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Ep. 46: Letting Go Of Guilt & Shame - Building New Choices
371 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, you will learn:
- How to have a healthy adult conscience without the need for guilt and shame.
- Ways to identify when it’s time to set new boundaries to escape a shame trap in your relationships.
- Suggestions for helpful strategies to interact with relationships and learning.
Kellie Smith is a Master Hypnotist Society trainer, hypnotist, and the Director of Winter Garden Hypnosis in Florida.
You can connect with Kellie at https://www.wintergardenhypnosis.com.
To find more free resources to make your life better, discover more about how hypnosis can help you, and what it takes to become a professional hypnotist, visit www.hypnosistrainingcanada.com.
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Transcript
Balancing Personal Needs and Empathy
00:00:00
Speaker
create a new picture of what it would look like if you were totally getting your needs met and you were honoring what's right for you and the other people feel heard or appreciated. So you're dovetailing both outcomes and you're caring about others and caring about self in a really beautiful way. But it's when people go, okay, it's either
00:00:24
Speaker
all or nothing. I'm either going to just totally sacrifice what's right for me so I don't have to fall victim to their guilt and shame and they win, you know, or I'll just be a bad person and I'll feel bad for it, you know. So, yeah, it's very delicate and it takes rehearsing. It takes practice. And what you're doing is you're training the other person how to treat you.
00:00:52
Speaker
In our last episode, we were talking about how to let go of guilt and shame, and we are gonna continue on this theme with Kelly Smith.
Introducing Kelly Smith: Hypnosis and Boundaries
00:01:01
Speaker
This week, we're gonna focus on how to build new choices. So here you'll learn how to have a healthy adult conscience without the need for guilt and shame, ways to identify when it's time to set new boundaries to escape a shame trap in your relationships, and suggestions for helpful strategies to interact with relationships in learning.
00:01:21
Speaker
Kelly Smith is a master hypnotist society trainer, hypnotist, and the director of Winter Garden Hypnosis in Florida, and she'll be joining us once again to explore these themes together.
00:01:33
Speaker
When people start to learn this way, talk a little bit about how people still have a conscience. And for example, my mother was a pediatrician, so she loves kids and she spent her whole career working with kids. And I remember her talking about how when kids are little, they're like wild animals and we need to socialize them. And so this installing a conscience thing is part of that.
00:01:56
Speaker
And so when we grow up to be adults and we're as adults, we're making our own choices and accepting responsibility for what happens. How do we have a conscience? How do we know where the you know, where what direction our compass needs to point without using guilt and shame in that way?
Understanding Empathy vs. Guilt
00:02:17
Speaker
That's an excellent question, because I think that's one of the reasons why people hold on to it, because they think, oh, my God, well, how am I going to have a North Star? How am I going to know when I'm doing something right or wrong?
00:02:28
Speaker
Um, one of the things to be aware of is that you have to have empathy for other people and know when your actions are stepping on the freedom or rights of another person or hurting someone else. Um, and so that is what you have to consider, uh, you know, when you're making choices, is this going to hurt someone else or not?
00:02:58
Speaker
Chances are if you have like a whole lot of guilt and shame, you've got a conscience. But there are people that don't have a conscience, sociopaths, psychopaths, and they literally don't feel that sense. They don't have, they don't experience guilt or shame. They just don't feel it at all. And it's fascinating because those of us who have it or have it a lot,
00:03:24
Speaker
cannot even fathom what that's like, but there are those people that don't have it. We're not talking about those people, but I do want to talk about them just for a second. I just do want to mention that those types of people tend to attract
Family Expectations and Boundaries
00:03:38
Speaker
the other type of person that can be easily manipulated by shame and guilt. So watch out because, you know, those are the people that are going to take advantage of it. But we're talking about just average ordinary people who do have a conscience. Trust that you have it. Trust that, you know, you have a sense of, is this going to hurt somebody else? Can you feel what someone else is feeling? If somebody else is hurting, let's say they're sad, they're in grief.
