The Empath’s Hidden Burden: Unpacking Trauma, Shame, and the Illusion of Kindness
If you often find yourself stressed, overwhelmed, or feeling like you’re carrying the weight of the world for others, it’s time to get real about something many kind, empathetic souls struggle with: the truth you might be unconsciously avoiding, and it is not your fault.
You see, for those who identify as empaths, there are two colossal forces bubbling beneath the surface: horrific childhood trauma and debilitating shame. Understanding these isn’t about blaming; it’s about illuminating the path to genuine healing and emotional safety, and liberation.
Trauma: The Childhood Foundation
Now, if you’re thinking, “Trauma? My childhood was great!” I hear you. But here’s the thing: you don’t become an empath by accident. A deeply sensitive person only develops this hyper-awareness in childhood because their environment demanded it. Think of a child’s emotional landscape as an open, unshielded canvas. Whatever emotions our parents felt — their anxieties, their unexpressed anger, their fears — we absorbed them. We became mirrors of their emotional state.
To survive, we learned to be hyper-attuned. For me, with a mother battling alcoholism and a father consumed by rage, survival meant becoming a human lie-detector, constantly scanning for emotional shifts. This was a brilliant, life-saving skill in childhood. It protected me. But, like an old survival kit, it becomes a burden in adulthood. The very mechanism that saved us then can now keep us from truly living. It’s why so many empaths feel overwhelmed in crowds, struggle in relationships, and constantly feel drained — the trauma of childhood is boomeranging back, keeping them stuck.
Shame: The Silent Driver Behind Inauthentic Kindness
And then there’s the second piece: debilitating shame.
But here’s a powerful truth from the world of human behavior: when we experience severe trauma and shame, we often develop what’s called a reaction formation. This is an unconscious defense mechanism where we repress a disturbing, painful feeling and express the exact opposite.
So, when an empath is excessively kind, it’s often a defense against a buried impulse to be “cruel.” Not because their heart is inherently cruel, but because underneath that shame and trauma lies a deep reservoir of unexpressed hurt, anger, and sadness. As children, they couldn’t stand up for themselves; expressing that raw emotion would have been “bad” or unsafe, reinforcing their shame.
The “Thinly Sadistic” Nature of Avoidance
Imagine all that unprocessed anger and pain building up. If an empath were to truly express that deep-seated rage, it would trigger that original shame and wounding they’ve spent a lifetime avoiding. So, what do they do? They double down on kindness. It becomes a rigid, almost inappropriate trait. This extreme kindness acts as a shield, ensuring they never have to feel that inner “cruelty” — that deep, raw anger — and therefore, never have to face the underlying shame.
This is why many empaths find themselves repeatedly in relationships with narcissists. This “kindness” isn’t a freely given, authentic gift. It’s often coercive, manipulative, and yes, thinly sadistic (a term coined by John Bradshaw). Think about it: how truly authentic or loving is it to be “nice” to someone who doesn’t deserve it, or to give of yourself until you’re depleted, all while secretly resenting it? This isn’t a genuine connection; it’s a dynamic born from unaddressed trauma and shame.
Finding Your Authentic Power
This relentless kindness, in its most extreme form, is an empath’s way of hiding their own “darkness” — the very hurt and anger that, if faced, could lead to their greatest liberation. It’s time to recognize that true healing begins not by perpetuating the cycle with forced kindness but by acknowledging the full spectrum of emotions within and learning to be authentically imperfect. This is the first step on your journey to Emotional Authenticity.If this resonates with you and you’re curious about taking those next steps to heal childhood wounds and overcome shame, my book, Your Journey to Success, could be a helpful guide.
How to know if you have childhood trauma? Most people incorrectly assume that childhood trauma is only created by the typical devastating mistreatment often written about in the media and news. However, it does not require such devastation, and therefore, all of us have been through childhood trauma. This Best Day Blog article aims to bring that truth into reality and consciousness. Living in truth is critical for us to live the happy, healthy, and safe lives we deserve.
Childhood trauma happens more often than you think?
As a child, how often were you told, ‘Not right now, just go watch tv, go play in your room, and I’ll be up in a minute!’ How many times as a parent have you said that? If you’re like an average parent, you’ve probably said those same comments thousands of times to your children.
These experiences are traumatic.
It might seem nit-picky to say little comments like those are traumatic. Still, the accumulation of the emotional injuries we all experience are traumatic to our brain and body.
Parenting is Hard!
Of course, there will always be examples of severe trauma that can result in very difficult adulthoods and childhoods, but the small stuff causes trauma too. The little comments, looks, abandonments – it’s all normal. Parents get exhausted, feel drained, and need a moment to themselves. It’s ok to admit that sometimes we don’t have the energy to parent. But, in those moments, your child knows it.
This brings to light how overwhelming the job of parenting can be. To leave your child without any wounds, you need to be perfect in every moment, which isn’t humanly possible. But, you are not to blame – no parent is to blame.
Parents must live in truth and take responsibility.
