You Can Heal Yourself

Healing Your Betrayals

While betrayals happen to everyone, not everyone learns from them. Some people seem to endure many betrayals before any learning occurs. The point where you no longer need to repeat negative experiences is known as grace. 

The next time you encounter a betrayal, ask: "What lesson do I need to learn here? How can this betrayal help me expand my consciousness?" If you are able to quickly identify the lesson, then the experience can move through your life in an affirming way. 

It helps to know which choices keep us from learning the lesson of a betrayal. These are known as "sterile choices."

Sterile choices such as revenge, denial, splitting, cynicism, paranoia and self-betrayal never support the resolution of intractable conflicts involving betrayal traumas. Only by understanding the patterns of betrayal trauma can behavior really be changed. Being willing to see betrayers as players sent from central casting to act in a betrayal drama, casts them as allies or friends helping you to clear earlier betrayal traumas. 

Betrayal can be used to learn more about yourself and to increase your consciousness. Rather than splitting or making another sterile choice, ask, "What other options were available to me in that situation? Is it still possible to use them?" Here are some suggestions for using betrayal experiences as opportunities for growth.

Do a Perception Check. The first choice to begin making more effective responses to betrayal involves a perception check with the assumed betrayer as part of an attempt to resolve the conflict. Ask this person, “Are you aware that I felt betrayed by your behavior? Was it your intention in what you did (describe objectively the person’s behavior) to betray my trust of you? I feel hurt and angry as a result and what I need from you is for you to treat me with more respect, and what I want from you is for you to agree to treat me with more respect in the future and to apologize to me for what you did. Are you willing to do that?”  

This person may not even recognize his or her behavior as a betrayal, so your questions can provide that person with new awareness about both of you. This direct communication is critical because it can stop the unfolding of drama triangle dynamics in your relationship.

Look for Patterns of Betrayal. The second healthy choice is to look for patterns of betrayal. Barry describes how this was helpful for him:

One day I made a chronological list of my major betrayals. Three or four pages later I began to see a pattern of betrayals involving certain kinds of women, and I identified the recurring themes. I thought, "Oh my God! This has been going on most of my life." These patterns had been there much longer than I realized. 

Then I looked at what was not finished about each betrayal. In each instance, I was able to identify the unlearned lesson that kept recycling. You may want to complete the betrayal writing exercise at the end of the chapter to help you recognize your patterns of betrayal.

In another post under this category you will find a skill practice exercise to help you recognize your patterns of betrayal.

Learn Compassion for Yourself and Others. The third step is to learn compassion for yourself and others during a betrayal trauma. Betrayal usually involves some misperception on your part about the other person or distorted perceptions related to an earlier developmental trauma and unmet developmental needs. 

If you have not done a perception check with the other person, your misperceptions may be creating a narrowly focused picture that allows you to disregard significant information about a person. A betrayal tells you that perhaps your image of this person was too narrow or restricted and that you overlooked things about that person in order to maintain some illusion of him or her. 

This is usually related to some unmet developmental needs or some unhealed developmental trauma. This critical step in your awareness will help you move beyond any internal splits and open yourself to connection and reciprocity with this person again.

Redefine Betrayal. The fourth healthy choice is to redefine betrayal as an opportunity to expand your consciousness. The real question is, "Who is the betrayer in this situation?" The truth is, you probably betrayed yourself by creating a distorted view of the other person based on some unmet needs or earlier unhealed developmental trauma. 

Perhaps you wanted to see that person in a certain way, hoping to heal your wounds related to an earlier betrayal trauma. People are usually not the way you would like them to be, so we have positive projections on them and don’t see their shortcomings. 

They may have some qualities that you like and some that you don't like. They are trustworthy in some situations and may not be so in others. 

Barry remembers confronting this in a therapy group:

A group member said to me, "I really trust you." I recognized the presence of a positive projection and challenged the statement: "I may not be totally trustworthy. What makes you so sure that I'm totally trustworthy?" This question got the person thinking. Then I said to this person, "Don't expect me to be totally trustworthy. 

