Understanding of Shame, Guilt & Self-Sabotage

🧶 What It All Really Means — Understanding of Shame, Guilt & Self-Sabotage

You’ve been carrying pain. And instead of being met with understanding, that pain turned inward. It became shame (“I’m broken”), guilt (“I did wrong”), and self-destructive behaviors’s (“I don’t deserve better”).

These aren’t failures.
They’re adaptations.
Your psyche, your body, and your nervous system did what they could to survive and make sense of what hurt.

💠 Psychologically:

Your inner critic developed early on to keep you safe—to make sure you followed the rules, pleased others, avoided rejection. Shame was a way to control yourself when the world felt out of control.
But now? That mechanism is outdated.
You don’t need to be policed.
You need to be held.

💠 Spiritually:

Your soul doesn’t see shame. It sees sacredness—even in your mess, even in your mistakes. The soul doesn’t ask for perfection. It asks for presence. It’s been whispering to you:
“You are already enough. Even in the middle of your undoing.”
The shame isn’t your truth. It’s your forgetting.

💠 Energetically (Quantum View):

What you focus on, you feed. When you stare at your “failures,” your body, mind, and energy reinforce them. But when you become a gentle observer—noticing with curiosity instead of criticism—you shift the very frequency of your being. You collapse new possibilities into your field.
The observer changes the observed.
You are the observer.

💠 Emotionally and Personally:

This is hard. It’s real. It’s lonely sometimes. You’re likely exhausted from fighting yourself every day.
You might think, “But I don’t know how to love myself.”
That’s okay.
Start here:
“I’m willing to learn how to not hate myself.”
That’s the first crack where light gets in.

💗 The Gentle Witness Practice

To meet yourself without shame, even when you feel like hiding

1. Pause
Find a quiet moment. Put your hand on your heart or belly.
Say:
“I am safe to see myself.”

2. Name What’s Here
Whisper or write:
“I feel ashamed because…”
or
“I’m hurting because…”
No fixing. Just honesty.

3. Locate the Feeling
Close your eyes.
Where is it in your body?
Say:
“I feel it in my [chest/stomach/throat]. I’m with you.”

4. Speak With Compassion
Imagine speaking to a hurt child.
Say:
“You didn’t deserve to carry all this alone. I’m here now.”

5. Shift the Voice
Notice any judgmental thoughts.
Ask:
“Whose voice is that?”
Then gently say:
“I choose a kinder voice today.”

6. Anchor in Truth
Finish with a grounding phrase. Even if it feels fake at first. Try:
“I am learning to care for myself.”
“I’m not my mistakes.”
“There is nothing wrong with me.”

You’re not weak for struggling. You’re brave for still showing up.

Healing isn’t about becoming someone new.
It’s about remembering who you were before shame convinced you you were unworthy.

And that remembering?
It begins with one breath… one pause… one act of gentleness at a time.

Lots of love always,

Nicoline C Walsh

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