It’s essential to be able to listen to your child and what they say about your imperfections. Admitting our mistakes is not easy, but as parents, we must take ownership of our perfect imperfections and accept that we leave wounds in our children. Furthermore, any struggle that our child is having is, in part, a direct result of our perfectly imperfect parenting of them. For a parent not to acknowledge that mistakes were made and that those mistakes are showing up in their child’s life is the most traumatic. That is a complete lack of regard for a child’s inherent value and worth. Denial on that level communicates that the child doesn’t even exist.
By learning to do this, you can teach your child not to be falsely empowered but rather own up to when we’re wrong with humility and grace.
Parents often reach out to me with issues their children are facing. It’s as though they think their child was raised in a vacuum. For a long time, behavioral science has shown that we become our childhood, particularly the first three years of life. Those years are critical, but so many people are oblivious to this fact – your child’s struggles directly reflect your internal struggles, no matter their age. If you see this, it’s time to look in the mirror, look inwards, and start your healing journey to recover from what you’re struggling with.
To help your child heal your childhood trauma.
Healing can take shape in many different ways. It starts with recognizing the patterns and behaviors we are passing down. This requires an awareness of our childhood experiences. We can then make an intentional effort to change by taking ourselves out of the loop of habit. The result is a positive impact on our child’s emotional development.
Unless someone takes responsibility for generations of perfect imperfections, all being passed through you to your child, the pattern will continue. This requires confronting our denial and mastering our emotions.
If you are interested in beginning your healing journey, these links will help you
While there are many reasons we can’t see our self-deception, I will focus on two primary reasons that very few people will ever mention in today’s Best Day Blog article. The fact that so few ever say these are, in part, why it makes it so hard for us to see how we are lying to ourselves.
The two reasons we lie to ourselves
As with most everything in our lives, we learn self-deception as a child. We don’t want to admit our parents are perfectly imperfect as children. For example, it’s natural for a child to feel terrified when parents are late. So, we will make excuses or minimize, justify, or condone their tardiness to calm our fears. Spanking is another example. Many people believe that this type of punishment ‘toughened them up,’ but if their adult boss told them they needed to be spanked, they would rightfully argue that it is entirely unacceptable. So, why would it be ok to slap or spank a defenseless child? Children cannot intellectually or emotionally properly comprehend why it’s happening, let alone stop it. However, we’ve deceived ourselves into thinking that physical abuse is good and healthy parenting.
All of the excuses that people use that make spanking ok are self-deception. The phrases ‘I deserved it!’, ‘It made me stronger, ‘I was being naughty, so it had to happen!’ – all of it is self-deception. Janet Jackson spoke of this when talking about her childhood in an interview, how she was beaten but ‘always deserved it,’ saying that it kept her in line and made her who she is today. Her self-deception led to her making choices such as being physically exposed on national television in a stunt with Justin Timberlake. When people say things like ‘it was never something we didn’t deserve’ as Janet did, it is a clear example of a child using self-deception to survive and make sense of something senseless.
The second factor in facing our self-deception is society and religion. While this isn’t an article to disparage religion, it is here to help you on your journey, and part of that might be asking, ‘what is a primary message in religion’? First, ‘God, the Father, is always right.’ Even for agnostics or atheists, this communicates that your father is always right, which isn’t true. All fathers are human and make mistakes. Secondly, within society, the message to always respect your mother and father is often portrayed at a very young age. These are powerful messages that condemn us to be ‘being bad’ if we question our parent’s imperfections and humanness at all. These messages force us into self-deception as a way to survive.
Another trope that coincides with the imperative not to question our parent’s imperfections is to ‘not speak ill of the dead.’ So, if our parents have passed and we are looking to do inner work to heal our childhood injuries, it will be difficult, with this thinking, to correctly assign responsibility. By not speaking ill of the dead, we are repressing the healing that we deserve, which robs us of the life we deserve.
Interestingly, there is no shame in society in being angry at our partner, our siblings, or our boss, but to feel anger towards our parents is frowned upon. It is seen as disrespectful and treasonous, which, again, causes us to lie about what we are feeling. However, to grow and heal, we must learn to honestly express the repressed anger we feel for having to maintain the “God-like” status of our perfectly imperfect parents.
How do we get back into reality?
If we still don’t think that our parents had any effect on our lives and we believe that we’re not in denial or self-deception, then the following three questions will bring clarity, truth, and reality.
One
Did you ever say ‘I will/would never do that to my kids? Are there aspects of your childhood that you would not want to repeat with your children? If so, write them down – these instances are the doorway to discovering the injuries you have repressed and denied to protect your parent’s God-like status at your expense
Two
Have you made a conscious or subconscious attempt to do any aspect of parenting differently than your parents did? This question is a little bit deeper, and, having read this article, you might notice you have made some changes to the way you, yourself, parent. Again, this could be conscious or subconscious, but it will help you realize why you have made these choices to parent in a different way.