00:04:07
Speaker
and they're talking about it or they're sharing that with you and you slow down and you connect with them and you feel their pain for a moment. It doesn't have to last with you all day. It could just be in that moment you're sharing in that feeling. That's empathy. If someone is physically hurt, you watch it on TV or you see someone stumble and hurt themselves. It's almost like you could feel it in your own body for a second.
00:04:33
Speaker
and then it goes away. So that's empathy. And if you've got that, then you know your boundaries of what to do and not do, that would be safe to just be free to do or hold back from.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah, so as you're describing this, I'm thinking of some examples in my own life where if I did something that was a perfectly normal thing to do because there was guilt and shame manipulations happening, it actually would hurt other people because they were trapped by that or they were trying to manipulate the situation that way.
00:05:14
Speaker
So I think some people who get caught in this trap in their life, especially if it's from their family of origin, it's hard for them to see the difference between what would be a normal adult thing to do and a perfectly valid choice.
00:05:29
Speaker
even if it hurts somebody else, because the hurt that they're experiencing is something they're creating. It's not something real. So let's take the example of, let's say you grow up in a family where you're expected to go and pick people up and drop them off at the airport when they go on a trip.
00:05:48
Speaker
And if you don't, then it like that's considered a sign of love and care. And they did things for you. So you should do things for them. Okay, it would fall into that category. And if you say no, then the person might feel like they might feel bad. They might take it as a sign that you don't care. Okay, so then
00:06:13
Speaker
Oh, go ahead. So when we look at this type of situation, you know, I think it's a valid adult decision to choose not to do something like that. And yet within the family situation, that might seem like a big deal, it could blow up into being a big family drama.
00:06:33
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So I think that people who have that kind of culture in their family sometimes have a hard time seeing the difference between am I doing something that's actually genuinely hurting somebody or are they hurting themselves because of what I'm doing because they're stuck in a framework that is hurting them. If they're stuck in a framework that's hurting them, that's not your fault. It's not your fault.
00:07:00
Speaker
Right. So what you're talking about is having boundaries, new boundaries, learning new boundaries with family or loved ones or friends. So I think a lot of people need to discover what that really means. Yes, yes. The reason why people don't set boundaries is because of guilt and shame.
Overcoming Guilt in Setting Boundaries
00:07:22
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So it has to be that you're letting go of that feeling. You have to know that that feeling is false.
00:07:29
Speaker
It is not real. Shake it off. And then create a new picture of what it would look like if you were totally getting your needs met and you were honoring what's right for you and the other people feel heard or appreciated. So you're dovetailing both outcomes and you're caring about others and caring about self in a really beautiful way. But it's when people go, okay, it's either
00:07:58
Speaker
all or nothing. I'm either going to just totally sacrifice what's right for me so I don't have to fall victim to their guilt and shame and they win, you know, or I'll just be a bad person and I'll feel bad for it, you know. So yeah, it's very delicate and it takes rehearsing. It takes practice. And what you're doing is you're training the other person how to treat you.
00:08:25
Speaker
And you're, you're setting it up, you're thinking five steps ahead. If I propose it this way, what will be the response? If I propose it this way, what will be the response? And you're thinking about what is the outcome? What is, how do I want this to go long-term? How do I want this to go five years from now? And you back up to now and that's how you respond. And sometimes your response isn't even on the same chunk size as what's being discussed.
00:08:53
Speaker
But that's okay because ultimately you're training the relationship to be a good one, not one that is contentious and certainly not a relationship that is run by guilt. So sometimes you need to trust that people will adjust once you start to set boundaries, they'll eventually adjust around you and they'll get used to it.
