Liberation from the "Shame, Blame and Guilt Game"

Few psychological conditions in life are as debilitating as what I call the “shame, blame, guilt game”.  As you’ll see below and as you may have experienced in your own life, the emotion of guilt can lead to chronic anxiety, mental anguish, depression and worse.

Yet many cultures live on a steady diet of shame and guilt.  Sometimes these are religious cultures, sometimes just individual family cultures.  Whatever the case, though, if you’ve been a victim of this kind of psychological manipulation – and all chronic guilt-tripping is a manipulation designed to gain and maintain control over you – then you need to know how to free yourself from it.

On the other hand, guilt can also be the inability to forgive yourself for something you’ve done or failed to do.  That’s when you feel like one of the characters in this amazing video…

Religious Guilt Culture

The epitome of neurotic guilt culture in the West has certainly been the Roman Catholic Church.  Here are just a couple of abridged accounts from emotionally abused “recovering Catholics”:

1. From a young woman:

“I experienced this guilt most intensely during high school. Every morning I would wake up with the most painful guilt. In my mind, I would walk back through the day before trying to remember what I had done wrong, but I could never come up with anything. Then I would get in the shower and say the our fathers, hail mary's and glory be's until the pain had passed. At the time I had no idea why I felt so much pain and guilt.

“I've been trying to understand better how the Church operates psychologically. It most certainly makes claims to Truth where questioning Truth is coded as sin / evil.  And the weekly embodied ritual seems to embed Catholic doctrine into people's psyche in a way that people can't explain. The mass also provides an embodied ritual which is meant to both teach people that they are sinned while at the same time relieve people of this sin.  It is this aspect of the mass that creates a kind of addiction - I've heard some people state that they just have to be Catholic and receive the body of Christ each week - but they can't explain why. It seems that it is this imparting and relief of guilt and sin that people feel they have to get through the mass each week.”

2. From a young man:

“I consistently beat myself up, and put myself to shame, and live with debilitating bouts of depression and anxiety.  Not because of anything I've done, but because I have thoughts and feelings...  natural thoughts and feelings that the Catholic church of my upbringing would have called 'sinful'. 

“I was raised Catholic of course, and I went to 12 years of Catholic school, during the 70's and 80's.  I believe that much of what we were taught to believe can only be described as insane and medieval.

“Let me just say that the Catholic Church has done many wonderful things, in ways of charity and meeting the physical needs of people.  Things like creating hospitals, homeless shelters, food-shelf's, etc.  But when it comes to meeting the emotional and psychological needs of people, the church has done tremendous damage and abuse to the psyches of millions (billions?)of people.

“And I was taught that to even think lustful thoughts was the same as doing the act.  I was a teenage boy, coursing with hormones and natural impulses on a regular basis.  I've read that research shows that young males have sexual thoughts and impulses roughly every 30 seconds or so, and I was certainly no exception.   At 15, all it takes is for an attractive girl to walk by, the hormones jack up a bit and boom, mortal sin, eternal damnation, the fires of hell... it's all there.  To be able to feel that I was safe from the fires of hell would mean that I would need my own priest following me around so that I could make constant confessions.    Not having this accommodation, I concluded that I was doomed... that my soul was destined for hell.  Unless I could somehow shut off all of those impulses and feelings, and feel nothing!!!  So, I became a robot. 

“The only logical way to save myself from eternally being on Satan’s This is the definition of spiritual death and being un-human.   And an ironclad recipe for chronic depression, anxiety, self-loathing, self-abuse and self-punishment.  In short, not much less painful than Hell.

And to top it off, we were taught that to suffer here on earth, was a GOOD thing, something to be STRIVED for.  We were to be martyrs, living in self-induced pain and suffering.”

You’ll Be Shocked to Learn Where This Came From…

The origin of Catholicism’s rampant guilt culture is not Christianity itself and proof of that is the general absence of the neurotic guilt complex in the history of the Eastern Christian tradition (a lot of my own pastoral work as an Orthodox priest has been cleaning up the emotional messes left by the rampant guilt culture).

The guilt culture has theological roots that stem directly from Augustine’s teachings on “original sin” back in the fifth century.  Basically, he taught that all human beings have in some mystical way participated in the sin of Adam and Eve, and are therefore automatically “guilty” from birth on.  In other words, guilt is a condition you inherit!

