How to Release Shame and Embrace Self Worth – Essential Prep for the Holidays & Life [Episode 23]

The show you're about to hear is a recording from Dr. Miller's webinar series titled Life Meditations. He began this series in response to the pandemic, and his goal has been to provide wisdom, practical tools, and comfort to people during these stressful times. Watch the entire series at drmiller.com/lifemeditations. That's drmiller.com/lifemeditations. Hello, this is Dr. Emmett Miller. So good to be with you here today. And today we're going to talk a little bit about how to release shame and embrace self-worth. Shame is a universal emotion, and it's a painful one. Perhaps it's the most excruciating feeling there is. It makes you want to run or hide or disappear. or say you want to die as if you're a terrible person. Good news is you can release it, release it yourself to achieve your true potential in life. That's because— and it's just a big secret— shame is not something that happens to you. Shame is something your mind does. In reaction to what happens to you. Shame is an emotion, and like all emotions, it is simply a behavior. And like all your behaviors, it belongs to you. And in this world of disinformation, polarization, misery, and corruption, my goal is, as it has always been, to bring healing, wholeness, and joy to our bodies, minds, emotions, and spiritually to you, to your family, and to the community and the world that you are a vital part of. We have the power to change this world for the better, just as we can change ourselves for the better. I'm speaking to you from 50 years of experience. It's convinced me. I wouldn't be wasting my golden years here talking about it if I didn't believe in it. Deeply. And so for as long as I can do so, I will be here to show you how to tap into the incredible power within you, to awaken that giant spirit within. And so you can send me your donations whenever you choose, and know that I deeply appreciate those. And the easiest way is to send it to shop.drmiller.com/donate, or by PayPal you can send it to accounting@drmiller.com/donate. So for those who have just joined us, once again, I'm Emmett Miller. I'm a physician and life coach. And I'm here with this week's webinar on how to release shame and embrace self-worth. Shame is something we learn from our environment, but we can unlearn it. Shame is a form of learned helplessness, and so we want to make a change in that. So let's start out with some experience, and, uh, So we'll open with a meditation. I want you to imagine for a moment— and remember, your imagination is a super powerful tool— imagine there's a spirit above us, a higher self, a higher power. And perhaps it's within us, perhaps it's everywhere all around us, a divine wisdom. But you and I, we get stuck in the mud of life. If we could just reach up and touch that power, that river of light and wisdom that's flowing through, and let its guidance into us. I mean, have you ever had the feeling that there's something beautiful and wondrous that's going on around us, whether we notice it or not? The Native Americans talked about something they called the spirit that moved through all things. Sometimes you relax and pray and meditate, or you happen to come upon a beautiful sunset, and you have that inner sense that you've touched something miraculous. Albert Einstein said, "Either everything is a miracle or nothing is." And so there may be that there's a stream of love and spirit and miraculous beauty that is flowing through every moment even though we may not always notice it. As Mignon Monnier said, there's always music in the garden, but our hearts must be quiet in order for us to hear it. Let us quiet our hearts. Bring your awareness into the present moment, and as you allow your body to relax comfortably Be aware that there's no other place you have to go at this moment, nothing else that you have to do. There's no problem that you have to solve at this moment in time, and therefore you can give yourself permission to come into this moment. Just to be here at this moment right now. Anything else is a distraction. No need to be concerned about it. The future doesn't exist and the past doesn't exist. Not even one second of the past can ever come back again, and the future's never happened at all, so there's no way you can reflect upon that. But you can choose to let yourself let go of any thoughts about that past that doesn't exist and come into the reality of now. Because everything that exists, exists right now, right here in this room, inside your body, as you take a deep breath in and let it out. Allow yourself to come into the center of this moment. There may be raging seas outside, storms, but you're inside. Like the surface of the ocean may be turmoil with all the waves, but deep inside, down deep It's quiet. And realize there's nothing that you need to do. You understand that patience in and of itself is a very powerful action because it begins to take you into another level. And behind your closed eyelids, picture the word love as though it's there on the back of your forehead, or else in the middle of whatever your eyes are focused on, a single point. On the back of your forehead or on the other side of the room. Picture the word love. Letting unnecessary thoughts simply float by. Let go of doubts. Let go of questions. Let go of any kinds of concerns at all. Allow yourself to be here and allow yourself to begin to float as if you're floating on a magic carpet, floating through time and space, floating back to a very special moment in your life, a