Vulnerability and Shame

So I’m sure I’ve said this in other blog posts…but it’s worth repeating:

shame is the substance that fuels addictions.

Or a C.S. Lewis quote I remember copying out back in my college notebooks:

“…to love at all is to be vulnerable…”

Last week one of my dear friends sent me a link to this Ted talk video—->

The power of vulnerability |
Brené Brown

It seems I’m a little late to the Brené Brown party! The talk was fabulous and worth watching! I suppose I’ve been so busy reading books from the 600’s and the 1300’s that I wasn’t aware of what was going on in popular psychology culture right at this moment!

I’m glad people are still speaking about this and bringing awareness and healing to those of us who are asking ourselves:

“am I the only one feeling this way?”

I use this example with my clients:

Imagine if you were locked in a basement for 18 years and you finally got to come out and be free– you experience the feeling of sunlight on your skin– you see the world around you…you have the freedom, finally, to run around in the open air….

It’s absolutely amazing — but part of us feels like:

~ am I really allowed to experience this much sunlight?!
~ this feels indulgent
~ what do I do in this new place?
~ what if I make a mistake?
~ is someone going to lock me back in the darkness again?
~ this is so beautiful, it’s painful
~ why do I feel like crying?
~ I feel so alive here!

I remember my mentor and teacher in Montreal, Dr. Surkis, saying to us:

“When you get in touch with yourself, you get in touch with the touch you never had…”

It’s bittersweet at first…to finally feel belonging, tenderness, kindness…

Reminds me of the U2 lyrics:

I want to feel, sunlight on my face
I see the dust cloud disappear, without a trace
I want to take shelter,
from the poison rain,
where the streets have no name…

So it may be sad, or overwhelming, or new at first… but we simply must have courage to “go there!” …

To leave the familiar is to leave the
family we always knew, experienced, and internalized!

People can tell us: “you are worth loving, you were always worth loving…” but we internalized the experiential message from early childhood that communicated to us “you are not worth the love, the effort, the awareness, the kindness, the protection, the cherishing …”

If we experienced rejection, getting shut down and silenced– we, some of us, internalized the shame of that rejection.

All people are given free will, in hopes that they will freely choose the “good” and choose the most loving response— but they can misuse that freedom and choose to perpetuate their own unhealed shame, by rejecting us from their own inner rejection.

If we continue to believe their lie, however, how will this cycle ever end?!

Someone has to blaze a new trail!
Someone has to take the road less travelled– find the courage to seek out the truth and live in it!

–So what– if it may feel uncomfortable and unfamiliar at first…

Real Love is worth getting used to!

You once talked to me about love,
You painted pictures of
A never never land
And I could’ve gone to that place
But I didn’t understand
I didn’t understand.
~ Elliott Smith

There has to be a way to heal our old shame and not be bound by it, not be trapped in it, not return to it over and over each time someone pushes one of those old buttons…

Our life is all grounded and rooted in love, and without love we may not live. ~ Julian of Norwich

You are not alone on this path back to Love…

We are invited, in the Holy Scriptures, to love. We would not be invited if we didn’t have the capacity within us to choose it.

No matter how dark or difficult you may find this, persevere! Continue! Ask for courage — those who seek will find, to those who knock, the door will be opened unto them.

We are loyal to those old, internalized, experiential messages and we have no need to be loyal to them any longer. They are lies.

I hear Christ, in my deepest self saying:

“This is the way of love…follow me, I reveal this love, I lived this love, I am living this love now, calling you to it, I have always loved you…choose to follow this path of love…”

No matter how hard I try to listen to my doubts — and the people that say “that is all made up…”

I hear love.
When I enter into the stillness and just let whatever is, just be…

That gentle but persistent invitation to let go of the lies, die to them, and come take this higher path — stop internalizing the broken messages — come and follow me…

When you look at the Greek in that passage it is really more like:

Come here beside me, choose, if you wish, to walk this path with me.

I am with you always.
I will not leave you destitute…

Christ modeled to us the courage we ourselves need. We will not be left without this grace if we ask God to walk with us, help us heal this old wound.