You may end up feeling disappointed and then angry because I didn't live up to your expectations. I need to have a  relationship with you where I have permission to be human. While I will always strive to do my best, I know that I am not perfect. I feel this is more realistic than you expecting me to be a perfect therapist. Are you willing to agree to see me this way?"

By reframing your experiences of betrayal, you may be able to return to the person who has betrayed you and say to that person, "I now realize that I gave you a lot of power by making you totally responsible for betraying me. I see that I also had some responsibility in creating the betrayal. I had unrealistic expectations of you because I did not want to see all of you. 

I want to acknowledge that I don’t now see you as all bad and that I can see your good qualities as well." Toxic shame or feelings of pride often prevent people from making these kinds of amends. Pride is a defense against feeling shame. If you see a person exhibiting a lot of pride, know that underneath the pride is a lot of hidden shame.

Forgiving Someone Who Has Betrayed You

In the throes of a betrayal, it may seem impossible to even think about forgiveness. You may feel as though your heart has been broken and that you can never even be close to your betrayer again. This initial reaction is a normal part of the grief process that accompanies any betrayal experiences. Once the anger stage of the grief process passes and you move toward acceptance of the betrayal, you can begin to think about forgiveness.

Compassionate forgiveness can help you heal accumulations of past physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual wounds from previous betrayals and other kinds of developmental trauma. It can also help you open your heart again so that you can begin rebuilding the fracture in your relationship. 

The goal is to repair the trust, empathy, reciprocity, and love you once had with this person. However, your motive for wanting to forgive should not be to help the other person. It should be about helping yourself and freeing yourself of the anger and resentment that can, if not healed, continue to hurt your body and mind.

Weinhold and Andresen (1979) wrote, "Forgiveness is basic to all change and growth." The tension from self-judgment and judging others produces a chronic level of stress in your body that depresses your immune system and causes illness (Borysenko, 1996). 

You have the power to end this kind of destructive cycle by moving beyond the acceptance stage of grieving and work toward forgiving your betrayer and yourself. Forgiveness is a attitude that only sets the forgiver free.

The healthiest choice in a betrayal trauma is to forgive yourself and the other person for creating the betrayal situation. The word forgive is often misunderstood. To some people, it means to rise above your feelings or to deny or passively condone the act of betrayal. To forgive actually means to "give back, give before, or for-give." 

What are you willing to give back or take back in a betrayal situation? What responsibility do you have in this betrayal? This approach will help you give back or take back your projections and misperceptions about the other person's behavior. You may find the other person feels shocked to hear your perceptions about them or the situation.

Perhaps you were not fully truthful with the other person in ways that contributed to his or her misperceptions about you. Perhaps you need to give back the full truth to this person. You may also have unconsciously set up the betrayal by pretending to like something the other person said or did, when in truth you didn't like it.

Compassion is a companion tool to forgiveness. Both are necessary for clearing betrayal traumas. Compassion doesn't necessarily help the person who betrayed you, but it will surely help you heal your own wounds. If you cannot feel compassion for those who betray you, you may continue to draw people into your life that play into your pattern of betrayal.

To heal your developmental traumas and stresses related to betrayals, it is important to practice compassion toward yourself. An excellent way to develop self-compassion is to eliminate the word mistake from your vocabulary. 

Mistakes imply judgment and failure, that something went wrong, and that you or someone else is bad, all of which can create intrapsychic splitting. A more compassionate framework is to see everything, including your betrayal traumas, as learning experiences rather than as mistakes.

Learning how to heal your developmental traumas and stresses involves you in the process of discovery, exploration, and adventure, all of which are fun and exciting. When you try something new and it turns out the way that you expected, you probably don’t learn very much. 

Rather, it just reinforces your previous learning. When you try something new and it turns out to be different  from what you expected, you have an opportunity to learn something new. This unexpected turn of events stimulates your thinking, activates your curiosity, and promotes more exploration and discovery. An attitude of learning fosters synthesis or unitive thinking and increased self-esteem, which help immensely in being able to move on. 

