KEYS TO FREE YOURSELF FROM GUILT AND SHAME

• You made it. If there’s some part of yourself you routinely resent or criticize, imagine yourself being very little, so tiny you can crawl inside your body and say hello to each of your organs, to each part of yourself. If you believe that everything is your fault, then gently hold your heart, hug that wounded part of you, and exchange it for a loving self. Tell yourself, “Yes, I made a mistake. It doesn’t make me a bad person. My doing is not the entirety of my being. I am good.” If your trauma is still living in your body, embrace it, because you survived it. You’re still here. You made it. My breathing has been very limited since my back broke during the war, so I like to go inside myself and say hello to my breathing, to my lungs. Find your vulnerable part and love it all over.
• What you pay attention to grows stronger. Spend a day listening to your self-talk. Is it full of “I should,” “I shouldn’t,” and “yes, but”? Do you tell yourself, “It’s my fault,” or “I don’t deserve it,” or “It could have been worse”? Replace these messages of guilt or shame with a daily practice of kind and loving self-talk. As soon as you wake up in the morning, go to the mirror and look at yourself with loving eyes. Say, “I’m powerful. I’m kind. I’m a person of strength.” Then kiss yourself on the back of each hand. Smile at yourself in the mirror. Say, “I love you.”