Guilt or shame are emotions you may feel in the way you’re handling the situations you’re exposed to.
- You shout at your kids – you feel guilty or ashamed
- You have a break – you feel guilty
- You act like a child towards your partner – you feel ashamed
- You overreact to a situation – you feel ashamed and guilty
- You can’t stop moaning about someone – you feel shame and guilt
- You can’t move on for some reason from something – you feel ashamed as to why you just can’t ‘let go’
I want you to know – it is not your fault.
I also want you to know there’s a different way.
The reason you act in ways that are unhelpful is because it’s a part of you in pain.
Sometimes, these parts are called ‘inner child’, ‘shadow parts’, ‘exiles’, ‘protectors’, ‘reflections’ and I’m sure there’s many other terms for them in various modalities. They’re all the SAME thing.
The role of these parts is always to protect you – even if the behaviour makes the situation worse.
The parts become ‘activated’ when there’s a potential threat/pain.
There’s ways you can ‘unburden’ these parts so they stop reacting in unhelpful ways. You need support to do that. It’s what I do directly with my clients I work one to one with.
There’s also another way – compassion.
If you can understand that a part gets triggered because of an emotional pain (even if it’s a POTENTIAL threat) – you can connect with the part and let it know you’re there for it.
Here’s exactly what I do.
I do a heart hold (ie I place my hand on my heart over my clothes). I say to myself – ‘Tricia – this is hard, I want you to know it’s ok, everything you feel is valid and you’re going to be ok’ and I breathe.
It’s like a miracle – because that compassion let’s everything else lift.
Because often what you need is someone to soothe you.
In technical terms, what you need is someone to ‘co-regulate’ you.
The moment you can start to ‘co-regulate’ yourself through compassion, heart holding, soothing… life shifts.
Co-regulation is something I cover in Calm Foundations. You can access this course below for £27.
Much love, Tricia xxx
