[GHC PODCAST - EPISODE 49] Self - Alienation

In this episode I'm talking about a seemingly "heavy topic". I'm sharing with you the cycle of self-alienation which stems from an over-active toxic inner critic. I offer insights on the endless cycle of hating ourselves and catching ourselves in a double-bind and where this comes from. I also discuss how to become aware of this cycle happening in your own life and how to break-free. 

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Work With Me: https://www.shylacash.com/workwithme 

SHOW NOTES BELOW:

Self-Alienation is a concept that I’ve been thinking about and meditating and pondering and really looking to take all my knowledge and my energetic imprinting about it and my somatic experience with it and and externalize it and really get it out into the world in a powerful way for you all because I really really have a lot of experience with it and have done SOOOO much healing deeply in my own body mind and soul around it. And I’ve been doing a lot of coaching on it with my beautiful, wonderful clients. 

And I really think that with high-functioning people who are smart and successful and who have done a really amazing job at creating a life for themselves in terms of accomplishments, parenting, marriage, career, business etc in spite of family dysfunction or having grown up with parents who are really emotionally immature, pathological, or addicted, 

I think the self-alienation is about 80% of what keeps us from really truly healing on a deep level physically, energetically and emotionally because self-alienation and self-loathing and self-disgust keeps us from deeply connecting with ourselves and allowing our own emotional body to be seen and heard and witnessed in a powerful way.  And it stifles our intuition and our emotional intelligence and I think a lot of the emptiness in the world is as a result of this plague of self-alienation in the world.

There really is nothing more painful than alienating yourself from yourself.

And it also keeps us from really accelerating our purpose-work in the world, and soaring and flying high. And that’s who I help is people who are looking at improving their emotional health so they can pursue their goals and dreams and success in this world and really do meaningful work. 

Self-loathing, self-disgust, and self-alienation keeps us from touching the tender parts of ourselves. And I know that probably sounds a little sexual lol but that’s not at all how I mean it. I’m talking about the parts of ourselves which are wounded and bruised and hurting.  And these wounds and hurts and emotional bumps and bruises are often so tender, and very old, but also buried under the upper-layer of suffering of self-alienation, self-hatred. So in order to get to those wounds, we’ve got to remove the iron hold of self-alienation so the deeper work can begin.

Because, we can’t heal if we are in a toxic relationship with ourselves. And for all the talk about toxic relationships and narcissists etc, I think the most toxic relationships many of us have is the relationship with ourselves.

So, self-alienation is the first layer of healing. It’s the layer that can keep us really stuck and moving through quicksand if it’s not addressed first. It’s the layer that holds the denial of the impact of our experience, it’s the layer that holds our harmful self-concept, and it’s the layer that protects the fantasy image of our parents.

And it’s so important that we identify that as the real cause here for so much of our pain, suffering, depression and anxiety. It’s how we treat ourselves. It’s our relationship with ourselves.

So what is self-alienation?
Self-Alienation is an over-active, toxic super-ego as Freud calls it. 

The super-ego is the part of us which has internalized the messages of our parents and is intended to keep us
A healthy super-ego functions as kind of a moral code, or ethical code. A boundary within ourselves that keeps our behaviour in line with our values. Typically this super-ego is helped along in development by our parents.
BUT - when our parents are abusive, pathological and dangerous, this super-ego develops in an unhealthy way. And, this internalized process which is meant to function as a guide for us, ends up being a toxic, destructive upper-limit that keeps us from loving ourselves and punishes, shames and seeks to destroy us, just as many of our parents did in childhood.

So, the process of self-alienation is a double bind that we keep ourselves in. Where we are always wrong. We can never win. And we are never good enough. Our own super-ego keeps us disgusted by ourselves, shaming ourselves and internally feeling trapped and imprisoned and exhausted. 

Cycle of self-alienation = Feel pain/sadness/despair, shame and punish ourselves for feeling it, blame ourselves for feeling it, and then feeling more pain/sadness/despair and it continues. And this is a vicious and extremely painful cycle that keeps us from experiencing joy, connecting to ourselves and feeling pleasure.

This process is often so ingrained and so part of our reality that we don’t even recognize that we are in pain. We believe the information of the super-ego to be true and right - and as one client said “I thought it was just facts” 

It hurts to hate ourselves. 

It hurts to alienate ourselves. 

It’s not our natural state of being to be in a state of self-hatred. 

You cannot care for someone you hate. 

You cannot heal someone you hate. 

You cannot empathize with someone you hate and blame. 

