curiosity led them to knowledge, the mastery of which was the trigger for the emergence of a sense of shame. When they discovered their nakedness, they became ashamed of it. And that was proof of a violation of God's command. If they had not acquired knowledge by eating the forbidden fruit, they would not have felt shame. Thus, curiosity led to knowledge, and knowledge led to shame.

Analysis of this part of the Bible allows us to explore the process of shame. Introspection of feelings of shame and other emotions associated with the Self requires some knowledge of the rules, norms and goals with which a person should compare his behavior. Therefore, the appearance of a sense of shame is based on certain knowledge.

The Old Testament story of Adam and Eve is a metaphorical version of the development of objective self-knowledge. The tree of knowledge made it possible for Adam and Eve to acquire two types of knowledge: knowledge about oneself - objective self-knowledge and knowledge about the norms, rules and goals of behavior.

At the early stages of a child's development, his self-object relations are formed in the form of primary contacts with the closest people. The people around the child, acting as objects of contact, are for him a model for further imitation. The child depends on them, he trusts them. The child's internalization of the relations that have arisen influences attribution (seeing the causes of the occurring phenomena).

The attribution process can be both external and internal. External attribution is associated with finding in someone or something the cause of one's own defeat, failure, drama or tragedy that has occurred, which are directly related to them. External attribution does not lead to feelings of shame. A sense of shame arises from internal attribution, when a person makes himself responsible for what happened. Internal attribution is associated with a person's concentration on self-assessment of his actions from the position of his self.

Internal attribution should not be underestimated, as it has a great impact on both mental well-being and the development of a sense of shame. So, for example, if some unpleasant event occurs in life and, with its internal attribution, a person considers himself the cause of it, then in this case this event contributes to the development of a sense of shame.

For example, a patient feels guilty about her mother having a heart attack. She sees the cause of the event in insufficient attention on her part towards her mother. In this regard, she considers herself the direct culprit of her illness. To get rid of her feelings of worthlessness and shame towards herself, she takes large doses of tranquilizers, i.e. finds an acceptable addictive way out of this situation. The internal attribution that arose in this case leads both to the development of a sense of shame and to the search for an addictive option to get rid of this feeling.

With external attribution, the causes of the disease will be explained in a different way: the age of the mother with whom the catastrophe occurred, not an unhealthy lifestyle, heredity, etc. The more external attributions are used to explain the situation, the less it leads to the development of a sense of shame.

The preference for one or another attribution is laid down in childhood. Morrison (1989) showed that parents who suffered from various forms of depression in some cases contributed to the development of feelings of shame and guilt in their children. Children considered themselves indirectly responsible for the illness of their parents. These accusations were formulated in the process of social contacts with children as a result of reproaches that children annoy, torment parents who do not have the strength to deal with them. Thus, the children had an unrealistic sense of guilt that their behavior led to the development of depression in their parents, and they must find a way to help their parents recover. And since they are not able to find means of help, it means that they are not searching well enough, which indicates that they are bad.

Sometimes parents introduce into the minds of children, for example, such a formula: “I, as a mother, take care of you and help you. Why don't you answer me the same?" So, with the direct participation of parents, a predisposition is laid for the emergence of negative emotions in children, which in further contacts with others can manifest themselves with a double degree of severity. These states can contribute to the emergence of various psychological defenses and access to addictive realizations.

The internalization or externalization of a sense of responsibility has a direct impact on whether a person will later experience a sense of shame at various failures and disasters that can happen to him in life. The more pronounced a person's ability to look for an external cause in an event, the less likely he is to develop a sense of shame.

The negative side of this phenomenon is that the constant desire of the individual to externalize what is happening can become pathological. For example, it is known that addicts in the process of addictive behavior externally attribute their problems, linking their presence with a cause in the outside world. Thus, external attribution, on the one hand, has a positive meaning, relieving a person of a sense of shame, and on the other hand, it has a negative meaning, manifested in the fact that in this way he justifies his destructive behavior. In other words, on the one hand, a person may have a deep internalized sense of shame, and he considers himself bad, on the other hand, he gets rid of this feeling, going into addiction, which leads to the emergence of new problems attributed to external causes. Thus, a combination of external and internal attribution is manifested.

If a person is deprived of the possibility of external attribution, he is left with an internal feeling of worthlessness and inadequacy, which is much more difficult to cope with. This should be taken into account when conducting psychotherapeutic approaches, since depriving a person of his protective system in the form of negative projections with proof of their incorrectness and the need for self-blame, and not blaming others, will not automatically lead to a positive result. Having lost psychological protection, a person will be left alone with his internal unresolved problems. The experience of such a state is extremely unpleasant, moreover, it can lead to the development of other negative reactions, such as, for example, confusion, depression, anger both at oneself and others, and possibly provoking some other form of destructive behavior.