References

Borysenko, J. (1996) Seventy times seven: On the spiritual art of forgiveness. Audiotape, Boulder, CO: Sounds True.

Weinhold, B. & Andresen, G. (1979). Threads: Unraveling the mysteries of adult life. New York: Richard Marek Publishers.

Identifying Your Relational Betrayals & Responses

In our recent book, Conflict Resolution: The Partnership Way, ( 2009, pp. 161-172), we discuss one of the most universal human experiences: betrayal trauma. Betrayal experiences create a special kind of developmental trauma and stress. 

They often begin in early childhood when you placed all your trust in your parents and other caregiving adults, anticipating that they would be perfect caregivers, see your essence, honor your innocence, appreciate your uniqueness, and meet your needs in a timely manner. When your parents were unable to do so, you felt betrayed.

Our experience indicates that all people have betrayals of some kind during their lives. Our first childhood betrayals often begin in early infancy. We perceived our parents and others as divine and trusted them to treat us with respect. However, your mother or father may have looked at you, perhaps while feeding you, failed to see your divine nature, and saw instead their own unfulfilled wishes and dreams. In this situation, they may have used you as a tool for meeting their own unmet needs  This is how the process of invalidating our divine nature begins.

We eventually discover that our parents are not divine beings but mortal humans with faults and problems. This realization can trigger feelings of betrayal and damage if not break primal trust in the relationship.  In our adult relationships we attempt to recreate this experience of primal trust and use it as a criterion for determining the relationship’s worth, so we get betrayed again and learn that our partners are just ordinary human beings like our parents. 

In the middle of conflicts they say and do things that activate memories of unhealed betrayal trauma. We feel profoundly disappointed, lost, and hopeless that we will ever find someone who can mirror our divine self so we can recover it.

The research on human potential indicates that most people use only a small percent of their inherent capacities. They are so richly over-endowed that very few even begin to understand how much unused potential they really have at their disposal. In fact, Einstein, who was considered the epitome of mental giants, reportedly wept just before his death when he contemplated the fact that he had used so little of his own potential.

Betrayal trauma, as a form of developmental trauma or stress, plays a major role in the loss of human potential, particularly the loss of innocence in early childhood. Each time parents or other adults fail to see, accept, and understand a child, they chip away at the child’s sense of Self.  It is helpful to look at when, how, where, and by whom you might have been betrayed as a child in order to recover your split-off parts, restore your full connection to your essence, and reclaim the vision of your true potential.

Typical Responses To Betrayal

James Hillman (1975), in a very penetrating article about betrayal, writes about the choices people typically make when they feel betrayed. He believes that most people make what he calls "sterile choices" that prevent them from learning from their betrayals.  

Here are Hillman's descriptions of each of these choices:

Revenge.  People often feel a very strong desire to get even with the persons who betray them. When someone says or does something hurtful, the immediate impulse may be to get revenge. Hillman says that this choice is the most common response and the one that creates the least amount of growth in consciousness. Seeking revenge and getting even mean placing the focus on what other people did or didn't do or say; this response allows you to avoid looking at yourself in order to expand your awareness.

Splitting. People in intimate relationships who are unable to maintain their internal object constancy or sense of self often resort to splitting against themselves or others. Triggered by post-traumatic stimuli from the past, they may feel regressed, and then make either himself or herself or the other person the "bad guy." This kind of split immediately activates automatic flight/fight/freeze behavioral responses. Splitting responses to a betrayal may indicate a need for trauma reduction therapies and/or individual counseling that focuses on developmental trauma during the first three years of life.

Denial. A third choice in a betrayal situation is to deny the value of the other person. This choice may also involve splitting, or making a person once perceived as "all good" into someone now perceived as "all bad." It's surprising how quickly this defense mechanism can be activated, often with little awareness. By placing all the blame on the betrayer you may miss important learning about the real source of the betrayal as a reenactment experience of some earlier betrayal trauma.