Where does it come from?
Internalized messaging from a triggering event when we were kids

Can come from over abuse of parents - they overtly maybe said things

Emotionally withholding homes

Homes where there is major abuse and addiction right 

When we are little, we cannot alienate ourselves from our parents - even if they are the ones who are hurting and harming us. Because alienating ourselves from them threatens our survival. As a result of that, we alienate ourselves from ourselves to be closer to them, to receive love from them, and we abandon ourselves unconsciously because we need our parents to survive EVEN if they are harming us.
This is a lot of where codependency comes from because we alienate ourselves and abandon ourselves for people who do not have the ability to care for us. We fuse to people for whom abandonment of self is REQUIRED.
We did this to survive. For many of us, we had to demean ourselves to receive the love of our parents. And THAT is what needs healing. 

When we are self-alienating, we believe WE are wrong, broken and disgusting.
We believe that we need fixing. And we scurry around trying to do do do all the things to heal our emotional selves because we believe we are fundamentally wrong. This is why, we can get attached and fixated on modalities and methods and we end up using these modalities and methods AGAINST ourselves rather than from a place of love for ourselves.

We try “everything” to fix ourselves. But we are still approaching our healing from a place of self-hatred and self-punishment. We are working against ourselves instead of with ourselves.

This is really really simple, right, but it gets clouded and fogged up sometimes when we are on the hamster wheel of running from our shame.

When we are in a place of self-alienation, what we must do is not do more things.

But instead, truly meet ourselves in our place of pain - admit we are in pain. Connect to our pain. And move through it with a loving gentle frame. 

It feels threatening and scary to love yourself when you’ve spent your life hating yourself to survive in a pathological home. 

It feels threatening to approach yourself with neutrality even when you’ve spent your whole life, and your whole identity is based on the fact that you yourself are wrong as an object, as an identity.

But you MUST learn to find your way, day-by-day to loving compassion toward yourself in order to heal.  This is non-negotiable. You cannot get around this. It’s uncomfortable. It’s scary. And it takes courage.

You cannot heal by perpetuating the cycle of shame and blame and criticism back toward yourself constantly. You cannot shame and blame and hate yourself into healing darling.

You can’t slap a modality on top of your utter disdain and disgust for yourself and expect it to work.

You must connect to the part of yourself which so desperately needs you. 

When we do not address this super-ego, we will always feel an energy leak - we will always feel a sense of deep neediness, brokenness, failure, confusion. And we will feel very weak and frail around certain people. We will feel inferior. We will feel like imposters. And we will feel triggered often around others who are confident. 

You have to recognize nothing outside of you can fix you. You are not the problem here. It is your self-concept and your beliefs ABOUT yourself. Stop scurrying around and hustling from thing to thing. Instead, stop, slow down. Connect to yourself. Have compassion and love for your pain. And, use courage to touch the parts of yourself that you are scared of touching.

The past is over. Now is the time to heal your relationship with yourself. 

So, here are some tips to do this: 

1. The practice of deep presence and awareness. you’ve gotta stop push push pushing and hustling and slow it down. When you slow down, you will discover the pain that is there. When you discover that pain, you have an opportunity to hold yourself through it, connect to it and feel it.
   
   
2. Willingness to feel your emotions. So you may have to remove some of the things that keep you away from your emotional body and physical body. This means over-eating. Hustling and workaholism. KEeping yourself busy on the hamster wheel of constantly doing-doing-doing. Watching way too much tv. Shopping too much. 

1. You must have the willingness to set boundaries with your toxic super-ego. And discipline your mind. 

1. Surrender and Faith are HUUUUGE components here. You’ve got to let go of the rope that’s making your hands bleed and allow yourself to fall into your truth. To speak and feel your truth. Of what happened to you. You think you are suffering because you are bad and wrong. But you are actually suffering because you accept that as truth. You must surrender to what your deeper self and soul knows YOU ARE ENOUGH. IT WASN’T YOUR FAULT. The trauma. The pain and scars of it. Not your fault. 

This work will literally change your life. And no matter what modality you use, it will likely work after doing and applying this work. This is imprinting work at the deepest level. But I can tell you from experience that this work is literally the answer to everything you want and deeply desire in life. 

I am going to invite you to book a private consultation with me for my 1-1 coaching program. I’m teaching you from my life’s experience. Healing and emotional health is truly my life’s work. I love this work. And I love helping you through this work. If you are a high-functioning, successful person who is ready to really tackle emotional health and trauma at the root, then you’ll want to book a consultation with me for my 6 month 1-1 coaching program. This coaching is literally changing people’s lives, and allowing them to feel and heal at such a deep level. There are so many benefits to it from financial and business success, to improved relationships, weight loss, and self-concept. Because when you work at the level of your emotional health, everything changes. I’m so proud of this container and I would love to have you join me in this work.