Three
Are you feeling anger or guilt at the prospect of admitting your parents made mistakes that left wounds in you? Is that guilt keeping you from realizing that you made adjustments as a parent? Finally, are you feeling the same feelings about your parenting? In my experience, an adult who lives in truth and reality can see themselves in those three questions.
Remember, this is not about belittling or blaming our parents. Even parents who have actively studied how to be better will make mistakes that leave wounds. Your parents were perfect; they clothed you, put a roof over your head, helped you with your homework, and did many beautiful things. But they were also imperfect; they did get angry, maybe hit you, and at times rejected you when they were too busy to play with you. However, the perfect and the imperfect can live in conjunction with each other, and the acceptance of that truth is love.
Are you confused as to why people ghost you? It’s so common these days, and it leaves us feeling hurt, angry, and perplexed when we can’t figure out why. In today’s Best Day Blog article and the accompanying video, I will help you end that hurt and frustration by explaining why people ghost you, how you attracted a ghoster and what you can do to protect your mental health going forward.
What created the “Ghoster?”
Two things create the people who ghost you. The internet and the underlying emotional feelings within the people who ghost you. The internet has altered the communication landscape drastically. It thrives on separation – messages, emails, text messages. Since only 7% of all communication is words, texting and email are virtually not even communication. Even worse, If you call a person, they tend to be shocked. It may result in you being categorized as weird, threatening, or dysfunctional? Therefore the internet is creating a society that is horrifically underdeveloped emotionally. People can no longer communicate, and most are afraid of intimacy and connection. Think about the extreme rise in the viewing of pornography. This keeps us detached from reality and separates us from intimacy. Unfortunately, society now primarily pursues relationships through screens and not in person.
Perfectly Imperfect Parenting
The nature of being human is to admit that we all make mistakes and therefore we were all raised by perfectly imperfect parents who left emotional wounds in us. These traumatic moments sever attachment, and since we are a child, we are powerless to fix them. This fills the people who ghost with high levels of fear. It might be a fear of confrontation, sharing their needs and wants, or being vulnerable and intimate?
Some people who ghost are aware of their attachment issues and powerlessness but don’t know how to overcome them? Others are aware and consciously choose to ghost you. Regardless, being ghosted is very cruel – to spend time creating a relationship and connection and then, boom, it’s severed with no explanation is a massive abandonment. There are ghosters who do it once and are gone forever, and those who come in and out of your life, repeatedly leaving with no explanation. For someone to do this is abusive, there is no sugar coating this.
Why do people Ghost?
People who ghost will have experienced powerlessness and a lack of attachment as a child. To avoid feeling powerless and out of control as an adult, people who ghost use denial, detachment, and dissociation. To the ghoster, these feel like control and power because they allow them not to feel the pain from the past. Therefore, people who ghost have unhealed emotional pain from the past.
This type of trauma and abandonment causes the people who ghost to put up their defenses, deny what happened, and dissociate from the reality of their childhood. Therefore, it’s tough for them to admit that they might be faulty, deficient, or perfectly imperfect as adults?
Why We Attract People WHo Ghost?.
Many don’t realize that both the people who ghost and the ones attracted to them are part of the problem? On the positive side, that means those attracted to them can create their own solution. First, we have to ask ourselves, ‘what are the benefits of attracting people who ghost?’ You’ll likely say ‘none,’ but there is a reason that you are attracting them into your life. So instead of blaming them and saying they’re the problem, try flipping it and look back at yourself and think of all the ways you benefit?
Some of the benefits for attracting people who ghost:
You don’t have to commit to them
Low drama
Low intensity
Lots of freedom
No accountability for your actions
The first step to attracting people who do not ghost is to get out of denial and into reality of all the.subconscious benefits the person who ghosts brings us. In many ways, you’re having your cake and eating it too because you have the attention, anticipation, and excitement of meeting the people who ghost while still living your life with freedom and no commitment – you subconsciously love it!
However, one of the most significant unconscious benefits is that both the people who ghost and the ones attracted to them treat the other as a light switch. In moments of sadness or loneliness, they switch the light on and reach out for some connection, but as soon as they get what they need, they switch the light off again, making excuses. The truth is, you have to be responsible for yourself and recognize what attracted you to the people who ghost you?
What are you afraid of?
Ultimately, what are both sides afraid of – connection and intimacy. Because of the unhealed pain from the past, both consciously or subconsciously recognize that they are fearful of a relationship. Depending on how deep the pain is, it might ultimately take professional help to conquer these inner fears. It’s challenging to do this alone because the individual is too close to it, and they won’t see themselves. Additionally, the fear of intimacy, abandonment, and powerlessness they experienced as a child blocks their ability to get help. Often they’ll come up with excuses that keep them in denial. For example, convincing themselves with arguments that’ It’s too expensive,’ or ‘I don’t have enough time!’
The solution
If you’ve recognized yourself as a person who ghosts or know that you’re always attracting people who ghost, the best solution is to work with a professional. We all need a guide to show us what we cannot see in ourselves.