Cynicism. This easy choice may be the disease of contemporary times. It is easy for people to get cynical because of their inabilities to stop reenacting their betrayal traumas and the subsequent lack of understanding of the patterns inherent in them. Cynicism is often called broken idealism and if only seen this way, that perspective prevents any serious look at how any previous betrayals may have led up to the current one. Cynicism, again, doesn't lead to much growth or awareness.

Paranoia. Paranoia, or a lack of trust of the betrayer, is another common response to betrayal. Someone who was betrayed and hurt in a loving, trusting relationship may require that people pass a lot of tests before they are allowed to get close again. Paranoia also leads to very little growth. 

It requires a lot of time to constantly monitor the other person's behavior to determine if he or she is passing some trustworthiness tests. Rather than focusing on the source of the betrayal or the patterns being reenacted in the relationship, paranoia is another way of avoiding self-scrutiny.

Self-Betrayal. The final sterile choice, according to Hillman, involves the betrayal of one's own self. The inner response to a betrayal might be, "How could I have been so stupid!" Such responses often include a self-judgment about the risks that were taken. 

Rather than seeing the risk-taking as a potential for learning, it becomes classified as a mistake that is used for self-judgment and disempowerment. In another post is a skill practice exercise designed to help you identify your patterns of betrayal that could have caused you to have unhealed developmental trauma or stress. 

Skill Exercise for Identifying Betrayals

Make a list of the significant betrayals in your life. You can make the list chronological, starting with the earliest one you can remember, or you can arrange your list from the most significant down to the least significant.  

You only need a few words to describe each event: "The time when _____ happened." 

After you have listed all these events, go back and examine each betrayal using the following questions:

• What were the predominant feelings you had then and have now?

• Which sterile choices did you make in dealing with this betrayal?

• What illusions, misperceptions, or expectations contributed to the betrayal?

• What other choices could you have made in this betrayal situation?

• What new choices still exist for you in this betrayal situation?

• What lessons did you learn as a result of this betrayal?

• What, if any, important benefits came out of this betrayal experience?

• Have you had similar kinds of betrayals? If so, what were the common elements in these betrayals?

• How do they form a pattern?

• Which betrayals do you feel you have successfully resolved? How did you do that?

• Which betrayals have you not healed? What opportunities still exist to heal or resolve these?

After you have answered the above questions, make a second list of the times when you were the betrayer. Answer the following questions as honestly as possible:

• What were the most prevalent feelings involved in your betrayals?

• How did you deal with each betrayal?

• What were the short-term and long-term effects of the betrayal on you?

• What were the short-term and long-term effects of the betrayal on the other person involved?

• What could you have done instead of betraying the other person?

• What, if any, benefits did you receive as a result of the betrayal?

• What, if any, unfinished business do you think still exists with each of your betrayals?

• What actions do you still need to take to clear any unfinished business left over from any of your betrayals?

About Forgiveness: What it Is, What it Is Not

In our recent book, Conflict Resolution: The Partnership Way, (2009), we suggest a process and steps to use in forgiving others.

What Forgiveness Is Not? Below is a description of what forgiveness is not. Because of all the misconceptions about forgiveness, it is necessary first to clarify what it is not. Here are some ideas to consider:

1. Forgiveness does not involve ego gratification. For example, someone might forgive you for doing something that the other person didn't like (a judgment) and imply, "Oh, I forgive you because I am so great, and you are not so hot." This is an inappropriate use of forgiveness and does little to resolve the conflict. This approach is more about arrogance than forgiveness.

2. Forgiveness does not condone the other person's ignorant or deceitful behavior. This is the most common misunderstanding of forgiveness. Forgiveness is not letting others off the hook. They still have to address their own behaviors. People who have been grievously wronged by others, however, may need to release their anger or rage toward those individuals before they are ready to even begin to think about forgiving them.