Exist specific conditions that have different effects on the formation of a sense of shame depending on gender.

Thus, for example, women in traditional societies are raised by their parents and environment so that they learn to take responsibility for something they do not do well. A certain gender discrimination, characteristic of traditional societies, leads to the fact that women, in comparison with men, are less rewarded for success and more punished for failure. This makes boys more likely to fixate on positive attribution (Lewis, 1993).

In the case of parents depriving their daughters of love, they conceptualize their position with the words: “ I don't love you because you are bad". The self of such a child feels a sense of responsibility for not being loved. This provokes the formation of a sense of shame in the child. In the future, such a woman will evaluate her interpersonal relationships with others as inadequate, considering herself incapable of productive relationships. Thus, the phenomenon of depriving girls of love leads to difficulties in constructing their further interpersonal relationships. Such women believe that, firstly, they cannot build these relationships, because. they are worse than others, and secondly, they are afraid that others can understand this.

This is how different styles of behavior are formed, which objectively " adjoin» to addictions, but in essence are the latter (codependence) or lead to their development. For example, the explanations of people who dedicate their lives to caring for others in order to compensate for the feeling of lack of love go something like this: “If I take care of others and help them, and this will be my life credo, then others will accept me. If I behave differently, I will reveal my negative qualities. Therefore, I must/en help others and the meaning of my life should lie precisely in this. In case of failure, an existential crisis arises.

A person who is uncertain about the quality of his relationships with people easily switches to communicating with events, activities, inanimate objects, sticks» to them, going into addictive implementations.

Deprivation of love forms an unwanted child complex, which further leads to low self-esteem and a person’s inability to love himself.

An analysis of the origin of shame with a focus on gender differences contributes to a better understanding of interpersonal conflicts. The difference in the socialization of shame between men and women has an impact on mother-son, father-son, mother-daughter, and father-daughter relationships. So, for example, women brought up in traditional societies, where there is gender discrimination (sexism), more easily arises a sense of shame, compared to men. Shame-substituting reactions such as sadness, sadness, and anger may occur. Moreover, if for women reactions of sadness and sadness are more characteristic, then for men - reactions of anger.

According to Lewis (1993), these phenomena are more present in traditional societies. Since the boy is brought up with an emphasis on a male role specific to him, the following kind of conflict may arise in his relationship with his mother. A mother in a traditional society wants her son to experience feelings of shame in case of behavior that does not correspond to generally accepted norms. It seems to the mother, in connection with the projection of her own experiences (deep shame), that the son does not feel enough shame for his act, and even if he apologized, he still did not experience this feeling with the necessary degree of depth. He must experience it protractedly. The son experiences a sense of shame, but to a lesser degree than the mother would like. Both mother and son are unaware of what is happening. The conflict that has arisen between them can take various forms, and often it leads to the emergence of a son's distance from his mother, because. the male role characteristic of the son is contrary to the manifestation of a sense of shame. The son does not want to be treated like a child, and the mother stimulates him into a dependent relationship, which provokes a resistance reaction in the son.

Boys who violate the norms of behavior put forward by their parents may show regret about this, feelings of guilt and a desire not to do it again. The mother considers these feelings from the point of view of a feminine, traditional attitude and expects something more from her son, for example, the emergence of a protracted sense of shame. If she sees that this is not happening, she believes that her son did not really suffer this, she emphasizes the need for prolonged suffering, which leads to a conflict. Without realizing what is happening, the mother tries to make the child feel the same sensations that she herself felt or feels in similar situations. The mother expects the child to experience it in the same way as she does, and the boy perceives the mother's desire to achieve the formation of a sense of shame in him as an unpleasant feeling. He considers it incompatible with his male role.

Hoffman (1988) found that this process begins as early as three years of age. The mother's attempt to evoke in her son an emotional state more characteristic of women brought up in a traditional society should be considered in the context of the Oedipal conflict: the boy seeks autonomy, to reduce the feeling of shame, and the mother tries to socialize this process in such a way that it does not limit the feeling of guilt, and finds it useful.

In the mother-daughter relationship, this conflict is less present than in the relationship between mother and son. The lower intensity of the conflict is explained by the absence of a difference between the sexes, which complicates the interaction. Daughters, as a rule, respond to the wishes of the mother more adequately, because. they express themselves according to the female role. This is how a sense of shame is laid in girls in a traditional society, where its formation does not meet with much resistance from their side. Sometimes at the same time, reactions of anger, which are not typical for this state, may occur.

