by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 18, 2018 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog, Empowered Action, Self Awareness, Uncategorized
As one of the primary emotions, shame is a part of the human experience you’re your struggling with feelings of shame, use these quotes to spark some gentleness with yourself, and gratitude within.
Mistakes Are Okay
\”Even the knowledge of my own fallibility cannot keep me from making mistakes. Only when I fall do I get up again.\” – Vincent Van Gogh
There\’s an ebb and flow to life, and everyone is in it together. We all make decisions that lead to outcomes we\’d rather not experience. Sometimes, we act from a place of fear or resentment, or intentionally cause harm to those around us. Sometimes, we are naive or have inaccurate information. While mistakes are inevitable, what action do you want to choose from here?
Consider Inner Vs. Outer Factors
\”You cannot change the wind, but you can adjust the sails.” – Bertha Calloway
While the circumstances that triggered your feeling of shame may or may not be in your control, your choice to hang out in shame is within your control. We can honor the moment of shame but not linger there. How can you take care of yourself so that the shame can shift?
What If…
“You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” – A.A. Milne/Christopher Robin
Shame can be rooted in untruths told to us by others. What if your courage, strength, and brilliance is greater than you\’ve ever believed, and the only thing stopping you are your thoughts?
Consider the Ripple
“Every action in our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity.” – Edwin Hubbel Chapin
Whatever the reasons for your experience of shame, remember your positive impact as well. Your choices will ripple out and likely far outweigh your mistakes. What impact do you want to have on others?
Shift to Gratitude
\”Sometimes we should express our gratitude for the small and simple things like the scent of the rain, the taste of your favorite food, or the sound of a loved one\’s voice.\” – Joseph B. Wirthlin
One of the easiest ways to change our emotional experience is to come into our hearts. Look around and consider what you can feel grateful for in this moment. Then – and this is the trick – don\’t just think about gratitude, but actually invite in the feeling. What can you feel grateful for now?
Hang Out with a Dog
\”Dogs have boundless enthusiasm but no sense of shame. I should have a dog as a life coach.\” – Moby
We can learn a lot from animals, and dogs are a great example of (usually) living without shame. It\’s possible to draw energy from a memory of an animal or person you admire for their shameless way of being. What memory makes you smile?
Looking for more inspiration to overcome shame? Check out my personal share about >>> \”Self Love.\”
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 14, 2018 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog, Empowered Action, Self Awareness, Uncategorized
I have been forged in the fire of doubt, lies, and forgetfulness, and I am made of self-love.
In addition to granting us the ability to be happier and make a greater positive impact in the world, self-love is an inoculation against some of the most challenging experiences in life. It is the armor of the seekers, the healers, and the transformational mavericks of the world.
For me, this knowledge was hard won. While I can look back to my childhood and find a connection with the divine starting as early as I can remember and an unrelenting urge to help and heal for just as long, self-love was virtually absent.
The earlier part of my life was dominated by pain. Everything hurt, but I did not know how I felt. Although I had people around me, I had little feeling of connectedness with them. And, I believed quite completely that there was something inherently wrong with me.
The first insight that I got about self-love came about when I had my son. I simply wanted more for him than what I had myself and I knew I needed to learn how to get it so I could teach him to do the same. To this day, I know that if it weren’t for my love of him, I very likely would have stayed mired in my pain.
Inspired by my son, I set out—destination unknown. Before too long, I discovered that what I was looking for was love: pure, undeniable love of the self.
Lack of self-love can show up as unhealthy choices, judgments about our unhealthy choices, an unrelenting ache, or a feeling that we are not quite expressing our full light. But at its root there is a belief that there is something inherently wrong with who we are.
This is the place where no self-love is present.
Otherwise, why would we simply just not let ourselves be who we are?
Signs that we truly love ourselves are unconditional acceptance –even of the messy or seemingly inconsequential parts, staying on our own side regardless of what happens, holding ourselves accountable only for what is truly ours, and loving ourselves regardless of our mistakes.
If we pay attention to what is underneath when we are not doing these things, we see in these shadowy moments of self-negation where our self-love is most needed.
