Part 12: Guilt and arrogance
(see previous) In a previous post in this series I talked about the reality that we may hurt others and others may hurt us. And I just wanted to expand on that a little here. One thought experiment that might be helpful is to consider ... 'Do I really think I could be the one human who could come here and not cause pain to others?' 'Am I really that arrogant to imagine that I can move through life and not make some of the mistakes, commit some of the sins, trespass on others that so many others have done?' Let us relax from this 'high-and-mighty' position and embrace that occasionally things will happen. And let us forgive ourselves. (Which pre-supposes that we be willing to forgive others. If we cannot forgive someone in our life for something, we will definitely not be able to forgive ourselves either). So be gentle :)
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Part 11: Solace
(see previous) In posts 8 and 9, I talk about coming to peace when we think there is no action we can take to 'right' a 'wrong'. At times like that, it maybe helpful to draw inspiration and solace from the life story of John Newton the author of 'Amazing Grace'. The story goes that as a young man he was a slave trader. One day in 1748 his boat full of slaves is hit by such a violent storm that he prays for mercy: for God to spare his life. In return, he pledges to turn his life around. How do you stand before God and beg for help when you know all the wrong-doing you have done (and the hull of the ship you are standing on is full of the evidence!)!!??! What does that feel like? In the song, we know he describes himself as a 'wretch'. And back on dry land, what can John Newton do to make amends? Can he return 'slaves' to Africa? Can he overturn the slave trade? How can he live with his 'Guilt' and make good on his promise to God? And what he does is inspiring. Firstly, he writes this song that has become a beacon of hope for SO MANY over so many generations. And he also becomes an ordained minister and campaigns for the abolition of slavery. But what I find so powerful about this life story is that it is John Newton's decision to share his most shameful and despicable actions that is his greatest gift. By being honest and humble about his worst actions, he shows all of us what it is to be human, what it is to ask for forgiveness and what it is to look our guilt in the eye and accept ourselves. So if you really can't find a way to make amends right now, maybe let the song 'Amazing Grace' become your mantra for a while. Really being present to those words as you sing might just open up a course of action for you. Part 10: Human Resilience - we must forgive ourselves for causing pain
(see previous) To sum up ... Feeling ‘guilt’ will not help the other person. The energy we are using to ‘feel guilt’ is taking energy away from the energy we could use to take action. It is creating a river block that makes us less ALIVE, less spontaneous, less able to contribute our unique amazing-ness to the dance of life. From Life’s perspective, there is no purpose in being ‘LESS’. We came here to be ‘MORE’, to contribute our unique-ness to the Dance. Get out there and … Feel your feelings (your real feelings) Take action from stillness Accept the ‘BIG-NESS’ of Life and the small part you play in it. And remember that we are ASTOUNDINGLY RESILIENT. Human beings survive the most extreme circumstances and come out thriving. Let us not disempower others of their resilience. It is never pleasant when we injure someone – it is not a desirable experience in any way – but, it does happen on the ‘playing field of life’. So let us remember that the person we believe we’ve injured is astoundingly resilient, return to them the power of their true nature and give them the space to respond to circumstances in their unique, creative and inspiring way. We must be careful not to see people as ‘victims’ because using that vision we disempower them and make it harder for them to respond powerfully to their situation. This is another ego game – to see that we are the ALL POWERFUL, SUPER HERO/ SUPER VILLAIN whose actions DESTROY others and that others can NEVER recover from and that we should NEVER be forgiven for. And that others are VICTIMS who cannot recover because we are ALL POWERFUL. Let’s back off from that ego story and accept that we are both players on the field. We are equals. Sometimes we injure others. Sometimes others injure us. We must humbly accept that sometimes we cause pain. It is part of the game that takes place on this field. We must FORGIVE ourselves for causing PAIN. I hope you have found this series of post on 'Guilt' to be useful and thought-provoking. I'd love to hear your thoughts, please leave a comment if you have one :) Part 9 : Is 'hurting others' OK?