Where did he get this absurd notion?  Amusingly enough, from an error in biblical translation!  You see, Augustine didn’t know Greek and had to depend on St. Jerome’s translation of the New Testament into Latin.  Just one problem…

Jerome made a minor error when he translated Romans 5, verse 12.  By translating a single conjunction as “in whom” instead of “because of which”, he accidentally provided Augustine with the basis of a wrong theology that has screwed up the lives of countless millions of people ever since. 

That’s why the original Christian tradition regards the whole notion of original sin / inherited guilt as lunacy.  You can’t be held responsible for something you didn’t do (seems pretty obvious, right?).  And, of course, Augustine’s theory requires a judgmental God who condemns your failures, as opposed to the God of direct mystical experience who, as the original tradition says, “only bestows blessings and never does harm”.

Remember, though, that an individual family culture can also be based on chronic guilt-tripping and other forms of dysfunctional manipulation that may or may not have a religious basis.  Whether religiously motivated or not, your task is to find your way out of that culture and undo the damage to yourself.  So how do you do that?  This way... 

Freeing Yourself from the Shame, Blame, Guilt Game

If you’ve been a victim of this form of crass psychological manipulation and realize you need to break free, there’s a simple 3-step process to follow.  It may still take some time and effort, but the steps will certainly help you get there:

1)    Recognize it!  Take stock of the full extent to which it has impacted your life.

2)    Treat it!  The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is certainly one excellent tool you should always have with you.  There are also support groups available, and you may derive some value from talking to a therapist or counselor.  Be sure to find the help you need!

3)    Resolve Not to Play!  Identify those people in your life that use this guilt against you and take steps to terminate or minimize contact.  If you can't avoid them entirely, learn to recognize their behavior and call them on it.

We are all “guilty” of many things, for sure - that's part of the human condition.  However, we’ll never get anywhere unless we free ourselves from the chains of guilt that bind us emotionally.

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

Helping the Japanese People: Remote Resilience Building

It's no secret the Japanese people need all the support and every kind of support we can give them right now.  So how can you personally help out?

Of course you can give financially, and perhaps you can't envisage any other way to help out.  However, according to Authentic Ancient Traditions of self-transformation and according to an increasingly impressive body of scientific research, you may well be able to help Japan even more in a totally different way.

Remote Assistance: Is it Possible?

Can you help someone else acquire more personal resilience?  Can you do this even if the other person is unaware you're doing so?  A number of recent studies in remote healing (also known as "distance healing") tell us the answer is a definite "yes".  You can have a look for yourself at some of these studies in Lynne McTaggart's book, The Field.  Other case studies came to my attention at last year's Energy Psychology Conference.  The bottom line...


The bottom line is that human intention has the documented ability to reliably influence and alter molecular structure and mental state at a distance, any distance, unhindered by known physical laws or the perceived limitations of time and space.  Since this is the case, you and I can in fact contribute to the protection, healing and resolution of the multiple crises that have struck Japan - earthquake, tsunami, reactor meltdown, volcanic eruption, economic turmoil and more.  

A Resilient People

The Japanese have always been a resilient people, a people with a strong sense of identity, of purpose and a people who were very fortunate to learn a great lesson many centuries ago.  They learned that when a person becomes "rightly situated" within him- or herself as a human being, when the correct mind-body relationship is cultivated, that person becomes incredibly strong in every way.


"Hara no aru hito" - "the man with a belly", describes what they mean.  When a person is centered in the Hara, what the Chinese refer to as the dantian, he or she is imperturbable.  So hara no aru hito also conveys the idea of someone who always knows what to do.  Needless to day, the Japanese will need all the hara they have to deal with the present disaster.

What Can We Do?

Going back to the teachings of ancient traditions and the recent scientific evidence supporting them, here are a few simple suggestions you can implement right away.


Before you actually use one of these methods, though, take a few moments and imagine what you would be feeling and experiencing if you were in their place.  This creates empathy and opens up your capacity to use these powerful methods more effectively.

1. Pray for Them.  They need strength on all levels, the healing of trauma, protection from the impact of past and coming events.  And we can pray for the best possible outcome of those aspects of this disaster still in the making - the reactor situations and the volcanic activity.
    