Here in the crevasses between the more positive and accepted parts of ourselves, we can find the (sometimes) hidden belief that something is wrong with us. It is perhaps the most powerful lie that we can believe in the course of our lives –and many of us do.
Not only is it debilitating in our own inner experience, but this lie can be used to get us to back down, back off, or give up by anyone who is looking to co-opt our light, serve their personal agenda, or stop our forces of healing and transformation.
So, let us, each one of us, set the record straight.
Each one of us is an ideally crafted expression with a purpose and place. There are no mistakes. We are not all supposed to be 5 foot 10 inches tall, with brown hair, and good at math. Nor are our insides supposed to be the same, or our emotional expressions, or our ways of perceiving the world.
But it is not enough to know this in our minds – which most of us do. It must be etched on our bones and woven into our soul. Without that, it is a hollow shell of a belief that we merely try to hide our lack of self-worth under.
Fortunately for us, life has a built in tool to help us learn to love ourselves more and more completely. The difficult moments of our lives are not designed to show us what is wrong with us but rather to show us the path back to ourselves by displaying the illusion. In this process, we learn what self-love truly is.
When facing the difficult circumstances of life, we can use them to feed the part of us that believes that there is something wrong with us or we can use them to help us see what we are not loving about ourselves and learn to love ourselves more completely. When we do this we become healthy, happier, and more resilient.
My prayer for you is that you can pause your usual interpretations of yourself to see the perfection of who you are and that you are willing to lovingly seek out the environments that support your most positive expression.
There is no one else like you. Who you are is perfect, sacred, and very needed.
Do you ever have trouble loving yourself because you feel ashamed? If so, please see my article >>> \”What is Wrong With Me? Healing From Toxic Shame.\”
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 12, 2018 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog, Empowered Action, Self Awareness, Uncategorized
As Brene Brown says, guilt is the feeling that comes from having done something bad. Shame is the feeling that comes from feeling you are bad. While shame can have a positive impact, such as helping us to socially conform, very often when people speak of shame, they are talking about toxic shame.
The base of our toxic shame is often built in our early life and/or as the result of unhealthy relationships or difficult societally stigmatized life events. Once the path has been laid, then it is that much easier to set off a chain reaction called a shame spiral.
Most of us have had this experience. First we make a mistake. Then we judge ourselves for the mistake. We withhold love and acceptance from ourselves, and in this weakened state, we continue to make more bad choices, feel more shame, and withhold more love and acceptance.
Shame spirals can last for any length of time. In one way of looking at things, the bad choices and negative self-talk on a daily basis can be seen as a constant shame spiral. However, most often we are talking about an acute experience that sets off one or more of our triggers.
The first step in making a change is awareness. We need to be aware enough of the problem that we can see where we might be adding new behaviors to it. After you become aware of your struggles with shame and the shame spirals that rule the difficult parts of your life, then you can start to employ methods to get yourself out of shame and back on track.
Here are six steps to help you stop a shame spiral:
1. Know your triggers. Sometimes the best remedy is to stop a spiral before it even happens by avoiding or working around triggers. But even when you don’t, if you know your triggers, then you can act that much faster after one of them has been activated. If, for example, “failing” publicly is a trigger, then you know to immediately take some counteractive measures should you bomb a presentation.
2. Hear your inner voice. What you may or may not be aware of is that your shame spiral is led by your inner critic. This inner voice will tell you all the ways that you messed up, how people are judging you, and what negative things to think about yourself. Because it has an inside view of what you are most ashamed of, this voice is expertly targeted at your weakest points. When you tune into this voice, you can set it straight.
3. Don’t indulge in bad habits. The bad habits are the things you do when you are feeling shame that make you feel even more ashamed. You make a choice to fight with someone that you care about, drink too much, or not do something important that needs to get done. You might wonder why on earth we would do more “stupid” things when we am already feeling so bad, but shame impairs our judgment and often leads to forms of disassociation that make it difficult to make good decisions.
4. Love yourself anyway. Mistakes happen. Bad choices get made. In order to stop a shame spiral, we need to accept ourselves and our choices. We don’t need to condone them, but being on our own side and being understanding is key to stopping the shame from getting worse. So, regardless of how many bad choices you have made, offer some love and support to yourself. You did not make those choices because you are a bad person. You made them because you didn’t know what to do or couldn’t choose it at the moment. Chances are that was because of some past traumas in your life.
