Ok Edgie, here's another lesson for you. Please feel free to ask questions at the end of class today <grin>.

 

"As above, so below. As within, so without. As the Universe, so the Soul."

 

I have been thinking about guilt and shame a lot today. What incredibly motivating emotions. Since I have been watching it in action for the last few months and experiencing the repercussions of those emotions coming out of other people directed at me, I am even more acutely aware of just how damanging and harmful those two emotions can be when not dealt with maturely.

 

As emotions go, they actually do serve a function in our growth as human beings (for further and a more indepth understanding of guilt and shame, see John Bradshaw's Healing the Shame That Binds You). If we did not need them to grow, we would not have them as emotional responses to our own actions. Healthy guilt and it's brother shame allow us to see where the decisions and actions of our dark sides have caused ourselves and/or others pain and suffering. Healthy guilt and shame help us learn and change. Healthy guilt and shame allow you the opportunity to make amends for what your dark side chose to do.

 

When guilt happens because you become aware that your conscious and deliberate actions hurt other people and/or yourself, that is your higher self giving you the opportunity to examine the situation and your actions and learn from what you did. At that point you have an incredible opportunity for tremendous growth. In more evolved humans, this is the general course of action they take in order to learn and grow. They stop and examine their dark side and the repercussions of their actions.

 

Shame is an emotion that is the direct the result of guilt. Shame is what motivates a person to take action. Shame is not a pleasant emotion, not any more pleasant than guilt. They are both emotions that we humans in our base (lower) selves try desparately to get away from.  Our base, or lower self cares about 2 things, pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Guilt and shame are painful emotions, hense the base desire to run away from the pain of guilt and shame.

 

When a human being is not yet evolved or "mature" enough to be able to face painful stimuli, they will run from it in almost any way they can. A higher evolved human not only acknowledges their pain, they are able to examine it and work through all the corrosponding aspects of dealing with that pain. Lessor evolved or "immature" humans run away from pain through their actions. This is the basis of substance abuse or any other dysfunctional behavior that keeps a person from feeling their own feelings and working through them.

 

So how does the lessor evolved being deal with the painful feelings associated with guilt and shame they feel for the actions they perpertrated against other humans and/or themselves? Since they are unable to actually deal with their real feelings by feeling them and working through what it takes to work through the repercussions of their actions, they have to come up with an alternative response, one that causes as little pain as possible. That's called avoidance. They literally avoid the actual incident that caused their guilt and shame, by passing it completely in their minds, and go straight to avoidance.

 

Avoidance can take many shapes. It depends entirely on the pathos of the person involved in the avoidance. Their pathos has been created mostly by their childhood experiences to abuse and abusive situations and the way they have chosen as adults to deal with the unhealthy emotions and feelings and the subsequest behavior patterns that were generated by the abuse they suffered as children. A disproportionate part of the time, the behavior exhibited by these lessor evolved beings does directly effect those around them in one way or another. In the case of people who chose substance abuse, the substance becomes the way to avoid the pain of their guilt and shame.  In the case of a severely codependant person, the avoidance may take the form of abusing the person(s) and/or themselves, even more than they already have abused them with their original guilt/shame based action(s).

 

A case in point, let's say someone has for whatever their reasons, lied to other people about another person. In this case, if the person is deeply into not being able to face the pain of their guilt and shame, they will come up with a justification for their original actions. They will say they had the right to lie or something to that effect. They will come up with whatever their mind needs in order to stop feeling the pain of the guilt and shame. They will literally dump the responsibility for their actions on their already abused victim. It's would be like a rapist saying that the person he just raped deserved it.

 

If justifying their actions do not work, then they will often outright lie about the lie. In other words, they will literally create a lie to cover the first lie. This can get mighty sticky after a while for the person in the middle of pain avoidance. Eventually all the lies can and most probably will collapse in on them, and all they have been attempting to do to avoid the pain of their guilt and shame will come down on them anyway.

 

I have found the most effective means of pain avoidance over guilt and shame at my own actions is a sort of combination of both these techniques. Not only lie about the lie (or action), but blame the victim for causing the abuse to them selves in the first place. And then throw in on top of that the illusion that you the abuser and creator of this guilt and shame are somehow now the victim of your victim.

 

The reason lessor evolved people are so transparent to more evolved beings is because the more evolved being has been there done that. The higher evolved being has had their world of avoidance actions dropped on their own head enough times (and with enough painful repercussions) that they finally heard the universe's cry to help teach them their lessons. And now here's the kicker, the more highly evolved being actually feels extreme compassion for the lessor evolved being. They know what is ultimately in store for the lessor evolved being. They know how, no matter what, the universe is not going to let anyone get away from their lessons.

 

So let's pretend that your dark side purposely did something to another human being that you knew would cause them pain in some way. You did this action because your lower self was seeking to fullfill it's pleasure desire as opposed to say it's pain avoidance. I think that most probably we have all done this at one time or another during our lifetime. I know I have.

 

Now you have all this guilt and shame to have to contend with because you went ahead and gave in to your base nature. (Which is btw why we have a higher nature, it's there to keep our base nature from doing things that would harm other people.) If you are someone who has never really looked deeply at their dark side and learned from it, you probably feel pretty bad about what you have done and are in no place evolution wise to be able to do whatever is necessary to make amends for your actions. Now the pain from the guilt is eating you alive. Your base nature needs to escape (avoid) that pain. And so you need to come up with a reasoning to your base nature that will assuage the guilt and shame and take that pain away. This is where you need to blame your victim for being a victim.

 

Let's say your victim has exposed you for your actions. You are now angry because the victim chose to no longer feel victimized by you and chose to turn you in to the "police" for raping them. Now you have the excuse your lessor evolved beingness needed to thrust the guilt and shame on your victim. They are after all, in your eyes, now attacking you. You have a right to defend yourself now that they are "attacking" you for injuring them.

 

Now, why does this all have anything at all to do with your spiritual growth? Because the more you fight having to face the pain and deal with the repercussion of your actions, the worse it will be for you in the end. Why do I know all this? Right, been there done that. Lessons learned.

 

So this is not about judging someone who has yet to learn a specific lesson. If anything, it's about why those people need to be loved and sent healing love and light even more during times like these in their lives. this doesn't mean that you personally need to get so involved in their pathos that it is personally going to effect your own energy and growth. It simply means that you can send them that love and light and then walk away knowing that the universe is going to do it's thang with them one way or another.

 

Think of it this way, what if it was you who was attempting to avoid a lesson and no one was willing to love you enough to send out that same healing love and light your way? What if it was you who was the lessor evolved being? Think of it this way, to someone else, you are a lessor evolved being. Be thankful that you have someone sending you love and light.