I wish you love, always.
~ Dr.Cheryl

Gratitude & Thanksgiving

So I watched this short video today on the essential (spiritual) state of gratitude:

Gratitude: The Essential State

It reminded me so much of the Beastie Boys song!

What’d you think —
did you miss your calling?
It’s so free this kind of feeling
It’s like life It’s so appealing
when you’ve got so much to say
It’s called gratitude…

I just had to post it here for you all…

I had visions of writing a long blog for you today…but the kids are out of school so my creative, quiet time is here, after midnight…

I’ll have to return another time, I hope for this week!

Meanwhile, I wish you love! This school of Life is so important! Embrace Love and don’t let go! Hold on for dear life! Receive the Love that is at this moment being offered to you…

Oh! I’m hearing two other songs overlapping as I’m wrapping this up for you! And I don’t know this first song well– but I just looked up the lyrics– the part I heard in “my mind’s ear” 🙂

When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see
Just let my love throw a spark
And have a little faith in me…

And here’s a beautiful other, lovely part of this same song:

Well, I’ve been loving you for such a long time girl
Expecting nothing in return
Just for you to have a little faith in me
You see time, time is our friend
‘Cause for us there is no end
And all you gotta do is have a little faith in me…
~ John Hiatt

So beautiful, cause my older brother and I got to speak on the phone today– about taking a slow and steady path of faith (and psychological healing, health, rising consciousness, and spiritual growth!) — and how my personality is one that likes to move rapidly onward!

… but recognizing also, how important it is, to be balanced– or else one does not journey “further up and further in” as CS Lewis wrote about in his Narnia book ~ The Last Battle!

Balanced, meaning:
If I grow one sided, in Knowledge,
but have no Understanding,
then I do not have a map to direct my Knowledge.

And if I am not growing in my Being
(or awakened state/loving essence) — then I won’t arrive at a true Understanding either….

Lots more I’d like to describe for you but let these be seeds to further your own exploration!

Oh, and the other song I was hearing simultaneously!

If you’re lost and alone
Or you’re sinking like a stone
Carry on
May your past be the sound
of your feet upon the ground
Carry on, Carry on…
~ Fun

Have a lovely American Thanksgiving!
Wishing you love always,
Dr Cheryl

On the Mystics and Psychological Growth

I found the most beautiful writings today from the 1920’s, Evelyn Underhill! I had to share!

She writes:

The great man is rooted in history, plaited up in the life of his own time: absorbs from the human as well as from the spiritual. His feet are in Time, though his head is in Eternity…

~Evelyn Underhill

If you’d like to read the whole book, The Essentials of Mysticism, here’s a link to a free PDF of it:

Click to access teom.pdf

It struck me, as I was reading (listening to) this book, I heard the line:

His feet are in Time
though his head is in Eternity
~Evelyn Underhill

And it immediately reminded me of one of Elliott (Smith)’s lyrics:

With a giant fantasy life
Running round on feet of clay
~ Elliott Smith

Evelyn writes of the importance of the Mystics — to the whole spiritual body (of the “church”) — and how they are like the artist, or the creative genius, who quiets their mind enough to enter into the heavenly realms and translates back to us, in some kind of words, or symbol or song — some conveyance of these beautiful truths of God — or the feeling they got from that place.

They are ever so necessary to wake us up from our slumber! A sleep we do not realize we are within — until they show up in our lives, like a breath of fresh air or a cool mountain spring in the midst of our desert!

If you don’t read all of this book, at least skip ahead to the chapter called “The Mystic as Creative Artist”, in this chapter she writes:

“Ultimately, we owe to the mystics all the symbols, ideas and images of which our spiritual world, as it is thought of by the bulk of men, is constructed. We take its topography from them, at second-hand; and often forget the sublime adventures immortalized in those phrases which we take so lightly on our lips — the Divine Dark, the Beatific Vision, the Eternal Beauty, Ecstasy, Union, Spiritual Marriage, and the rest. The mystics have actually created, from that language which we have evolved to describe and deal with the time-world, another artistic world; a self-consistent and spiritually expressive world of imaginative concepts, like the world of music or the world of colour and form.