5. Choose supportive behaviors. If our bad habits can bring us down, our good habits can bring us up. When we get triggered, we can actively choose to do things that help us feel better rather than worse. We can look at the things we have done right. We can participate in an activity that helps us feel better.
6. Connect with loved ones. This is a supportive behavior that deserves its own category. Because shame thrives on secrecy, connecting with someone who really sees you for who you are can be one of the best antidotes to shame. This can be very hard for people who are experiencing shame, but if you can muscle through the discomfort, you will soon find yourself free from your feelings of shame.
It is never too late to stop a shame spiral. That little voice telling you that it is too late is only part of the shame spiral itself. It does not matter how deeply you feel that you have dug yourself down—you can turn it around. Keep trying. Keep loving yourself and shame will become less and less a part of your life.
For more ideas about overcoming shame spirals, check out my article >>> \”What is Wrong With Me? Healing From Toxic Shame.\”
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Oct 7, 2018 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog, Empowered Action, Self Awareness, Uncategorized
Lapses in confidence are common, but when we are left feeling like we have somehow fallen short regardless of our accomplishments, it might be time to look a bit deeper to find out what might be driving this feeling.
I remember a client of mine several years back asking, “How do I love myself? What does that even mean?” For someone who has been well initiated into shame, self-love is so far beyond their comprehension that it is like describing a different universe.
We develop shame through life experiences, social conditioning, and cultural indoctrination. In short, we believe we are bad because we had experiences where people made us feel that way—overtly or covertly. These experiences are most impactful in our childhood when we are much more easily conditioned. However, the right combination of experiences at any point in life can leave us believing in our worthlessness.
Shame is complex and can be difficult to take apart. Understanding how and why it develops can give us a bit of insight.
Children learn to regulate their behaviors by developing an emotional “clutch,” located in the prefrontal cortex, that can turn the accelerator off when the brakes are applied and redirect their interest in more acceptable directions…. An activated accelerator followed by the application of brakes leads to a nervous system response with a turning away of eye gaze, a feeling of heaviness in the chest, and a sinking feeling (Dan Siegel and Mary Hartzell).
This internal mechanism helps the child learn how to get along well with others and regulate their behavior in a way that is socially compatible. This happens in a very healthy way if, along with the child’s instinctual “braking,” there is love and connection offered from the outside. If, on the other hand, love and connection are withdrawn, then the child will have a different interpretation of the events.
This does not happen after one episode. When the experience is repeated, and the more it is repeated, the child comes to believe that there is something wrong with them. They will come to believe that what is wrong with them is either something someone told them in conjunction with these events or a seemingly random problem they might have found in their environment.
One of the simplest ways to heal ourselves is to reverse the process that we experienced. In other words, if we lost love and connection when we had a shame reaction, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to connect and feel love when we start experiencing shame.
This is easier said than done, but each time that you can choose this, it will help you to feel less chronic shame, and through that, strengthen your sense of self-worth.
When trying to reconnect and heal from toxic shame, there are some important things to consider.
Is this person safe?
Are they capable of supporting me?
Do I know what will help me?
Do I have a back-up plan?
Is this person safe? Not all people are capable of meeting you as you try to connect and come out of shame. If you are not sure about your personal relationship, it may be helpful to first do this work with a professional to ensure the maximum safety for yourself. Even when working with a professional, try establishing the relationship’s security before sharing highly sensitive material.
Are they capable of supporting me? Someone may love you a lot and be very trustworthy but lack the ability to show up in the way that you need during this vulnerable time. Sometimes, you will not know if someone is capable of supporting you until after you have tried. That is totally fine. However, if someone has proven themselves unable to show up in the way you need, you will be better off waiting to share with them until you have shed some layers of shame.
Do I know what will help me? Very often, the answer to this question is no. However, it is still worth thinking about and finding some answers to. When you know what you need, it is that much easier to get it for yourself. We often learn this by getting what we do not need and then using a process of elimination to learn what works best for us.