3. Forgiveness is not associated with any specific behaviors. Perhaps someone was abused by his or her father as a child. The form of forgiveness depends on the situation. This person might forgive his or her father and never speak to him again. The person also could forgive and then develop a good relationship with his or her father.

4. Forgiveness is not a "spiritual bypass." Forgiveness is not a way to avoid doing your own emotional and psychological work.. Even if you are able to forgive someone, you still have to resolve the issues related to your deep grief and anger. You still have to find ways to heal your developmental traumas and move forward in your personal growth. 

Some people use meditation, prayer, or affirmations in order to bypass doing this deeper kind of spiritual work. It generally isn't very effective. Emotional and psychological work can be difficult and painful, so it is understandable why people want to avoid it. 

If you try to avoid healing your developmental traumas by doing the deeper spiritual work, it is likely that you will drive the energy of the wounds deeper into your body where the tension from them can somaticize into life-threatening illnesses.

What Is True Forgiveness?

Forgiveness is a very deep psychophysical process that can hone your wisdom and raise your consciousness. Forgiveness is a complex act of consciousness, one that liberates the psyche and soul from the need for personal vengeance and the perception of oneself as a victim. More than releasing from blame the people who caused our wounds, forgiveness means releasing the control that the perception of victimhood has over our psyches. 

The liberation that forgiveness generates comes in the transition to a higher state of consciousness—not just in theory, but energetically and biologically (Myss, 1996, p. 215).

Unless you can develop compassionate forgiveness, the original trauma or betrayal will follow you everywhere, continuing to draw new people into your life to help you reenact the betrayal trauma. Why? 

Because your unconscious knows it is not good for you to hold onto the energy of that trauma and seeks to help you to recreate the trauma in order to finally heal it. Remember, it is the natural learning style of humans to repeat a behavior or situation until it is completely understood and integrated into your consciousness.

Where Do I Begin in Forgiving Others?

The process of forgiving others begins with developing compassionate forgiveness for yourself. If you blame your betrayals on other people without looking at your contribution, you will find it difficult to forgive other people. 

When you can clearly identify your part in the betrayal, you have the potential for real forgiveness. People who judge themselves usually judge others. 

Go here to see the list of the steps in self-forgiveness and a description of each step.

Forgiving Yourself

The Six Steps in Self-Forgiveness

Step 1: Take responsibility for what you did. Taking responsibility means admitting you contributed to the betrayal rather than blaming it all on someone. Borysenko (1996) quotes a spiritual teacher named Emmanuel on this, saying:

"If you deny what is your nature, you become deeply attached to that denial. When you accept what is there in its truth, then you are released. One does not release through rejection, one releases through love." 

It is truly an act of love to say, "I learned something important, and I will accept responsibility for what I did."

Step 2: Confess to another person the truth about how you contributed to the creation of an event that hurt yourself. Mind–body studies show that when you confess a perceived wrong, it reduces the stress stored in your body. This stored stress can make you physically ill.

Borysenko (1996) cites research that involved students who confessed to a shower curtain (no one was behind the curtain, although the students were not told this). The researcher followed up with these students and found they had better health (fewer colds and illnesses) than did a comparison group who didn't confess. 

The Catholic church has known about the power of confession for many centuries. Therapy certainly plays a similar role in helping people become less depressed or guilt-ridden.

Step 3: Look compassionately at yourself, seeing how past betrayals are contaminating your experiences in the present. Identify how this betrayal correlates with other betrayals you have experienced. This will help you see the other person as an actor from central casting who is helping you work on your betrayal pattern. Avoid feeling guilty or depressed about the betrayal, reinforcing feelings of unworthiness. 

Borysenko (1996) says that the mind always takes the shape of what it dwells upon. If you dwell on your perceived failures or unworthiness, you may find it difficult to remember the good things about you. In order to balance this self-critical tendency, dwell also on some of your innocence and what is right about this particular betrayal experience.