If you’re unsure about one-on-one work, then my Complete Emotional Authenticity Method for only $47 a month is perfect. It walks you through healing from your childhood pain, shows you how to go from fearful to fearless, creates intimacy and connection, overcomes codependency, and much more.
Here are more solutions? Pick the one that suits your needs best!
Reclaiming Your Authentic Self by Becoming Trauma-Informed, PART 5
It has been my life experience that the single greatest killer on the planet today is denial. It permeates every aspect of life and it is always at the central core of all life problems. Denial of this truth itself is why no one is talking about or dealing with it. Therefore, becoming an expert in your denial and self-deception is the most important skill you need to learn if you want to overcome The Worst Day Cycle. By doing so, you will have a profound impact on your healing journey.
To recap, The Worst Day Cycle is initiated by trauma in childhood, which creates a fear-based emotional chemical addiction. Due to our lack of Emotional Authenticity, we develop a shame-based, self victimizing false persona in a misguided attempt to regain our lost inherent power. To protect us against the emotional reality of the pain in childhood and loss of self, we collapse into denial. The denial of these truths guarantees that the cycle will repeat itself.
How Denial and Self-deception Operate
1. As a species, we must attach to another human being or we will die. Because our parents are perfectly imperfect and human they hurt us. To attach and survive we create a false self. We had no choice, our life depended on it. The role of the false self is to minimize, suppress, repress, condone, justify and deny that our parents hurt us. We create this lie to forge attachment with them. We subconsciously fear that if we accepted the truth, we would lose their attachment and die. Even if we are aware of their imperfections, a false attachment seems better than no attachment. That furthers our defiance to admitting how they hurt us. Our inability to live in truth affects every single adult decision for the rest of our lives until addressed.
2. We then blame, judge, and criticize other people, places, and things. We do this so that we don’t have to admit the part that our shame-based false persona played in setting up our own self-victimization in our adult life struggles. There is an added benefit to our self-deception. It shields us from having to face that we created a false self and therefore, we don’t know who we really are.
Society And Brain Design
3. Society and brain design also play a role in our self-deception. For centuries, science and society have incorrectly denigrated and downplayed the importance of emotions in our life and intellect. For one, we now know that emotion precedes all thought. That means Emotional Authenticity is essential to intellect. Secondly, the logical left side of the brain becomes myopic and shuts out truth unless it confirms its current belief. Conversely, the emotional right side’s ability to include context and diverse options makes for a more complete, and precise intellectual thought and decision. In short, the more emotionally developed a person is the better their thoughts and decisions. Interestingly, because of brain design, these facts will quite often be denied even by those that have made the discoveries in the brain.
4. The combination of The Worst Day Cycle, societal beliefs and norms, and the brain’s design proved to be a formidable adversary to our reclaiming our authentic selves, accepting and loving our perfect imperfections, and achieving our personal potential.
A quick reminder. We are not to blame for doing the best we could with the information we had, AND we are responsible for letting these truths in and doing the work to collectively heal The Worst Day Cycle and reshaping societal norms and beliefs.
The Three Main Ways Denial Shows Up
1. The fear of success
Make sure to catch up on the previous articles to learn more about why we have a fear of success, not a fear of failure. We fear success because of what we have to give up. We developed our self-victimizing false persona to attach. To succeed we would have to stop hurting ourselves and relinquish the self-victimizing false persona. That subconsciously feels like a loss of attachment to our caregivers. Additionally, we would also have to admit we don’t know who we are. True success is the ability to walk in who we authentically are. To do so would require the death of the false attachment and the false self. To avoid this we most often procrastinate. When did you last procrastinate? How many excuses did you use to put off doing something? That is a denial of your authentic self! We don’t want to face the truth that we are re-victimizing ourselves by not taking the action we need to achieve our goals. What we’re afraid of is letting go of the false self that we think we are. Studies show that we lie to ourselves 10-200 times a day cycle. The self-deception we use to avoid achieving our full potential through procrastination is a primary way we do this.
2. Codependence
In part, codependence is a denial of responsibility that allows us to stay the child. We stay the child by blaming others for making us think, feel, or do things. In reality, nobody makes us think, feel or do anything. In particular in relationships. We put the blame on the other person and rarely take enough responsibility for our own actions. While I would never condone a person’s poor treatment of another, the only way a relationship happens is when we allow the person close to us. Therefore, if that person mistreats us, we have to ask ourselves, what attracted me to this type of hostility? Most of us do not know that answer because society has not taught us how to find the answer.
When a person understands The Worst Day Cycle, they will see it all correlates back to the unhealed pain in their childhood. They literally chose this person to help them see what pain from the past they need to heal so they can reclaim their authentic self. We demonstrate this codependent denial of personal responsibility in our reaction to compliments and criticisms. Many people find it very difficult to accept compliments and may even become defensive. Compliments don’t make us feel, think or do better. They only have an effect if we decide they match our own personal truth! Do you see what that means?
