One of the most powerful lessons I got from my mom……..you experience what you tolerate. She said there will be many people who cross your path…..but in the end, we can boil it down to two types. One will lift you up, and offer you a loving hand up the mountain of life……the other will take shots at you, they will shame you and blame you, to try and make themselves feel better. What you experience with these people comes down to what you will tolerate. And so it is….we all see examples of these people in our day to day lives. Sometimes they are in our family, sometimes they are our boss, or a member of an association we belong to. No matter the circumstances we must learn to stand in our power. That means knowing what our boundaries are, and making sure that no one crosses them to try and shame us into feeling bad or changing our behaviour.
People who use shame and blame to try and lift themselves up or to influence the behaviour of others are operating from a purely egoic state. Somewhere in there childhood lessons, they learned to catch people doing things wrong….they were taught that if you shamed people enough and made them feel badly enough….you could change their behaviour. Deep in their soul their own life experiences have taught them to believe they are not enough. So when you encounter these people you must be vigilant at standing in your power. You must be the loving hand that reaches out to give a hand up. You must never let the bully keep on using words to manipulate people and get their way. Those hearts need to be healed…..and the best way to start them on that journey is to not tolerate their bad behaviour and to remember kindness in words creates confidence. Be kind today.
Brene Brown said “You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviours. Regardless of our intentions, we can’t force people to make positive changes by putting them down, threatening them with rejection, humiliating them in front of others or belittling them. Shaming people has the potential to scar both the person being shamed and the person using shame. Sadly, some individuals, families, and communities use shame as a tool to change others and to protect themselves. In doing this, we create a society that fails to recognize how much damage shame does to our spirit and to the soul of our families and our communities.
By Lisa Scott Certified Executive/Life Coach