Shame is one of the destructive emotions. When it arises inside you (all of us experience it from time to time) look closely and see how your very body shrinks in size. A serious bout of shame makes you shut down, close up shop, and try to disappear. Self-hate is also likely to arise. Then you can’t adequately deal with what is occurring – or even learn from it.
No, I don’t believe that shame can serve a positive purpose. Dependent on its severity, however, it can be more or less destructive.
I do believe that healthy pride – the polar opposite of shame – is a good antidote for shame. The challenge is to enter into a meditative state when you feel shame so that you can be aware of the internal talk and any body sensations that arise. Doing this you don’t hide, instead you are keenly present. You are bigger than your shame.
In another step, while you’re meditating, you can look for the seeds of healthy pride inside you by calling forth the memory of an incident in which you showed a particularly good skill – and allow yourself to know what can be called competency pleasure. Hear the positive internal talk and the good body sensations that come with that pleasure and let a slight smile spread across your lips.
What a remarkable learning to realize the polarity exists and you can choose which side you’re on – even if only for a few brief moments.
3/25/2009
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The Psychotherapist's Corner
A meditation-inspired psychotherapy offers people a way of understanding their problems as well as a way of healing them... This full day retreat offers an opportunity to engage in learning mindfulness psychotherapy.
"The approach to working with others that I advocate is one in which spontaneity and humanness is extended to others."
---Chogyam Trungpa Rimposhe
Confusion, though uncomfortable, is a healthy state of mind. That's because it creates a great need for calm and clarity.
Psychotherapists can teach depressed people to become aware of their internal talk. This leads to the insight that thoughts are simply thoughts - nothing more. It also teaches that the person is bigger than his or her thoughts or the depression that comes with them. The result is a greater capacity to cope.
Meditation is a method for moving beyond the isolating tendency of the thinking mind.
Whether in a psychotherapy office or sitting on a cushion, we are practicing awareness. In the psychotherapy office our awareness is trained on the past and on the future. In meditation it is trained on the experience of awareness itself.
Narcissism is a double-edged sword; individuals suffering from narcissism either idealize or devalue themselves and others. Buddhist psychology blunts both sides of this sword by declaring that there is no solid and lasting self. Meditative exercises allow individuals to personally discover that they are ever changing, impermanent, and in the flow of life.
Meditation increases the psychotherapist's capacity for single pointed awareness. Relating in this way to a person who comes for help is an act of deep caring. It heals.
Strange how people come into our offices feeling guilty for trouble that is well beyond human control.
Letting go is a skill that can be taught.
"The approach to working with others that I advocate is one in which spontaneity and humanness is extended to others."
---Chogyam Trungpa Rimposhe
Confusion, though uncomfortable, is a healthy state of mind. That's because it creates a great need for calm and clarity.
Psychotherapists can teach depressed people to become aware of their internal talk. This leads to the insight that thoughts are simply thoughts - nothing more. It also teaches that the person is bigger than his or her thoughts or the depression that comes with them. The result is a greater capacity to cope.
Meditation is a method for moving beyond the isolating tendency of the thinking mind.
Whether in a psychotherapy office or sitting on a cushion, we are practicing awareness. In the psychotherapy office our awareness is trained on the past and on the future. In meditation it is trained on the experience of awareness itself.
Narcissism is a double-edged sword; individuals suffering from narcissism either idealize or devalue themselves and others. Buddhist psychology blunts both sides of this sword by declaring that there is no solid and lasting self. Meditative exercises allow individuals to personally discover that they are ever changing, impermanent, and in the flow of life.
Meditation increases the psychotherapist's capacity for single pointed awareness. Relating in this way to a person who comes for help is an act of deep caring. It heals.
Strange how people come into our offices feeling guilty for trouble that is well beyond human control.
Letting go is a skill that can be taught.
2 comments:
One day I was meditating and I remembered something I had been putting off doing and had to do right away. Intense feelings of shame arose as I realized the possible consequences of my procrastination. I was aware of these feelings (not totally caught up) and I decided that a part of me was trying to motivate me to get this thing done. I vowed to do it and the shame subsided. I did do it to :-) So possibly this was a positive sort of shame?
In meditation, after some study and practice,(a lot actually), I noticed I could work with memories that brought back feelings of shame. Before I had the skill to recognize the memory and feelings for what they were and not an "identity," or proof of a self that was indeed "shameful," I might replay the memories over and over, perhaps hoping to punish myself into another way of being. It didn't work...ever. My mood and behavior would be adversely effected, being unaware of the attachement to a self-concept and inadvertantly, reinforcing its perceived validity. Actually, doing so made it more likely that I would "act out" the feelings of shame, i.e. doing something less than skillful, or perhaps said another way, out of alignment with the path that produces beneficial states - growth, learning. I was unaware of the impact of what I was doing.
When I started to get what they were talking about when teachers would speak about "no-self," I realized that no such shamful self actually existed and that I could use those previously destructive memories as tools to mend past injuries and misconceptions. I not only saw thru the shameful and painful misidentifications, I could use the memory to prepare myself to meet todays' challenges with courage.
For example, when playing football in High School at a level that was probably above my head, I was in a situation were I was facing a fearsome and menacing opponent. Instead of blocking him, or at least attempting to, I looked away, as if to find someone else to block, turning what might have been a touch down into a loss. I was pulled from the game and did not play again that day. I had cowered.
Whenever I would think of that moment, it sent shivers of shame and self-loathing through my body. I could never get that moment back and I learned first hand the meaning of the saying, "A coward dies a thousand deaths, a hero dies but one." Then, with new information and a lot of work, I had a break through...it became possible to shift its meaning and usefulness. I recognized the emotional charge of that memory and the associated attachment to an "ideal-self" as well as the aversion to the "shameful-self." I knew enough to realize that there was no "real-self" in either. While the act may have been cowardly, I was no longer a coward for all eternity, doomed to act out the misidentification. I could then use the memory to practice courage in the face of adversity. I saw myself blocking him. I imagined him to be 3 feet tall, I was enormous, I did not look away. I could change the meaning of the event and pracice skills by visualizing that moment with different choices and different outcomes, adding to a sense of new possibility, determination and conviction. In fact, put to good use, that experience may have prepared me to meet a more important moment in the future firmly seated in the present with less attachement to a self or to outcomes, and without shame.
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