time of feeling love. A time of feeling joy, of feeling freedom. Take yourself back to time being with a person, an animal, someone that you love, or something that you love. Or maybe it's a spiritual experience that you can find in your life that puts you in touch with love. Perhaps it's the loving connection to a child. Perhaps it's that moment of seeing your child for the very first time, to a time when you really connected in love. Go back to this place now. Imagine that you're there at this moment. And imagine you can feel its power and its beauty, an almost sacred feeling in your heart. And now experience this moment as a gift, as a pure blessing, and experience a sense of gratitude to the source. Allowing the air to breathe you, sinking down into that pause after you breathe out and before the next breath comes in. And feel that little spark of energy that starts each new breath in, completely and utter— utterly effortless. The gift of breath. The gift of life, that little spark that begins each new breath, the spark of love within that begins life anew with each new breath. Breathing in peace, and with each breath out, releasing what needs to be released. Imagine that little spark that begins each new breath as a door opening to a river of very deep love, perhaps even a spiritual love of something greater than yourself, that spirit that moves through all things, or whatever you love and hold sacred. Opening, opening to let its love flow through you, allowing the spirit of love to slowly lift that veil so that you can begin to see even more what may have been unseen before. Unmasking that courage within you, the courage to truly be the person that you came here to be, revealing once again to you that power to accomplish your deepest mission as you become more and more aware of it, and to live each moment with ever greater integrity. And be open now to listen to the guidance from that deeper source that higher being, letting the message flow through you, listening for the words or the message in any way that it comes to you, as a feeling, as a melody, a deeper sense, guidance in the form of a word or several words, in the form of a movement in your being, an enlightenment of the spirit that takes you beyond polarity and duality. And allows you to experience the spaciousness, the infinite possibility within you and all around you at this moment. Good. And imagine you can give yourself permission to feel your deep and fundamental connection to the oneness and your oneness with this deeper spirit. As you simply, gently allow yourself float back to an awareness of the position of your physical body, the feeling of the surface beneath you, and how that little spark starting each new breath continuously reminds you of that deeper place within. Even as you become more aware of the space around you, breathing a little more deeply now with each breath, and in your own time and your own speed, gently allowing your eyelids to open, gently returning, but bringing with you the peace and the awareness of that essence deep within, wide awake and present. Good. Welcome back. Take a moment, notice how comfortable you feel. How was that? Let me know. There's a— click on the chat button and share a word or two about what you're in touch with now, what you experienced, what you're aware of, what you're beginning to open to. Send it to Panelists and attendees, that's it. In touch with the love within. Total love and peace. Tenderness. Peace. When I pause and make time, change can happen. Feel that deep flow of spirit and know that it is within The world distracts you from it, but there is a river of life that holds the love and the peace and the wisdom. And if you but take a moment and reflect within, remember that it's there, and you will find it. Good. Let me say a little bit more about shame before we talk about how to get rid of it. It's really important to be able to— in different shows, we will deal with different ones of the emotions, since it's the emotions that are misguiding ourselves and our world and guiding us inexorably, it seems, towards unbelievable, unimaginable catastrophe. And we'll do so until we recognize that we have to upgrade our minds, as Albert Einstein said. No problem is ever solved by approaching it at the same level that produced the problem. You've got to rise above it. And that's always what we're talking about doing. And so rising above this terrible problem that our brains have not evolved to keep pace with our environment. And so we are the victims of unscrupulous thieves and corrupt politicians who use the internet and the media in general to manipulate us by taking advantage of our inability to recognize that we don't have a brain We have a whole series of brains, from the simplest reflex arc, like that knee jerk when you go to the doctor, through the spinal cord brain that allows the chicken to run around the barnyard even if you have to lop his head off, all the way up to your reptilian brain that balances your oxygen and your digestion, and then that all-important limbic system your monkey brain that evolved to help us deal with the world beautifully, so exquisitely beautiful is its way of dealing with the world that we lived in 500,000 years ago. But the world is different. And unless we upgrade our thinking, we're continuing to generate emotions, feelings within that are destroying us individually, as families, and as a group, right? I mean, there are numerous couples that have gotten divorced over Donald Trump. I mean, we need to learn how to recognize these emotions and to be able to deal