Do I have a back-up plan? Crossing this divide can seem really risky. There are reasons that you decided to hide rather than connect. Not every attempt is going to be met with success. In fact, your defense mechanisms might make it impossible to feel successful even if many successful features are present. Taking good care of yourself means knowing where you can go or how you can take care of yourself if your situation ends up being less than optimal. In time, as you grow in this skill, it becomes less necessary as the whole process will become easier.
It is helpful to keep in mind that the vast majority of people deal with some kind of shame that holds them back or shuts them down. You are not alone, and your bravery not only paves the way for your own expanded life, but also helps others heal from their shame.
An important element in overcoming toxic shame is learning to love yourself. Read more here to learn why this is so important >>> \”7 Reasons to Love Yourself First.\”
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Sep 25, 2018 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog, Empowered Action, Self Awareness, Uncategorized
As common (but not as tasty) as peanut butter and chocolate is the unhealthy bond between narcissists and empaths.
Narcissists are those people who are arrogant, lack empathy, and are ultimately self-serving. They manipulate to get what they want—not necessarily intentionally. Under this thick veil of ego is a very wounded person. However, the nature of the narcissist is to project blame while avoiding responsibility. As a result, they can be extremely destructive to empaths.
Empaths are sensitive people who feel the feelings of others and ultimately want others to feel loved, healthy, and good. They often mistake the feelings of others for their own feelings and struggle to put appropriate boundaries in place. The nature of the empath is to sometimes take too much personal responsibility in conflict situations. As a result, when they are relating to someone with narcissistic traits, they can end up taking responsibility in ways that are unhealthy.
It is challenging for the empath to see the relationship with the narcissist clearly. And the narcissist will be endlessly trying to make themselves look good, as well as to get the endless appreciation and love they so desperately desire.
The result is that the empath will begin to doubt themselves and their intentions. They will become imbalanced, and as a result, they will often act in ways that they are not proud of. The longer this continues, the more the narcissist will blame the empath for what is happening and the more the empath will believe that what they are doing is wrong, losing their center and their health in the process.
The following is from Bill Eddy’s article “How to Spot a Narcissist.” He shows how you can most easily spot a narcissist. While many writers have described the characteristics of a narcissist, he does so in a way that is accessible and clarifying.
The following are several hints you may pick up from a narcissist early on, using the WEB Method.
Their WORDS
Watch for both extremely positive and extremely negative words, about you or others.
EXTREMELY POSITIVE (SEDUCTIVE) WORDS include: I love you, you’re so wonderful! I’ve never met someone as great as you are! You’re so much better than all the others. You’re the center of my life! I will give you everything you deserve. No one has treated you as good as I will treat you. The person you were with before was a real loser. I have this great idea that will make me really famous someday. Let me tell you about it. (Notice that much of this is very comparative—that’s a warning sign that you will compare negatively later on.)
EXTREMELY NEGATIVE (DISPARAGING) WORDS include: That person over there is a real loser. Let me tell you about him (or her). The people that rejected my great idea are some of the stupidest people I have ever met. They don’t know brilliance when it’s staring them in the face. My boss is really treating me unfairly. I’m thinking of going over his head and getting him fired. I can’t wait until everyone sees him being walked out of the office for good! He’ll be totally humiliated. (Notice the thrill of superiority and lack of empathy, even if the other person is a lousy boss.)
WORDS THAT SHOW LACK OF EMPATHY OR INTEREST: The following happens a lot with narcissists. If you tell the person about a bad experience or vulnerability that you have, their response will often begin with: Well, let me tell you what happened to me once! There’s often no recognition of your concern—or even your existence, sometimes. They lose interest quickly, once they think they have you.
VICTIM WORDS: Narcissists perpetually see themselves as superior, but also perpetually as victims. When they are exposed as not being so superior after all, they suffer what is often called “a narcissistic injury.” Maybe they were turned down for a job promotion in favor of someone else. After such an “injury,” they will become obsessed with proving how bad the other person is and how wonderful they are. They may go on a long rant: It’s so unfair what they did/said/are. I will show them! They’re punishing me for being better than they will ever be!
Your Emotions
Now pay attention to your own emotions. How do you feel around the person?
