It’s not your fault that you have triggers.
It’s not your fault that you have patterns of numbing yourself.
It’s not your fault that you have health issues you haven’t been able to fully heal or figure out.
It’s not your fault that you have relationship patterns that are painful and cyclical.
It’s not your fault that you sabotage yourself in the ways that you do.
It’s not your fault that you have parts of yourself that you can’t love or accept.
It’s not your fault that you have emotions you don’t know how to process, that you don’t understand and that surprise you.
It’s not your fault that there are things you want and need that you’re not aware of/aren’t able to clearly communicate to others.
It’s not your fault that you find yourself in loops of people-pleasing behaviors that cause you to abandon yourself.
It’s not your fault that you aren’t able to live up to the expectations of others even when you’re trying your hardest and doing your best.
It’s not your fault that you don’t know what you want, where you’re going or what your life is supposed to look like.
It’s not your fault that you don’t feel a sense of purpose and direction.
It’s truly, truly, truly not your fault.
If you are struggling with any of the above issues - chances are there are voices in your head that are telling you that YOU are the main problem here.
Voices that tell you that you should have yourself more sorted out by now, and that say that you’re a mess, unworthy of love or otherwise failing because you don’t have it sorted out.
That pipe up every time you have a health problem and say that you’re eating the wrong things, doing the wrong practices and failing to be ‘healthy’ and that’s why your body isn’t working.
That blame you for having triggers, telling you that if you were ‘really spiritual/doing your work correctly’ that you would be able to be calm, peaceful and rational all the time.
That tell you that every time you fail to stand up for yourself that you’re just weak, broken and that you should be able to be more assertive.
That are certain that if you could just ‘fix yourself’ your life would be SO much better than it is right now - you would be more liked, more emotionally regulated, you would have more friends, you would find the perfect partner, you would have the right job, your body would function and you would be living your dream life.
If it weren’t for YOU messing it up all the time, you would be happy.
Does any of the above sound familiar?
If so, you’re really, really not alone.
MOST of us have thoughts like these that run around in our heads on a regular basis - reminding us of just how much we’re ‘failing’ to be ‘good people’ and that want to fix our lives via fixing US.
THIS Is Sneaky Shame
Most of us don’t recognize that the voices in our heads that are telling us that we’re failing, that our pain is our fault, that we could be SO much happier if we could just get ourselves together, that tell us that we are weak, broken, lazy, just not trying hard enough, making mistakes and that we ‘should’ be some different, better version of ourselves are actually SHAME stories that have nothing to do with actual reality.
These voices are the voices that have been in our heads for so long, and their messages are so familiar to us that we are in a place where believing them seems like the only logical option.
The stories we have that tell us that we should be better, that our pain is our fault, that we are the reason our lives don’t feel good - these stories ‘feel true’ to us - and most of the time we don’t even recognize that we can question them, because they are so second nature to us.
These thoughts don’t feel like ‘thoughts’ - they feel like direct, logical, obvious observations of pure reality.
From there, due to the fact that these thoughts are so deeply ingrained into our way of being, most of us are going to be off down a path of fixing ourselves and trying to figure out what we can do differently to change how we’re feeling.
Before we even have time to slow down, recognize that we are thinking a thought that could be questioned, before we could even consider that what we are thinking may not be the whole truth - most of us are already 10 steps ahead.
We’re already pointing out everything we could have said and done differently in the conversation - blaming ourselves for not having done so in the moment.
We’re already looking to all the ways we could have stayed calm, poised and proper - thinking about how we, yet again, failed to stay centered and how this is the reason no one loves us and we never have the connection with others that we want.
We’re already looking at everything we ate, how we messed up our plans, how we caused our own body to fail and wondering why we weren’t more careful, aware and disciplined.
We’re already thinking about how we had such great intentions to organized, to keep our space clean, to sit with our emotions and journal, to spend less time on social media and more time outside, and wondering why we let ourselves descend into hours of Netflix and tubs of ice cream - again!
This will likely send us into a shame spiral. “Why am I so WEAK?” "What's wrong with me that I can’t get this right?” “Why do I keep failing at this?” “It’s no wonder nobody loves me.” “If I keep doing this, I’m going to ruin my life.” “No one is ever going to love me or want to be with me if I don’t fix this.”
The doom sensation will arise, and we will feel that familiar sense that the world is crashing down around us making it impossible for us to ever be happy, secure.
From here, we’re likely going to be snapped into planning mode.
We’re going to think about how we’re really going to be better this time - we’re going to do more meditation, more spiritual practices, we’re going to go on a cleanse, we’re going to write down a list of all the things we need to get done and we’re not going to let ourselves do ANYTHING else until we accomplish the list.
