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Have you noticed how some others are adept at loading blame or guilt onto us at times when it's not our fault?
Why do they do that?
In fact, I guess there are many reasons. As children, there were fears of getting into trouble and the resulting punishment.
‘When I was about 7 years old, I was playing at a friend’s house. There were several other children there and we were all playing together in the quite large garden. My mother and her friend were chatting together, and because the garden was so large, we children weren’t all playing together, having broken into smaller groups.
Suddenly there was a cry from one of the children, both mums rushed over to the duck pond, where one of the children, a little girl aged about 5 was standing in the water, covered in weed. She was hauled out, and then next thing I heard her older brother shouting out that I had pushed her in. I had been nowhere near the pond, and I protested to both mothers, sobbing my heart out. Not only was I upset because I had been accused wrongly, but because no one assured me that they believed me. Despite knowing I hadn’t done it, I felt that everyone else thought I had, that people would think of me as a liar, not to be trusted, and that I must be a bully to have been so unkind to push someone into water. So, I carried those feelings of guilt and shame around me for a long time ‘
That incident stayed with me for quite some time.
It’s interesting how much of an impact it has made on me for me to recall the incident – and the lack of reassurance - many years later. Whilst it’s a pretty insignificant incident, it’s those feelings inside that cause so much damage, eating away at our very being.
• Whether it’s a partner blaming you for everything that goes wrong in your relationship, even to the point of physical violence. ‘ You made me hit you’
• Being blamed by your bullying boss for not performing well, when it fact it’s his job to ensure there is enough staff to do the work.
• Whether you are being persuaded to return to work when you are not fully recovered, but you are being told by colleagues how much they are struggling. Or you feel guilty because you know they are stressed, and dealing with an additional workload because you aren’t there.
• Or the emotional blackmail that someone loads onto you, ‘You don’t care’ – ‘If you cared about me, you would' – maybe not in as many words, but when that feeling is like a punch to the gut, we feel that guilt.
• Or the shame of making a mistake in the past, and someone constantly dragging it up as a reminder. Another ploy my father used to make me behave. If he thought I was at danger of getting out of line, he would threaten me by telling everyone about it. But I have also experienced that in adult life too.
Have you?
It can take so many forms, some quite subtle, but how about you take more notice, and then you can make the decision as to whether its’ truly yours to carry around.
As my podcast guest, Mattha Blessing shares in this week’s podcast, that guilt, and shame are held in our bodies, causing us dis-ease. If you want to learn more, see the details below.
PODCAST NEWS
# 101 Martha Blessing - How we hold feelings of Shame within our body
Martha Blessing, Author, Healing Mentor, Wellness Expert and founder of Next Level Wellness, helps clients uncover the core cause of their symptoms and teach them how to remove them. Through group and private programs she helps clients unlock the missing piece so that healthy can be simple.
In this episode, Martha talks about how we hold that guilt and shame in our body, and the damage it causes us, both emotionally and physically.
You can listen to the episode here -
Or wherever you listen to your favourite podcasts.
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