Less Shame, More Peace (Part 2)

Mandy Kahn’s Peace Class HANDOUT 65; Ananda (DBM), Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

 

[Part 1] There is a direct correlation between how much guilt and shame is being held within a population and how loving its actions are.

When we choose to release our guilt and shame, we are free to venture up into our peace minds. And when there, we naturally act in peace and in service, in ways that honor everyone, including ourselves.

There is a direct relationship between whether children are taught to hold shame and whether there is a preference for war, for violence, and for cruelty within a community.

Release the shame within a society and we also release future proclivities for war, for violence, and for cruelty. That means we make our neighborhoods safer and the world more harmonious just by replacing the habit of remorse with the habit of setting an intention for a loving future action.

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Internalized guilt and shame result in future unloving actions. Why?

The reason is because what we focus on, we build.

When we react to our own past unloving action with an ongoing pattern of guilt, shame, and remorse, we are giving our focus to what we don’t want to build more of — and we are, in doing so, building more of it.

But there’s another option.

When we react to our own unloving action by learning from it, creating an intention for a more loving future action and focusing on why we are choosing that loving future action, we are using our focus to build new and more loving patterns of behavior in the self.

That makes experiencing the results of our actions a process that evolves us rather than traps us in a cycle of similar action.

Let’s look at another example of how this process might play out in a person’s experience.

Let’s say Person B has just said something to his wife [Mandy] that has hurt her feelings, and now he feels guilty.

If Person B wants to create a future of loving action, he might choose to follow these steps.

• Step one: He might take responsibility for what he said and apologize.
• Step two: Whenever that experience pops into his mind, he might think something like this:
• I certainly learned from the experience of saying something that hurt her feelings. I learned that I prefer to say things that make her feel good. And I intend to say things that make her feel good in the future.
• Remember that time I told her how much I enjoyed her jokes? She was so pleased that she glowed! I loved how it felt when I complimented her. I loved seeing her reaction. I loved how it felt to bring her that joy. And I loved all the harmony it created within our relationship. I look forward to saying more things to her that will bring her joy.

Notice how there is no guilt, shame, or self-berating that follows the incident. Instead, Person B directs his focus towards the thing that he wants to experience and to the service he wants to bring to others.

Person B’s guilt and shame after hurting her feelings do not benefit her.

Instead, they tether Person B to his lower mind, and that keeps him from being his most loving self. He can best serve her, himself, and all humanity when he releases guilt and shame over his actions and directs his focus towards that of which he’d like to build more. That will free him to roam upwards into his Peace Mind more frequently, and from there, he’ll get new ideas about how to support others.

The next time shame comes up, instead of berating ourselves, consider thinking something like this:

• I learned a lot from that experience and as a result, I’m going to set an intention now to treat others with respect, with love, and with honoring. I step into peaceful action now.

No matter the magnitude of our past unloving action, our intention to carry out loving actions in the future is more helpful to others than our guilt and shame over what we did.

Our intention to carry out loving actions in the future supports our ability to carry out such actions. Our shame over our past actions does not. Said another way:

If our ultimate goal is service to all beings, an intention to be of service can get us there, while guilt and shame over past actions can keep us from being able to get there. See Part 1.