Being Point

Tag: Guilt

  • Beating Ourselves Up Has Not Been Confined To Individuals

    Beating ourselves up is not limited, of course, to individuals. We as a country seem to be engaged in a serious and prolonged syndrome of beating up ourselves and each other.

    How much do you feel any sense in the U.S. that we are beating ourselves up over any key issues such as wars, damage to environment, poverty, health care, the political process, consumerism?

    John Adams said, “Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war,” and one could extrapolate that many people subscribe to, “Great is the guilt of causing harm to others and to the world.”

    Yet, can we fashion a more productive response to difficulty than guilt and beating ourselves up? It feels as though beating ourselves up can become a substitute for meaningful action.

    Where do you stand on the question of beating ourselves up and feeling guilty? It’s easy for us to say that we don’t believe in it, but what do our actions indicate? What would it look like and feel like to pour all the energy that has gone into beating ourselves up into moving forward?

    Have a great weekend! (and don’t beat yourself up, please!!)

  • Ending “Pre-Emptive Strikes” Against Ourselves

    There was a very bright woman in my high school French class in senior year who, each time we had a test, would announce dramatically that she was going to fail. Inevitably, she would get an “A,” and usually the best grade in the class. She taught me about what I call “pre-emptive strikes” – attacking ourselves before someone else can.

    Most of us have beaten ourselves up pre-emptively. Consider behaviors like apologizing in advance, being “sorry” for delivering bad news that we had no part in creating, or calling ourselves names or using self-deprecating language about our abilities and accomplishments.

    What would happen if you cultivated a life where attacking of all kinds was unnecessary? Can you imagine a life without the hierarchy of someone’s being “right” which required someone else to be “wrong”? Often, we’ve beaten ourselves up to avoid what we have feared would be even worse treatment at the hands of another.

    The more you lose the perception that you have to be beaten up for some imagined purpose – for example, to “fit in,” to “please,” to “appease” – the happier your life will be. Punishment is unnecessary for emotional issues. Experiment with leading your life with expanding compassion and self-love.

    What is your level of commitment to ending the old habits of beating yourself up, especially with “pre-emptive strikes”?

  • Has Beating Yourself Up Ever Been A Habit For You?

    Who among us has not made some huge mistake – or at least a mistake that felt huge at the time? Perhaps a careless comment, a unfortunate traffic matter, or misplacing something so that we cost ourselves or someone else some money.

    Often, our response has been to beat ourselves up – and to continue doing so until we feel that we have punished ourselves enough.

    Has beating yourself up ever been a habit for you? If so, how much does it continue to this day? What kind of value system do you think self-punishment is based upon; and why have we felt that it was useful or necessary?

    What is the difference between feeling genuine remorse and beating oneself up? How much punishment, if any, needs to accompany remorse and sincere regret for having made a mistake? What kinds of responses are kinder and more useful than beating yourself up?

  • “The End Of The World As We Know It” Shifts To “The World We’d Like To Know”

    Thank you for your responses to the question about “the end of the world as we know it” – and, in particular, how the “end of the world” feeling can be transformed into “the end of the world as we know it,” and then into “a new world that actually has a chance of being great.”

    One reader, a dear friend, wrote:

    “Finding out in September of 1987 that I was HIV positive. It changed my whole perspective, re-woke me up to my spiritual side. This is when I began to walk again that path. Living this lesson has been crucial in forming me as I am now… one vital facet of this rainbow soul. Though I was unaware of it at this time, this is how I was affected by the harmonic convergence.”

    And this forward from the angelic Deborah Davis, written by D.K. Brainard ( http://www.wordsforthepeople.com/ )

    “It is our lack of creativity that causes us to become passive consumers. Rather than reacting to this catastrophe (the ‘end of the oceans’ BP oil spill) from a place of guilt, shame, resentment or grim determination, maybe we should align ourselves with the nature of the Universe and choose to respond with love and joy. Where in your life do you long to create? Where do you long to reach out from your heart and play, joyfully, with Nature, with the children of the Earth, with other creators?”

    “Use this incredible energy to recommit to living creatively. Because we won’t heal the planet by projecting our own Shadows onto the ‘evildoers’ or the ‘oil-guzzlers’ or the other ‘bad people.’ We will only heal the planet by healing ourselves — consciously releasing the guilt, shame, fear and other negative emotions, and intentionally reclaiming our creative birthright.”

    Food for thought. Let’s create the world we’d like to know – regardless of the world as we once knew it!