- Guilt and shame are becoming an epidemic
of our modern world.
Guilt and shame are some of the lowest,
most debilitating feelings we ever have to deal
with in our day-to-day life.
So keep watching, because I'm going to explain
to you how you can overcome those draining, horrible thoughts
and feelings of guilt and shame.
And I'm going to tell you the different strategies
that you can use to stop feeling shame,
to stop feeling guilt,
and to stop them controlling your life
so that you can be free and you can be happy.
So, what is the definition of shame?
Well, shame can be defined as a feeling of embarrassment,
a feeling of humiliation, a feeling that arises
in relation to the perception of us having done something
dishonorable, embarrassing, immoral, or improper.
You know, when people feel shame, they drop their head,
they can't make eye contact.
They often blush or become so embarrassed,
and they feel this awful sense of shame.
The definition of guilt is that guilt is described
as a self-conscious emotion
that involves negative evaluations
of the self, feelings of distress, feelings of failure,
and, again, feelings of blame,
"I shouldn't have done that."
And why are we feeling even more guilt
and even more shame than ever before?
Well, both guilt and shame are a perception,
and years ago, you know,
we could hide away.
Our every move wasn't on social media.
We could escape.
And now, it's becoming harder and harder to get away
from the feelings of guilt and the feeling
of shame also because we are now comparing ourselves.
"No one else does this.
"No one else messes up.
"No one else has done that."
You know now that on social media, people can do shaming.
We've heard of revenge porn and people putting
up pictures or pictures that aren't even you
with your face on them to make you feel shameful,
to make you feel embarrassed, to make you feel horrible.
So it's other people's perception. After all,
if no one knew you did anything wrong,
if no one ever knew, you might feel less guilty
and less shameful.
You know, it's easy to make a child feel ashamed.
Many clients come to me and say, "You know,
"when I was a kid, my mother came in,
"if I had my hands in the bed,
"she'd go, 'What are you doing in there?
"'Get your hands out of of the bed.'"
One of my clients said she had to sleep
with her hands on the sheets, like that.
Every night, her mother was obsessed
with the fact that she just might touch herself.
And if she had, "That would be so dirty,"
and yet, kids love doing that.
You know why?
It feels kind of nice.
It is easy to make children feel shame,
shame for liking their body,
shame for touching themselves,
shame for not being clean enough.
One of my clients said to me, "You know, I was in the toilet.
"My mom came home.
"I ran to greet her, and I hadn't cleaned myself.
"And she beat me
"and told me I was dirty and disgusting. And to this day,
"I'm terrified when I go to the bathroom that I'm not clean.
"I carry that feeling everywhere.
"I remember the shame
"of her telling me I was so dirty." When the truth
is, she was a little girl, excited about her mom coming home,
and she jumped off the toilet and ran to meet her.
And you know,
it's so easy to feel trauma in our childhood.
"I was made to feel shameful."
I see this every day.
"When I was a kid,
"I looked at the neighbor's genitals and they looked at mine.
"And then my mom said I was the devil incarnate,
"I was disgusting."
But children don't understand that.
And so, childhood trauma can leave us
with tremendous guilt, tremendous shame.
The shame is over something we did
that society thought was wrong,
but the guilt is, "Oh, you know,
"I took money from my mom's purse.
"I cheated in an exam.
"I kissed my friend's boyfriend
"or girlfriend and I feel so guilty."
So our biggest shame will come from childhood trauma
or perception that we've done something
we should be deeply deeply embarrassed about.
And then we have the pressure of social media,
because we have more scrutiny, more observation,
more judgment than ever before.
And then we have guilt about how we are.
"I feel so guilty I don't see my mom,"
or, "I feel so guilty I don't visit my parents.
"I feel guilty,
"I have more than my friends.
"I feel guilty,
"I'm having my third baby,
"and my sister can't even have one, and I'm guilty.
"I'm guilty,
"I can't get pregnant."
Somebody said to me, "My whole community saved
"up for me to have IVF and I didn't even make one egg.
"And I felt so guilty.
"I took that money and I failed them."
We can feel very guilty about our sexuality.
And it's important to understand
that everyone can feel this.
We can feel guilty about eating too much.
"I feel guilty
"I ate all that food.
"I feel guilty
"I've got more than someone else.
"I'm guilty because I want more.
"Why can't I be happy with what I have got?"
So how do you deal with these feelings of guilt and shame?
And if you ever watched 'Game of Thrones'
when she had to walk
through the walled city, going, "Shame, shame, shame,"
you understand what shame is all about.
Well, first of all, take a minute right now
and think about what you feel shame and guilt about.
Why do you feel it?
What's it all about? And who taught you to feel that way?
You know, when I was growing up,
my grandmother, if I asked her to buy Tampax in the store,
she would've gone bright red
and found that embarrassing and humiliating.