They are always trying to give us the key to it, to induct us into its mysterious delights. It is by means of this world,
and the symbols which furnish it, that human consciousness is enabled to actualize its most elusive experiences; and hence it is wholly due to the unselfish labours of those mystics who
have struggled to body forth the realities by which they were possessed, that we are able, to some extent, to enter into the special experiences of the mystical saints; and that they are
able to snatch us up to a brief sharing of their vision, to make us live for a moment “Eternal Life in the midst of Time.””

It was all such beautiful, full, inspiring words… I had to stop by here and leave you a taste!

I was out of the country (Paris!) for a couple weeks and other things (in “life”) have come up — but I usually tweet regularly @DrCherylM and still post some on Facebook — but again, I love to offer more depth of understanding here!

A friend of mine posted on Facebook tonight, his distress of trying to love one dear to him in the midst of an addiction that that person may or may not be willing to part with… He expressed what he saw as the end results of addiction are:

1) recovery
2) jail
3) or death …

I put these things here, and I continue to work as a psychologist, because I hold onto this idea, perhaps in faith or in knowing that we are all redeemable, and re-covery is for us all, if we choose it! Re-membering ourselves and re-covering our “nakedness” — not in the shame we so readily have known, but in Love, with forgiveness and reconciliation. In remembering a truth that was perhaps vastly crushed out of us in childhood– that we are Loved, dear to our Creator, worth Loving, worth cherishing, worth protecting– worth taking the high road for, worth forgiving and worth giving recovery to. Worth, not from anything we have accomplished and achieved– but because we were created by our Creator whose whole WAY is to Love, who IS Love– who formed us out of Love and calls us back to Love.

I just found this prayer (from the book of common prayer, 1928) — for my friend and for each of us:

For Guidance.

O GOD, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light riseth up in darkness for the godly; Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what thou wouldest have us to do, that the Spirit of Wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in thy light we may see light, and in thy straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

As I used to do, so long ago(!)
Here’s a song from a (*Christian) mystic to remind us:

Bob Marley – Could you be Loved

*Marley converted to Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity more than 6 months before his death– it’s a beautiful, but lesser known story! I just found someone’s retelling of it here: ( http://journeytoorthodoxy.com/2010/06/bob-marley-orthodox-christian/ )

Much love to you all! You are DEAR Souls, I invite you NOT to forget that Dear Ones! ❤️
Sincerely, Dr Cheryl

Truth Theory Article on “Why Diets Fail”

The guys at Truth Theory emailed me and asked me to write an article for them! They published it last month but I wanted to post it here in case you missed it!

Why Diets Fail ~ Dr. Cheryl article
It’s really about shame, addictions and how to keep bringing love to the cut-off, hurting parts of yourself!

Much love, always,

Dr. Cheryl

Love is the Answer Seminar

I uploaded this seminar on YouTube this evening!

… It’s newly recorded, updated from one I made before!

Love is the Answer is the title and link!

I teach about how to get more love and healing into your life! Also:

• Why we “depress” ourselves, or stay in anger or anxiety–
• Why we get so mad when people push certain buttons.
• What blocks us from intimacy
• How to be more self-compassionate and kind.
• Where we developed these patterns of behavior from and how to be more conscious in regards to healing our specific patterns!
• Aligning ourselves with and connecting more to the love of God

Much love to each of you!

I’ll keep you updated with quotes, encouragement, and resources here on my @DrCherylM Twitter page too!

In the Arms of an Angel: Releasing the Addiction that Haunts You

Remember, my goal here is to help you learn how to traverse through your own difficulties, pains, addictions, and problems– and get yourself OUT– and into a place of LOVE. I could write blog after blog on specific problems and teach you how to heal each one, or I can help you learn the pattern, the path, the Way to keep seeing what the essence of your problem is/the core, so that you can heal the root and stop repeating the same pain.

I have been contemplating the idea of “the thorn in our side”! I just looked it up to find a definition for you here:

“(idiom): Something that greatly annoys the subject.”

Yes, indeed, something that greatly annoys us — about our own self.  I am not focusing, in this particular blog, on any outer circumstances or people that continue to annoy us, but on our own person, because this is where we have the power to change.  

