by Margaret Paul Ph.D.

Created on: January 31, 2011

Do you love it when you feel deeply emotionally connected with someone? When you feel seen, understood, valued and cherished? This is what initially draws two people together and leads to falling in love.

Then what happens? Why does the connection go away?

When most people first meet, they allow each other to see only certain parts of themselves, but they often hide the deeper parts of themselves.

Why?

Because they fear being rejected for who they really are.

They fear being rejected for who they really are because they think there is something wrong with them. Believing there is something wrong with you is called core shame - the belief that there is something inherently wrong, bad, or flawed about you.

Core shame may be governing much of what you do and how you respond in your relationships. It certainly governed much of my life until I learned how to heal it.

I learned to heal it when I learned how to connect with my spiritual Guidance - my higher mind that can see the truth of who I am. As long as I was defining myself from my limited ego wounded, programmed mind, I was operating from the false belief that I was somehow not good enough.

Developing your spiritual connection is not hard. Whenever you move into a deep desire to learn about love and truth, you raise your frequency high enough to access the wisdom that is always here for you. But in order to do this, you have to really want to know the truth.  As long as you are afraid of what you will learn, you will stay stuck with your core shame. I assure you that what you will learn about your true Self is how incredible you are!

THE COURAGE TO BE VULNERABLE AND AUTHENTIC

In order to emotionally connect with another, you have to be vulnerable and authentic about your feelings, which you can't do if you think there is something wrong with you. So before you can sustain emotional connection and intimacy, you need to heal your core shame. You will not be able to take the risk of experiencing the pain of rejection unless you are not rejecting yourself.

It takes courage to be authentic. You cannot be authentic without the willingness to be vulnerable to being hurt, and you can't connect on a deep heart level without vulnerability and authenticity.

It is only when you deeply value who you are that you have the courage to reveal yourself authentically and risk being hurt. This is what creates deeply connected relationships. What it takes is two people who have done the work of healing their core shame so that they can share their heart and soul with each other.

HEALING CORE SHAME

* Start with noticing how judgmental you are of yourself. Every time you notice yourself judging yourself, stop and say to yourself, "I'm not going there." And do not judge yourself for judging yourself! Just keep noticing and stopping each time. You will find yourself judging yourself less and less and feeling better and better.

* Practice opening to learning with your Higher Self. Keep asking your Guidance with a sincere desire to learn, "Please show me what is wonderful about who I really am." Over time, you will learn to love and cherish your true Self - your essence - for qualities such as kindness, compassion, generosity, curiosity, creativity, humor, playfulness, gentleness, inner knowing, determination, loyalty, integrity, honesty, and so on.

The more you value your true Self, the easier it will be for you to be vulnerable and authentic with the important people in your life, and create the emotional connection that we all long for.

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