(see previous) In the cut-and-thrust of being alive it is a truth that it is OK to hurt people. It is OK to be hurt by people. We are on the field of play. Things happen. It is part of the drama. We don’t always know why. Some things are bigger than us. And that is a good thing. This drama, called life, is not controllable. We didn’t come here to control life and have some ‘sanitised’ experience. We are here having a REAL, LIVE HUMAN experience. We don’t know what is going to happen. (to be continued ...) Part 8: What if we can't make amends?
(see previous) Sometimes there may be cases where we feel that we have done something ‘wrong’ but there is no action we can take. If this is the case, it is an opportunity for us to accept that LIFE is so much bigger than us: That there is an organising power of the Universe that is beyond our comprehension: ‘That things are unfolding as they should’: That we are just humble members of this Dance of Life – it is an honour to be part of that Dance, but we are not choreographing it, selecting the music, choosing the venue, in-charge of the guest list etc – we are just dancers; wonderful, amazing, humble dancers. So if you’ve injured someone, and there is no action you can take to improve the injured party’s experience, I’m suggesting you take a deep breath, acknowledge the ‘BIG-NESS’ of life, that we may never understand exactly why we play a particular part in someone’s life and surrender to that. (to be continued ...) Part 7: Three steps to 'Giving up Guilt'
The following steps take the knowledge we've discussed in the previous posts and turn them into practical actions. (see previous) So, if we want to improve our relationship with ‘guilt’, there are a few things we need to do. First, connect with our body and find out what the primary emotion is that we are trying to ‘restrain’ by feeling ‘guilt’ instead. Then connect with that primary emotion, feel it, process it and let it leave the system. Second, let us let go of the ego story that EVERYthing is about us. Let’s let go of the idea that ‘I have to be PERFECT’ and the idea that there are ‘WRONG THINGS THAT CAN’T BE FORGIVEN’ (Please, please contact me if you think there are ‘wrong things that can’t be forgiven’ because that is causing A LOT OF SUFFERING and I am so happy to work that through with you.) When we truly let go of the ego story that this is ALL ABOUT ME we can look at the situation in a more detached way and see if there is anything we can do to assist the person we believe we’ve injured. And if there is an action we can take, that action will then be a GIFT to that person, not something we are doing to MAKE OURSELVES FEEL BETTER (i.e. we won’t be USING the other person to make us feel better, we’ll be doing an action out of stillness with no desired consequence. This is very powerful.) (To be continued ...) Part 6: Wrong-doings are UNFORGIVABLE
(see previous) The way I see it, ideally, we want to move through this experience of life as lightly as possible. (This goes back to the ‘letting the water flow’ analogy). If we have done something ‘wrong’, we want to sincerely feel that experience; acknowledge and accept reality, let the water flow and move on. There is no benefit in staying stuck in a river block. It doesn’t help you and it doesn’t help the other person. It does, however, help the ego ‘me’ story, because now this one-off event where ‘I did something wrong’ (that should pass uneventfully into the history of a billion other things that have done) becomes a story that I can really build on and make all about ‘me’. ‘I’m the bad one’, ‘I’m the one who did something terrible’, ‘It’s all my fault’, ‘I’m flawed’, ‘There’s something wrong with me’, ‘I’m going to be rejected’, ‘I’m going to be despised’. The main theme here is ‘me’. And the ego loves when the story is about ‘me’ – even if it means I have to be the ‘bad’ person – at least I am the STAR! And making this river block really stick it also helps if we have some idea that we have to be PERFECT and that mistakes and ‘wrong’-doings are UNFORGIVABLE. (These are concepts that are very attractive to people with a Pitta mind-body dosha – but maybe that’s a post for another day too!) (to be continued ...) Part 5: Guilt and brain biology