And truly, — when we change what is going on inside of us, it will change everything around us and our reactions to them.

First, choose to imagine yourself surrounded by unconditional LOVE right now.  I want to bring understanding and enlightenment — not negativity. Looking at what we define as “annoying” can be negative in itself– because by definition, we are already in judgment about that part of ourselves.

This post is about growing in our ability to see clearly, the things we would like to change, while at the same time not utterly rejecting ourselves in critical judgment!  When we move to attacking, critical mode we react with a freeze, fight, or flight response, and do not get to address or release the “addiction” underneath that we are judging.

Ok, so lets say you feel ashamed about/annoyed with:

your “failures” at work or at home
your looks (outer appearance),
your drinking,
your anxiety,
your smoking,
your depression,
your obsessions,
your perfectionism,
your constant busyness,
your addictions…

Whatever it is that you would like to shove into a closet before your friends come over to visit you at your “house”…

I have looked at the thing/pattern that annoys me a million different ways — and this week I was so “done with it!” So, out of my desperation and determination to move out of this pattern, permanently, I really think I got to one of the deepest-deepest places.

I had just read something about “choose to go into your own shadow self.” And then another friend of mine said to me “jump into that ocean of the subconscious, into the pain, and you will find your answer.” She didn’t exactly say “into the pain”– but that’s what diving into that ocean meant to me!

Once we each get there though, to this deep-deep place, then we find that part of us that is missing the Love — The annoyance soon loses its power, it cannot continue to torture us. We dis-empower it, by healing the core pain/fear.

I know you want desperately to get rid of this annoyance of yours– so let’s figure out how!

Let’s just use “excessive drinking” as the example here–

What if, one of the main reasons we actually go to the “addiction” is so that
we can continuously stay in judgment over ourselves?!

This “addiction persona” is not even our “real” self anyways. But, lets say there is this judging side of yourself that temporarily feels super-important while it stays in continuous judgement over yourself. This is another addiction/quick-fix in itself–where I am feeding a self-righteous part of myself that wants to suck up all of its worth by putting another part of me down (like an inner bully).

Jesus said: “judge not, lest ye be judged” — The answer is right here–when we sincerely apply this teaching to ourselves in this way:

“stop judging yourself lest you be judged — by yourself!”

This doesn’t mean that we are to throw away all wisdom and stop seeking this highest path of REAL LOVE and right action. There are definitely lots of parts of me that I wish God would just burn away right now– but each of these parts of ourself must be willingly released. Shaming, condemning and judging those parts of ourselves will not get rid of them. They are there from an old wound, missing love…The shame and judgment are exactly what keeps love from getting to those places!

But here– is the deepest part I discovered:

What if, yes, I (subconsciously) keep around _________(insert “thorn in side”)– in order to 1) secretly feed that self-righteous judgmental part of myself —
but also, and more importantly, 2) what if I keep my “excessive drinking persona” around because I am afraid to actually know the REAL ME?

Remember: Intimacy, “into -me -see” …that’s vulnerability and possible closeness or rejection.

Let’s say we were: rejected, abused, abandoned, ignored, unloved, or “pushed to being perfect” as a child. “Pushed to perfection” communicates: “YOU are not worth loving as you are, so you better perform!” When this happens to us in childhood then a deep insecurity develops over that part of ourselves and we want to hide our “Self” away — far – far away.

What if we develop and keep the “addicted persona” around– in order to create a fiction exterior — so that she is the one that keeps getting rejected by others? 

i.e. “they hate me because ‘I’m such a failure.’ or ‘I’m a drunk.’ or “I’m out of control.”

When we stay in this vicious and continuous cycle (above)–this works as a built-in barrier — it keeps us from ever actually getting to know our REAL self! She is hidden deep down below this “annoying problem” we cling onto for dear life.

I am amazed, constantly when truly, every time, the solution within myself and with my clients has to do with some kind of fear of intimacy.

Imagine, God is Love — and we keep saying:
“No! No! Not the Love” …. “I” may be rejected, so I don’t want to give myself an opportunity to be known and LOVED.”