00:09:17
Speaker
Eventually or sometimes they won't and you adjust you and you adjust how you feel about it You just feel great about you and your You know the boundaries that you're setting yeah, and it just it doesn't matter Yeah, some people will not come along for the ride most people will most people will learn it they'll adjust over time sometimes quickly sometimes slowly and
Adapting to New Boundaries
00:09:44
Speaker
And if they don't, you're seeing who can you have healthy relationships with. And sometimes you just need to have a more distant relationship with certain people. Or you see that person only when other people are present. Or you only see that person out in public. Or you only see that person for one hour rather than spending all day. Or you just set certain limits
00:10:08
Speaker
that's safe for the relationship to value that relationship because what you're doing is you're valuing that person in your life. You don't want to destroy the relationship. You want to keep it. So setting these boundaries and sometimes you need to drop your boundaries. Sometimes that's the answer depending on if that's your, your love or your spouse, your special clothes, sacred, intimate person. That would be a different situation, but we're, you know, so, um,
00:10:37
Speaker
Ultimately, it's about what is the outcome of this relationship? How do I want this to go? And you just consistently keep doing it that way. So you're training the entire dynamic of the interaction to be what it needs to be, to be healthy. Right. And when we do this in a way that's loving, so let's say there is somebody who's trying to manipulate with guilt or shame.
00:11:01
Speaker
the best thing to do is look at that and say, wow, that other person, they're stuck in this too, and they don't know how to escape. And you can feel sympathy for them being stuck in it without you joining them in that. So when you set boundaries, you can do it in a loving way instead of a defensive way or an angry way that you can see the whole picture of what's happening.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah.
Constructive Responses to Feedback
00:11:28
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So give some examples of how you can learn without like if you if in the past you've had a feeling of shame around learning sometimes when people are growing up they feel so much pressure to have the right answer to not make a mistake.
00:11:43
Speaker
that they have a lot of sense of shame around learning. So if that tends to be people's first response to needing feedback, give some examples of how they can train themselves to do that differently. Well, there's a really cool chapter in Heart of the Mind about this, which is responding resourcefully to feedback by Stephen Connery Andreas. So I recommend reading that chapter, but essentially it's
00:12:13
Speaker
You know, when a person is feeling a heightened sense of criticism when they're receiving feedback, when they're learning and someone's teaching them something, they're either hearing it really amplified like a screaming attack or being belittled, you know, or a person without that problem would just hear it at the tone it's being said.
00:12:44
Speaker
So in that chapter it talks about how there's a strategy where you you separate yourself and you're watching yourself and that person's giving you the feedback and you're taking in those words and that feedback and then that you that's out in front of you is picturing like on a movie screen what the person is saying and you're considering okay and
00:13:11
Speaker
Is this helpful, useful feedback? What can I learn from this? So that it's that dissociation, that one step apart that helps you to feel safe getting that feedback. And sometimes you might even need to just literally practice it that way over and over until it becomes an unconscious habit of receiving the feedback in the way it needs to be received. Or you can also change the submodalities of it.
00:13:42
Speaker
You know, you can, like we talked about, I talked about the sound, the, it being loud or sounding harsh. Little cool thing about NLP. And if you haven't learned NLP or gotten a certification in NLP, you should talk to Robbie. But, um, one of the cool things that it teaches is to change, um, or de amplify that. So the auditory sound of it, you can turn down the tones.
00:14:10
Speaker
You can turn it down so it's softer. It's softer in your mind and it's gentle and it's kind to you. You can change the submodality of how you're seeing the feedback. If the person, and again back to the new people making, Virginia Satir talks about how when you're a kid and you're getting feedback from your parents, you're a kid and you're craning your neck and they're really tall and you're really small.
00:14:39
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So that can be an imprint of how people learn and how people get feedback as they feel small, like their neck is craning and that person is towering over them.
00:14:50
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but you could change the submodalities of how you're seeing it. You can shrink the person down to maybe same height as you or lower than you, or even just tiny enough to sit in the palm of your hand. Whatever helps you to be able to actually get that feedback inside.
Modeling Admirable Behaviors
00:15:10
Speaker
And that would be a really useful way to be able to learn really cool things because it would just suck, wouldn't it? To not be able to learn anything because everything sounds like an attack or being belittled. That's a horrible way to live. You gotta heal that. You have to heal that if you're gonna grow and change and evolve and become the person you're meant to be. Otherwise you will be stuck. You will just stay stuck. So don't stay stuck.
