Am I bad? I feel like I can’t do what I want to do because I am bad.
Intro Topic: Operating through life while feeling bad. What a way to go about doing things, eh? Just rough on you all around. You wake up bad and you feel that everyone you encounter treats you as if you are bad. Then you go to sleep feeling bad. What is this bad feeling, where did it come from? Was it created to keep us safe from dangers? Is is another person’s judgement of our badness? What’s up with all of that? Better yet, can we ditch this bad feeling?
Meditation: This meditation is to explore our own feeling of badness and see what pops up to heal. You can read it here to do the meditation. Or you can follow this link for a different meditation to help you.
Start by taking a deep breath through your nose, hold it for a count of four then slowly release it. Do this again very easy breathe in and slowly breathe out. You can feel your stomach expanding and contracting with your breath. Now curl your toes tightening them, hold for a count of four then release them. Feel the release of the pressure. Imagine a feeling of relaxation climbing up through your leg muscles relaxing them and then through your buttocks ,waist and stomach. Feel your buttocks sinking into whatever you are sitting on. Let your stomach go and follow the wave of relaxation up through out your body relaxing your arms and shoulders, then neck and jaw. Take another deep breathe in and exhale. Ask yourself in your mind “where did my feeling of badness originate? ” Now look down at your hands or close your eyes and see, hear or feel what comes to the surface. Give yourself at least five minutes to allow your subconscious to speak up.
Discussion: Whether you experienced anything with the meditation or not is perfectly fine and normal. IF you did experience something then please stop now and think about it. Journal or tell someone safe. In the future we will have some support groups so stay tuned.
So where did we ever get the idea of our badness? A flower, a bug, a horse or even a shark doesn’t think it operates from a point of badness. They just do what they have always done. So whom appoints the definition of badness and the resulting emotion and belief system of being bad? This is a real problem because being bad can stop us from experiencing life and getting the help we need.
When we are very young, we are exploring our world and everything in it that our little baby fingers can reach and investigate. What happened when we tried to touch something dangerous like a hot stove or an electrical outlet? We usually got scolded “No, bad! Don’t touch that!” Uh oh, ok. So we are very young and get told something we are doing is bad by our caregiver. Now what? How does that stay in our minds? Not very well, I can tell you. Our young child’s mind stores that away and it becomes part of our own judgement against our selves. Is that the only origin of our badness feelings? No, sometimes they stem from young child failures not healed or given the support needed. Also they stem from misunderstandings of a child observing adult problems.
IS there freedom in being bad? The black sheep is rather liberated. They have or haven’t (it doesn’t matter which one) done something bad and they have been long ago judged by all around and most important themselves. So they don’t need to conform or work to have relationships or be relied on because well they are just bad. We are all black sheeps here and there. It’s a type of archetype that we humans go through stemming from our different emotions and experiences. For instance we have all felt like the martyr or the victim and so on. All emotions change and surge through us. This is good news because the black sheep badness feeling will come and go. When it is gone then it is the time to work on it. I chose the photo of three horses because I was reminded of a scene in Charles Dickins book “Great Expectations.” The main character, Pip, a child was sneaking out of his house one night. Pip was bringing food for a convict hiding from the law. Pip felt guilty and he passed by a farm and he felt all of the farm animals judged him as bad. This is a common experience when we feel a certain way we read others faces and feel like they are judging us in that way. The horses are probably just curious, hungry or something else. This is to show how we place our own negative feelings onto others and use them as a mirror.
Closing and Resources: In closing please read this bible quote.
