SHAME
Cutting Away the Sources of Shame You can do a lot for yourself in one week of focused practice. Here’s a
structure: -Remember these five steps to work with emotion.
1. Stop to listen to the emotional messenger
2. Read the message: why is it there, what does it want for you?
3. Solve the Situation: Ask your feelings for their solution; then use Mind to assist with a strategy
4. Act on these remedies
5. Continue these steps until you feel good!
-Use this method to practice your ability to work with your emotions consciously.
-Explore the particular role of Shame in you.
-Your homework will take 31 minutes daily.
•Early morning before sunrise is best; at this time the subconscious can open up and release, while the conscious mind is clear and alert. Evening time is second best, as it clears your day to relax. Anytime you can do it is also fine. Best is to do some yoga or pranayama to clear the mind increase your energy before you meditate.
• Sit in your private, comfortable meditation place, and for this work have your notebook available.
• Tune in, then start by “locating yourself”, and opening up to your vastness as we do in class. Connect with Soul as clearly as you can. Just invite it and ask if it is there; talk with or feel it, and enjoy it.
• This is your starting place. Hold this perspective as you go view your life, past and present. Be available to the thoughts and feelings that arise and allow whatever is there to be recognized but then released.
• Now invite forth any shame to come forth. Fully allow and feel, then communicate with it using the inquiry you learned in class. Follow your own creative approaches that may arise. You are not looking for completion yet, just opening the communication channels. This may all take only a few minutes if you have limited time, or longer if you discover much. Accept what comes, which could be a lot, a little, or nothing at all. We are not creating a stir, just being available to observe and learn.
• Now, begin the Meditation to Cut Negative Thoughts per the written instructions. • You may want the class notes on Shame in front of you, and any notes you have made about them.
• During the cutting process, call on thoughts and feelings of shame.
Cut and eliminate all that is not your highest self, all your past “sins and errors”, all that you feel bad about, all that does not serve you and recognize you as pure.
• Really shake, release, energize and exalt yourself in the dancing part.
• When finished, sit in self-awareness for at least a few minutes or as long as you like.
Finish your session by returning to your highest possible viewpoint, be with Soul. Feel your strength and clarity. Write what you learn.
Sylvan Tomkins
http://www.tomkins.org/what-tomkins-said/introduction/positive-affects-when-interrupted-yield-to-the-affect-of-shame/