Hello!

I wonder if you read my last email, which was all about differentiating between thoughts and feelings?

I am so passionate about helping mothers free themselves from self-punishment, and I find myself wanting to write more about this.

 

I used to think that feeling any feeling was a helpful thing.

That was until I began to discover that some feelings are created by self-punishment.

In my Aware Parenting Virtual Village, I talk about how feeling guilt and shame is like hitting ourselves with an emotional stick and then feeling the pain and the emotional bruises of that afterwards.

Instead of feeling the emotional bruises, it’s much more helpful for us to learn to set loving limits with the self-punishment in the first place.

This is where Aware Parenting comes in.
 

 

If another child was about to hit your child with a real stick, you might say something like, “I won’t let you hit my son,” and if necessary, you would put your arm out and hold that child’s arm, to stop him hitting your son.

If your child was about to hit you, you could also set a loving limit there ~ “I won’t let you hit me,” and if necessary you might put out your hand to stop the hitting. 

In loving limits, there is no punishment, shaming, disconnection, or harshness. 

Simply the recognition that there is pain underlying that behaviour. 

All we need to do is lovingly stop the behaviour, and empathically listen to the feelings that lie underneath.
 

We can do something similar for ourselves.

If we notice that we have picked up an emotional stick to hit ourselves with, such as, “I’m a bad mum, ” or, “I shouldn’t have done that,” then we can also set a loving limit.

And it looks pretty similar,

“I won’t let you do that,” or, “I won’t let myself say that,”

If you have a relationship with your Inner Loving Father (find out more in my Inner Loving Presence Process Free Taster), then he can set the loving limit for you, “I won’t let you say that to yourself,” or, “I won’t let you hurt yourself.”

 

This knowledge and these skills have changed my life.

I used to be full of shame and guilt.

And now I am not.

If I feel an emotional stick coming in, in 99% of the time, I set a loving limit within a few seconds.

My ILF does it automatically for me.

And then my ILM comes in with compassion and empathy.

To see what was going on underneath, like we would with our child.

 

This is why I love Aware Parenting – because we can use all the principles that we use with our children, with ourselves.

In Aware Parenting, we know that children only do things that we don’t enjoy when they have unmet needs, a need for information, or a need to express uncomfortable feelings.

That means we can totally move away from the paradigm of punishments and rewards.

There is so much research to show that punishments don’t actually work.

And of course, that is because they don’t actually address WHY children do those things in the first place.
 

And that is why punishing ourselves with those emotional sticks doesn’t work either.

You can tell yourself you are a bad mother over and over.

It probably won’t change a thing.

And in fact, it would probably bring so many emotional bruises, that you would do more things that you don’t want to do as a mother (because one of the reasons we act in ways we don’t enjoy as mothers is because of pent up painful feelings).

Hitting ourselves with emotional sticks -> feeling painful feelings -> being less present as a mother.

So, the greatest gift you can give your child is to set loving limits with emotional sticks.

 

And if you are hitting yourself with emotional sticks about hitting yourself with emotional sticks, you can set a loving limit there!

I wonder how you feel when you imagine not punishing yourself.

Do you feel worried that you would sit on the couch all day, eating chocolates and reading novels or scrolling Facebook?

We have been brought up in a culture that believes that if children or adults aren’t punished or threatened, they will be wild, unhelpful beings.

But has harshness to yourself ever made you more compassionate?

It is compassion that helps us return to our true nature.

The more we listen to our feelings and needs with compassion, the more we can be the loving, compassionate being that we naturally are.
 

It’s just the same with children. Punishments don’t help them be more loving. Compassionate understanding of their feelings and needs helps them return to their true loving nature.

I’d love to hear how this sits for you.

Would you like to stop hitting yourself with emotional sticks?

Would you like to stop feeling guilty and ashamed?

Would you like to respond to yourself with loving compassion?

Do you have any fears of what might happen if you stopped punishing yourself?

Are you willing to set loving limits with emotional sticks?

And remember, I have a free course about this, in terms of guilt, theGet Free From Guzzling Guilt Course:

 

I am SO passionate about helping mothers free themselves from guilt, because I know what a HUGE difference it has made to my life, to my capacity for compassion, and to my relationship with my children.
 

And if you’re already practicing Aware Parenting and want to apply Aware Parenting to yourself, I’m reminding you again of my Living Aware Parenting Course, which starts on the first of July – it’s on sale until then too!