Jess explains how to respond when you hurt someone: pause, breathe, drop your defenses, and own the impact without shame or guilt. She distinguishes between shame (self-critical) and guilt (awareness of wrongdoing), and draws on A Course in Miracles to argue that defenselessness enables repair.
So there are going to be moments in life, because we're human, where we miss the mark and we do or say something that actually was not a reflection of who we want to be or our highest selves. And it's going to happen, it really is. We can do the best we can, but it's still going to happen. And so when it does happen, the most important thing that we can do is really be available to listen to the impact of that on the other person. And in order to be able to listen to it and be accountable and show up and repair with them, we have to be able to hold ourselves from dropping into guilt or shame, right? And this is not an easy thing because when someone comes to us and shares something that they're not happy with us about, it's almost like a default just to go into shame or go into guilt. So it's something that you can learn to do though. And so in order to do that, we have to feel into our body what it even feels like to go into shame and guilt, right? And I was talking about it today, it came up in my sessions a bunch of times today, so I thought this is probably an important thing to talk about. It also came up in my life, my own life, um, yesterday. So yeah, just learning to slow down and tune into your body And really feeling into, okay, what does it feel like when I want to just go into— one of my clients said it felt like, like a sinking feeling, like sinking into shame and, and feeling like that feeling of guilt. Like, and the shame, the shame feeling, um, brings up the thinking of like, I'm bad, I'm bad, I'm wrong. And the guilt is that I did something bad or wrong. So every time I start talking to the camera, my cat starts meowing like a crazy little thing, and then as soon as I stop recording, she stops. So I've tried to record this. This is going to be the last take because I tried to record it a few times. But anyway, so if you are— if you're struggling with this, um, I totally get it. And there were so many years where I couldn't do it. I didn't even know what it was to even try to practice, and I'd go into, you know, defensiveness or whatever because it's that defense against shame and a defense against guilt. But You guys know I love A Course in Miracles. A Course in Miracles says, in our defenselessness, our safety lies. So what that means is if we can drop our defenses, right, when it's safe, obviously, like if we're with someone we trust and we want to actually repair, if we can just hold ourselves through the feelings of going into guilt and shame take a break if you need to, pause if you need to, there's no urgency, and be available to hear the impact of our actions and actually own it and actually clean it up, then that's when real miracles can happen. And so if you need some help with this, if you're somebody who missed the mark or you have some things that you need to clean up and you need some help with that, I'm here to support you. And you can shoot me a DM if you have questions about working with me or you can book a connection call with me at the link in my bio. So this is— I think I keep messing up the days— I think it is day 24 of 28, so almost done this Messenger's Challenge. And it's been really good discipline for me, and it's been a bit of a stretch the last few days. I haven't come on and done a spoken video, so I wanted to do that today for you guys, but Yeah, just sending you lots of love, and so is my cat because she's meowing at everyone. So sending you guys love, and I'll be back soon.
