How To Retire Doubt, Guilt, Shame and Worry.
Let go of four life draining feelings starting today.
Let go of four life draining feelings starting today.
Since 2006 when I taught my first class focused on understanding your worth on multiple levels (personal, professional, spiritual, social, emotional, financial) I noticed a consistent issue as we started our one year journey. The issue? My suggested ground rules covered in our first class based on their workbook.
Specifically? Let go of doubt, guilt, shame and worry.
Over the decades I’ve come to learn how difficult these grounds rules are for most. Why difficult? Most lack the tools to properly identify, address then retire these life draining emotions. My ground rules present challenges I resolve decades ago as I absorbed my academic, monastic and shamanic training. My ground rules are often the first time participants have ever thought of the option to release doubt, guilt, shame and worry.
These traits zap us. And they zap us in ways that we generally don’t even know we’re being zapped. And they zap us in deep ways. Ways that we actually sanction though customs, traditions and societal norms.
With this post I offer a contest for you.
A challenge.
The prize / award that you get for winning the contest / challenge? Have less doubt, less guilt, less worry and less shame. If you think those are prizes worth going for, let’s dive in.
One of the first things that I invite you to do to get a handle on doubt, guilt, shame and worry is to be curious versus analytical. You’ll hear me talk a lot about being an explorer in classes and podcasts. Being curious versus analytical because — let’s just say being curious is about the journey, right? It’s about exploring. Being a journey is like being a little kid. If you really watch kids and I mean little kids, they’ll start something and drop it and move on to the next start and drop it. There’s no conclusion. There’s no wrapping it up. Ask any parent who’s had to clean up after a toddler, and I think they would probably confirm what I’m saying.
Curiosity is key in Soul University events and classes. It is one of the most foundational tools. Being curious. Exploring. Truly exploring. Exploring in a way that when we bump into that inner voice, our inner Chaos Committee (as I call it) we see this Committee for what it represents — fear. In each class I got my ear out for doubt, guilt, shame and worry.
Think about all the voices that are going on right now inside your head. The ones that are the most common voices — those that run rampant are: Judge. Critic. Perfectionist. When you turn everything off to hear your thoughts inside your head. What are those thoughts. Right? What’s actually buzzing in your head.
Is it the Judge? Oh, you’re not good enough.
Is it the Critic? Oh, look at that!
Is it the Perfectionist? I’ll never . . . .
What’s going on in your head? Who’s your personal Chaos Committee. The Chaos Committee is ruled / chaired by our ego. And please know I have no desire to ego bash.
And my challenge is?
Focus on one issue. Doubt. Guilt. Shame. Worry. Which issue consumes your life a little more than the other. (I have an exercised for that, by the way. I’ll get to that in just a second.) Draw your attention to this exhausting feeling. Be more mindful of how often this feeling consumes your energy.
Where is this feeling coming from?
Is this feeling coming more from inside your head?
Or do you notice this feeling beginning out side of your head. For example?
Advertisers use these negative emotions to get you to spend money.
Faith based systems use guilt and shame like hammers. Followers are constantly being nailed with guilt and shame. They worry and worry that they’re not good enough.
Parents use doubt, guilt, shame and worry when you focus on what you want to do (versus what your parents think you’re supposed to to).
My challenge, my contest is to start being aware of how doubt, guilt, shame and worry is sprinkled or used blatantly — all around you all the time.
Examples? Insurance commercials for health, life, home and autos. What’s insurance all about ladies and gentlemen? What’s the goal of buying insurance? To protect yourself, right? To protect yourself from financial ruin. In most states you must have insurance when you own a car. If you don’t have auto insurance and you have an accident (and you’re caught), it’s not pretty. Right?
Life and health insurance ads want you to worry that maybe you don’t have enough life insurance to bury you if you die. Make you feel guilty that you would be a burden on your family if all of a sudden you had obscene medical expenses to pay for. You don’t want to be a burden to your family now would you? So advertisers know how to get you to react and act by using doubt, guilt, shame and worry.
More basic to our relationship with these four learned traits concerns how we’re raised. Nine out of ten, the seeds to the weeds of doubt, guilt, shame and worry were planted before we even knew they were planted. We learned how to feel doubt, guilt, shame and worry by watching others. We continue to feed these emotions because we don’t know we have the option to retire these unhealthy habits.
So my challenge to you is to begin to get curious about each time you feel doubt. Each time you feel guilt. Each time you feel shame or worry. And in fact, I’ll add a little nuance to this challenge.
Exercise instructions:
Find a small piece of paper. Maybe a little Post-it note.
Make four quarters.
Label the quarters (one for doubt, guilt, shame and worry).
Throughout the day, take that piece of paper out each time you catch yourself feeling doubt, feel shame or worry. Put a little tick mark underneath the appropriate category.
At the end of the day, look at your results. What’d you come up with.
Repeat this exercise over a week? Or a month?
Throughout the day, if you catch yourself feeling doubt, guilt, shame, or worry — you just note it. Be mindful of it. See if there is a pattern. For example does a particular person make you feel guilty all the time? Does a person of authority in your life make you feel ashamed or make you worry in some way? What’s the source of the doubt? Guilt? Shame? Worry?
Start getting a true, factual, conscious understanding of how often you allow doubt, guilt, shame and worry into your life.
Heads up!
One of the most powerful, powerful tools I’ve learned — especially in my shamanic training — the most powerful tool we have is observation. See things clearly. Oftentimes seeing something clearly does not involve our eyes at all. It involves our intuition. It involves a feeling.
Seeing something clearly often means letting go of the judging. Letting go of the critiquing. Just be a reporter writing down the facts. The sky is blue. That’s it. The sky is blue and isn’t it lovely? Now we put a judgment on the sky. I’m judging the sky to be lovely. (You might not think a blue sky is lovely.)
Time to get a handle on doubt, guilt, shame and worry in your life — by observing it. Observing is one of the most powerful tools for our subconscious. This tool is known as the Observer Effect. Have you heard about the Observer Effect?
Example. Let’s say at work your boss announces a staff meeting. You learn starting next week they hired a crew of people to come in and observe everything. They want to make sure that we are doing things in a way that’s the most cost efficient. Time efficient. They’re just going to watch. Just do what you’re doing. All right? So that’s going to happen next week starting Monday.
I guarantee you that the following week you will act differently knowing you’re being observed. And in fact, getting the heads up that you’re about to be observed you will start course correcting things you know you need to course correct. Maybe you take a little longer than you should on coffee breaks. You’ll shorten your breaks up starting today because you don’t want to get caught taking too long of breaks next week. Maybe you could get something done quicker. You’ve known your could do things faster for some time. Maybe you begin to speed it up a little bit so that when you’re being observed next week, you’ve done your dress rehearsal.
We know that when we’re being observed we do things differently. That’s the Observer Effect.
We know that when we’re being observed, we AFFECT — what’s being observed! Right?
What you do in the safety of privacy of your own home when no one’s looking. No one’s watching. No one’s listening. What you do during your private time is the genuine you. Let’s say while you’re at home with family and friends you might use a lot more colorful language than you would in the workplace or out and about being social. When you’re in public you know you’re being observed, right?
So let’s apply the Observer Effect with my challenge!
Consider my challenge as a notice to your Chaos Committee.
“HEY! I’m watching you!”
You give your Judge, your Critic, your Perfectionist — three of the most common people in our Chaos Committee — a heads up. You’re on to their deal. You’re watching for doubt, guilt, shame and worry. Your Chaos Committee will start acting different too. You might just notice you have less doubt, guilt, shame and worry over time just by keeping an eye on things.