In this article I attempt to help you see that your upbringing is highly likely to have informed how you feel about yourself today. It is impossible for it not to have. I am interested (in the work I do), about just how many people struggle with low self esteem and I would say that it is most people.
If you are concerned about coming for counselling with an unexplained feeling of guilt or shame stopping you bearing truth, exposing yourself and feeling bad, it might come from your religious or cultural background. It may be taught literally or you may think in a literal way from learning throughout your life, when teaching was sharp, harsh and strict, contrasting with your thinking which was undeveloped and very literal in your infant years.
In addition, if you are neuro divergent, you might be giving yourself a very hard time because you are thinking even more literally. Processing as a child would have been difficult and you may have traumatised yourself with how you absorbed the teachings from family, church and school.
I have written this article to help you understand that with counselling, there comes no judgment and if you feel bad because of a thought, a feeling or an action, you can come to my confidential service. You might have buried it very deeply and be completely unconscious of it. You might just believe you are fundamentally bad and not know why.
You are not alone. We can work it out together.
I wanted to in include original sin. I read in The Course of Miracles that sin is inaccurate. We are largely aware of what the original sin is. The story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden is a foundational narrative in several major world religions, each with its unique interpretation and emphasis.
Combine this with a newborn human being, born with original fear and original desire. Original fear that we will be left alone and original desire, that we will survive, birth is extremely traumatic. Attachment is the first decision you make about your safety. I write more about original fear and original desire here. Worldly desires are extremely tempting. You can be forgiven for raging about needing and being refused or rejected. Feelings are natures way of telling us what we need for survival. This is in relation to a newborn infant and not condoning violence in any way.
The fall of man is the most collective you can get for extreme repression of your emotions, the consequences being hell and damnation. We have all done bad and terrible things. What is important is that we want a virtuous life now and we are all capable of letting go of ego; and living from our true essence. You can read more about this here.
I came across a sample of British literature from the 17th century, which depicts the fall of man in the story, humbling us enough to see that we are not perfect, we all have free will and unlike Adam and Eve are born burdened with the collective minds of our predecessors. I like to skip over to ego at this point, which can have many expressions depending on theories you are looking into. My way of explaining ego comes from my anxiety and trauma work with clients.
Ego is the version of ourselves that we create to cope in a society extremely difficult to navigate and at times so terrifying, where we fear for our lives. I write about inner child work as it is a core part of the work I do with my clients.
My work is to help you reduce or even eliminate guilt and shame, (and fear and anxiety) by listening to how your mind unfolds your experiences, from which you obtained your beliefs. Then you gain your own unique solutions from your changes of perspective. It is really hard to gain a healthy perspective that we can live with when our ancestors have the fall of man as a starting point. This was written over 300 years ago.
Paradise Lost: A Modern Retelling
“Paradise Lost” is an epic poem by John Milton, first published in 1667. The poem is widely regarded as one of the greatest works of English literature and consists of twelve books. It explores profound themes such as the nature of sin, the fall of man, and the clash between free will and divine providence.
Themes in “Paradise Lost”
Free Will and Predestination: Milton explores the tension between human free will and divine omniscience. While God knows the outcome of human actions, humans still have the freedom to choose their paths.
As you read, read very slowly and read it over and over giving space to the age you were when you were taught this and how it was absorbed into your sponge-like mind with an extremely undeveloped thought process. Think about the very young infant you were when you were taught about this and how confusing that would be.
The Nature of Sin and Redemption: The poem delves into the origins of sin with Adam and Eve’s disobedience and the promise of redemption through Jesus Christ.
The Role of Obedience: The narrative stresses the importance of obedience to divine will and the consequences of rebellion, as exemplified by both Satan’s and humanity’s falls.
The Heroic Ideal: Milton redefines the concept of heroism, contrasting Satan’s false heroism with the true heroism of obedience and humility exemplified by Christ.
Conclusion
“Paradise Lost” is a rich and complex work that offers a profound exploration of theological, philosophical and moral issues; and its depiction of the fall of man and the promise of redemption has had a lasting impact on literature and continues to be a subject of study and admiration.
And what impact has it had on your mental health?
In a nutshell, we have absorbed this damning information as very small infants and children, with undeveloped minds. I work with adults who feel so bad that they can not live with how they feel about themselves. Often, they don’t want to discover what that is about because it feels too shameful and too bad to talk about.
You formed this irrational belief from an instant decision as an infant that you must be bad. The purpose at the time was to keep you alive. Now it is making you want to end your life. You do not deserve to go through your life feeling bad. You do deserve to have some counselling sessions.
We can create an ego as a very small infant, which dissociates from feelings, which refuses to own the feeling of anger, jealousy or shame. These are feelings we don’t want to own so we repress them and project them or we get depression or turn to addiction and lose our relationships, or even our homes. Read about the shadow here.
We have all done bad and terrible things during our human experiences.
The aim of this article is mainly to help you see this in a lighter way, with a method to do something about it. Having a plan and a solution offers relief to the conscience, the consequences when you have “fallen from grace” (which from experience is when you have thoughts of shame). Usually, the fall from grace analogy is that you felt anger or jealousy, a feeling that threatened your original desire (to survive) and triggered your original fear (to be left alone), leaving you with a tremendous amount of shame and it is this feeling of shame that is stopping you from aligning with the true essence of you.
If you were born before the millennium, you probably had an unnecessary but commonly strict upbringing of neglect and abuse but since everyone grew up that way, it wasn’t questioned. The most common comment in counselling is that “I had a good childhood” and “my mother did the best she could” and we are not going to prove you didn’t or she didn’t. We are just going to validate you and no one is harmed in the process.
My clients usually find the truth a lot less damning than they imagined it to be.
I am going to take the liberty, having endured a lifetime of Catholicism and fear, to fully endorse that you will have a wonderful life of peace, joy and love if you make decisions and take actions with virtuous intentions moving forward. Therefore, with humility and grace I offer counselling so that we can work together to help you be the best person you can be and live the life you want to live and that it is safe to leave fear at the door.
Reference:
There is a link to the full edited text Milton’s “Paradise lost” on the Internet Archive
by Milton, John, 1608-1674; Somervell, D. C. (David Churchill), 1885-1965 https://archive.org/details/miltonsparadiselmilton/page/n5/mode/2up
Counselling can help
Identifying and working with your thoughts and feelings will not kill you or end the world, I promise. It might annihilate your ego. “A bad day for your ego is a good day for the soul” – Jillian Michaels. Eckhart Tolle said, “ego and awareness can not co-exist” and so once we have done a small amount of work, you will feel instantly more peaceful, lighter and in tune with who you are.
Turning to addiction or abusing others: Feeling bad and lashing out at others or inwardly harming yourself tends to be the result of uncontrolled thoughts. You are not bad.
Feelings are necessary, (and fortunately temporary) and all emotions are essential to your mental and physical health.
It’s a lot better to have some counselling sessions than to continue in the destructive cycle of addiction, self sabotage or loneliness. What do you choose for yourself, your loved ones and your relationships?
Come and talk to me soon. I am waiting for your call. Contact here.
Disclaimer: I write from my experiences and from my client work in counselling and have no scientific training whatsoever. I am a person centred counsellor specialising in anxiety and trauma within the context of counselling. My work is dependent on the therapeutic relationship and the meeting of two minds. It is a humbling experience and that is all part of the healing process that I witness every day. It is the best job in the world.