00:15:38
Speaker
heal that, change some modalities, learn how to receive feedback differently so that you can grow and be better. And that's a great example of how we can use our senses and what we're the way we're perceiving things to change the response in our nervous system to what's happening is people their their gut reaction or their immediate response will be whatever they used to do.
00:16:05
Speaker
So when you learn hypnosis and NLP, you're discovering ways where you actually have these choices, which is really cool. And then when you are learning something new and you've gotten over this feeling attacked thing and you feel calm and safe and you're receiving the feedback, then you
00:16:33
Speaker
need to do something about the feedback you're getting. You need to implement some changes. But think about how one of the ways that we make change is that we copy or model people who have what we want to have. We copy their attitudes, we copy their values, copy their habits, so that we can have what they have.
00:17:04
Speaker
There's no possible way you can do that if you're threatened by what they have. If you can appreciate them, really like them. What is it? It says, you cannot copy or model what you resent. So that's a really additional important point to being in that attitude of discovery. You're discovering something cool. My gosh, you're in the science center of learning about yourself.
00:17:32
Speaker
The volume is down and soft and gentle and you see the person small and you're discovering something cool. And then you can actually find people that do do it right or the way you want it to go. And then you have to you have to like them. You have to think they're a cool person and want to be like them and model them and copy and start to rehearse, practice, repeat what they do over and over again inside of you.
00:18:02
Speaker
until you become naturally that way. It becomes an unconscious habit. So what you're describing, there's a kind of graciousness involved where you feel safe enough in yourself that you can actually appreciate other people.
Navigating Relationship Expectations
00:18:18
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that you can see perspective around what's happening. I remember I had a client once who married somebody from a big Italian family, and they would have these Italian feast like every week. And she was coming for weight loss. And it was this huge deal because they would serve course after course, right, and pasta. And it went on and on. And if she didn't eat it or she didn't finish what they gave her, it was a big deal.
00:18:43
Speaker
And what really helped her was to realize, hey, they're just pressuring her to eat it because the cook wants to feel like they were a good host and that their food was good and appreciated. And so it really helped her to see that that's really what they were looking for. And when she handled it that way, she was able to get away with not finishing everything they gave her because they felt they got the appreciation that they were looking for.
00:19:12
Speaker
And so I think that that view of saying, hey, what does this other person really want and need and can we give it to them in some way that that still works for us can be really helpful too.
00:19:26
Speaker
Yeah, oh, I have a story like that. Such a great client I had. She lost so much weight and just was so appreciative of the whole process. And she was great. And she was 79. She turned 80 during her program. But her and her husband had been together for, I mean, decades and decades and decades. And the thing they did together to share like close time was they ate cookies together.
00:19:55
Speaker
So when she started making these changes at 79 years old, he was like, what the heck? We don't have our special time together. He wasn't, of course, not saying that out loud. What he was doing was he'd make the cookies. He'd get the cookie and stick it right under her nose and go back and forth and go smell that. Doesn't that smell so good? Don't you want some?
00:20:20
Speaker
And, you know, she came to me with this problem because she loves her husband, but she doesn't want to hurt his feelings. And he obviously wants her to do that. So, you know, just like you were mentioning, you know, she had to learn these new ways to make him feel appreciated, spend quality, wonderful, lovely time together, finding new ways to do that. And maybe they share fruit together or maybe they just do a different activity altogether.
00:20:50
Speaker
so that the person is feeling okay and still wanted and accepted. So it's very interesting what people do when we change, isn't it? It's really
00:21:02
Speaker
It's really something and it never not happens that way. People always go through an adjustment when we're changing. Yeah, for sure. And we kind of have this tribal nature where people want to feel like we're part of the tribe and sometimes we want to feel like we're part of the tribe so there can be this pressure to do the tribal customs.
