Hello!

How are you?

This is one thing that I get really fired up about.

It’s guilt, shame, self-judgment, and self-punishment. 
 

For most feelings, I’m passionate about encouraging us to be more compassionate with them, to listen to them more, to be more present, to stay with them until they pass.

But not for guilt and shame and the feelings that come from self-judgment and self-punishment.
 

I often liken it to two children. If one was repeatedly hitting the other one over the head, we would want to stop that hitting before listening to what was going on. 

Ideally, we’d stop the hitting with a loving limit, both verbally and physically if needed, “I won’t let you hit Johnny.”

We’d recognise that the hitting comes from pain, and we’d ideally refrain from judging or shaming or blaming the hitter, but we’d stop the hitting first.

We wouldn’t just stand by, watching the hitting going on, day after day, and giving the child who was being hit lots of empathy.

That’s kind of how I see guilt, shame and self-judgment.
 

In my Aware Parenting Virtual Village recordings, I call these, “hitting ourselves with emotional sticks.”

When we hit ourselves with the emotional sticks of, “I should have done that, I shouldn’t have done that, I’m a bad mother, I’m xyz,” then we create emotional bruises.

Of course we can listen to the emotional bruises, but it’s so much more compassionate to learn to stop hitting ourselves with emotional sticks.
 

I’m particularly passionate about this because I believe that as women, we often stay in painful situations, or put up with them, because we keep on saying that we need to heal more, or grow more.

Sometimes we just need to say, “No. I’m not willing to let myself be treated like this any more.”

I’ve done this myself in relationships, for LONG periods of time. I kept on putting up with (ie. saying yes to) things that I found really painful, because I told myself I just needed to keep on doing more inner work.

You know that I LOVE inner work. AND I finally learnt that loving limits are vital too.
 

Another reason I’m really passionate about differentiating these two types of pain – pain which, when felt, leads to healing, AND pain which is simply created by self-punishment, and can be recreated again and again for eternity, is again from my own experience.

I remember when I was doing my psychotherapy training; which I started 24 years ago. Many times I remember crying and crying when I was thinking things like, “I’m so wounded.” 

At the time I thought those tears were healing.

Now I just see that I was creating the pain by hitting myself with an emotional stick of self-judgment.

And just as I wouldn’t stand by and watch a child hit another child with a stick, or a man hurt his partner, I also want to inspire women and mothers to know that they can set loving limits with harsh inner dialogue.
 

And I know that my way of thinking is different from other systems.

Other systems would talk about going in to the shame more, going in to the guilt more, finding deep compassion for the judging parts of ourselves.

I tend to think that we need to be able to stop hitting ourselves with sticks, at least some of the time; stop hurting ourselves FIRST, before we can listen in to the judging parts.
 

My preference is to stop creating NEW shame and guilt FIRST.

THEN, we might find it helpful to go back to past experiences and really listen to the parts of us that felt guilt and shame, and stay with them with compassion.

THEN we might be able to hold those judgmental parts of us with such loving compassion, that they open and reveal themselves as hiding pain within them.

And some of us may be able to do those things whilst still doing the self-judgment. But I found that really challenging, without differentiating the two.
 

So my general invitation is to start noticing when we pick up those emotional sticks, and over time setting loving limits with hitting ourselves, and putting the stick down again.

And at that moment, inviting our Inner Loving Mother to come and give us compassion instead.

For example, perhaps you’ve just spoken to your child in a harsh tone. Instead of hitting yourself with an emotional stick, how would it be if your ILM said something like, “I know how much that doesn’t fit with your deepest held values, sweetheart. Are you feeling sad? Disappointed? And what was going on for you that you did that? I’d love to understand. Were you feeling tired? Frustrated? Longing for some rest, or cooperation, or support? Did it remind you of when you asked for things as a child and weren’t responded to? I’m here with you, and I love you.”
 

Imagine if all the women around the world stopped hitting themselves with emotional sticks.

What kind of world would we live in?

A few industries would go bust straight away – all those that thrive on women judging their bodies and their age and their looks, for a start.

And how would that be for the sense of community between women? If none of us were judging ourselves or comparing ourselves, think of the sisterhood – it would be even stronger than the one that is already developing.

Imagine how it would be for the children of the world, with the mothers standing strong together in self-love.

We wouldn’t put up with many of the things that we have put up with.

We would change the world.
 

Every time you set a loving limit with self-judgment, and respond to yourself with loving compassion instead, you ARE changing the world.

Every time you set a loving limit with a should, and listen to what you really want and what you really value, and you really feel, you are making a difference to your world.
 

I wonder if any of this resonates for you.

Do you notice the emotional sticks that you hit yourself with?

Would you like to become more aware of when you start picking them up?

Would you like to set loving limits with hitting yourself with those sticks, even sometimes?
 

I am so passionate about this, because I have experienced it first hand. It REALLY is possible to stop treating ourselves so harshly, and replace the should’s and have-to’s with compassionate self-listening.

This really is at the core of all my work.

I’m passionate about Aware Parenting because, bringing our children up without shame, blame, punishments and rewards means that they grow up (relatively) free from those emotional sticks – because they internalise how they treat themselves from how they are treated. (Relatively because they still live in a culture which is judging and shaming and shoulding all over the place!)

And I’m passionate about us as women and mothers, owning our beauty and power through stopping the self-punishment and self-denigration.
 

I have a free course, Get Free From Guzzling Guilt, if you want to learn more.

And my Inner Loving Presence Process Course is still available. 

Please ONLY say yes to this course if it calls to your heart.

Please don’t do if it you are feeling the FOMO (fear of missing out). 

This is a profound practice, and I trust your Self, which guides you and tells you when the time is right for you for something, or whether something is right for you or not.
 

AND I’d love to share comments that two of my friends and colleagues wrote on my FB wall last night.

Natalie said,
“This is hands down the best, most empowering form of therapeutic process I have come across in all my years. Why? Because it puts YOU in the drivers seat.

One of the core elements of social work is respect for autonomy, which is often hard to achieve because of the power differences between the professional and the client, which means you will always have a risk of be paternal towards them, believing you (the therapist) knows better. The ILPP turns that on its head, because you don’t need a therapist in order to heal and do this deep and profound inner work, and even if you do have a therapist to do it with you, there is no sense of them trying to do the healing for you, they simply provide the presence for you to reflect off of so that you can see yourself more clearly.

It is truly amazing.
Thank you Marion for this incredible creation. Xoxo”

And Sam said,
“I love Marion Rose’s Inner Loving Presence Process for mums, which is a distillation of all her years of experience. It is an amazingly straightforward, yet rich, way of connecting with ourselves and healing the hurts that we all carry from our pasts. It is a structured way of listening to ourselves, bringing compassion, gaining insight and facilitating deep healing of the sweet spots that keep popping up in our everyday lives in the form of painful emotional reactions.

And I love that it incorporates elements of a variety of approaches that I have learned about and valued in my experience as a psychologist and a mum, including non-violent communication, self-compassion, aware parenting, attachment and trauma healing, somatic psychotherapy, Imago therapy, and so much more!

Marion’s Inner Loving Presence Process Course gently guides you through the process and its applications and offers amazing support along the way.”