Her generation never talked about periods.
You just didn't do that.
My generation, I go, "Oh, yeah, I've got my period.
"I'm feeling a little cranky,"
but she was a different generation.
She didn't understand a lot of things today that are normal.
And that's important to understand: where does it come from?
Who taught you this guilt?
Who taught you this shame?
And was it a generational thing?
If you think... You know,
when I was at school, and that was in the sixties,
I remember one of the girls
in my school was pregnant and she had to leave.
And there was a tremendous sense of guilt and shame.
My book editor told me that when he got divorced,
he was not allowed to go into people's houses.
One of my friends said that her mother was Catholic,
and if she knew she was having sex outside of a marriage,
she would've died of shame.
But nowadays, having a baby out of wedlock, I did that.
There was no shame about being a single parent,
no shame about having sex before you're married.
So just as you're seeing that shame
and guilt are generational,
they can be learned.
Different people feel different guilt
and shame, in different cultures, in different environments.
So you need to really take a look
at why you feel that feeling.
Explore it.
You know, I love the fact
the word "cure" comes from "curiosity."
Get curious about why you feel guilty,
why you feel shameful, why you feel humiliated.
Get curious. In getting curious,
you could cure your feelings of guilt and shame.
Where does it come from?
Who gave it to you?
What did they believe?
Why are you carrying it with you?
Is it external pressure?
Is it self-doubt?
And then look at how you can make amends.
If you took money from your mom's purse
when you were a kid, if you cheated on an exam,
go back and say her, "Hey, mom, when I was eight, I took money
"from your purse and I feel so bad." She'll go, "Oh, it's okay.
"Don't worry."
Go, "No, no, I need to make amends."
Sometimes you can't do that.
But if you can make amends, that helps.
And if you can't, make amends to yourself.
Do it like this, "You know,
"when I was 10, I cheated on the exam.
"Why did I do that?
"Well, I really wanted to impress my parents or my teacher.
"I don't need to do that anymore."
"I stole some money when I was a kid.
"I lifted some candy bars because I wanted them.
"I wouldn't do that today."
If anything you are feeling guilty
about is behavior you wouldn't do today,
if you wouldn't repeat it, if you'd not
repeat anything that made you ever feel guilty, guess what?
You've learned something, you've enhanced your education.
If you wouldn't repeat that behavior,
you've learned something and you can get over it.
So go easy on yourself.
Be kind to yourself, forgive yourself for making a mistake.
A person who never made a mistake never made anything.
And you can only learn in life by making mistakes.
So use the guilt,
use the shame as a lesson.
Turn it into something positive.
You know, one of my clients said, "When I was a kid,
"my mom bought me a turtle.
"I forgot to give it water.
"It died.
"And they gave me so much grief.
"'What a terrible person.
"'You killed your pet.
"'You're so selfish.
"'You're so lazy.
"'That poor pet died of dehydration because you didn't feed it.'"
But she was eight years old.
My daughter had pets, and I'd explain,
"You've got to feed the pet.
"You've got to change the pet."
But I also knew that I had to supervise that.
It was my job, if I was going to give her pets, to give her
the responsibility, but also to oversee it.
If you go, "Well, today, if I had a pet,
"I would never forget to water it or feed it.
"I made a mistake.
"It was a painful mistake,
"but I would never make that mistake again."
So forgive yourself, forgive yourself completely,
and feel grateful that you get a second chance.
You know, in the Bible, it says,
"To err is human and to forgive is divine."
And what does that mean?
It means you are allowed to make a mistake
and you are supposed to forgive yourself.
Here's the thing.
You are absolutely allowed to make a mistake.
Because that's how you learn.
You know what you're not allowed to do?
You are not allowed to beat yourself up,
to hurt your own body,
to punish yourself for being human and making a mistake.
We are flawed people living a flawed life.
Many years ago, when I was about 22,
I was putting garbage outside my house
in nothing more than my underwear and
my front door shut behind me.
And I stood there thinking, "Oh my God, what am I going to do?"
And I had to walk into my building and ask my porter to go
to another apartment and open the window
so I could climb out and get back into my house,
all the time just wearing some underwear.
And it was embarrassing, but I had to do it.
But I have never, ever again, ever, gone outside my front door
without wedging the doormat in, having some keys.
Because I learned,
"That was so embarrassing,
"and I will never, ever, ever do that again."
My friend said, "Oh, mine was much worse.
"I was trying to get my cat in.
"I stepped out of my door naked and the door shut behind me.
"And I had to go to my neighbor's house
"and knock on the door, and go,
"'Hey, before you open the door, have you got a coat
"'or a jacket or a blanket, I'm completely naked here.
"'And I need to call out someone who's got a spare key.'"