We do our best.
We eventually ‘fail’ again and there’s pain.
The cycle repeats.
This is what it looks like to be stuck in a shame spiral and not even be aware of it.
Where Did The Pain ACTUALLY Come From?
The truth is, these shame spirals are never going to get us where we want to go.
These stories that tell us that we are suffering, in pain, not living the lives we want to be living because WE are failing, because we have triggers, because we have weakness and patterns that aren’t giving us the results we’re wanting are, in essence, how we are blaming ourselves for our pain in an attempt to give ourselves power.
As confusing as this may seem, the reality is that most of us have a deep, core belief that if our pain is our fault, if we can figure out how WE are to blame for what we’re feeling - that in this we are going to then be able to figure out what we can do differently to stop that pain.
But the problem is, most of us aren’t even aware of the ACTUAL pain we’re feeling, why we’re feeling that pain, why we have the habits we have and what would ACTUALLY make us feel better.
All we see is that there is something we are doing wrong that we must fix.
But here’s the reality - YOU are not the reason you’re in pain.
YOU are not the reason your life isn’t unfolding exactly how you want it to.
Contrary to popular belief, you are not in total control of reality (most of us have an underlying assumption that we are, and if we could just control ourselves and our routines perfectly we would get everything we want in life and could then avoid all the things we don’t want), and you are not the reason you have the patterns you have NOR the pain you have.
In real reality, when you take the time to actually unpack the shame that is currently driving you so that you can figure out what the ROOTS are and why you’re suffering - you’re going to come to see that what’s hurting you isn’t rooted in something that YOU chose.
You’re going to come to see that:
You have triggers because you experienced adverse conditions in your life that you were powerless to fix or change, and this caused you to adapt in order to cope with the pain you couldn’t control - and now you have visceral reactions to anything that feels similar to that old pain because that’s how the nervous system works.
You have health issues because your body is a normal human body and we don’t have total control over it. You may have been neglected, misunderstood or mistreated in your illnesses and pain and rather than being given the support you needed to feel safe within your pain or rather than being given actual solutions, you were forced to figure it out on your own or worse, were blamed and shamed or rejected for your pain.
You have patterns of people-pleasing because you weren’t given a secure connection that taught you how to stand up for yourself and to feel safe being your true self - you experienced repetitive abandonment and rejection and this caused you to develop patterns that are adaptive in order to try to earn that connection you so deeply needed and couldn’t get.
You have coping mechanisms because you were never supported in finding a life that actually feels good for you - rather you feel chronically overwhelmed, confused, stressed, burnt out or otherwise like everyone on your to-do list are things you ‘have’ to do vs. things you WANT to do. Perhaps you were deeply conditioned that there was a specific way you had to be or couldn’t be that conflicts with who you really are, and so living a life of constant self suppression and stress leads to the need to numb and suppress.
You’ve experienced the deep pain of being abandoned, abused or neglected in some way by your caregivers and this created a whole lifetime pattern of pain, feeling insecure and trying to ‘fix’ yourself in some way or other in order to try to make yourself worthy of love.
The point here being this - when you take the time to slow down and unpack the TRUE reasons why you are behaving how you are, why you are doing what you’re doing, why you have ‘turned out’ how you did - you’re going to come to see that SO much of what ‘caused’ this to be your reality wasn’t something YOU chose.
You’re going to come to see that you were abandoned, neglected, not given what you needed, unsupported, shamed, blamed and guilted in some way - and what you’re currently doing is your way of trying to cope with that pain.
You’re going to come to see that at the ROOT of your pain is a feeling of wanting to be LOVED. A feeling of wanting to be connected, to be safe, to be out of physical and emotional pain and to be provided for.
ALL of what you’re doing is your attempt to get your needs for love, security and provision met - in the only ways you know based on how you were conditioned as a child and based on the experiences you had growing up.
I know this can be hard to believe - and that’s why I’ve created the Mystery School, why I have made SO many youtube videos, why I have written so many blogs and why I do one on one coaching.
Being able to slow down enough to see where we were separated from the love and safety that we wanted and needed, and how this caused us to develop ADAPTIVE behaviors to try and earn love and safety is a process.
It’s not something we do overnight, and it’s not something I can teach you how to do fully in a single post.
But my intention here is to plant a seed for you, so that you will continue to water that seed and see where it takes you.
Breaking The Cycle
In order to get yourself on a path of true self discovery - where you can start to break the blame, shame and guilt spirals that cause you to stay stuck in patterns of self improvement that never lead you where you want to go - the very first thing you need is to develop AWARENESS.
The first step in learning to uncover what you are actually feeling, what you are actually wanting and why your pain isn’t your fault, is learning to witness those shame, blame and guilt stories when they start to come up.