   
2. Embrace Them in Love.  Simply go into a quiet meditative state and with the eye of your heart, embrace them in love.  Love is the single strongest force in the universe.  Nothing has ever or will ever defeat it.  The ancient Christian ascetics who genuinely encountered divine love called it "uncreated energy" - "uncreated" because it is totally different from anything else we know in this world, and infinitely more powerful.  That is why it is said that love is stronger than death.
   
   
3. Tap for Them.  Did you know you can use a tapping procedure such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to help others?  I first heard of the idea of doing this for Japan from Dawson Church, who has been responsible for much of the scientific research on EFT.  He suggested tapping every hour on the hour.  However you do it, it will all help.  If you're a little unclear on how to do it, here's a video to help you.  Keep in mind you that if you're used to a slightly different tapping sequence, you can use that instead.  

As you can see, you really can make a difference, and without even leaving home. 


A friend of mine, John Green, runs an organization here in Ottawa that's ranked number 3 in the world for earthquake rescue.  John and his crew have no doubt already made their way to Japan.  That's their talent and their gift.  We can't all go there, but we can all give our loving support and that support is critical.


~ Dr. Symeon Rodger





 

The Power of Qi - Event Retrospective

For those of you who missed The Power of Qi workshop last week in Jersey City with myself and Carol Look, I have to tell you it was a great event!

There was a great energy in the room, thanks in large part to the wonderful participants who supported us, supported each other and truly made it a memorable time. 


Although I did nearly nine hours of Qi Gong teaching over the three days, the highlight for me was being able to sit back and watch Carol work her magic - using her uniquely powerful take on EFT, she brought about major emotional healing in the lives of many of those who came.  And the rest of us improved our own EFT practice considerably, while lending our energetic support to the people going through the process of dumping years or sometimes decades of emotional trauma.  

In case you're new to EFT or you've never had the privilege of watching Carol in action, here's clip that will give you some idea what it's like.  Granted, the clip parachutes you into the middle of a session without much context, but it's still worth a look.  Please note this clip is not from last week's workshop:

"Nothing Can Work That Fast"

Well, that's what one of the participants originally thought when she first heard about EFT.  She confided to me after the workshop had ended that her initial reaction to EFT was pretty skeptical when she had first encountered the technique a few years previously.  But she decided to put it to the test anyway and under very harsh conditions.  You see, she had almost drowned as a child.  And although she learned to love swimming as an adult, she had a very strong phobia about letting the water level get above her nose.  In other words, she could "swim", but had to keep her head out of the water. 

Well, after just one round of using the EFT tapping method on her decades-old phobia, she happily dove under water and was shocked to discover that the phobia was... well... gone!

The Power of Qi

The more Carol and I taught over the three days, the more we became convinced that Qi Gong and EFT are the proverbial "marriage made in heaven".  Of course, the EFT tapping procedure is based on Chinese meridian science, and the ancient Taoist medical system teaches that emotion itself is an aspect of the energy or Qi flowing through you, such that particular emotional states are related to specific organ systems in your body. 

The good news that follows from this is that you can use your body to access and control your emotional state, which both EFT and Qi Gong allow you to do in different ways.  The bad news is that if you fail to look after your emotional life, these powerful currents can directly affect your major organs and other bodily systems.  

During the event, I took everyone through a specific organ meditation method that not only relieves stress and rejuvenates the body, it also teaches you the various emotions, elements and colors associated with each of your organs as you go, so you learn all this without having to memorize it.  And for some people, it also taught them where certain organs are located ;-)

In fact, we spent a lot of time talking about the all important aspect of transforming Qi Gong from an exercise practice you do at certain times of day into a way of life.  All in all, a great learning experience for everyone who attended... including Carol and myself!

Future Events

Just so you know, I will be doing a live event in Toronto, Canada on 14-15 May with my dear friend Michael Morningstar.  The official notice and all the details should be out next week.  So if you're seriously interested in boosting your health and immunity, you'll want to keep this next workshop in mind.  

