We humans are social/connected creatures. Whether we can see it and admit it or not we are connected to each other and to our surroundings, which are connected to everything else.
When we are born we cannot even distinguish that we are separate from our surroundings and caregivers. Soon we learn that things we do seem to make those around us happy, mad, sad, etc, and that our felt needs/desires are sometimes at odds with our caregiver’s. This is how we first learn that we are also in ways separate from everything else.
Operating successfully shame is what teaches us (along with our caregivers) how to get our felt needs met in ways that are pleasing and beneficial to our surroundings because shame is the feeling we get when our felt needs are at odds with our surroundings.
Unfortunately, as parents and society we rarely have the time or patience or it seems wisdom or desire to model and teach our young how to get their felt needs met in ways that are pleasing and beneficial to others. In fact we often demonize/shame the felt needs in order to get our young (or really those of all ages) to do what we want them to do or to shield or disguise our own. Or with slightly better motives we might be teaching them to hide/suppress/deny their felt needs/vulnerabilities so that others cannot hurt or manipulate them as easily.
Tragically, this means that someone trying to get their felt needs met in ways that are pleasing and beneficial to others are often exploited and deeply hurt, and thus most learn well to keep them buried. At this point if we go back to my definition of shame – the feeling we get when our felt needs are at odds with others – we see how understandable it is to get paralyzed by this shame as something hopelessly defective within us that has these felt needs that keeps us at odds with our surroundings.
If we cannot live from these primordial felt needs, which are all related to being a connected and valuable/useful part of things beyond ourselves, we are cut off from the part of us that connects to things beyond us, and we have to find some way to numb that pain or distract ourselves from that pain/disconnection/emptiness, which typically seems to reinforce the defectiveness since we are rejecting this part of ourselves and often doing things we are less than proud of trying to suppress/hide/reject it.
One of the countless ways to try to numb and/or distract ourselves from this pain of being isolated from ourselves and everything else is adopting a religion that seems to validate our experience of being hopelessly defective due to our felt needs, which promises some solution either now or in an afterlife. As long as we are using the religion to try to get around doing the often excruciating, but just as rewarding, work of learning how to satisfy our inherent felt needs in ways beneficial to others, we will remain isolated and empty. At the same time, if we realize that in countless ways (one for each of us) we can get our felt needs met in ways beneficial to others, we will realize that was what all the great spiritual teachers have always been sharing and demonstrating.
Before moving on I want to clarify that it is not just because of our often subtlely hostile environment that we hide our felt needs/vulnerabilities. Unless we are taught and shown how to get our felt needs met in ways that are pleasing and beneficial to others, we will naturally try the easiest and safest ways to satisfy them without nearly enough regard for whether that is useful or even fair to others.
It probably goes without saying but most of the felt needs part of the above is biological/nature and most of the learning how to get them met in beneficial ways for others, as well as having them shunned and demonized is primarily environmental/nurture.
The environmental obviously varies from person to person as they experience the world, but I’d guess the felt needs vary almost as much in their flavor and intensity from person to person. Beyond that some people are inherently much more sensitive to feeling hurt or threatened. Further variation between people occurs in how people are willing and able to sort through things to come to some resolution and new path forward. Some are much more susceptible to getting stuck in thoughts or feelings and forever being crippled by them.
When we are born we cannot even distinguish that we are separate from our surroundings and caregivers. Soon we learn that things we do seem to make those around us happy, mad, sad, etc, and that our felt needs/desires are sometimes at odds with our caregiver’s. This is how we first learn that we are also in ways separate from everything else.
Operating successfully shame is what teaches us (along with our caregivers) how to get our felt needs met in ways that are pleasing and beneficial to our surroundings because shame is the feeling we get when our felt needs are at odds with our surroundings.
Unfortunately, as parents and society we rarely have the time or patience or it seems wisdom or desire to model and teach our young how to get their felt needs met in ways that are pleasing and beneficial to others. In fact we often demonize/shame the felt needs in order to get our young (or really those of all ages) to do what we want them to do or to shield or disguise our own. Or with slightly better motives we might be teaching them to hide/suppress/deny their felt needs/vulnerabilities so that others cannot hurt or manipulate them as easily.
Tragically, this means that someone trying to get their felt needs met in ways that are pleasing and beneficial to others are often exploited and deeply hurt, and thus most learn well to keep them buried. At this point if we go back to my definition of shame – the feeling we get when our felt needs are at odds with others – we see how understandable it is to get paralyzed by this shame as something hopelessly defective within us that has these felt needs that keeps us at odds with our surroundings.
If we cannot live from these primordial felt needs, which are all related to being a connected and valuable/useful part of things beyond ourselves, we are cut off from the part of us that connects to things beyond us, and we have to find some way to numb that pain or distract ourselves from that pain/disconnection/emptiness, which typically seems to reinforce the defectiveness since we are rejecting this part of ourselves and often doing things we are less than proud of trying to suppress/hide/reject it.
One of the countless ways to try to numb and/or distract ourselves from this pain of being isolated from ourselves and everything else is adopting a religion that seems to validate our experience of being hopelessly defective due to our felt needs, which promises some solution either now or in an afterlife. As long as we are using the religion to try to get around doing the often excruciating, but just as rewarding, work of learning how to satisfy our inherent felt needs in ways beneficial to others, we will remain isolated and empty. At the same time, if we realize that in countless ways (one for each of us) we can get our felt needs met in ways beneficial to others, we will realize that was what all the great spiritual teachers have always been sharing and demonstrating.
Before moving on I want to clarify that it is not just because of our often subtlely hostile environment that we hide our felt needs/vulnerabilities. Unless we are taught and shown how to get our felt needs met in ways that are pleasing and beneficial to others, we will naturally try the easiest and safest ways to satisfy them without nearly enough regard for whether that is useful or even fair to others.
It probably goes without saying but most of the felt needs part of the above is biological/nature and most of the learning how to get them met in beneficial ways for others, as well as having them shunned and demonized is primarily environmental/nurture.
The environmental obviously varies from person to person as they experience the world, but I’d guess the felt needs vary almost as much in their flavor and intensity from person to person. Beyond that some people are inherently much more sensitive to feeling hurt or threatened. Further variation between people occurs in how people are willing and able to sort through things to come to some resolution and new path forward. Some are much more susceptible to getting stuck in thoughts or feelings and forever being crippled by them.
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