The most common underlying cause of anxiety, depression, addictive behaviours and relationship problems is self-judgment. The biggest core belief that underlies this self-judgement is:
"I'm not good enough."
There are many variations to this core false belief:
However you phrase it, it is at its core the same false core belief that governs us, in fact it imprisons us. It is a profound judgment against who you really are. It is not something any of us comes into this world believing. It is something that we hardwire into our psyche usually at a young age from either family, society, religion, school - or a combination of sources.
It will shift your perceptions of others treatment of you, shift your perceptions of the world, and it will shape the quality of your emotions, thoughts and experiences. If the underlying belief is geared towards this self-judgement - there is no possibility of creating something new. We have to gently spot that it is at work like an invisible fence around us so that we can find the gate inside of us to unlock and walk through into liberation, which is a new core belief that supports our true worth and our purpose; to share our gifts with the world.
Self Compassion - The Healing Sauce and Source
The moment we judge ourselves and believe this false belief, we are telling ourselves that we have no valid reasons for our feelings and behaviour that we could learn from - we simply assess that we are just not good enough. This closes us to the learning that comes from accepting what arises and working with it.
When we accept the false belief; we accept all the thoughts and happenings that align with it as they seem ‘right’ to us. We likewise discount other information, guidance and knowledge from inside (intuitive knowing, guidance of Lonving Self) and outside of us that aligns with the true belief that we are always enough. When we accept only that which affirms a known beleif, we experience cognitive dissonance when information is incongruent with this.
Our feelings and behaviour always come from our belief system. When we are feeling in pain and behaving in unloving ways toward ourselves and others, it is always because we are operating from false beliefs about ourselves and others. Our thoughts and experiences that aren’t aligned with feeling at ease - show us where we have self-compassion and inner bonding to begin or continue.
If instead of judging ourselves for our feelings and behaviour, we can learn to (it is ok to need to learn how to do this! Many of us simply were not taught to so it is not a failing) move into compassion for ourselves, we can open the door to learning about the beliefs that are causing our pain. When we are open to learning, we immediately move out of our protective loops of thought, emotion and behaviour that keep us feeling helpless, protective, and stuck.
We can then move from feeling like a helpless victim, into having an access point to power - both our own and also a higher power that supports us when we shift into compassion. In my own work and that of the Gupta Program, we do work with a sense of higher power or a representation of love; whether this be God, Mother Earth, Goddess, The Universe - as this is a profoundly holding and supportive access point to help us know we are able to surrender our old beliefs and have access to a higher intelligence that will guide us when we are open to learning.
Response or Reactivity
What is your first response when someone blames you for something, or gets angry with you, or begins to get frustrated and over-explain their position, or does something that triggers you? Do you judge yourself or judge the other person or both? What happens when you judge yourself or the other person? Does the situation get better? I would say this is very rare!
Stance One - Protection - Close down with judgement of self or/and another
In these types of interactions, we have two choices; learning, or protection. When we go into judgement of self and/or other - we move into protection. From there, chances are the interaction will escalate or shut down either one or both people and nothing is learned or resolved. This is also a form of self-abandonment as we do not care for our inner needs in that moment. We abandon them to expecting the other person to take them on for us. We come away feeling misunderstood, not realising we have the ability to change that.
Stance Two - Learning. Opening to compassion
What can happen if, when someone blames you for something, you learn to open up a channel of compassion towards the feelings arising inside you of being blamed? Instead of turning away, you turned towards what was arising and welcomed it with kindness. Likewise, if pain arises, loneliness, fear. What would happen if you could be with that and hold it.
What if, when you are aware of your core feelings - your sadness, sorrow, heartache, heartbreak, grief or helplessness about self or others - instead of avoiding these feeling with various conditioned habits, controlling of self or others and other forms of self-abandonment (numbing out, distraction, shopping, TV, social media, food) - you embrace them with caring, tenderness, gentleness and kindness? When you make this choice, you open the door to these feelings moving through you and being part of your experience (not all of you), rather than getting stuck in you and consuming your whole experience due to avoiding them with your various protections.
Moving into compassion - choosing to be kind, caring, tender and gentle with yourself moment by moment with whatever thought, feeling or experience that arises - is the key to being loving to yourself. It's the key to moving out of being a victim of your past conditioned patterns and of others’ choices dictating your emotions and experience, and into your personal power and emotional freedom. This is your natural state of being, something you richly deserve and is always available to you to begin to learn.
The Power Of Choice
When you make the conscious choice to be kind, caring and gentle with yourself and others, to accept yourself in that moment, your heart opens; and compassion can flow through you. This choice to be accepting carries an amplitude of such courage and is the foundation of true change. There is no agenda with compassion either. It isn’t something we ‘do’ to ‘get’ something or somewhere, or to get away from an experience. It is a state of being that heals by us allowing ourselves to attune to it.
If you wanted to be accepting of yourself, would you judge yourself? No, because it is not kind. Would you ignore your feelings, suppress them, be angry that they were there? No, because it is not kind. The saying what we resist persists is incredibly true both in our internal experience and with those around us we are in relationship with.
When accepting and caring for yourself would you attempt to blot out your feelings and fill your emptiness with food, alcohol, drugs, TV, spending, blame, anger, caretaking, or any other a conditioned habit? No, because it is not kind to yourself. Would you pull in or expect others to be kind to you and meet your unique needs, rather than being kind to yourself? No, you wouldn't, because it is unkind to yourself to make others responsible for your experience.
On the other hand, would you be unkind to others - blaming them, judging them, ignoring them, rejecting them? No, because it is not kind to yourself to be unkind to others. It is never loving to ourselves to treat others badly, so when your guiding light is to be kind to yourself, you will naturally be kind to others.
Being a kind person will bring you far more joy than being a reactive person, i.e. allowing others to determine who you want to be. We cannot put our power into someone else’s pocket and expect them to keep it safe. It simply is not their job. Only we know how to do it in the ways that are true for us.
I invite you to notice moment to moment the choice to accept your experience as it is each moment and see how you end up feeling. Those training with the Gupta program and with myself, I invite you to stand on your CHOICE point and see whether you can gaze softly to the left-hand path to whatever part you are working with, and accept it with gentleness and kindness. At the moment you accept it, you tap into possibility, to power, to capacity to transform.
You move from something happening ‘to’ you, to being influential in your experience. For those working with fatigue as part of their experience, this is also where we can begin to tap back into our innate pool of energy, which is often blocked due to how much we are managing/protecting ourselves instead of learning from our wounds and feelings, accepting them and caring for them.
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