We unconsciously taught ourself: it’s easier to be rejected if we keep this “drunk exterior” — because this fictitious character takes the “bullet” for us. I mean, really, what if I was carrying 200 extra pounds on top of my regular size body– and I keep saying:

“They must not like me because I am overweight.”

I literally created a fat-barrier. Or if I am constantly overwhelmed by worry and anxiety — I say to myself:

“You are always worrying, something is definitely wrong with you! No wonder people are annoyed by you!”

It is a sad thing that you or I weren’t initially loved unconditionally — but how long are we going to keep this fictitious persona around –and create all this drama around the addiction and about judging the addiction– instead of letting all of that go and running to that little girl inside and picking her up in a huge embrace of sincere LOVE?! Really and truly– if we allow the deepest part of ourselves to receive this Love that is RIGHT HERE– waiting for us to receive — then whatever we thought was the real problem will begin to lose its hold. We won’t need it anymore — because we stopped insisting:

“you will be rejected!”

You are LOVED. You are truly and dearly loved. The problem is not your “constant failing.” The inner you is hidden deep down and she is not experiencing the Love of our Creator. Choose to stop judging yourself for judging yourself! All of that is what it is— let it just be neutral– no matter how ugly it looks to you. Tell yourself:

“I refuse to let you be a barrier anymore– that little girl needs REAL unconditional Love and I am bringing it to her, NOW! Before she has changed!”

Much Love to You…

In the Arms of An Angel

There’s always some reason to feel not good enough…
In this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees
In the arms of an Angel, far away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
In the arms of an Angel; may you find some comfort here
~sarah mclachlan

I Gotta Find Peace of Mind ~ The Prayer of a Modern Day Saint

I was listening, again, to: Lauryn Hill – I Gotta Find Peace of Mind (Unplugged)

… And it is equal to the prayers of saints and mystics….

It’s so beautiful and “raw” — pleading with the Creator to help us find our true peace.

I think perhaps one of the artist’s “jobs” is to show us the way, when we are discouraged, — to remind us of truth and beauty,  when we are momentarily blind to its presence…

You love me despite myself, sometimes I fight myself
I just can’t believe that you, would have anything to do
With someone so insecure, someone so immature
Oh you inspire me, to be the higher me
You make my desire pure…
~Lauryn Hill

Love to each of you as you search for True Peace of Mind!!

Sincerely, 

Dr. Cheryl

*Note: I’m re-posting some of my old posts that got erased! This is one of them!

Somebody Loves You: Releasing Old Wounds to Let Love In

I was reading the mystic, Julian of Norwich this week and I happened across her words:

The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.

Yes, of course we would and could live gladly when we are in our right mind and heart and have an experiential knowledge of His love.  If we knew that the Creator of the universe loved us, why would anything in this world really even bother us?

I could spout out theology until I am blue in the face but that does not give us the experience of this deep love that Julian of Norwich is describing!

She writes:

In his love he clothes us, enfolds us and embraces us;

that tender love completely surrounds us, never to leave us…

So what do we do with the part of ourselves that feels like Elliott’s song:

“God don’t make no junk but it’s plain to see, he still made me…” ~Elliott Smith

Surely our actions and choices in our lives cannot be based solely on how we feel in a moment.  There hast to be a way “out” of this pattern!

I just gotta get out of this prison cell
Someday I’m gonna be free, Lord!
Find me somebody to love…

~ Freddie Mercury / Queen

We pray to God for relief…”Please God, this pain is too much — what can I do to be free of it?  What can I do to genuinely be free of it, not run to something that will just mask my shame and make me feel good in the moment — I want a real solution that will last.”

You need a love that’s gonna last 

~ Prince

As a side note,  if you wonder why all of these artists, philosophers, musicians and poets of old have access to these kinds of deep truths and understandings of the complexities of our inner  psyche — here’s one writer (a priest) that I found a few weeks ago who described exactly why!

