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shame

Did you grow up with Religious guilt? (The Shame Series)

June 19, 2020 by Willow Leave a Comment

In my last article, I wrote about what shame feels like – and what you could be experiencing instead.

It’s a big topic. Which is why I’m bringing you this Part 2: All about religious shame.

Did you grow up with Religious guilt?

Me too.

Somehow, I was able to not succumb to the imposed guilt too much. I actually developed a rebellion toward it; and this “shadow” aspect of guilt was not without its own hold over me. It got me into some sticky situations, for sure!

It’s no secret that our culture has been built on the bedrock of fear, shame and guilt.  

It’s no secret that the opposite of these emotions is love. 

While fear, shame and guilt has been instilled to keep order over the people, as we are seeing in the world today, there is also a deep uprising of love, because love is innate.

These dark and light sides to humanity reside in you, they reside in me, they reside in all of us, that’s why you can relate to both sides.

The question is, what leads your journey? Love or Fear?

I’d like to notice whether the voices of guilt and shame have the tone of your mother’s voice, your father’s voice or your religious leader’s voice then those voices are not inherent to you.

If guilt and shame are not really who you are, then who are you?

Take some time to journal who you are without the confines of guilt, what choices would you make differently, how would you carry yourself differently, what kind of people would you surround yourself with?

Take a step further to explore who you would be, could be and are without shame…. this may take some outside support…. I’d love to support you in this! 

You’re welcome to set up an introductory session with me.

Unraveling yourself from the doctrine you were raised with can really require the support of a trained coach or therapist. No shame in asking for that support.

Religion carries a deep sense of spirituality that feeds and nourishes your soul, it also holds a sense of “control” that makes you feel like you are nothing without it. 

This can be confusing if you are a spiritual person by nature and a people pleaser. 

Coming from a huge catholic family myself I understand the conundrum this opposing message can create in you.

I know what it takes to find your own sovereign truth in the midst of all the outside messages. I’ve helped thousands of people come to clarity within themselves. 

I don’t believe you need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  I believe you’ve got to release yourself from the “control” that keeps you playing out your life inauthentically. 

You’ve got to trust that the light within you will not disappear when you clear out the shadows.  In fact it will only get brighter.

You are the only one who can heal this divide for you. And you are not only doing it for yourself, but for your parents and their parents and all the way back through your ancestral line.

You also do this healing for your children or any future children. 

You are here to shift the epi-genetic code, simply by your shifting your relationship to spirit, and making choices from a place of love.

What I have found is that when you let go of “control” of the outcome; the way your life looks, where you are at by the time you’re 40, the way you look to others, and how you feel about your own life, you get closer to Spirit.

You develop a closer, more powerful relationship with God/Spirit/Goddess and begin to know that this powerful force is inside of you.

I can hear my own father’s voice, he became a born again christian during my teens, and he’d follow me around the house reading the Bible!  He’d say, “The kingdom of heaven is within you!”  

He had his spiritual awakening while I was busy going through puberty, (good times)!  

To this day he reads St. Brigit’s prayers everyday and stands on the podium at church to read from the bible most Sunday’s. He is all in with his religion, but even more in with spirituality! To him they are one and the same.

As you might imagine his spiritual awakening and my hormonal crises created a huge rift in our relationship for the better part of a decade. But as I healed my own dualistic, confused relationship with the doctrine of religion and pure spirituality, I was able to honor his relationship with it.

I now see my Dad as a man with incredible faith, in fact, he has more faith than anyone I know, and it brings tears to my eyes the devotion he has to his practice and the relationship he has to his God. My two brothers and I find it astounding and inspiring! 

Without even knowing it, he’s become a master practitioner of something called santosha. 

Santosha is one of the yoga sutras, (kind of like the 10 commandments of yoga), it’s the practice of surrendering your preferences. This means you have to train yourself to let go of “liking” and “disliking” things. 

You have to stop seeing things as “good” and “bad” and start seeing things through the eyes of acceptance. 

You may be thinking, “but some things are completely unacceptable!”  

It is true that things are often “unjust,” and “unfair,” but if you let your emotional state be yanked this way and that way by what you believe is fair or unfair, you will be exhausted from the emotional roller coaster.

Santosha is the true path to contentment.  And contentment is a longevity practice, it can add years to your life, not to mention quality.

It doesn’t mean you won’t take actions to change the way things are in your life, it’s not acceptance in the way of complacency. 

It’s acceptance in the way of meeting yourself and your life exactly where you are at. When you do this you release the element of resistance that keeps you in it’s grip, and free up your energy to be in love, rather than shame and guilt.

I want this for you! If you want this for yourself – consider hiring me for transformational private coaching.

All My Love!

Willow

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: coming home, guilt, new age spirituality, new perspectives, overcoming religion, religious shame, shame, shame make over

Un-Claim Your Shame

August 24, 2018 by Willow 1 Comment

Shame is one of the most debilitating emotions a human can endure in this life, and for many it can last a lifetime.

What is Shame, actually?

Let’s break it down. Physically shame feels like a sinking inward, a recoiling of the heart, a rounding of the shoulders, a posture of protection. Emotionally it is an oppression of your inner flame. Shame is when you are made to feel like you did something wrong, weather that is the case or not. Shame gets lodged in your body in an instant and can forever get triggered each time you are reminded of that scenario or feeling. So, one small moment in time has the ability to form your path for life, if you let it.

As I pull together 20 of the world’s leading experts on Love, Sex, and Relationships for my 3rd annual Tele Summit “Alchemy of Sex, “ the topic of Shame is coming up quite a bit. What is Shame? Where does it come from? How can you heal it? All of these questions are answered in this year’s Free Virtual Summit, so keep an eye out for that in Sept.

You may remember a time when you were a child and an older sibling or parent shamed you for an action that you took in perfect innocence. Like the time your mom yelled at you for drawing on the walls with your crayons, or that time your older brother made fun of you and teased you for the way you played pretend with your stuffed animals. Shame can shut you down. These are mild examples, and in some cases shame can come from sexual, physical or verbal abuse, but the truth is unless your experience of shame has been acknowledged, addressed and healed it can affect you just as deeply no matter how severe or “normal” it was.

Shame is a rabbit hole that keeps going and going, until you learn to stop it, clear it and un-claim it.

To un-claim your shame is to no longer have it on your radar, meaning that it doesn’t even occur to you to feel shame. Growing up in Southern California in a small town near L.A. there where beautiful girls in my high school class who were getting boob jobs and nose jobs at 16; image was everything! I knew I had to be thin and pretty and smart or I would never be loved or accepted. Not by the boys at school, not by my friends, and certainly not by my parents.

This message of “not being enough” might sound familiar to you. It’s a message that is imprinted onto you throughout your life and it carries on into your early adult hood, keeping you from living out your fullest potential in this world. It dims the light within you that is your vitality, creativity, confidence, and authentic drive.

This deep sense of shame can inhibit you well into your 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and beyond, it will affect you relationships, your finances, and your health if you do not choose a different path. A path of being worthy!

Now let’s talk about shame in regards to sex. If you were fortunate, your first sexual encounters were with a significant other in a safe and supportive space.
If you were anything like me, on the other had, it was the exact opposite. It was far from safe and far from supportive, it may have even been nonconsensual. Causing you to shut down your pleasure centers and associate sexuality with being bad or wrong.

That’s no way to live!

Sex is one of the most beautiful gifts we have been given in this lifetime. When you are unable to open this gift and see all the beauty inside you are missing one of the most magical parts of the human experience.

So how do you heal from shame, much less un-claim it?

You have to start by identifying that there is shame. It can be helpful to know where it comes from, pinpoint the incident or time in your life.

Exercise: Un-claim Your Shame

I recommend finding a special place in nature or in your home where you can be still and quiet enough to tune into the place in your body that you feel shame, notice the sensation of it. Is it tight, constricting, numb, dull, achy, or sharp? Does it limit your breath capacity; does it affect your heartbeat? What happens to your nervous system when you feel this shame?

Once you have identified where it is in your body, and what it feels like place your hands there and begin to breathe into that place, expanding your inhale consciously into that place to create more space there. If you would like to you can exhale with a sound, maybe an “AAAA,” sound to begin with, which might morph into deeper throatier sounds or even animalist growling sounds. Repeat that breath, using the inhale to create space and using the exhale to release and clear out the current sensations of shame from your body. Do this as long as necessary until you feel the sensation in you body change.

Depending on how long the shame has been there and how deeply you feel it, you will want to keep doing this practice. I have had clients clear substantial amounts of shame in 1-3 of these sessions, for others it can take 1-3 months. You will know when you are complete; trust your deep inner knowing.

One of the things shame does is take you away from trusting yourself, and you will see that the more you clear the sensation of shame the more you will begin to trust yourself, and your future will unfold in a new direction.

Through this unfolding, you will begin to stand up for yourself, your confidence will rise and you will begin to experience a deep sense of knowing that you are worthy of love, you are worthy of joy, and you have worth.

I encourage you to find support on this journey of un-claiming your shame, as it is helpful to have an objective perspective while working out the stories that created this shame to begin with. Shame gets so ingrained in your consciousness; it can be difficult to separate yourself from “it.”

I am here in full support of your break-through; please don’t hesitate to reach out!

I am wishing you a life full of joy, light, vitality and phenomenal self worth!

Willow Brown L.Ac.

Filed Under: Health Blogs Tagged With: becoming whole, brene brown, let go of shame, shame, shame research, unclaim shame

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