And she said the same thing,
"I would never, ever, ever step outside my door naked.
"I, too, wedge the door open or I put on a robe or something."
So they were very embarrassing.
But do I still get embarrassed?
No, I can tell you about it.
It was a learning experience.
Everything is a... even being locked out naked in the street.
If you wouldn't do that again,
it's okay.
And sometimes the things you are most
embarrassed about, one day, you'll laugh about it.
One day, you'll go, "You know what?
"It's not so embarrassing."
And it really helps occasionally to share it.
"Hey, I feel so guilty about this.
"I feel so shameful," and people will say, "Oh, that's okay.
"I wouldn't judge you for that."
I was with one of my dear friends
on holiday when I was about 20 and she fainted.
And when she fainted, she wet herself.
The hotel took her up to her room
and I rinsed out her jeans, and she was so embarrassed.
I'm like, "Don't be embarrassed.
"I love you.
"I was happy to rinse out your clothes.
"You'd have done it for me."
And she felt so humiliated,
but I didn't.
Her other friends didn't.
But you see, your perception
of doing something shameful is not someone else's.
And I had to really talk her out of feeling humiliated.
"Look, it happens.
"It's nothing.
"You were sick.
"You were unwell.
"You were ill.
"There's no reason to feel shameful or embarrassed."
So sharing it can really help you.
And if you think you need more,
then please look at having some RTT® therapy.
I've worked with so many,
many clients who hold onto guilt and shame and trauma,
but therapy will really help you overcome that.
I worked with this wonderful man
of almost 80 years old,
who had all kinds of illnesses, all kinds of problems.
When I hypnotized him, he went back to a scene,
and he said, "This is the shame of my life.
"My girlfriend is pregnant.
"I don't want to marry her.
"I don't want the baby.
"But in those days, my father made me marry that woman.
"And I was furious.
"But when my daughter was born, I love her so much.
"But every day, I feel shame
"because I tried to have her terminated."
And I said, "But that was just a brief few months,
"but you've had 60 years of loving and adoring this daughter."
And I had to really get him to see that
yes, he did want to have her terminated, but he didn't.
And he loved her dearly.
And even if she knew,
and she didn't know,
it would still have been okay,
because that was a feeling he had 60 years ago,
when he was 20 years old,
but he had 60 years of loving this daughter.
And I see that over and over again.
Clients come in with issues like headaches, migraines
contact dermatitis, irritable bowel.
And it all goes back to punishing themselves
for doing something that they can't get over.
Thinking a thought, having a belief, an action.
And many times, one of the things I do
in RTT® that is so powerful is freeing clients of guilt.
Hypnotizing them to let the guilt go.
I worked with someone who had Crohn's disease,
and it all came out that she had run away
with her best friend's husband
who turned out to be a complete disaster.
And he left her shortly after that.
But she always felt, "I ruined my friend's life.
"I've never been able to call her."
I said, "Call her."
"When I called, you know what she said? 'You did me a favor.
"'He was an idiot.
"'I was upset then, but now I'm with somebody much better.
"'I'm glad you took him off my hands
"'because he wasn't worth having.'"
She had punished herself for years
and years and years because she did something silly.
But you know, when you're 17, you do crazy stuff.
When you're 17, 18, 19, 22,
you do stuff that you wouldn't do today.
And a great RTT® therapist will show you,
"Look, that's not you.
"That can never be you."
I worked with a client who was so guilty
because when he was born, he felt he'd hurt his mother.
They both had blood transfusions,
but the gran used to say, "You nearly killed your mom.
"Your mom nearly died having you."
In fact, I wrote about that story in my book,
'Tell Yourself a Better Lie.'
This man, this lovely man,
said, "I can't enjoy in my life."
I have something I call "my chief fun inhibitor."
"I've had a great life.
"I have a wonderful wife, beautiful kids, an amazing home,
"a great career, but I can't enjoy anything."
And when we unpicked it all,
it was all to do with his grandmother saying,
"Oh, your mother nearly died having you,
"you nearly killed her." Was that true?
Turned out it wasn't even true.
But the fact that he felt it to be true,
the guilt he perceived being just a tiny boy
that he almost killed his mother
affected his entire life until the day we looked
at it, extracted it, and replaced it with something better.
RTT® is my multi-award-winning, solution-based therapy.
I'm so proud of it.
It's a method that helps people overcome the most
deep-rooted blocks.
It helps them step into their full potential.
It gives them freedom and empowerment
because it combines the most effective techniques
from NLP, CBT, hypnotherapy, psychotherapy,
neuroscience, and neuroplasticity.
It's amazing.
I'm so proud of it.
If you would like to experience it
or find out more about how RTT® can help you
and how it has impacted so many people,
click the link below.