We Cannot Accept a Compliment
We cannot accept a compliment because it goes against the messages we received as a child. To accept the compliment we would have to be a traitor and drop the false self that we created for attachment. Criticisms match the personal truth our caregivers placed in us that we are trying to suppress, repress, minimize, condone and deny. We lack awareness that our defensiveness and hurt feelings are about the carried shame from childhood. Instead of admitting it is our childhood experiences that created these feelings, we protect the false attachment bonds we created with our caregivers and project the hurtful feelings onto the person in the present. This is at the heart of the current cancel culture and its efforts to demonize speech. They are unaware that they are projecting their unhealed shame and denial codependently onto the world so that they can stay the child. They are yearning for all of us to be the loving parents they never experienced. The fact that we can’t accept compliments demonstrates how detached the cancel culture is from their authentic selves. For if we were living in our authentic selves, we would be able to hear and accept compliments and recognize criticisms as the other person expressing their unhealed shame and denial from their Worst Day Cycle. We would not allow another person’s pain to corrupt our personal truth!
3. Whenever we judge, blame, hate or criticize any person, place, or thing, we are always talking to ourselves. It might be true that those people, places, or things are doing what we are critiquing but the only reason we can see it in them is that we do the exact same thing either directly or indirectly.
Basic Ideas
It is like watching a 3-D movie without the glasses. We have basic ideas of what is going on because we have watched a movie before but since society has not taught us Emotional Authenticity or The Worst Day Cycle, we can’t quite remove the distortion from the screen, things are a bit fuzzy. What we don’t realize is we are noticing these things in the other person so that we can ultimately reclaim our authentic selves and forgive ourselves for the part we have played in our misfortunes. They don’t need canceling, they need thanking and embracing for teaching us about ourselves. When we learn how to confront and heal our shame and denial the glasses appear. We then see these truths clearly.
Let me share with you how I discovered this process.
One day I was driving and as I sat behind a car that wouldn’t turn left, I began honking and yelling ‘I hate stupid drivers!’
After a bit, I paused, regathered myself, and queried, ‘Kenny, this is about you’.
At the time I denied the truth. I screamed out, ‘but I don’t drive like them, I would fricking turn!’
But, I remembered that everything is emotion-based, not thought-based, so the fact I didn’t think that I drove like them was irrelevant. Instead, I turned my focus to the emotional content of what I was saying about the drivers – ‘I hate stupid drivers.’
I then broke the words down emotionally and how the words I was choosing actually reflected back onto myself.
’I hate’ is a descriptor of how I feel about myself for what I am doing. My judgment, blame, and criticism was calling the other person ‘stupid.’
I was trying to tell myself that I hate myself for being stupid.
The Worst Day Cycle
Now the real work began. As a child, where did I get sent the message I was stupid? Without hesitation, my mind flooded with direct and indirect messages from both my dad and brother. Those messages left me with the impression I was stupid. To this day cycle, feeling stupid is the worst thing I can feel and it carries the deepest shame. I then looked over my life at all of the ‘stupid’ decisions I had made to re-victimize myself and confirm the false persona that I was a stupid person?
I have struggled with multiple addictions, two divorces, in one of those, I stayed even after being physically and verbally abused, a bankruptcy, playing two pro sports I never wanted to play, and countless other ‘stupid’ decisions before spending three days cycle contemplating taking my life.
It was a penny drop moment and I laughed out loud when I realized, no wonder I think this driver is stupid, I must be the dumbest person I know. Is that true, am I stupid? Of course not. I had spent a life doing the best I could with the information I had at the time. Science, society, and parents never taught me about The Worst Day Cycle or specifically about denial so I had no idea how any of this works. I was just doing the best I could with the information I had at the time. The blessing is that I was now in truth. I could see myself, my authentic self clearly. I am just perfectly imperfect, I can now forgive myself and no longer hate myself or carry the false persona of being ‘stupid.’
The Worst Day Cycle
There is one final step to your judgment, blame, and criticism – look for the metaphor. Do you see the metaphor? I displaced and projected my vitriol onto other people’s ‘driving’ because I couldn’t ‘drive’ my own life. I was living in a false persona. It had me making life decisions that worked against me and not for me. Because I was not present in my own life I was not ‘driving’ my life.
When you confront and conquer your denial you discover the glasses and reclaim your authentic self. This is an act of maturation and re-parenting. You no longer need to be codependent. You have found how to provide the nurturing your perfectly imperfect parent could not provide.
To learn more about this piece specifically, watch the video ‘How to turn any insult into a blessing.’
You can also find the accompanying article on my blog.
The Scales of Injustice
All of these create what I call the scales of Injustice. On one side of the scale is high denial, on the other is low self-esteem. The denial side is nearly breaking the scale in all of our lives because what is denial? A lack of truth – we don’t want to admit that our parents hurt us, that we don’t know who we are, that we have created a self-victimizing false self, that the criticisms are true, that we don’t forgive ourselves. You can’t have high self-esteem if you have high denial because you are not living in truth. We all live with a false attachment mechanism designed to get our parent’s approval. Its role is to protect who we are from coming out and jeopardizing everything we have falsely created.
