Copy-write George Hartwell, 2017
What is a Shame Issue?
Shame as an issue refers to a weak sense of identity, a weakened fundamental right to be oneself. There is little ability to express one’s opinions and expect to be understood. There is stress about one’s right to be given a place in family or social group. There is a lack confidence in oneself and low self-esteem.
A family or church overcomes this by giving each person a place where they can express themselves, be acknowledged and understood. A counsellor helps this by skilled and empathic listening. A marriage where one’s thoughts are listened to and one’s feelings are acknowledged helps overcome this.
A person with a weak sense of identity needs a counsellor who does not overpower, control, convert or ‘fix’ someone in a way they have not chosen. Such a counsellor is gentle rather than overpowering; listens well and sensitively and consistently provides a safe place to express oneself without judgment.
Provide a place where a person can find, formulate their own opinions, find their strengths, discover their calling and clarify their identity and they will begin to find their voice, their identity, their right to be.
On the way to finding one’s identity one may have periods of confusion, with anxiety and depression and increased uncertainty. It can feels so uncomfortable that if feels like one is having a ‘nervous breakdown.’ But there is such a thing as a positive nervous breakdown where old character patterns disintegrate so the newer identity can emerge.
During such periods it seems that one is in a transition out of a previous identity into a new one. The old role, or persona, worked for awhile but it got old. The new has not yet arrived. The result is confusion and anxiety. This will pass as a new identity becomes clear, as you practice it and become comfortable with the new you. A counsellor who understands these processes is a great comfort and help.
An example of a personality that can become old and fall away is the nice guy, good guy or people pleaser. Each pattern is based on foundational core beliefs. The PeoplePleaser’s inner core perspective is that love is conditional. Therefore, one must do the right things to earn it.
Because the People Pleaser does not express his or her own personality but adapts to what people want or expect, it may reflect inner feelings of shame. The People Pleaser avoids expressing himself or herself and puts the focus on pleasing others.
People Pleasing can leave one in a state of depression. It is triggered by beliefs such as: I have done something wrong, I am bad, None one really loves me, and I am unloveable. These beliefs are depressing and painful.
These beliefs are triggered by criticism and failures. Of course one becomes defensive. It hurts so much to think like this.
In individual therapy such beliefs must be brought to the surface. When core beliefs come to the surface and the feelings and perhaps memories they are connected to, change is possible. With skilled professional prayer therapy or with skilled psychotherapy the emotional brain will edit the core belief. This process will help old patterns of behaviour and personality to fall away. One is never the same once these core beliefs are permanently modified.
Secrets of the Heart - G. Hartwell 2017 - www.HealMyLife.com
What are the secrets of the heart?
The heart has processed all of our personal experience and created our own personal model of life from them. That means the perspectives, beliefs and motives of our heart are solidly rooted on our personal experiences and means in our memories.
Emotions live in our memories so emotional healing means healing of our memories.
Passions and motivations live in our emotional memories so healing of our emotional memories shifts our motivations and passions.
Learned attitudes resulting in learned behaviour patterns are stored in our heart (unconscious or emotional brain) so healing of our memories will correct our attitudes and social patterns
All of our emotional memories are stored as events, dramatic events, personal events in our heart. Memories that are not personal will not have an emotional tag and will not be stored in our emotional brain. Instead, a non-personal, non-emotional memory will be stored in our verbal, intellectual brain. So our heart contains the memories most important to us, our protection, mission and success.
We can recall nonemotional memories more easily then emotional ones. For some reason the heart treasures memories and does give our conscious mind easy access. However we need to get access in order to get healing of our emotional wounds/memories.
You experience emotion when an event triggers a memory stored in your heart ( emotional-brain). When a cluster of memories is triggered it is an opportunity to get in touch with those memories; bring them to conscious awareness and discover their secret.
How we try to change and why it does not work.
What this means is that you cannot change the heart by telling it something different. But we all try and keep on trying to change what is most fundamental to us with instructions, education, insights and plans. We discover in time that none of this shifts our heart. The heart is not interested in words. It pays attention to emotional experience, in particular stories.
It is the story that the heart remembers not just the feeling and not just the lesson learned. The feeling and the lesson are imbedded into the story and kept like that in the heart. The heart is a treasure chest of stories.
The Secret Way to Change your Heart
However the stories can be edited and rewritten if you know how. One of the secrets of the heart is how to rewrite the story. This has only been discovered recently.
Every time you retell the story with emotion it can be edited and rewritten.
Every time you recall the story with emotion is can be edited and rewritten.
1. It can be edited if we remember it differently. Maybe someone remembers the same event and adds some details. These could be incorporated into the story in the emotional memory.
2. The conclusion embedded into the story can be edited if at the same time that we remember this event we also remember other significant events that shift or correct the perspective imbedded in the emotional memory’s version of the story.
3. The perspective embedded in the story can be changed if through listening to God we perceive a significantly different perspective from God - a revelation. This is called prayer therapy. Here are the steps involved.
4. Pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in finding the memory connected with an fresh emotional experience.