FEEL TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE? This person is so nice to you, you feel extremely loved and flattered. You may have a euphoric feeling. He/she almost seems too good to be true. That’s a warning sign, because people who intensely and endlessly flatter you are often not who they seem. Their charm for you is a warning sign. Sometimes, they are simply charming and not a narcissist. But sometimes it means you are being seduced in the moment with lovely words by a narcissist, who will say them soon to the next person or organization they meet. They like winning more than having.
FEEL STUPID AND INADEQUATE? Some narcissists are so busy puffing themselves up that they don’t realize that they are putting you down in the process—it’s so automatic for them. You may not even notice it consciously at first, but soon you may be filled with self-doubt. I wonder what he/she thinks of me? I’m not really that smart, talented, attractive after all. I’m certainly not in his/her league, am I?
FEEL LIKE YOU CAN’T BREATHE? It’s common for narcissists to “suck up all the oxygen in the room.” Other people start feeling like they can’t breathe, because they can’t get a word in. Whatever someone else says, the conversation gets steered back to the narcissist somehow.
Their Behavior
Notice what they do, more than what they say. Narcissists have lots of words to distract from and make up for their insensitive behavior. People constantly confront narcissists and constantly are frustrated. Rather than reflecting on their past behavior, narcissists defend it and attack you for criticizing them. (“How dare you, after all I’ve done for you!”) So just become aware of their behavior and ignore their words excusing or distracting from it.
For example: Instead of saying: “Why were you late?!” You could say: “I’d prefer if you would let me know ahead of time if you’re going to be late, so I can make other plans.” Then, just leave it at that and notice if they fulfill or ignore your request. If they try to fulfill your request, that’s a good sign. But if there’s an unchanging pattern of disregard for you and your requests, then you may consider ending that relationship, since you’re not going to change that person. If you feel taken for granted, remember that narcissists like winning relationships, not having relationships. He/she may be on to the next conquest.
TARGETS OF BLAME: If a narcissist also has a high-conflict personality, that means that they will look for a Target of Blame when something goes wrong for them. They may intensely blame you for something minor or nonexistent or done by someone else (perhaps even by themselves, which is called “projection”). When they mess up, they often look for someone close by to blame. \”It’s all your fault that I didn’t get that promotion! You should have spoken to the boss like I asked you to. Now what are you going to do about it!!\”
As with all of the high-conflict personalities, they tend to blame people in close relationships with them (girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands, kids, parents, close friends, close neighbors, etc.) or people in authority positions (supervisors, business owners, police, government agencies, etc.). They often get stuck in a cycle of attacking a Target of Blame and defending themselves, rather than getting any work done or paying attention to their family: such as making angry phone calls, writing long email rants or engaging in social media meltdowns.
Notice if they have ever done something that 90% of people would never do (\”The 90% Rule\”). Something that you would never do. If so, regardless of their excuses, it usually means there’s a pattern of high-conflict behavior under the surface which would support such extreme behavior. For narcissists, this often includes humiliating a partner or child in public, sabotaging a co-worker or verbally attacking a colleague or employee in a meeting for something the narcissist actually did.
Empaths are particularly prone to getting involved with narcissists due to their failure to spot their games—it is just too different from their own personality. During the initial phase of the relationship (the positive phase), the empath will likely feel positive feelings unlike those received from being with anyone else, and will take this as a sign that this is a special relationship. Because all the empath wants to do is help, and all the narcissist wants to do is take, the empath will end up in a game that cannot end well.
If you suspect that you have a narcissist in your life, you may benefit from distancing yourself. With some people, you may be unable to do this—in which case, you would benefit from a plan that helps you minimize their effect on you while not alerting any of their conflict behaviors. Maintaining objectivity is key to your success. The more perspective you can get, the easier it will be to see what is going on. Make some space for yourself and enroll the support of other people who can help you see things more clearly. You can still empathize with the pain that is the root of the narcissist’s behavior without putting yourself in harm’s way.
Empaths often are exploring self-love within the context of relationships. I invite you to read more here >>> \”7 Reasons to Love Yourself First.\”
by Dr. Heléna Kate | Sep 25, 2018 | Dr. Heléna Kate's Blog, Empowered Action, Self Awareness, Uncategorized
Even if you have spent a significant amount of time on your own healing, you can end up in a relationship so toxic that it takes its toll on your otherwise healthy life. This is particularly true of our romantic relationships or our other closest relationships.