with the source of these emotions. That's what will set us free. And so You know, each time I come to you, we deal with a different emotion. We'll talk about anxiety, we'll talk about anger, we'll talk about fear, we'll talk about just the whole full set of emotions. And how, but one by one, you need to be able to recognize the emotion. Often we suppress our emotions, you know, big boys don't cry, or big girls don't cry, walk like a man, whatever it is. And so we suppress, but we must be able to feel our emotions, and at the same time, we need to be able to prevent them from becoming so strong that they interfere with our lives. So shame is usually defined as a painful feeling of humiliation or distress. It's usually triggered by thoughts that you have behaved in a way that's wrong or foolish, or that's dishonorable or disgraceful. And that this is the result of some inner defect in you. You got it? Shame is different from guilt, which is the other feeling that so commonly blocks our success and happiness. A person feels guilt when their behavior did not meet some internal standard. They believe they have the ability to do well, but they're guilty because they didn't use their ability. Shame is different. With shame, you tend to feel as if you don't have the ability to be successful, loved, respected, or competent. It's as if there's something fundamentally missing in your character. You're the bad seed. It's missing in your very being. I'm just no good at math. I'll never be able to make the team. Oh, the cheerleaders would never let me join the squad. No one will ever want to date me with my acne. If I speak up and say something in class, people are going to laugh at me. I'm from the other side of the tracks. I could never be successful. My butt is too large. My dingaling is too small. My wallet is too empty. There's an unlimited number of ways your monkey mind can interpret this world so as to make you feel shame. When I was a young teenager, I guess I was a freshman in high school, I was, and I went to stay with a friend of my family because my mother had to move our house from Brooklyn to some other place, whatever. And so I was staying with this woman, her name was Dora. She was a very nice lady and she was taking care of me, and I was beginning high school there. And one day I was in the bathroom, I took a shower, and I was looking at myself in the mirror and I was saying, "Yeah, I'm a pretty nice looking guy. Now I'll bet, I'll bet that there's a girl that would like me." Look, I went close to the mirror and I said, Yeah, look at that. She would want to be close, and then she would want to kiss me, and I went, mm, and I kissed the mirror and kissed the mirror again, and I stood back. Yeah, I'm okay. I got dressed and went out and started eating breakfast. Well, meanwhile, Dora goes into the bathroom. I guess she turns on the shower, and as the steam came up, she could see my kiss marks on the mirror. And she came and she says, well, you certainly are very high on yourself, high on your high horse, kissing the mirror. George, come here, look at— and I crumpled up inside. It's traumatic. It's just one of the experiences I had. I can remember going to school, we couldn't afford new shoes. I had holes in my sneakers and I used to stuff newspaper in there so my toes wouldn't stick out because I had holes in my socks too. I lived in utter fear that someone would notice that I couldn't afford shoes and had newspapers covering the holes in my shoes. Hmm. Almost everyone feels a little shame at certain times in their lives, but for some of us Thoughts and feelings of shame and the behaviors that it leads us to are daily occurrences in our lives. We can be ashamed of having depression. We can be ashamed of having a diagnosis of bipolar. People are ashamed of having cancer. When we started the Cancer Support and Education Centers back in 1970, people came in and they were ashamed that they had cancer. One of the most powerful things that we could do in helping people deal with the cancer and its effects was they learned to say, "I have cancer," right? Just like alcoholics learned to say, "My name is Bill and I'm an alcoholic." And that is so empowering. But some people have such terrible feelings of shame and self-condemnation that it sticks with them and manipulates their entire lives. The subconscious mind launches major attacks against the self, and those of us who have this kind of ongoing shame believe that somehow they're going to be found utterly unacceptable by society. The result: disgrace, dishonor, wanting to hide from others. Yeah, there's the feeling. Because— and shame, shame is an important feeling within us. Not this terrible toxic shame, but the feeling of shame is important. It's a social factor. It's been used because shame is something that makes us want to live up to the values of the tribe. And you've got a bunch of basically cavemen, primitives, 20, 50, or 100, and you're trying to survive in this world of snakes and saber-toothed tigers and cannibals. You want people to want to join with the group and to live up to the group norms. It's very valuable. When you do something wrong, I had a friend who worked in Ghana with the tribes in Ghana, and when someone did something wrong, like someone had, say, a young man has done some stealing, the whole tribe gets together. They put him in the middle of a big circle, and as they would go around the circle, people would say— what did they say? They would remember times that that person had done something valuable. I remember the time when you babysat for my