If you’re struggling and you feel as though it still hasn’t sunk in, perhaps you’re still not ready to admit your perfect imperfections and put the 3-D glasses on, then listen to the words of Byron Katie who says,
‘Notice how often you defend yourself (with words, actions, the way you dress, your tone of voice) and how stressful that can be. What impression—what “you”—are you trying to hide or strengthen? Whom are you trying to convince?’
Pia Melody says this, ‘It is tempting to avoid our accountability for having erred in a relationship when we can hide behind something of which we are innocent—using the innocent part to divert attention from the guilty part. That is at the crux of the problem.’
We are Denying
We must own the parts of ourselves we are denying – this is the key to healing. If you feel anger when reading this, look at what truth you’re trying to hide from yourself? You’re doing the best you can but you must take responsibility for the information you have now gained. You can now choose to do the work or to stay stuck.
Beverley Engel says it this way, ‘When we continually blame someone, we stay stuck in the problem instead of focusing on the solution. It is also important to realize that blaming someone is different from requiring the other person to take responsibility for his actions.’
Gaining the glasses to watch your 3-D movie properly means becoming an expert and developing the knowledge, skills, and tools of Emotional Authenticity, and conquering the four elements of The Worst Day Cycle; trauma, fear, shame, and denial. Only then can we live in truth and only then will we have self-esteem. Only then can we admit our own perfect imperfections and forgive ourselves.
The Brain’s Design & How Society Keeps Denial and The Worst Day Cycle Alive
We have two hemispheres – left and right. All information comes into our right hemisphere and it sends it to the left, and the left sends it back. Take playing an instrument, the left filters and sorts all of the information that the right gathered. The left should then send the information back, but this doesn’t always happen.
This is why Ian McGilchrist’s book says,
‘The right hemisphere’s view is inclusive, it sees context, options & solutions. The left hemisphere’s view is exclusive, analytic, and fragmentary – but, crucially, unaware of what it is missing. It, therefore, thinks it can go it alone.’ ‘In terms of the metaphor of the Master (the right) and his emissary (the left), the Master realizes the need for an emissary to do certain work on his behalf and report back to him. That is why he appoints the emissary in the first place. The emissary, however, knowing less than the Master, thinks he knows everything and considers himself the real Master, thus failing to carry out his duty to report back. A sort of stuffing of the ears with sealing wax appears to be part of the normal left-hemisphere mode. It does not want to hear what it takes to be the siren songs of the right hemisphere, calling it back into reality. The left hemisphere blindly pushes on, always along the same track. Evidence of failure does not mean that we are going in the wrong direction, only that we have not gone far enough in the direction we are already headed.’ ‘Even WORSE! The left hemisphere is not keen on taking responsibility. If the defect might reflect on the self, it does not like to accept it. But if something or someone else can be made to take responsibility – if it is a ‘victim’ of someone else’s wrongdoing, it is happily prepared to do so while being convinced that it is righteous!’
These are the people who are spearheading cancel culture – they are stuck in the left hemisphere, exclusive and fragmentary, and crucially unaware that are abolishing inclusivity, options, and solutions. They are completely blind that they are headed in the wrong direction.
As McGilchrist goes on to say,
‘Emotion and the body are at the irreducible core of experience: they are not there merely to help out with cognition. The feeling is not just an add-on, a flavored coating for thought: it is at the heart of our being, and reason emanates from that central core of the emotions, in an attempt to limit and direct them, rather than the other way about. The feeling came, and comes, first, and reason emerges from it: Even the prejudice we have in favor of reason cannot itself be justified by reasoning: the virtues of reason are something we can do no more than intuit.’
In other words, the virtues of reasoning come from feeling. Cognition, rationality, and logic emanate from intuition and emotion. If you’re not learning Emotional Authenticity or how to conquer The Worst Day Cycle and are simply listening to the left hemisphere, you’re not going to improve, you’re going to keep going in the wrong direction.
Why Do We Keep Doing This?
Scientists’ reliance on the left hemisphere even when they know the left hemisphere is prone to denial! This is why I’m not a fan of cognitive-behavioral therapy. CBT attempts to minimize and suppress emotion, rather than sharpen and enhance it to the detriment of us all.
As Bessel Van Der Kolk points out,
‘We now know that there is another possible response to threat, which our scans aren’t yet capable of measuring. Some people simply go into denial. Their bodies register the threat, but their conscious minds go on as if nothing has happened. However, even though the mind may learn to ignore the messages from the emotional brain, the alarm signals don’t stop. The emotional brain keeps working, and stress hormones keep sending signals to the muscles to tense for action or immobilize in collapse. The physical effects on the organs go on unabated until they demand notice when they are expressed as illness. Medications, drugs, and alcohol can also temporarily dull or obliterate unbearable sensations and feelings. But the body continues to keep the score.’ “The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves.”
