Wrapping Up Guilt And Shame

January 15, 2016

Hi and welcome to this video. In this video, I want to take a few moments to wrap up all of the things that we’ve talked about this week. This week was kind of a big week! I think because we dealt with the emotions of guilt and shame and their etymology, as well as how to deal with guilt and shame, and how to overcome guilt.

Now these are just tips and techniques but, very broadly, this week was kind of introduction to emotions, and the meaning of emotions, and how they can be useful to you.

A Couple of Things

One of the things I want to share with you is that, as a human being, you and I, we have bodies, we have physical bodies. That’s the only way that we can enter situations and events that show up in our life. Without our body well- it’s- we can’t really do anything.

The other thing I want to mention is that, it is our body, it is our physical vehicle that experiences emotions. From the Vedic perspective the body is a vehicle for your soul and is just here on this planet to experience a journey of life. Now that life can only have meaning as long as there some sort of value being derived from all the experiences, some sort of satisfaction.

The way that satisfaction is derived is through emotions. It is the human body, it is your physical body, that experiences emotions. What it does: it causes some sort of physiological reaction that gets interpreted by that unique observer that you are, that being that looks up from your eyes. So that’s a Vedic perspective and is also one of the perspectives of Ontological Coaching.

Dealing With Guilt And Shame

So how do we deal with guilt and shame? And well, in this sense also how to deal with all of the other emotions. Well emotions are there. Your body is going to experience emotions any time- at all times! The idea is to notice which emotion shows up and when it shows up. And not only that, what emotion is your body experiencing right now.

So dealing with guilt and shame, when we understand them as emotion of that visit us, that- emotions that visit the body, then we can take that unique observer that we are and shine that light of intelligence upon that emotion that the body experiences.

Components of Emotions

So what does that mean? Well emotions have four components to it. Emotions have a story. Emotions have a physical disposition. That is they cause your body to react and have some sort of physiological response. They also have a breathing pattern. The breathing pattern is also a physiological response and it’s tied into your body disposition and how you actually respond and interpret that emotion.

And then finally all of this leads to action, to movement. Your emotions are the source of you taking action in this life. The way you take action in your life is dependent upon the emotion that’s driving it. One- one of the interesting things that I want to mention is, if you take the word emotion,“E-M-O-T-I-O-N” and you break it up, you have “E” and then “MOTION.”

So emotions are the things that put us into motion.

Guilt And Shame Move Us To Take Action

So guilt predisposes us to a certain movement, a certain motion. So we’re going to take certain actions because we experience the emotion of guilt.

Shame on the other hand is also going to cause us to take action, to move in a direction to resolve that emotion.

So the best way to deal with guilt and shame, to the best way to work with your emotions, is to use a tool of language to go deep within and understand the etymology of the language, to understand the etymology of the emotion, so that you know what its roots are.

Then notice that and notice the definition and its resonance to you. How congruent is your meaning, is your interpretation, of that. If it’s congruent great and you have something to work with! And if it’s not congruent, fabulous because now you got something to work with!

Getting Clarity

How do you get congruency between “the definition” and the way you interpret and experience that emotion. And the best way to work with emotions is to simply get into conversations to get clarity around that emotion.

What is the story of that emotion? Get clarity around that!
What kind of standards did you violate? Get clarity on that—and this was related to guilt and shame.
What kind of actions are required? Get clarity on that!

Now when I say conversations, I don’t mean just going to other people and having conversations, because you know what? At every moment of our waking life we are in conversations. If we are not in conversations with other people, we are always conversing in our heads!

Well at least I am! I don’t know about you but the conversations that we have in our heads are constant. It’s a constant loop that keeps a yammering on and on and on and on! That’s that observer trying to interpret and make sense of the world.