Historical Contexts and Personal Needs
00:21:25
Speaker
And sometimes those tribal customers don't work for us anymore. And so how do we deal with that in a healthy way? But it's interesting to look at this from a historical survival point of view, because there was a time where we needed that kind of tribal unity really for survival. And now we actually have the luxury to do this differently. That's true. Yeah. I mean, we talked about so much. You know, we talked about like, are you feeling
00:21:56
Speaker
shame a lot of the time. Do you feel that you're just a bad person or do you see that your behavior is separate from you? You know, the difference, the separation between doer and the deed being done. And how important that is. Having an attitude of discovery so that you can have fun, like you said, learning and growing and changing.
00:22:24
Speaker
We also talked about not changing this guilt and shame thing inside of you will cause you to just walk around like a zombie, like a hostage to it the rest of your
Avoiding Guilt-Driven Life
00:22:33
Speaker
life. You're just walking in dissociated days, only trying to avoid mistakes or trying to not hurt someone. And that's all you'll ever do. So we're learning this new strategy of how to do it in this new way. So you change the sub-modalities, you change your responses, you literally
00:22:52
Speaker
If you feel shame or guilt coming on, you can literally just shake it off. Shake your hands. Roll your head and stretch your neck. Stand up. Sit back down. Look up to the side and straight ahead again. You have to interrupt the pattern that the brain used to do over and over again. You have to take responsibility for changing that. So you've got to shake it off and interrupt that.
00:23:20
Speaker
so that you create this new way of doing things and you go, okay, no, no, shake, shake, shake that off. I'm going to choose discovery right now. And it may take you doing that 70 times or 700 times, but you are taking the responsibility to do it as many times as it takes, as many times as it takes to get that gone so that you can be in this new strategy. You can learn things will be great.
00:23:50
Speaker
You can change yourself, you can like yourself, you have self-acceptance. And that's all I want for everybody listening. And so we're really suggesting that if you're having light bulbs go off as we're discussing and exploring this, that it's time for you to decide what really matters to you in your life and what is your outcome and to choose something that you want to move forward with in your life.
Building Supportive Communities
00:24:17
Speaker
If you decide you want to stay stuck in guilt and shame, well, that's a choice. You can do that. But now you see there are other options. And sometimes as we're learning this, it's very helpful to have people in your life who support you in this new way of living. Because if you stay in your family of origin or maybe the friends you've had forever, we tend to attract people who are similar to us or in similar patterns.
00:24:43
Speaker
And so you might need to seek out a support system around you of people who are living in this new way. And I know when people come here at Hypnosis Training Canada for learning, that's one of the big things that helps them as being part of this culture of learning how to become fully the adult they are and make real choices for themselves and chase what they really want.
00:25:06
Speaker
And having that world that they can get feedback in or be surrounded by other people who are also sharing these values can be very helpful in terms of making this a reality. Because if you don't, it can have a really strong pull and pull you back in. Sometimes people get overwhelmed by it and they get lost in it.
00:25:28
Speaker
So that would be a really good thing to do. So Kelly, when you talked about modeling people, seeking out people in the world and it could be famous people, it could be people you work with or people you know in other ways that are good models for this and finding ways to have them in your life would be a really useful thing to do.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yes, surround yourself with the people that don't use guilt and shame, the people who give you the freedom to be yourself and support you and make you feel good. You know, life is too short to do anything other than that. Period. End of discussion.
00:26:11
Speaker
Great. Well, that's a great ending for this. Thank you. Yeah, that's awesome. So I think this was really interesting. I think the listeners are going to get a lot of benefit out of this. We covered some really important points. I really do hope so. This has helped me and I really, really do. I hope and pray that a lot of people get a lot of help and escape the bondage of guilt and shame by listening to this. Thanks a lot, Kelly.
Resources for Hypnosis and Growth
00:26:40
Speaker
To find out more about how hypnosis can help you or what it takes to become a professional hypnotist, visit HypnosisTrainingCanada.com. Remember to click the button to subscribe, share the podcast with a friend, and please leave us a review so you can help others benefit from the podcast too. Until next time.
00:27:00
Speaker
You've been listening to The Hypnosis Show with Robbie Spear Miller. Tune in next time to learn more about how you can change your life with hypnosis. And if you are interested in learning more about training opportunities, go to hypnosistrainingcanada.com and schedule a free consultation.