The medical community lies to itself with grave consequences for us all. For example, physicians are not trained to know that our emotional health impacts our physical health the most. If we were to ask ‘How was your childhood?’ before prescribing pills, we could help people heal the source of most medical problems, rather than simply attempting to medicate the symptoms away.
Our health is an emotional problem, our politics are an emotional problem, our relationships are an emotional problem, and our world is an emotional problem.
The solution?
This is not about blame; it is about truth and responsibility. We can only do what we know and since the vast majority do not know any of this information they are just doing the best they can. But, for those of you who have made it this far you are now responsible. You now have the information you never had. You can continue in denial and ignore the truth, stay stuck as the irresponsible codependent child or you can take ownership and put a plan in place to make a change within yourself. Your personal change will have the added benefit of facilitating a change in all of those you come in contact with. If you choose not to do so, you are responsible for those consequences. Even if your false self and left hemisphere try to convince you otherwise.
If you feel you are ready to re-parent yourself, heal the pain from the past, love and accept your perfect imperfections, and reclaim and forgive your authentic self, I have created several steps to achieve that. But to be clear, this is not a journey for those who are getting ready to be ready. This is a journey for those that are sick and tired of living below their potential, and are desperate to become their best self. If you are ready for this journey, take one of the steps below.
In this day and age, it seems like there are more insults than ever flying around. But what if I told you there is a way to turn them into blessings? What if instead of getting angry at the person who insulted you or feeling bad about yourself for being so sensitive, you could turn their words into deeper self-love? Even better, the solution will end the strife and create deeper empathy and connection for you both!
I know that sounds impossible, but I will show you a foolproof way that works every time.
The first thing to recognize: whenever we’re insulting somebody, there’s always denial and projection at the core of our insult. Let me explain how denial and projection work: whenever we judge, blame, criticize, or hate anyone and anything, all we are ever doing is talking about ourselves. A piece of ourselves we are not aware of, and ultimately we haven’t forgiven.
It may be true that this other person is doing something we disapprove of, but the only reason we can see it in them is that same perfect imperfection is operating in us as well.
It happens in one of two ways: directly or indirectly.
Discovering how we are directly caught in our denial and projecting that onto others is very simple to uncover. What if I said to you, “I can’t stand men who wear bright-colored suits and decorate their house in all these bright colors”? Who am I describing? Myself! Look at my videos, see how I dress and decorate. Sometimes when we criticize others, we’re directly doing it to ourselves. Unless our denial is severe, that’s easy for us to see.
Discovering how we are indirectly caught in denial and projection is more challenging to see and requires a bit of self-discovery and practice.
I’m going to give you the secret and tell you about the day I discovered the indirect. I’ve always had this frustration with the way people drive: merging on the highway to slow, people in the left lane going too slow, and various other ways people don’t abide by the rules of the road. I would scream, exclaiming others’ stupidity. One day I was at a light and found myself yelling at this truck in front of me,
“Why won’t you go? I hate stupid drivers!”
I paused to remind myself that the screaming, judging, criticizing, and blaming I was doing were really about me. But I was confused and thought out loud,
“This can’t be about me. I would never do what he is doing?”
That is when the secret finally came to me. I reminded myself that modern neuroscience now shows that the old paradigm is wrong. We don’t actually become what we think. Instead, we feel before we think in almost every instance, and therefore, we all become our emotions.
I then pondered
“What am I feeling, and what emotional words am I using to communicate what is inside me?”
Specifically, I asked myself,
“What is the emotional content of the words I am using to judge, blame and criticize him?”
It was “I hate stupid drivers.” Do you see it? “Stupid.”
Maybe you don’t know my life story, so here is some insight into how I discovered my indirect denial and projection. I have struggled with multiple addictions, married two narcissistic women, one of which was physically and verbally abusive, played two professional sports I never wanted to play, filed bankruptcy, and at one point nearly took my life.
As the awareness hit, I felt this blow deep in my stomach when I recognized,
“I’m literally the dumbest person I’ve ever met. Look at all of those stupid decisions. No wonder I can’t stand the way people drive. I have no clue how to drive my own life!”
I was never aware that I was using the way other people drive to scream back at me until that moment. Nor was I aware that I was begging myself to do even deeper work to heal my pain. But, most importantly, I was desperate to send myself the message that I am not stupid, just perfectly imperfect, and I must learn to forgive myself.
I am happy to share that now, I rarely notice if a person doesn’t follow the rules of the road. By healing the pain from the past and forgiving myself, I’m done with shaming and inflicting pain upon myself.
I want you to have this same freedom, so now I want to show you:
The 5 Steps To Turn An Insult Into a Blessing.
1- Everything we judge, blame, hate, or criticize is an attempt to help ourselves, see, admit, and heal the pain from our past and forgive our perfect imperfections.
2-Look for the emotional content. Focus on the emotional words you are using to criticize the person, place, or thing? You may not be doing the exact thing, but the emotional words allow you to see what you are doing.