In the previous posts in the series, I've talked about how we have emotions about emotions and also about the Ayurvedic perspective on the Ego. Here I want to try to incorporate the Western perspective on Guilt as I understand it. (see previous) Now, where does ‘guilt’ come into this. If we think about ‘guilt’ from a Western perspective, we think of guilt being a part of having a conscience. It’s kind of a ‘good’ thing because it lets us know that we’ve done something ‘bad’, that we’ve transgressed one of our values. I guess it’s like a restrainer. Feeling guilty about something helps prevent us from doing it again. And the ‘bad’ feeling of feeling guilty also motivates us to take action to repair damage etc. I’m doing my best to outline it as I understand it – but as I said at the beginning – I’m not sure I get it – so feel free to help me out here. When I outline it in this way, it really seems that we can’t understand it without also understand brain biology. Namely that the pre-frontal cortex that helps us modulate emotional experience is not fully functional until well into our 20s and certainly not as child when we are learning all about ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ from our parents, teachers and peers. So while we are waiting for our pre-frontal cortex to fully develop, we use what we have available to us to modulate emotion – namely, creating emotions about emotions. (to be continued ...) Part 4: Why do we choose to feel guilty (Ayurveda and the Ego)
(see previous) Now we have covered the fundamental and simple approach to emotions, let’s look at why we might be interested in an experience like ‘guilt’. Because, really, life is just so simple, we are river, rivers need to flow. Why would we get all mixed up in things that block the river? Here we need to bring in the Ayurvedic concept of ego. Ego is that part of the mind that filters experience and perception into a story about ‘me’. One of its main concerns is ‘Do I like this?’, ‘Do I not like this?’ It looks at experiences and decides if they ‘good’ or ‘bad’; if they are ‘desired’ or ‘undesired’. And naturally, it would like more of ‘desirable’ experiences and less of the ‘undesirable’ experiences. So it is willing to use every trick in the book to, as much as possible, steer us in the direction of ‘good’ experiences and away from ‘bad’ experiences. (This can lead to a lot of reactivity – but maybe that’s a blog for another day!) Anyway, we can sum this up by saying that the ego would like to CONTROL experience. (This is mostly futile and impossible – but again, a post for another day!) And one of the areas of experience it would like to control is our somatic and emotional experience. The soma experience is SO POWERFUL; so real; with all its blood and brain chemistry; the ego would love to be in charge of that. However, the flow of life, the flow of emotions is far beyond the jurisdiction of the ego. The ego, not happy to acknowledge that there is any domain that is outside of its jurisdiction, has come up with several ways to have ‘some’ control over the somatic and emotional experience. And one of the main ways it does this is by creating ‘emotions about emotions’. From the ego’s perspective, at least it gets to choose the ‘emotion’ when it’s an ‘emotion about an emotion’. So that gives it some power in the game. And the ego can rank emotions from most to least desirable and therefore choose an emotion that it thinks is more desirable. Hence choosing to get angry about being scared – it means that the ego of that person thinks anger is more desirable than fear, so it would rather feel angry than feel scared. Mission accomplished, partly. The ego has been able to excerpt some control over the somatic and emotional experience. The ego is not concerned about the effect that might have on the flow of the river, because the ego really isn’t interested in the flow of the river. It is interested in the ‘me’ story. And in fact, the ego would rather let the body die (through lack of flow) than release its grip on the ‘me’ story. I know this sounds incredible! but it’s true and maybe should be the topic of another blog! (to be continued ...) Part 3: Feeling good about feeling bad (see previous) As an aside, it’s interested that the ‘emotions about emotions’ that come from the ‘Pain’ column feel BAD and hard to process. Whereas the ones that come from the ‘Pleasure’ about ‘Pain’ column feel kind of bittersweet or OK. For example …
But the feeling ‘Pain’ about feeling ‘pain’ are definite river-blockers. They shut us down – like fear of getting angry (powerless). They waste a lot of energy – like anger about feeling fear (geiser). And they block us up – like sadness about feeling fear (self-pity). So if you are feeling disturbed by an ‘emotion’ it can be very helpful to return to the primary emotions and see if you can identify if what you are feeling is a variant of a primary emotion or if it is an ‘emotion about an emotion’. And if you find it an ‘emotion about an emotion’, switch your focus to the ‘about an emotion’ emotion and see if by connecting with that your system is able to process the emotion and let the river keep flowing. (to be continued) |
AuthorI'm an Ayurvedic Life Coach, Teacher and Massage Therapist living on the 'Linha de Cascais' in Portugal. I love sharing Ayurveda and appreciation of Life with others. Archives
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