In creating a work of art, the psyche or soul of the artist ascends from the earthly realm into the heavenly; there, free of all images, the soul is fed in contemplation by the essences of the highest realm, knowing the permanent noumena of things; then, satiated with this knowing, it descends again to the earthly realm. And precisely at the boundary between the two worlds, the soul’s spiritual knowledge assumes the shape of symbolic imagery: and it is these images that make permanent the work of art. Art is thus materialized dream, separated from the ordinary consciousness of waking life.

~ Pavel Florensky 1882-1937

The problem, however, that we run into (Florensky writes much on this) is that we can get “lost” in a certain place within our spiritual imagination and we think we are growing closer to God and doing all sorts of “spiritual things” to please God, when really– we are in a place that is akin to the dreaded sleep in Tolkien’s Mirkwood Forest, or listening to the Siren’s songs of old, or C.S. Lewis’s Dark Island — where our “dreams” are being played out — but truly, we have put ourselves in a kind of sleep.

It is too much to describe in one blog post, but I know myself well enough to know that I will not stop in my pursuit of giving people this warning and as much understanding of it as I can…The spiritual Fathers from long ago (400A.D.) call it “prelest” (Here is the wiki, but that often is edited. Here is an Orthodox site that describes it as well.)

It is actually a really painful subject for me to talk about — but I remember reading a certain Madeleine L’Engle book (Two Part Invention) where she said something about how her most painful books often turn out the “best”…not necessarily commercially, but because they cut to the quick…

My part here, in this blog, besides to assemble all of these thoughts that have helped me on this path we are contemplating together in this “weekly session” — is to say, that sometimes we have deep trauma or rejection from early experiences in life. We have the capacity to seal them off and bury them with tons of “numbing glue” and not even realize it.  As much as we try to just take a big stamp and stamp it over our face “God Loves you” “Jesus Loves you” etc.  It doesn’t work that way.  True healing does not work that way.

God did not create a static ocean that just stands still, in one place…the streams feed it, the rivers feed it, it is in motion.  Like the word “e-motion” it is in motion.  When our past is extricated away from us and our feelings are frozen solid and there are deep painful places we dare not go — we can’t just think a “Jesus Stamp” will make it all go away.  Jesus did not put a “Jesus Stamp” up upon the cross.  He lived a reality where he experienced the abuse –as an innocent man–, scorning its shame — he could have escaped at any moment, he didn’t. He didn’t face it to be a doormat or a pleaser either.  It is a mystery — like the quote I put on Facebook last week:

We see…it is not the task of Christianity to provide easy answers to every question but to make us progressively aware of a mystery.
~Kallistos Ware

We must do the best work that we can, always,  to stay watchful and meaningful, and vigilant, to pursue truth in our innermost parts and to invite God to truly Love us, to clarify these great mysteries — and help us to heal these old, old glued over wounds.  We must begin to be honest…to not force ourself, but do not accept our old excuses either, because they are lies.

“If we don’t pray according to the needs of the heart, we repress our deepest longings. Our prayers may not be rational, and we may be quite aware of that, but if we repress our needs, then those unsaid prayers will fester.”

~ Madeleine L’Engle

and then Julian of Norwich writes:

…the goodness of God is the highest object of prayer and it reaches down to our lowest need.

and she writes this:

Grace transforms our failings full of dread into abundant, endless comfort…our failings full of shame into a noble, glorious rising…our dying full of sorrow into holy, blissful life. …. Just as our contrariness here on earth brings us pain, shame and sorrow, so grace brings us surpassing comfort, glory, and bliss in heaven…And that shall be a property of blessed love, that we shall know in God, which we might never have known without first experiencing woe…

It is so important that we do not use “spirituality” as a way to escape from the problems that we have.  We were given a human body and psyche — Soul, Spirit, Mind, Heart — I won’t differentiate all of those now, because I have run out of the time I allotted for this “session” — but when we turn to an “all mystic” approach and insist on “staying up in some kind of spiritual high” — we are not respecting the fact that we are living within a body.  We can get lost in our own imaginings…

When people do not know what to do with the pain of their past, we find ways to try to “get over it”… Sometimes the best way over — is through.

“The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys.” ~ Madeleine L’Engle

Here’s a 1 minute video…

a Blessing Poem of John O’Donohue’s before he passed from this world: