Controlling God Through Core Shame

Controlling God Through Core Shame

http://www.enotalone.com/article/2382.html

Excerpted from Do I Have To Give Up ME to be Loved by GOD?

By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

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Every day I hear clients say to me, regarding their beliefs about God, “God is not going to be here for me because I am not good enough.” In essence, they are saying, “I am in control of whether God is unconditionally loving. My worth, or lack of it, determines whether the Spirit of Unconditional Love is here for me.”

How did we come to believe that we could control God?

Some of us were brought up by parents whose “love” was conditional. We had to earn our parents’ love by our acting the way they wanted us to. In the process, we learned many ways to control getting the “love” (in reality, approval) that we needed. And we probably projected our parents’ feelings onto God. We believed that God’s love was conditional. (It’s not. It’s a free and unconditional gift.) We believed we could win God’s love by being “good” and doing things “right.” This got us into even deeper water, since “good” and “right” are usually defined by parents, teachers, religious leaders and others in authority, rather than by our own inner spiritual Guidance. In reality, “good” is whatever is truly loving to ourselves and others.

Children are often systematically taught to try to win love from others and God. We train them in the art of control by controlling them and by rewarding their various attempts to control us (by giving them candy or kisses when they are good, for example). Parents try many ways to control their kids: anger, threats, sarcasm, punishment, criticism, judgments, withdrawal, physical violence, treats, money, shame and smothering. Kids, in turn, may try to get parental approval or attention by being nice, by caretaking (giving themselves up and doing what parents want them to do), overachieving, becoming invisible, becoming ill, acting out or having temper tantrums. Anytime we role-model controlling behavior by trying to control our children or reward their manipulative behavior with our attention, we teach them the soul-deadening art of control.

Many children learn to believe they can manipulate love by being good or doing things right. Until they learn that real love is a free gift and cannot be bought or bargained for, they will find endless ways to try to get it. They will try to be perfect, follow all the rules, be polite, always be right – or righteous. Being good may mean suppressing their sexuality. Being the right way may mean dieting or throwing up to the point of starvation to look right so others will love them.

Being good may even include children denying their own feelings and taking responsibility for other’s feelings: Children are routinely told that focusing on themselves is “selfish.” (When people with this kind of training grow up, they may continue the pattern by following the rules of a church, being a community do-gooder or being self-sacrificing not because they are moved from their hearts to do so, but in the hope of earning others’ and God’s approval.)

All of this training in how to control others in order to get the “love” we need ultimately leads to the avoidance of personal responsibility for our needs, feelings and behavior and the absence of loving, compassionate behavior toward ourselves and others.

Accepting Love

Many of us have worked too hard to make relationships work; sometimes those relationships didn’t have a chance because the other person was unavailable or refused to participate.

To compensate for the other person’s unavailability, we worked too hard. We may have done all or most of the work. This may mask the situation for a while, but we usually get tired. Then, when we stop doing all the work, we notice there is no relationship, or we’re so tired we don’t care.

Doing all the work in a relationship is not loving, giving, or caring. It is self-defeating and relationship defeating. It creates the illusion of a relationship when in fact there may be no relationship. It enables the other person to be irresponsible for his or her share. Because that does not meet our needs, we ultimately feel victimized.

In our best relationships, we all have temporary periods where one person participates more than the other. This is normal. But as a permanent way of participating in relationships, it leaves us feeling tired, worn out, needy, and angry.’

We can learn to participate a reasonable amount, and then let the relationship find it’s own life. Are we doing all the calling? Are we doing all the initiating? Are we doing all the giving? Are we the one talking about feelings and striving for intimacy?

Are we doing all the waiting, the hoping, and the work?

We can let go. If the relationship is meant to be, it will be, and it will become what it is meant to be. We do not help that process by trying to control it. We do not help the other person, the relationship, or ourselves by trying to force it or by doing all the work.

Let it be. Wait and see. Stop worrying about making it happen. See what happens and strive to understand if that is what you want.

Today, I will stop doing all the work in my relationships. I will give myself and the other person the gift of requiring both people to participate. I will accept the natural level my relationships reach when I do my share and allow the other person to choose what his or her share will be. I can trust my relationships to reach their own level. I do not have to do all the work; I need only do my share.

Self Value

We have a real life of our own. Yes, we do.

That empty feeling, that senses that everyone except us has a life – an important life, a valuable life, a better life – is a remnant from the past. It is also a self-defeating belief that is inaccurate.

We are real. So is our life. Jump into it, and we’ll see.

Today, I will live my life and treasure it as mine.

love n fear

Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we have learned here. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of love back into our hearts.
Marianne Williamson

love, fear, inadequacy

Feeling the need to be perfect to ensure we’ll be loved is as familiar as the robin’s whistle heralding spring. Am I too fat to be loved? Do people think I’m dumb when I speak out? Mistakenly, we feel unique in our struggles with our fears of inadequacy, thus we fail to find comfort among friends and strangers who share our selected fears.

 

If we could understand our sameness with others, we’d be able to feel the gentle urging within to acknolwedge their presence, their smiles, their messages which are assuredly meant for our ears only. Their desire, like our own, is for the promise of love.

 

Unconditional love wants expression; pass it around and watch it return tenfold.

 

Unconditional love corresponds to one of the deepest longists, not only of the child, but of every human being. -Erich Fromm

earning

So the last couple posts have dug into me, and I’m realizing; I have been trying to earn love, trying to earn this place in life by what I do. It’s something I’ve known but hadn’t quite absorbed completely. All the list of things that we do to cover the pain, compulsive (fill in the blank); people pleasing especially.

I’ve receieved nothing but rejection, especially from my parents. Nothing I did was ever good enough. Of course my grades weren’t good enough, I was a below average student. I was never thin enough, that started when I was in Junior High. I could never cook or clean enough. Never enough laundry. Never enough whatever. But I’ve been trying, trying, trying, desperately trying to earn my parents love. It’s never happened, and I know it never will. This isn’t defeat, its surrender.

I have spent my life not only trying to earn my parents love, but also earn love for myself. I’ve been trying to like myself through what I do, or don’t do. My life pattern history is trying to do this and that so I can love myself. Trying to be smarter, trying to be more outgoing, trying to do better in life, especially with school, jobs, people, money, family, friends. Trying, trying, trying until I’m so worn out that I can barely function because I’m frustrated, angry and ultimiately, I’m alone. I’m trying to leave myself, I’m trying to be someone else so I can love myself.

There’s nothing I can do to earn God’s love. The very fact that I’m living shows that God loves me. Every time I choose to take care of myself I show God that I love Him. Even when I make a mistake, God loves me. Every time I’m selfish, God loves me. Every time I say no to God, He still loves me. There’s nothing I can do to earn it, and nothing I can do to lose it. He knows everything about me, the good, the bad, and the ugly. When I was at my absolute worst, He loved me. When I’m at my best, He loves me the same.

In Al-Anon we learn; we can only change ourselves. We need to take care of ourselves. Just like when we are on a plane they tell us if the oxygen masks come down, put on our masks first so we can help another put on their masks. If we can’t breathe, how can we help someone else breathe? The same goes for love. If I don’t love myself, how can I possibly help another human being love themselves? It’s just not possible. We can’t give away what we don’t have. This isn’t defeat, its a blessing. Its surrender. This brings peace, not shame. Yes, the best thing I can do for myself, that I can do for others, that I can do for God is just relax. He’s taking care of everything and everyone, not me. Thankfully. I have limited power. God has all the power. I’ll let Him.

we are valued

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable then they?Matthew 6:26

Many of us learn early in life that we need to earn our sense of value. For some, value was earned by entertaining people with our clowning acts. For others, value came from taking care of everyone else. And for others, value was derived from achieving success of some kind. But often there is no way to entertain enough, take care enough or achieve enough to meet our needs for approval. No matter how compulsively we entertain, or care or work, we still are not able to feel valued. These substitutes do not meet the deepest longings of our heart. In addition we run the risk of becoming compulsively attached to these substitutes because we fear that the sense of value which they offer is our only hope of finding peace.

The longing to experience ourselves as valued is a fundamental human need. The need is really a need to be heard, seen, enjoyed and loved by others for who we are rather than for what we do. No amount of earned approval can meet this need. We long to know that we have value simply because we exist. This kind of value cannot be earned, it must be received as a gift.

Jesus says to us “you are valuable. Simply because you are, you are valuable”. The birds of the air are God’s creatures. God sees them and cares for them. God made them and God enjoys them. They are valuable. You,
too, are God’s creation, made and known by God. God sees you and cares for you. You are of great value.

As we grow in our awareness that our true value is a gift already given to us by God, we can begin to let go of the tight hold we have on our substitute strategies for achieving worth.

Father, you know how attached
I have become to earning my sense of value.
But, I can never seem to work hard enough.
Thank you, Creator God,
for valuing the birds of the air.
Thank you, Creator God,
for valuing me.
Help me to receive this good gift from you.
Help me to see myself as valuable in your eyes.
Amen

being transformed

I am faith filled and fear free because I am being transformed from the inside out.

 

Here is a prayer of faith.

          I now call the activity of the Holy Spirit into every cell, every tissue, every organ in my being. I invite the Holy Spirit to lovingly transform every energy, every belief, every idea, every understanding, every expectation, every judgment, every motivation and every behavior, bringing them into alignment with the perfect will of God, so that I may take the next step toward the divine plan for my life.

          I now call the activity of the Holy Spirit into every cell, every tissue, every organ in my being. I invite the Holy Spirit to lovingly transform every energy, every belief, every idea, every understanding, every decision, every expectation, every judgment, every motivation and every behavior, bringing them into alignment with the perfect peace of God, so that I may take the next step toward the divine plan for my life.

          I now call the activity of the Holy Spirit into every cell, every issue, every organ in my being. I invite the Holy Spirit to lovingly transform every energy, every belief, every idea, every understanding, every decision, every expectation, every judgment, every motivation and every behavior, bringing them into alignment with the perfect love of God, so that I may take the next step toward the divine plan for my life. For all I have is received and all that is yet to come, I am so very grateful! And so it is!

          Until today, you may not have known how to move your life to the next level. Just for today, put faith and confidence into your prayers.

 

          Today I am devoted to allowing the Holy Spirit to guide me into the next step of my personal growth and spiritual development!

powerless and unmanagable

So I’m learning what true powerlessness and loss of control over my life is today. I can feel it down to my bones. It’s happening to me right now. My auto-pilot came on and I’m becoming a robot. Old patterns don’t die just because I want them to. I want it to but I feel the urgency to continue old patterns. Don’t think for myself. Don’t question. Just go. Go.

Detach with love. Its easy to think about, hard to put in practice. The pull that people have over me still makes me angry. I want to tell them off. I want to yell and scream. GET A LIFE OF YOUR OWN! LEAVE ME ALONE! It’s not that I don’t want to be around them, but I want to get off of this auto pilot. I want the option of choice. Not from anyone else, but within me. Just because I’ve done things in the past doesn’t mean I have to do it today.

I was feeling very peaceful this morning. Very peaceful. Then just like an oven timer. DING! Auto pilot comes on. I get ansty and annoyed. My mind starts to race and my heart shuts down.

God gives us, gives me free will. He gives me the ability to walk my own way if I so desire. God hears our no and says OK. I wish you wouldn’t but its okay. I still love you and never will stop hoping you’ll say yes. People… definitely DON’T. Especially sick people. I definitely know who and what sick people do because I am one of them. Only a sick person would continiously do something for someone else that they don’t really don’t want to do. And I don’t even know what it is I WANT to do. That’s the saddest part.

Sigh. Surrender the feelings and the actions will come…

We Are Lovable

Even if the most important person in your world rejects you, you are still
real, and you are still okay.
–Codependent No More

Do you ever find yourself thinking: How could anyone possibly love me? For
many of us, this is a deeply ingrained belief that can become a
self-fulfilling prophecy.

Thinking we are unlovable can sabotage our relationships with co-workers,
friends, family members, and other loved ones. This belief can cause us to
choose, or stay in, relationships that are less than we deserve because we
don’t believe we deserve better. We may become desperate and cling as if a
particular person was our last chance at love. We may become defensive and
push people away. We may withdraw or constantly overreact.

While growing up, many of us did not receive the unconditional love we
deserved. Many of us were abandoned or neglected by important people in our
life. We may have concluded that the reason we weren’t loved was because we
were unlovable. Blaming ourselves is an understandable reaction, but an
inappropriate one. If others couldn’t love us, or love us in ways that
worked, that’s not our fault. In recovery, we’re learning to separate
ourselves from the behavior of others. And we’re learning to take
responsibility for our healing, regardless of the people around us.

Just as we may have believed that we’re unlovable, we can become skilled at
practicing the belief that we are lovable. This new belief will improve the
quality of our relationships. It will improve our most important
relationship: our relationship with our self. We will be able to let others
love us and become open to the love and friendship we deserve.

Today, God, help me be aware of and release any self-defeating beliefs I
have about being unlovable. Help me begin, today, to tell myself that I am
lovable. Help me practice this belief until it gets into my core and
manifests itself in my relationships.