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger  

Your Optimal Health Cheat Sheet

Turn up your speakers or read the text version below:

Over the last month I think I've given the "7 Deadly Spirals of Disease" teleclass about five times to various audiences totaling thousands of people.  It's one of the most in-demand health presentations out there today. 

And while there's a place for presentations that go into that much depth, there's also a place for the high-level check list of things you can do to ensure fantastic health for years to come.  So here's just such a list for you:

1. Detox your body - There are lots of great detox systems out there.  One of my personal favorites is from a company called Blessed Herbs.  Detoxifying your system two to four times per year is highly advisable, since your body is being forced to deal with a toxic load that's well in excess of its design specifications!
   
   
2. Stop loading your body with new toxins - yes it's time to start thinking about eating more organic fruits and veggies, meat that's hormone and antibiotic-free, free range eggs, and the like.  And, for that matter, to beware of any non-organic personal care products you use, such as toothpastes, shampoos, cosmetics and the rest.  If it goes on your skin, it goes into your bloodstream.
    
   
3. Get everything circulating - one of the greatest keys to excellent health is to take your entire body through its total range of motion on a regular basis, pack your organs, bones and fasciae with Qi (vital energy) and ensure that your blood, spinal fluid, lymph fluid and Qi are all circulating unobstructed throughout your body.  This alone will short-circuit the disease process. To find out more, go to http://www.rocksolidvitality.com/dvd. 
   
   
4. Optimize your diet - learn what your body really needs nutritionally.  Take Dr. Mercola's free nutritional typing test to figure out what you should be eating.  Learn from internationally famous nutritional expert Michael Morningstar by taking the course he and I put together at http://www.mindsetbootcamp.com/symeon/healthmastery.html.
   
   
5. Avoid the electromagnetic storm - learn about the dangers of information-bearing radio waves.  Avoid wireless internet, be careful about how and how often you use your cell phone, your cordless phone and your laptop.  And be especially careful to educate your kids about this too!
   
   
6. Cultivate gratitude - this the nature's most natural stress-killer.  Whereas stress sends your body's pH level into the disease-prone acidic range, the frequent practice of gratitude will have the opposite effect.  Remember, an alkaline body is a very poor host for illness.
    
   
7. Smile habitually and never complain - this has the same effect.  Yes, you're surrounded by the frustrating (and sometimes mind-bendingly stupid) actions of other people.  But the more you can learn to disregard it all, the more you'll stress-proof yourself.  When your friends or coworkers complain, propose a solution instead!
   
   
8. Give affection, get affection - people who give and receive affection frequently live longer and happier lives.  Become one of them!
   
   
9. Deal with your emotions - this is one of the greatest keys to dealing with stress.  Learn simple and powerful tools like the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) or Be Set Free Fast (BSFF).  Then you'll never again have to wallow helplessly in a puddle of negative emotion and put your health at risk. 
   
   
10. Meditate - it's one of the key elements of the ancient Taoist longevity system.  Moreover, it gives you mastery of your mind and emotions, and makes you totally stress-proof.  That's in addition to all its spiritual benefits, of course.
     
    
11. Learn to breathe - learn Normal Abdominal Breathing, the way the human being was meant to breathe.  This has enormous physical, psychological and spiritual benefits.  It's even more powerful when you join your breath, your movement and your mental attention into one.  You can learn more at: http://www.harapower.com/
    
    
12. Aim at harmony - we live in an anti-harmony culture.  Just walk down a busy street in any of our cities and you'll realize we've constructed a way of life hostile to our physical and emotional health.  When you aim at physical and emotional harmony in your own life, you counteract the persistently destructive influence of the man-made outside world.  Again, http://www.harapower.com/ will teach you more about this.
    

Please note you shouldn't try to do all of this or too much of it at once.  If you can implement just one of these this week or this month, you'll be making great progress!  

Remember that there's no one, single silver bullet for your health.  There are several and you need to take them all into account when you're building your new, healthier and more resilient lifestyle.  

~ Dr. Symeon Rodger

The Fastest Way to Heal Emotional Traumas

Very few things cause as much pain in human life as the emotional traumas from our past.  Take Shannon, for example (not her real name).  An incident from her youth is preventing her from opening up sexually to her husband, from giving him the intimacy he or anyone would seek in their marriage.  Then there's Tim, the guy who's controlling personality makes his colleagues miserable and, again, it's a kind of defense mechanism from his past, one he refuses to deal with. 