Step 4: Look compassionately at the other person and be willing to make amends. Barry remembers learning an important lesson in compassion many years ago:

I was working as a university administrator and had a trusted university colleague and friend in whom I confided periodically regarding my misgivings about certain university policies and the actions of some of my superiors. Without my knowledge, he shared all this information with my superiors. One day my colleague informed me that I had been fired from my administrative position and that it had been given to him. I felt devastated and hated this man for his act of betrayal.

I sought the advice of a counselor who helped me deal with my self-judgments, because I was really critical of myself for trusting this man. I was also not coping well with the aftermath of the betrayal because my betrayer was now my boss rather than my colleague. This prospect brought up intense shame. 

The counselor helped me see that I had done nothing wrong or shameful. I managed to keep my object constancy each day when I went to work over the following four months.

Later that year, I left that job for a much better one. In my new environment, I could see the situation more objectively. Because my job situation had improved and I felt happier, I began to consider forgiving this man. I was able to release my need to see myself as a victim in this situation, while also acknowledging my part in setting up the betrayal. 

I saw that unhealed abuse issues from childhood were behind my blind trust in this colleague. Because I couldn't see this shadow part of myself, it was difficult for me to see it in others.

            This story had a very interesting ending for me. About five years after I left this university, I returned to visit some friends who still lived in the community. They suggested that we take a drive out to the campus so they could show me the new buildings and how the campus had grown. 

While we were walking through the building where I formerly worked, I suddenly came face to face with my betrayer. He recognized me and came toward me. At first, I felt a rush of the old anger I had held toward him and felt my fist clench. My anger passed immediately as he began to speak to me.

He said, "I am so glad to see you. Many times I have tried unsuccessfully to write you a letter and I have thought of calling you to say how sorry I am about what I did to you. I have had trouble sleeping and have had many nightmares. I want to resolve this. Will you forgive me for what I did? I really need your forgiveness, so I can get on with my life." I thought for a minute, seeing the distress in his eyes. Then I said, "I forgave you a long time ago. I needed to do that for me, not for you. I urge you to forgive yourself, because that is what is holding you back, not my lack of forgiveness."

He looked at me and seemed to take in what I was saying. Then he said, "Thank you for forgiving me. I will now try to forgive myself." Then he told me that what he had done to me had also happened to him. He had been fired as well. He said that he normally would not have been at the office that day, but he was there packing his things to leave the university. 

Our chance meeting may not have been chance at all. I had the feeling that this meeting was arranged by someone wiser than us in order to give this man a chance to remove the burden he had carried for the past five years. It also gave me a chance to make amends in a way that I didn't even know I needed to do. It was a profound lesson in forgiveness that I will never forget.

Step 5: Ask for help from spiritual realms (as you define them) in developing compassionate forgiveness. There are numerous spiritual lessons that can be learned from a betrayal. One of the most intriguing spiritual concepts is the concept of surrender. Surrender has to do with letting go of judgments toward self and others. 

It takes two forms, a masculine form and a feminine form. Men and women need to exhibit both forms. If you are good at one form but not the other, you may find it difficult to heal betrayals.

The masculine form of surrender involves the ability to take charge of your life without guilt. Many people would rather feel guilty than be responsible and face their shortcomings. Guilt is usually teamed with resentment. If you feel guilty about something you have done to someone, you may also resent this person in some way. 

It is your responsibility to take charge of your guilt. This is the message Barry gave his colleague who was unable to take charge of his guilt and was waiting for Barry to forgive him so he could forgive himself.

The feminine form of surrender involves the ability to receive without resistance. Perhaps you remember a time when someone said or did something that hurt you. It may have been difficult for you to experience what this person did or said. 

Perhaps you denied the truth of the  words or deeds by verbally or physically erecting barriers against the person’s message. Perhaps you responded with some sterile choices, deflecting the impact of the betrayal. In order to learn from the betrayal and achieve some level of spiritual healing, you need to experience its impact and full meaning.