children when I had to go off and, and see the medicine man. He says, I so appreciated you when you came and helped me rebuild my hut after it had collapsed, and I so appreciated the way you carried my children back and forth so that they could get water and live. And the poor guy sitting in the middle of the circle, he starts to cry. He feels So how could I, how could I have stolen from and hurt these people who love me? And he felt the shame, and he says, I'm not stealing anymore. And then he becomes a really good member of the tribe. And many cultures, one of the, one of the, the worst punishments you can do is to shun people. You shame, people don't talk to who you walk down the street, they don't even see you. You know, lots of cultures do that. The Mormons would do it, as I've heard. Jehovah's Witnesses did it. The Puritans did it. The African tribes did it. And in Africa, if you were shunned by the tribe in that way, you were dead within a couple of weeks. I mean, it was so toxic. and so there was a use to shame, but it's also deadly when it's misused. And so I'd also like to point out that in many cases there are people who have a lot of internal shame. It's so powerful they can't deal with it, but they hide between a facade of bravado. In fact, they seem shameless, and they spend a lot of their time attempting to shame other people. This is merely their defense against their own internal shame. When you realize that and you see them, you go, "Yeah, I see it." And you can see them, some of those that are most pathologically afflicted with it, practice this denial, rageful acting out. They're perfectionists with other people. They feel entitled and they have the inability to give sincere praise. They protect themselves from their own shame by disconnecting from their overall feelings so they don't have any compassion, and then they project it out onto other people. And they're, ah, shame on you, shame on you, you're a loser, ah, you got schlonged, you a dog, you slimeball, Pocahontas, wacky. Dumb as a rock. You know what they say about people with small hands. And sometimes that shame can turn into a rage and create a burning desire for revenge, and that leads you to triumphing over, humiliating others, and sometimes doing sincere physical damage to others. So Be aware that there is that projected shame, but we're not going to be talking so much about that. We're going to be talking about the different types of shame. In Gestalt psychotherapy, they taught that there were 4 different types of shame. And of course, there was that shame that was social, societal shame, when an individual or group inflicts shame toward another within the public domain. Um, there is self-evaluative shame, causes a person to think that they have no right to exist. And you see little children do that societal shaming, you know, Oh, Mommy, Mommy, all the kids laughed at me. They said my hair looks like a rag mop. I don't want to go back to school again. Extremely painful and often very, very traumatic. And of course, there's a shame that comes when put on us by the outside world, by the system around us, the family or the culture around us, kids at school. And now there's another kind of shame, the social media shame. People read social media, and of course everybody puts their, their coolest pictures on there. Look at all those happy faces and family, they're all loving each other. And you look and you feel worse and worse. Studies show that the more people look at social media, the more depressed they feel, because you think, wow, everybody in the world's happy. They're all rich. They're all traveling. They're in Tahiti. You know, they're in— they're going to the South Pole, they're going all of these different places, and I'm just kind of stuck here. You know, I'm totally miserable. And then of course there's the family shame, the family trauma that we have. You're no good. I'm going to read you just one little poem if you'll allow me to read a little poem— not a poem, a little story, short story, whatever. Back in 19— in the early '90s, I think I wrote this. The title is "Whipping Boy." I'm pretty new in this school. It's a long way from home, but at least there's a candy store nearby, and that candy bar I bought today sure tasted good. Ah, here comes a trolley car. Oh no, where's my car fare? Oh no, it can't be. I spent my car fare on the candy bar and I didn't even realize I was doing it, and home is so very far away. Walking home sure is hard. The pavement hurts my little feet. It takes my 8-year-old legs hundreds of steps to go a block, and there are so many blocks left to go. My legs ache, it's getting cold, and it's scary to be alone in this strange part of the city. Oh, how I wish I were already safe and warm at home. I'll never make that mistake again. No, sir. At home, finally, no one's here but my father. His face looks cold and angry, and a shiver of fear shudders through my body. There's going to be no warm happy-to-see-you hug like Mommy would give me, no hot chocolate and cookies, no tenderness at all. He's not happy to see me. He doesn't see my exhaustion or my embarrassment or my fear. He only sees that I've done wrong, and he doesn't believe it was an accident. He drags me to the cellar, removing his thick leather belt with his other hand. I'm filled with panic. Not another one of those whippings, I beg and plead, but there's no reprieve. Now he's lifting me off the floor by my arm. My shoulder hurts and my helpless legs churn the air desperately trying trying to escape. There is no escape. There's only the whistling