To see them as just that - stories - not as pure observation of true reality.
So my first challenge to you is this - can you start to practice slowing down and noticing when you start to think ‘this is all my fault?’
When you think things like ‘Why am I like this?’ ‘Why do I keep making the wrong choices?’ ‘Why do I keep failing to do what I should be doing?’ ‘What’s wrong with me?’
Remember, we all have a different flavor of this shame story - so it will be your job to start to notice how this comes up for you specifically.
Where are you currently believing that if you could just fix that ‘one thing’ about yourself, you life would be perfect?
Where are you believing that if you could just ‘get on track’ all of your pain would go away?
What part of your personality do you hate and blame the most?
Where do you blame your body?
Where do you spiral into thinking that you messed up, you are shitty, you are weak, you are lazy, you are broken?
THOSE are the stories I want you to stop and observe.
Can you start to look at these stories as possibly being just that - stories?
Can you start to see that these may be childhood coping mechanisms, vs. observations of true reality?
Can you start to open up to the idea that you are doing the best you can with what you have, know and were given, rather than assuming you are simply messing your life up for no reason?
Can you make space for curiosity here - ‘what if this story I am telling myself isn’t true?’
From there, as you start to create some space around those painful, shame based stories, the next step is to find some compassion for yourself.
Can you start to ask yourself ‘where was I unsupported in my past that led me to needing to cope in the ways that I’m coping?’
‘What was I FEELING as I went about my day today, and how did that lead me to needing to engage in whatever behavior I just engaged in?’
‘Where have I been told that it’s not ok for me to feel how I feel? That it’s not ok to respond emotionally? That it’s not ok for me to respond how I’m responding? What if THAT is not true?’
‘Where was I not given the love and security I needed and how did that drive me to think that there was something wrong with ME?’
‘Where was I not given what I needed to get out of pain, pain that I know I didn’t cause myself?’
‘Where did that pain that I’m in ACTUALLY start? Was it with something that I did, or did I do something in RESPONSE to the pain I was in that I’m now blaming myself for?’
‘Where was I trained to believe that I MUST reject this aspect of myself? How did that actually feel for me?’
Can you start to dig into where you may have been abandoned, abused, neglected, taught to treat yourself in certain ways, where you may have been taught to reject yourself, trained to be a certain way that doesn’t feel good for you or given a life path that feels overwhelming or satisfying that you don’t know how to get out of?
Can you start to see that what you are doing now, how you are living now and what you are experiencing now came from ROOTS of choices you didn’t make, and things that happened to you that you had no control over?
From here, can you allow yourself to look beyond the shame to the emotions you’re ACTUALLY feeling?
If your people-pleasing is not your fault or a weakness in you, but rather a RESPONSE to being unloved - what do you ACTUALLY feel if you aren’t blaming and shaming yourself?
If your triggers are a result of having experienced something painful that you couldn’t control - what are you ACTUALLY feeling when those triggers come up and what do you feel about the you that experienced the pain that you did?
If your body issues were not something that you caused, but rather are issues that have arisen from circumstances that you didn’t create - what do you feel for yourself and about yourself?
If your relationship patterns are a result of not being modeled healthy, safe, love but rather from being modeled patterns of neglect, abandonment and abuse - how are you feeling about what you went through and the you that had no other way to manage what you experienced?
If your pain isn’t your fault - can you have COMPASSION for the you that is feeling that pain, and can you give yourself space to GRIEVE what happened to you and how it’s affected you?
THIS is the healing medicine most of us need.
We need to be given the help in seeing that what we are currently experiencing isn’t a result of US being shitty - but rather is a result of us experiencing pain and then developing methods for coping with that pain.
We need to be able to be upset about what happened to us, so that we can eventually find our steps forward.
Now, I promise you - this isn’t about going into ‘victim’ mode or saying ‘this pain, my patterns, my habits and my way of being are not my fault so I never have to change.’
Rather this is about learning how to identify the ACTUAL cause of why we are how we are and are doing what we’re doing, so we can first EMOTIONALLY process what happened to us, and THEN find our actual empowerment.
We are going to come to see that after we give ourselves time to grieve, to have compassion for ourselves, to stop blaming ourselves - we are going to come to see what we are actually feeling, wanting and needing.
And in THAT we will find ACTUAL answers.
It will take us out of the false reality that fixing ourselves is the key - fixing our RESPONSE to pain - so that we can identify the actual pain and thus the actual remedy for the pain.
This is slow and steady work.
But again, I hope this article will help you start the process.
What if it’s not your fault?
What actually happened?
What do you actually feel if you aren’t blaming, shaming and guilting yourself?
THAT is the start of the healing path.
<3
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