Men seem to have more difficulty learning to receive than women do. On the other hand, women seem to have more problems in taking charge without guilt. If a man can't receive without resistance, his capacity for learning from a betrayal situation can be greatly diminished.             

A woman who cannot take charge without guilt but is good at receiving without resistance may end up being overpowered and victimized. These twin concepts are very important in helping you learn from and heal the trauma you experience from betrayals.

Step 6: Reflect on what you have learned as a result of experiencing something as a betrayal. This might turn out to be the most important part of the forgiveness process. 

If you can look at the betrayal situation objectively and make a healthy response to the perceived betrayal, you have an opportunity to increase your self-awareness, heal your developmental trauma connected to it, and make sure you do not draw any other people into your life to help you experience any similar betrayals in the future. 

This is a form of mastery and shifts your consciousness in an important way. You will have learned that betrayals are opportunities to heal yourself  and you will be more readily able to use any further perceived betrayals as tools for your own healing rather then opportunities to blame others for betraying you.

References: 

Borysenko, J. (1996). Seventy times seven: On the spiritual art of forgiveness. Audiotape. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.

Identifying and Using Your Feelings in a Healthy Way

Below is a chart showing the normal function of each of your core feelings (Weinhold & Weinhold, 2009, p. 76-77). The chart also suggests how you can use these feelings in your life. 

 Your Basic Feelings and Their Healthy Functions

Feeling	Function
1. Anger	This is a natural response to not getting your wants or needs met. People who feel afraid to ask directly for what they need may act angry instead. The anger is an attempt to cover up any fear of rejection that perhaps was felt early in life.  Through intimidation, they try to get what they want without asking directly. When you are feeling angry, it is important to ask yourself, "What am I wanting or needing?"
2. Fear	This is a natural response to perceived danger or the anticipated loss of something important. When a person feels afraid, it is important to determine if the perceived danger is real. People also use fear to cover up their anger because they were punished for expressing anger when they were children.
3. Sadness	This is a natural response to the loss of a person, object, or relationship (real or imagined). It is the result of giving up something to which you were attached. A child can get attached to an object or pet and parents who don’t understand this need, get rid of the object or pet causing a deep developmental shock, trauma or stress . You may also feel anger with the experience of loss because some of your needs and wants may no longer get met.
4. Shame	This is a natural response to violating some personal or social limit about what is appropriate. Healthy shame helps us monitor our behavior in public situations and also helps form our ethical code. Toxic shame is different from guilt.  Guilt means believing we have done something wrong, whereas toxic shame means that we believe there is something intrinsically wrong with us. Many parents use shame-based methods to discipline their children.
5. Excitement	This is a natural response to anticipating that something good will happen to you. Fear and excitement are often closely related. Some people never received permission as children to show excitement and instead feel embarrassed or ashamed at their own excitement.
6. Happiness/Joy	These are natural responses to getting what you want or need, or for doing something effectively. Some people do not know it is okay to be happy or they have a quota on how happy they can allow themselves to be.  They may be addicted to struggle because it is more familiar or they are afraid to relax and be happy and joyful in case unwanted feelings will show up.

Once you understand the normal function of your feelings and their critical role in connecting to your internal experiences, it is easier to recognize the significance of the function of feelings in your stress-related conflicts. This awareness can help you shift into an attitude of compassion and kindness toward yourself and others during stressful conflicts.

A feeling commonly encountered during stressful conflicts is sadness. For example, you can process your feelings of sadness during a stressful conflict by asking:

What have I lost, or what do I fear losing in this stress-related conflict?

Does this stress-related conflict involve the traumatic reenactment of a past experience that involved feeling sad?

Does it remind me of something I lost in the past?"

Sometimes you may feel a mixture of sadness and anger in a stress-related conflict situation. The anger comes from not getting a need met, and the sadness tells you that something you once had is gone.

 When these two feelings become intertwined in a stress-related conflict situation, you need to separate them before you can effectively heal the effects of the stress-related conflict.