of the belt through the air and the withering pain as it slashes into my exposed buttocks and thighs, raising welts and purple bruises that will take many days to go away. No, Daddy, please no, I plead, but my father can no more hear me in my anguish than can the whip that slashes again and again into my helpless little body, writhing in pain. They can't hear my tears. They can't see the the sobbing and the choking that wrack my little body. They can't understand that I'm just a child who made an innocent mistake. Will you do that again? Slash. No, Daddy, I promise. Slash. Will you? Slash. No, Daddy, please, Daddy, no more. But he doesn't stop. Again and again, he injects his fear, his pain, and his self-loathing into me. And now, as I hang here, I feel something draining out of me. Is it trust? Is it joy? Is it innocence? Yes, but it's more than that. It's life itself. In some way, as I dangle here from one arm I'm dying. The sounds of the belt and my crying grow more faint and distant. Time stops, and I'm dead. Unfortunately, that's a true story, as you might have guessed. When have you felt shame? Write it down. Put it in the chat box. It's important to do that. Shame melts away when we confront it. The antidote to shame is empathy and self-compassion, or what some might call self-love. I have a deep love for that little child who hung there and for the suffering in his life until he, I, learned to love myself. Not only now, but even that child with the holes in his sneakers, the kid kissing the mirror, the child being whipped by his shame-racked father. When you can say it, I'm Bill and I'm an alcoholic, you've taken a huge step forward. The most natural way to learn self-compassion is through the process of imitation. You are loved with compassion by your parents, and your parents love them— each other with compassion and themselves, and you learn by imitating. You have compassion for yourself also. When you have a mother's undying love and support, there's a confidence that you develop inside that gives you resilience. Babies are born with awareness but without self-awareness. We need to give them a positive self-awareness. And when we didn't get it as children, then we need to develop that compassionate self-awareness now by being empathetic and compassionate and loving with our children, with those around us, and especially with ourselves. Yeah, doing poorly in exams, that was something that created enormous shame for us. They never taught us how to learn. They didn't educate us, they trained us like animals. If they had touched our hearts, we could have learned. If we had attention deficit disorder, if we had been treated, we would have been able to show who we really were. So that's what we're about today, is to have some experiences so that we can step out of that learned helplessness, reject those heartless people around us who don't recognize who we are. And part of it is our recognizing the beauty in other people as well. The good news is that all of us have had times in our lives when we have felt the deep sense of caring, compassion, and even love, such as in the imagery that we began with when we started out today. Even if we were just children the time that we felt it. It was there. The connection with our parents, that was— perhaps we can remember that, or even that connection with our own children, just to help you remember what that feels like, the connection. You may even be able to think about— just as you can think back to unpleasant things, you can think back to beautiful things. And that's what's important for us to do here now today, back to something beautiful that empowers you. And when you learn to stay in touch with the beauty that's within you that you felt, then you gain power. The other thing that we're going to do in a moment, we'll have our imagery to really awaken this within ourselves. The other thing is how we talk to ourselves. Like, "I'm no good at math," or, "I'll never be successful," those kinds of things. We can practice saying positive things to ourselves. Your mind believes everything that you say. So let's go ahead and connect with that deeper place within where we can build that self-worth. Become aware right now that your greatest power is your power to choose where to focus your awareness. And if you're willing, let yourself intentionally choose to relax right now. Let go of useless tension. Choose the path of relaxation. Peace, confidence, and strength by simply letting yourself to take a deep breath in. And as you let it out, feel the feeling of letting go, releasing all tension from your body, becoming aware that at this moment there's no place you have to go, nothing you have to do, no problem you have to solve. And therefore Think to yourself, I give myself permission to float on the magic carpet of relaxation through space and time to a beautiful place, a safe place, whatever is the most beautiful place you can think of at this moment in time. A beautiful, safe place where you can open to freedom and healing. Imagine you are there now and picture this beautiful scene around you and feel your body sinking into the surface beneath you, more and more relaxed with each breath, all tension melting away, relaxation and comfort flowing throughout every organ of your body. Good. And aware of the fact that the past is gone forever and does not exist, and that the future has never existed, you know that you are here in this moment now, and the only place that you can be at this moment in time. And with each breath out, Imagine you're letting go of any thoughts of any other