How mindfulness frees us, and yet still calls us to accountability.
This is a tricky one. We all suffer from guilt and shame, yet they are two of the most destructive emotions that prevent us learning and moving forwards after life’s mistakes. Let us take it in stages.
What is the reality of responsibility?
We are a source of energy through our thoughts emotions and actions. They all send out a field of energy.
This energy field effects all those around us, those closer get affected the most.
We all have responsibility, as taught by basic mindfulness, to watch our thoughts emotions and actions and to maintain equanimity.
The more self aware we are the easier this is to do, BUT we also all slip up, unless we are a Zen Master.
So how do we deal with it when this happens?
The universe is based on laws of cause and effect.
We cannot escape that simple basic fact, and burying our heads in the sand won’t help us. From experience the more we refuse to look deeply at something in ourself, the more it comes after you, demanding attention.
Neither will denial, or relentless positivity, though this is often advocated by certain mindsets and life style coaches.
We have to recognise our accountability.
SO let me ask this question. Do you smack a young toddler for not being able to walk yet? Do you berate a dog for weeing on the floor when it hasn’t been let out for two days? Well some might but the answer should be NO. A resounding big fat NO NON NEIN etc.
This is how I manage my own guilt and shame.
We are all still toddlers in some areas of our lives. Some of that might be practical, like my fear of technology advancing before I can keep up with the last lot of progress. But emotionally we are too, unless we have reached the Zen master stage, and even our recently departed dear Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh would have said he was still vulnerable and open to errors of perception and what leads from them, though I doubt it. If you remember the tenderness you should offer a toddler struggling to walk, then do this same tenderness to yourself.
Cultural influences
We live in a culture where shame is heaped upon people who still have a lot of learning to do, or who may have acted out of the state they were in at that precise moment, perhaps from trauma, depression, fear. That makes us more vulnerable to behaving in ways that are not the best, of making mistakes in life, and forgetting or not being able to act any differently. We must take some responsibility for what we say or do under these conditions, but not internally punish ourselves by piling on guilt and shame just because society likes to do it. Here I have to say very loudly – society is seriously wrong and should be ashamed of itself.
Shame, guilt, and other such reactions to life mistakes are about making yourself feel better than someone else, and are all born out of low self worth, insecurity and fear. This is then projected onto someone else to make us feel superior. This is the foundation of judgmental attitudes towards others
I remember at the end of a family relationship I was accused of being judgmental because I have an eyebrow that raises when I’m shocked. Its spontaneous and I don’t know it happens or when I started to have this response. I am generally not very judgmental though it is a lesson I’ve had to learn as I was brought up to be very judgmental, and so were those other family members. But we tend not to notice judgments when they are in our favour or in agreement with our own paradigm of life/ When there is a complete opposition in those paradigms, a difference of opinion may be more difficult to digest. They saw my disagreement as judgment. It wasn’t. It was many other things including frustration that they would or could not listen though. I understand why the interpretation went as it did.
The point is though that when I asked my children if they wanted to maintain contact they also said no, they felt horribly judged and uncomfortable when we went to stay, so we have left it with no regrets. They have not faced their own judgmental natures and thus experience other people as judgmental if they do not receive approval. Guess what? Approval is also judgment.
Disagreement is not judgment, unless it becomes personal, about the person themself rather than their opinion. There is the difference. We can agree to disagree passionately, and move on, or we can view disagreement as judgment and refuse to listen to other points of view.
Responsibility
Responsibility is down to what we can respond to, our thoughts our feelings, and our actions, and our ability to respond to and with them appropriately. That is what being in the present really means, not just floating around in a field of butterflies being happy, it means asking what am I saying thinking or doing in this moment, is this what I intend, am I doing harm to others with this thought etc and how might I change it, how might I be different and maintain equanimity.
So we should use our mindfulness practice to practice looking deeply into our self and recognise as many of these negative agendas as possible. Look at the scripts we run in our unconscious, and bring them right out into the open. then ask them if they want to help us to live a better life or want to make our life miserable. As Thay says, hold them in your arms as if they are a baby, soothe them, understand how they arose, why you believed them, why you may be mistaken. Take responsibility for the things that get in the way of you really taking responsibility, and use it as basis for change, not for self berating shame and guilt.
Shame and guilt are a form of narcissism, they are about you and your feelings, not about the person you hurt or affected. They are about your fear of being judged and seen less than. They are dishonest and avoidant states because they do not want you to be responsible or to take responsibility, and they stop you healing those wounds from which they originally grew. They are a form of self harm of the deepest kind.
Courage
It takes courage to heal yourself, to look into those deep dark places and explore them without victimhood creeping in. We cannot use our past as a justification for why we are as we are. It may be an explanation, but only if it is also the basis for self exploration and change growth mentality instead.
It takes courage to accept that all life experiences have been teachers with neutral valency, i.e. not good or bad, just pleasant and easy, or challenging you to move further faster and to learn and to grow.
The mistaken perceptions of a child do not have to continue into adulthood, we can rewrite them, address them and accept them as a developmental stage, not the final one and only truth of the matter. It takes courage to address this and not hide from it behind depression or addiction.
It takes courage to stand up and say I am a very flawed human being but I am doing and have always done my best, and yes sometimes that was really fucked up, but I learned from it. That is the best I can do, that is the best anyone can do.
We all have histories that impact us in many ways, for better or for worse. My own was extremely challenging, and for many years I stumbled through the wilderness I describe above. But as the challenges got greater and greater I was forced to confront them in ways that I thought I might not even survive, that my heart would succumb to fear as it nearly did once when I collapsed and fainted from its protestations, when I thought I could not stand to live any more and wanted to end it for years and years and years. Now I look back, having started along that journey, and although I have some way to go and probably always will, I am immensely grateful for all those things that pushed me to look more deeply, and to be ever more grateful for those still to come. I am open to their teaching, whatever that might be.
If you want to read more about that part of my own story and how I got through, it is here.