3- Look for the metaphor. In my case the way others drove was a metaphor for my life decisions. I couldn’t “drive” my own life.
4- Once the awareness arrives, recognize you are trying to communicate to yourself how passionate you are about healing the pain from your past and you are imploring yourself to put a plan in place to achieve that recovery.
5- Give yourself grace and forgiveness. We are all perfectly imperfect, and as a society, we have never been taught how to be a parent, have a relationship, or been given these essential life skills. Our parents were not taught either. Life and relationship skills are the least taught and, therefore, most deficient in us all. None of us can be blamed for doing the best we could with the information we have been given. If we do step four, we can change that because as we know more, we can do more.
But, that is only half of the process. What about when someone insults us? How Kenny, do we turn that into a blessing? I am so happy you asked. To show you that, I’m going to share a comment I received on Facebook on one of my videos about a year ago. The watcher said the following:
“You are an esoteric, egocentric con man trying to convince yourself that you are something other than a garden variety personality, coupled with an average wit. Unfortunately, those you would most like to convince of your worth are the ones that most easily recognize how basic you are.”
And here was my reply:
“I would agree that yes, I can be egocentric. It’s something I’m always working on. You’re also correct that, unfortunately, I do have an average wit. My older brother is much funnier than I am, and I’ve always been jealous of that. I also think it’s true that I was quite the con man, especially when I was younger. It was just the best I could do. I didn’t have any self-esteem, so everything had to be a con. I know that I’m very thankful that you see so much of me. It’s always a tremendous gift when somebody invests their valuable time in seeing all of me.”
Why did I choose to respond this way? For one, I felt defensive which let’s me know the commenter is correct. I do struggle with my ego, and I do wish I had a better wit. So I owned my perfect imperfections! It is no different than saying I have blue eyes and the sun rises in the east. Healing the pain from the past and forgiving ourselves allows us to hear the truth from others. As I always say,
“When we learn to forgive our perfect imperfections, they can’t hurt us with them anymore.”
I chose not to respond to this portion of his comment, “those you would most like to convince of your worth are the ones that most easily recognize how basic you are.” Because for me, it did not ring true. I know that because I did not feel defensive about it, I felt nothing. So, that means one of two things. It is not accurate, or as I progress on my healing journey, I will become aware that he was correct. But, since it is not valid for me at this point in my journey, I just allowed him to have his reality.
While the commentator correctly saw imperfections in me, his authentic self is desperate for someone to make him aware of the five steps to turn an insult into a blessing so he could finally not only hear but heal and forgive himself. To understand how the insulter is trying to communicate to himself, just flip the “you” into an “I”.;
“I am an esoteric, egocentric con man trying to convince you that I am something other than a garden variety personality, coupled with an average wit. Unfortunately, those I would most like to convince of my worth are the ones that most easily recognize how basic I am.”
What is the lifelong quest of the human being? Connection, authenticity, and vulnerability. This man could not have been more authentic and vulnerable, and all he is missing is a society that advocates teaching us basic life skills. That is the blessing. Insults, criticism, blame, and hatred of any person, place, or thing is each individual’s attempt to share the deepest darkest, most heartbroken, and perfectly imperfect part of themselves.
3 Steps To Never Miss The Blessing.
Own your side of the street- Look for defensiveness and allow yourself to accept truth.
Turn it around.
Empathize and appreciate.
What the commentator said about me had truth! At first, I was upset – of course, I was, I am human and because of my ego problems, in moments I am insecure. But when we get that defensive reaction, it is a sign of denial which means we are trying to hide from the truth. So I paused, asked myself what was true, and forgave myself for being perfectly imperfect in those areas. His so-called insult gave me the blessing of loving and forgiving myself more. So how could I be even remotely upset at him? Remember, when we shout at others, we’re really screaming at ourselves – and when others scream at us, they’re doing the same.
This gets to step 3: empathize and appreciate. When people insult, they share a deep, dark, perfectly imperfect part of themselves they’ve never healed or forgiven. This man isn’t these things – those thoughts were placed in him as a child, and he’s carried them his whole life. My heart breaks for him! He doesn’t even know that’s how he sees himself. He’s in tremendous pain, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
Can you now see the blessing that insults provide us all? Either a person is seeing our perfect imperfections which allow us to heal and forgive ourselves more deeply or the insulter is expressing their unhealed pain and being incredibly vulnerable with us. Connection and intimacy are now possible for us both.
Imagine if both political parties and activists on all sides were aware that while there may be a fault on the other side, the perfect imperfection they are most desperate to change resides in themselves? Imagine if in a relationship, both parties knew this as well?
Enjoy The Journey!
Learn more here:
If you are looking to gain self-love and self-forgiveness so that you can turn any insult into a blessing, I have developed this masterclass just for you!
CLICK THE IMAGE TO LEARN MORE
If you want to gain Emotional Authenticity so that your thoughts are not filled with painful emotions, I have created this masterclass for you!