place, of any other time. And anytime an unnecessary thought comes along, you have the power to refuse to engage with that thought, because this is your mind, and you have the right and the power to choose what thoughts you want to have in your mind. Just as you have the right to choose who you allow to walk through the front door of your house or to enter into the space of your physical body. And when an unnecessary thought comes along, simply choose to let go of that unnecessary thought as if you're breathing out a puff of mist into the fresh, cool air. And with each breath in, feel the cool air as it enters, cleansing your mind and allowing the air to continue to breathe for you. Taking a moment to appreciate what a beautiful creation is your body, resting here in this moment, relaxing, floating, comfortable, and calm. Back to that time when you felt close to someone or something, an animal. Maybe it's the image you went to before, maybe it's a new one. A time when you felt loved and loving. A time of having a real connection with someone or something that you cared about or who cared about you. And imagine you can let yourself be there right now in this scene. Imagine you can see the colors around you, hear the sounds, and feel the good feelings. Feel it. That's it. Now allow yourself to feel gratitude for such joyful moments in your life as you have had. Grateful for the opportunities that have been given to you and will continue to be given to you to do the things that you've been able to do for yourself. Gratitude for the opportunities that will come along, giving you opportunities to do for yourself, to do for others, to give to those that you love. Gratitude for this magnificent planet on which we live. Feel that gratitude. Breathe into it. Breathe it throughout your entire body, because gratitude gives your mind and body permission to feel those empowering feelings of self-worth and potency and joy and love. Of love. When you give gratitude, you ratify the belief that you have this power and this love. You own it. And perhaps you can recall a time when you've given love to a person, to a child, to a small animal, a bird with an injured wing, a puppy, a kitten, a sleeping child. Or a lover, whoever or whatever, a painting, a piece of music, and realize that you were experiencing that love that you gave, and you can feel it now. And whether or not the recipient of that love knew it, or whether or not they were even able to appreciate it at that time Whether or not they were able to appreciate that you were able to give it, it's okay. You can still feel that love because it flows from the essence of who you are. Feel the gratitude for having had the opportunity to touch, to connect, to love. Good. Breathe into it. Allow it to grow stronger. And allow yourself to realize that there is a deep beauty within you, and that beauty is reflected in your hands, in your feet. It is reflected in your eyes, your face, in your words, in every part of you, because every part of your body expresses this beauty. You are a once-only happening in this universe. And you came here with a mission, a mission of love. And there's nothing more beautiful. And you know deep within this is true. Know it now. There is a perfection within you, a perfection that is deeper than any human-made perfection can be. You are a miracle, a unique, special, beautiful person. Beauty radiates from every part of you, and you can be aware that within you there may be a part that hasn't yet learned to appreciate that inner beauty, a part that may have been taking on some false illusions. You may even find a resistant part within you that sometimes fails to see the goodness and the beauty that is so evident to any eyes that look honestly upon you. But you can now choose to see this part of you and allow this resistant part of you to relax. Let it go to sleep for a while. Breathe out its unnecessary thoughts and resistances. You don't need them now. Imagine you can look back through time as you're— what— as if you're watching a videotape of the past. See yourself as a young child for a few moments and imagine that you can see that young child is beautiful, just as every child you have ever seen is beautiful. And let this child touch your heart like every other child can touch your heart. Let yourself see and feel the beauty of yourself as a child. An open, loving, vulnerable child part of you that is beauty, that is love, that is innocence, that is vulnerability. And allow yourself to be in touch with this feeling of love and safety and peace and beauty within. And place your hand on your heart Or give yourself some other physical signal that will always put you in touch with this internal source of peace and strength. Maybe the hand over your belly. Sense the preciousness and confidence within you that every child deserves to feel. Good. And now be aware that within you right now, there is the same essential sweetness, vulnerability, and openness that you can be in touch with right here and right now in this safe place. That you can choose right now to be a mirror that reflects this peace and safety and love. Let yourself intentionally choose to experience that love within and know that it will nurture your goodness and wisdom and resilience and self-confidence. Give yourself the signal to erase useless distractions along the way, just the way you wipe away a smear from your windshield, and allow yourself to see ever more clearly the truth of who you are, day by day, more and more, to know your true potential. You are at a fork in the road right now, and