Holding Safe Space - Letting go of Guilt and Shame Hi Friend! Welcome to another episode of The ODAAT Chat Podcast, my name is Arlina and I’ll be your host. After taking a break for a couple of weeks, I decided to kick off the next series with a solo episode to talk about Holding Safe Space - and the process of letting go of secrets so that you can live free of guilt and shame. I’m going to walk you through how all this came up for me, what the process of letting go looks like for me, and how you can do it too. There will be a free downloadable worksheet available on my website at SoberLifeSchool.com. Went to a meeting where the topic was the 4th step ( and for those of you who don’t know, it’s a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves). Naturally, people also talked about step 5 which is sharing the inventory - acts of confession, but also finding self forgiveness through the loving perspective of a guild who understands what it’s like to wrestle with alcoholism and addiction. There’s just something about sharing with a peer who’s been through it that feels safe. Let me share the process with you that I’m borrowing right out of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous. You can take notes or download the worksheet from SoberLifeSchool.com, but here it is: There are four columns, and in the first column, make a list of all the people you are resentful at The second column, List the specific cause of the resentment. The third, is what was the effect? How did the event effect you? ie. Your self esteem, ego, financial, security, personal or financial. Also, what is the underlying fear? Finally the fourth column, what was my part in this? This is probably the hardest part, and often where we need help because when we’re hurt, we are focused on OUR pain. It’s hard to see that others who hurt us are often doing so IN RESPONSE to our behavior. This is where courage is required. The thing to keep in mind here is that we actually WANT to know where we went wrong, so that we don’t actually CAUSE other people to hurt us. This is often where people get tripped up and I don’t want you to worry about that right now. Don’t let that be the reason not to walk through this exercise, because what most people don’t see right away is that this is exactly where the freedom comes from. It’s in the last place you’d expect to find it. I know that was the case for me! I’ll even give you my own personal example. I have a million of them, but I’ll just give you one for now: I’ll call it “Just the tip”. But it’s not what you think. ;) Resentful at: Bob, my then fiancee  Cause: He gave a huge tip that I thought we couldn’t afford Effected: Self esteem, PR, financial and emotion security, (fear of I wasn’t going to get what I wanted). My part: Self righteous anger, lack of communication, Self centered pride (i know what’s best), made everyone uncomfortable over a small amount of money. Control issues Having someone walk me through the process helped me not only to see my part, but not to then go so low that I beat myself up over it, causing even more self harm. I was then able to go to the one I love and make amends - not just apologize, but to acknowledge that I see how my behavior effected him, and figure out a way to avoid situations like this in the future. Better yet, I learned to forgive myself, and realized I the best I could with the info I had. I was able to see how I was driven by fear and that through love and empathy, I learned to improve my self esteem and love myself.  So anyway, after this meeting I went to recently, I started to wonder why some people can’t let go of their shame. Or even, what people not in program do to let go of guilt and shame? Don’t want to share with someone with any connection to their circle of friends or family? Fear of being judged? Too much shame? Don’t have a safe person? This is where I can help. What I want you to know is that if you are holding onto a secret that you want freedom from, I am able to hold safe s