As an Orthodox Christian priest, I can tell you we get people like this coming to us all the time.  Sometimes they sense the healing they can find through the tradition. More often, unfortunately, they're just as willing to settle for something to dull the pain or, even better, to explain it in noble terms as a "cross to bear" or a "sacrifice". 

The truth, though, is that until these folks face reality and make a commitment to their own inner healing, they'll never be able to nurture fulfilling relationships, to understand what love is really about or to have any kind of spiritual life that's not pure delusion. 

And, let's be candid, you and I are not much different from Shannon and Tim.  True, our neuroses may not be as serious or obvious as theirs, but unless we face them and allow the healing process to take place within our mind-body organism, we'll still face some pretty undesirable consequences in our lives.  

So the big question is.... how do we heal our past emotional traumas???



Welcome to Energy Psychology!


Energy Psychology is an emerging field of study that’s turning conventional psychology on its head. I don’t know how many psychology PhDs I’ve met that told me something like, “No, I didn’t believe these energy methods would work, but then my clients started using them and got better results in 15 minutes than I could get for them in 15 months using conventional methods.”


The 2 methods that I've recommended in the past and found startling results with were the now well-known Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and the newer and less well-known Be Set Free Fast (BSFF). These are two very different approaches, yet each has been clinically proven very effective and the beauty of them is that once you know either method, you can treat yourself anywhere, anytime in a matter of minutes, if not seconds.


What kind of results do they get? At the very least, they loosen the grip of the “killer thought” that’s afflicting you to such an extent that you can finally function freely outside its grasp for a considerable time. It may return, but then you just “zap it” again. However, if you use either of these methods to their full extent over time, you can actually eliminate your negative conditioning permanently!



My Number One Choice:


Naturally, clients often ask me which method they should learn and how to do that. My first choice is Dr. Carol Look’s latest EFT approach, called “A Vibrational Approach to Healing Pain and Illness.”


Carol is one of the top instructors in EFT worldwide and this product encapsulates her latest and most effective approach to healing the emotional traumas of your past. You may not relate to the “killer thoughts” holding you back as “traumas”, but as far as your body is concerned that’s exactly what they are. They are powerful emotional responses “frozen” into particular parts of your body’s tissues and its energy system, in exactly the same way this happens with the physical trauma of a car accident, for instance.


Now the question is, after using numerous variations of EFT, BSFF and other approaches, why would I tell my clients to start with this particular product? It’s like this: with all the other approaches I personally did experience results and relief. However, Carol’s newest EFT approach embodied in this particular product is the only one that gave me resolution. Let me explain.


As an internationally known personal development coach, I’ve used ancient methods from Tai Chi and Qi Gong to create deep states of relaxation and do away with some traumatic stress and anxiety I was conditioned with in my childhood. However, there was one particular fear of phobia that I just could not dislodge no matter how hard I tried. Other energy psychology approaches lessened the discomfort for a few hours at a time, but the wretched feeling would always come back.


Then came Dr. Carol Look’s approach. After using it to treat this particular phobia for an hour or so, it was gone, disappeared. Imagine my shock – something unpleasant I had just had to live with for decades was suddenly not there. Freedom!


And I didn’t see hide nor hair of it for several months. Then the first time I felt it coming back, albeit in a much weakened form, I just laughed, saying, “I’m glad you’re back. Ever since I ran your ass out of town a few months back I’ve been looking forward to this rematch!”


You see, I was used to running and hiding from this phobia and I’d feel a kind of terror when I felt it coming on – kind of like being afraid of fear. Not fun. After using Carol’s method, though, I felt the opposite. I now had for the first time a total confidence in the face of my enemy, a feeling that can only be described with the words, “Bring it on!”

So if you want to live life to the full, to find real inner freedom and the world of possibilities that's closed to you unless you have that, it’s time to zap all the traumas, fears and self-limiting beliefs that are holding you back. And, in my personal experience, Dr. Carol Look’s “A Vibrational Approach to Healing Pain and Illness” is the absolute tops. 

And you can find it here: http://bit.ly/a9ExcT






~ Dr. Symeon Rodger