Elucidating contributing factors to our experience of unhealthy relationships been approached in a number of different ways.
One of these is through the discussion of the activation of our defenses in accordance with our attachment styles. There are four different attachment styles: Secure, Anxious, Avoidant, and Anxious-Avoidant. In any relationship that is not securely attached, there is the potential for deep activation of attachment issues that can lead to dysfunction. In the book Attached, Amir Levine discusses the crazy-making downward spiral of unhealthy attachment. This book helps to provide insight into how otherwise healthy people can become very unhealthy when there attachment wounds get triggered.
Another important angle is taken by Harville Hendrix in Getting the Love You Want. In this book, he talks about it as “the turtle and the tiger.” The turtle retreats from conflict and the tiger appears to be the aggressor. While this is not a direct correlation to attachment styles, there is some overlap. Overall, the retreat and attack dynamic can be found in many relationships where two people are struggling.
Codependence literature, on the other hand, can help us clarify unhealthy boundaries and how they affect us. By looking at where we have become immeshed with the people around us and learning new skills, we can learn to untangle ourselves from some challenging relationship dynamics.
No matter how we slice it, once we get into an unhealthy pattern things can go downhill fast. And, as messy as this can be, relationships can actually get worse. When we, for example, add attachment issues, which are a part of many relationships, to some deeper personality issues, we can enter into some very challenging relationship territory that is very difficult to extricate ourselves from. Add in an issue like addiction and things get even worse.
The very nature of the problems that get created in these problematic relationships can cause us to doubt ourselves, and also make it so that we may not know what we should do or where we should focus our efforts to make things better.
There are two parts to getting yourself out of an unhealthy relationship. The first is understanding what got you there. The second is your plan to get free.
Understanding how you got there:
Your Attachment Style: When you understand your attachment style and how it got activated, you can begin taking steps to get back on track. You can lean into healthier attachment bonds, you can more directly ask for what you need, and you can depersonalize the other person’s behavior.
Assessment Skills: When you can assess healthy versus unhealthy behavior and recognize truly pathological behavior, then you can understand how and when to put certain boundaries in place. You will be able to see if the person you are struggling with is a narcissist, sociopath, or some other personality that cannot be safely negotiated with.
Healthy Boundaries: When you are aware of your over-involvement in toxic relationships, you can begin to put healthier boundaries in place. This sometimes includes cutting off all contact with the person who is triggering you in such a deep way or who may simply not be safe.
Your plan to get out:
Once you understand the cause of all the dysfunction, you can build a plan to either work on or leave the relationship. If you need to leave, here are some steps that you can take.
Gather Support: Perhaps the most important part of an exit strategy is getting the support that you need to make it successful. This means establishing people to be on-call with assisting you during the transition. Immediately after leaving the relationship, the emotional volume can get turned up and the other person might escalate their behavior. Planning on this happening can help to make sure you have the right people to see you through these difficult times.
Meet Your Needs: Know that your attachment needs will be activated. Because of this, you will want to establish multiple ways to take care of these needs as part of your plan. If you need to be held, who can do that for you, safely? If you need distraction, how can you divert your attention?
Be Patient: The deeper the activation of your issues or the more pathological the relationship, the more likely it is to take a few tries to get out of the relationship. Be kind to yourself. You will get there, but likely not until you are really certain why this is an unhealthy relationship for you—which is why it makes sense to understand what is going on before you try to separate.
Stay Clear: No matter how bad the relationship, there are usually good parts that can leave you wondering whether you made the right choice. To help you stay the course, it is helpful to clearly remember the reasons for leaving the relationship and the damage that it has caused.
While it is not always essential that we leave a relationship that appears to be unhealthy, there are plenty of times when it is in our best interest. To determine whether or not we need to leave, we will benefit from understanding what contributes to these problematic relationships so that we can see what got us there in the first place. Then we can begin to set up a plan to leave that helps us transition away from the toxic relationship while retaining—or regaining—our sanity.
To explore what self-love has to do with your relationships, check out my post here >>> \”7 Reasons to Love Yourself First.\”