Modern societies tend to smooth out gender-related role behavior. So, for example, a mother brought up in the conditions of modern society, trying to instill a sense of shame in a girl, meets resistance from her side. The division of roles inherent in modern society makes the attribution process associated with shame in the aspect of socialization less typical.

So far, no grounds have been identified to establish the presence of genetic differences in the development of a sense of shame depending on gender. If such differences are diagnosed, then their occurrence can be explained by role behavior, socialization and social conditions. On the other hand, due to the changing role of women in the last 25 years, especially in the US and Canada, some of the conflicts inherent in the mother-son relationship are likely to be found in the mother-daughter relationship as well.

As for the father's role in shaping the child's sense of shame, unfortunately, little attention was paid to this side of the issue for a long time. The father's role in this Process may be direct or indirect. Researchers studying this issue draw attention to the fact that the role of the father turns out to be more important and much less passive than previously thought. For example, Bernstein (1983) draws attention to the importance of the influence of fathers on the emergence of feelings of shame in childhood and adolescence. It is believed that the role of the father is to mitigate the mother-son conflict; in teaching sons a different, more active mode of behavior that includes aggressive reactions. Fathers in relationships with sons suggest to them the way to overcome shame by replacing it with anger. Thus, the reaction of experiencing a sense of shame is replaced by the formation of another reaction. As a result of this contact, sons begin to develop a deeper attachment to their fathers, who help them free themselves from unpleasant feelings of shame. In the absence of such support, a reaction of the child's alienation from both parents occurs.

The feeling of shame underlies a number of emotional states.

“It is shame… that opens to me the gaze of the Other and myself at the edge of that gaze.” – Jean-Paul Sartre

As Sartre famously noted, when we experience a sense of shame, we feel reified and paraded as if initially vicious or inferior in front of the gaze of the examining, judging other. (Sometimes we ourselves can be that judging other.) Ashamed, we are tormented and become hostages of other people's eyes, we do not belong to ourselves, but to them. In this context, shame is indicative of a loss of control over one's life.

TYPES OF SHAME

Many emotional states are variations on shame, or combinations of shame with other aspects of emotional phenomenology. Let's look at a few examples:

Moral shame (different from guilt) is the feeling of one's own moral imperfection in front of another person. Embarrassment is a mild form of shame. Embarrassment is a warning or signaling kind of shame. Shyness is also a warning type of shame that causes a person to hide from the judgmental looks of others in order to avoid a full sense of shame. Humiliation is the experience of someone else's assessment, used by a person with the aim of shaming another, in order to feel head and shoulders above or to subjugate the humiliated.

In the case of self-hatred or self-loathing, we hate or despise ourselves for embarrassing ourselves in front of others. Humiliation is an unbearable, destructive feeling of shame. In a sense of worthlessness or worthlessness, it seems to us that the existing shortcomings define our essence. Experiencing some form of despair, a person feels as if his inherent shortcomings doom him to a life of constant shame and an eternal sense of his own worthlessness. In the adaptive model of behavior, helpfulness and the fulfillment of the desires of other people become a way of compensating for a lack of self-worth and thus maintain a connection with someone else's assessment. Condescension as a defensive reaction and devaluation, contempt, rage or envy towards another person is often an attempt to mask or overcome an extremely strong sense of shame.

Many psychological disorders have a two-level emotional structure, consisting of a painful feeling in the foreground, combined with what a person feels in relation to this feeling, in the background. For example, the so-called “panic disorders” are a combination of cycles of escalating anxiety and feelings of shame that this anxiety (= imperfection) will be seen by others. This combination of anxiety-shame is so unbearable that it leads to the somatization of anxiety and its expression in the form of physical symptoms. Many phobias are the result of attempts to prevent embarrassing manifestations of anxiety. Similarly, some types of clinical depression combine increasing cycles of natural negative experiences (sadness, disappointment, etc.) and a sense of shame about displaying them (= imperfection) in front of other people. Similar to anxiety in panic disorders, these negative experiences are also somatized, expressed at the level of the autonomic nervous system.

HOW TO GET RID OF THE FEELING OF SHAME. TREATMENT OF PANIC DISORDERS, CLINICAL DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY

The therapeutic approach to the treatment of panic disorder and clinical depression involves 1) reducing the feeling of shame about the external manifestation of anxiety and depressive emotions and 2) experiencing these feelings so that they find a place in the context of emotional understanding in which they can be contemplated, better tolerated. and ultimately be integrated into the psyche of the person experiencing them.

Robert Stolorow, PhD