you can look down the different paths in front of you. Down one of these paths is a repeat of the past, where tomorrow is merely a copy of yesterday, and you didn't feel very good about yourself then, and you won't feel very good about yourself tomorrow. Tomorrow. And be aware of your ability to not take that path, to choose that right now. And notice that down this other path is an image of you fully aware of your goodness, of your beauty, of your love, your personal power. Feel your power right now. Choose the path that you want to take. Feel yourself turning away from that old path and stepping into a new path in the future. That's it. Good. Picture yourself tomorrow as if you can look down that road. Remember, the future is not someplace you're going, it's a place you're creating. Create an image of yourself as the person you want to be, the person you know you are down deep inside. Picture yourself walking your new path, looking and feeling calm and safe, peaceful, strong, happy, and free. That's it. Feel yourself stepping lightly into this new self, into your future. Let yourself be there now. Look around. See a beautiful world around you. Feel love for everything that you see. And within Repeat to yourself the following affirmations, feeling them to be absolutely right and true. I am moving on from my past into my desired future. I am in touch with my value as a human being. At my essence is wisdom and love. I realize that what makes me vulnerable also makes me beautiful. I choose to make wise choices in my life. More and more I can forgive myself unconditionally. More and more, I choose to forgive others unconditionally. I am capable of loving all of who I am. With every breath I take, I send love and healing to every cell of my body. I'm not here to be perfect. I'm here to be myself. Me. At a deep level, I know that I am good and beautiful and lovable. Good. And anytime you need to remember who you you really are, you can simply place your hand on your heart or give yourself whatever your empowerment signal is and remember some of these affirmations and reconnect with this deeper part of yourself. Good. And now, when you're ready, allow yourself to return, bringing all of these positive feelings and awarenesses with you. With each breath, gently, when you're ready, guide yourself back to this place where your body is resting comfortably, as if you're awakening, feeling alert and clear. Waking up refreshed, ready to reach out and make wise, loving decisions in your life. Yeah, and notice how comfortable you feel. Great. And if you wish, you can go back and watch this program again, experience it again, just by going to drmiller.com, life meditations. I'd like to thank you so much for being here and and I invite all of your comments. I love them. It, uh, that's a donation too. We love the money donations. The post office box is Box 803, Nevada City, California 95959. If you send a check, just write donations on there so that we won't be confused as to why we're getting a check in the mail. If you are interested in continuing what we did today, the first, first experience we did was a meditation on love. That's available at shop.drmiller.com. Just search for love in the search box. The image we did at the end is from the program that's called Releasing Shame and Embracing Self-Worth, and that comes as either a CD or an audio download, any way that you'd like to receive it. I'm sorry, an MP3 download only. Oh, it's only on MP3. Let me thank daughter Erin, my long-suffering daughter, for doing such a great job today and helping me out. Yeah, uh, yeah. The second one you might be interested in is I Am. This one is in the CD. Um, I Am Awakening Self Acceptance. This has 4 different programs on it. Releasing Change and Embracing Self-Worth has an imagery which you heard a part of here today. It also has a second track which is filled with affirmations. Affirmations you can listen to while you walk or run, drive in your car, or slice tomatoes. Changing your self-talk. The other one that we have that may be interesting to you is Rainbow Butterfly. Features the incredible harp of Georgia Kelly improvising two different meditations, beautiful for awakening the beautiful butterfly within you that you may have forgotten about, but believe me, it's still there. And then for those of you who want to go all the way, Personal Excellence: Power Vision, Deep Relaxation, and Imagery for Bringing Your Best to Life, allowing you to perform at your peak. Took me 9 months to produce this program. It's 6 CDs worth of heart-to-heart talks and a set of 6 different imagery experiences to guide you through how to create personal excellence and awakening that power within you. Um, we still have our COVID programs. If you or anyone you know of wants to avoid contracting the virus while you're waiting for your vaccination. You can get that program free at drmiller.com/covid, drmiller.com/covid, and if you or anyone that you know of has contracted the illness, there's a special program which shows you how to balance your immune system, guided imagery to do as much as you can to preventing the complications of the illness and to speed your, speed your healing from it. Once again, all of our life meditations are still available at the address drmiller.com/lifemeditations. Questions and comments you can email to aeron, A-E-R-O-N, @drmiller.com. And for those who wish to have a coaching session or series of sessions with me to have your own personal recordings made, or if you like to do that, if you're in California, I can see you for a series of therapy sessions. We can do all of these online, and of course you get custom-made imagery experiences to take home and practice. So I look forward to Seeing you in 2 weeks, which will be on Thursday at 11, and the title will be appearing in a moment. And thank you all for, for being present. Um, and everything I said today is true. There is a deep and beautiful core of love within you. When you tap into it, you can heal yourself and other people, because that's all healing is, is the expression of love and oneness, you know. I mean, I know Jesus said it first, but it took me a long time to get it. And Gandhi said it, I know, and Martin Luther King, I know, Mother Teresa. It's not new, but it's true. You can do it. So take a risk. And allow yourself to imagine that this can be true. Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than intelligence, more important than learning, more important than facts." Oh good, I see from our comments here that A bunch of you like Rainbow Butterfly. Yeah, Rainbow Butterflies. Rainbow Butterfly and Letting Go of Stress were— and that and Healing Journey. Those are the first three that I put together back in the 1970s, the first ones that went, that went national and global. That's when we were trying to teach the world about mindfulness and about the power of deep relaxation. And self-healing. And they were all— were divinely inspired, I must say, with great gratitude. Healing Journey featured the magnificent Raphael, who used to say he was Mozart reincarnated, and I'm not sure that he wasn't. Georgia Kelly, fantastic, created a whole new a whole new world of music, New Age music, on her harp. Georgia, she's given me permission to tell her story. Back, I guess, in 1971 or so, she came to see me because even though she was highly trained and an excellent harpist, whenever she played in front of people, her heart would beat very fast, her fingers would tremble and her hands would perspire. Not good if you're a harp player. So she couldn't perform in front of people, and she wanted me to help her get over her stage fright. And what I did in my work with her, I invited her to go to this deep inner space and to tell me what she experienced deep within her. And she said when she went there she heard music. Uh, and I said, what kind of music? She says, I've never heard anything like this before. Uh, and I said, do you like it? She says, I love it. I said, can you imagine playing this music in front of people? She said, yes. I say, do you feel any tension or perspiration or speeded heartbeat? She said, no, I just feel wonderful. I said, okay, and I gave her the imagery. I said, go home and practice visiting this place, and then play your harp and allow the harp to come, the music to come through your fingers, and then go out and play, and play for as many people as you can. And she did, and she started her own record label, Heru, And she's published quite a few, quite a few heart solos and playing with other people. And we even had the joy of playing together with she and myself and Charles Lloyd, the famous Charles Lloyd saxophonist. If you're a jazz aficionado, you're going, wow, Charles Lloyd, yes. And she did a beautiful Big Sur album with him, which, uh, which is really remarkable. But the three of us used to play for some of the, some of the workshop weekends that we were doing at Esalen. So great love for Georgia and all of our experience together. And, uh, Letting Go of Stress, um, was the first and it's the best known stress management, um, program that's ever been done. And that was done by myself and Stephen Halpern, who was another of the great innovators in the New Age music field from back in the '70s, and he's still going strong and, and, and evolving in his music. But, um, that we met at a, um, at a workshop in the evening after some workshop that was being done, I think, on organizational development. They had a party that night and we were there we met at that party, and next thing you know, this— that program was born. So I have been trying to share little bits of myself. I know with my medical training I tend to be too, too scientific, but I'm trying to open my heart more and more, and hope you don't mind my sharing you about my foul-smelling sneakers and newspaper It's been wonderful being here with you. And our next webinar, which is on December 31st at 11 AM Pacific Standard Time, is called New Year's Live Imagery on Letting Go and Creating a New Vision for 2021. How about 2020 is over? And we're going into 2021. Shall we have a repeat of 2020, or shall we do it differently? Is it possible that 2021 can be a year of compassion and love and oneness and beauty and gratitude? And can we love everyone and everything so much more? They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. I'm I am so fond of the Grand Canyon. I am so fond of the ocean. I'm so fond of the people in my family and my friends that I haven't been able to get together with and play music and dance and talk and love. So be here on December 31st. Tell all your friends. It's a great way to spend the day before New Year's, New Year's Eve, preparing yourself. 11 AM Thank you so much for being here. Until next time, namaste. If you enjoyed this video and found its information helpful, please like, comment, and subscribe to Dr. Miller's YouTube channel. Doing this will help to get Dr. Miller's content to more and more people. If you'd like to watch the entire webinar series, series, you can do so at drmiller.com/lifemeditations. That's drmiller.com/lifemeditations. Be present, be kind, and be well.