Reframing Shame into Love: A Life-Changing Practice
Learning to reframe shame and redirect it back to Love can truly transform your life. Yet, many people overlook this profound technique because of its apparent simplicity. It’s like trying to let go on a rollercoaster—simple in theory, but much harder in practice.
To truly let go of shame, anger, anxiety, or any emotion we wish to release, we must consciously unclench—letting go of all the ‘baggage’ we’re holding onto in the moment.
Michael Singer beautifully illustrates this in his book The Untethered Soul. Today, consider a practice of relaxing and consciously releasing heavy emotions like shame, fear, overwhelm, or anxiety.
Michael Singer’s 'Highest Technique': A Path to Freedom
In The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer outlines what he calls ‘The Highest Technique,’ a principle rooted in a universal spiritual truth found across healing practices. At its core, this truth recognizes that negative experiences—shame, fear, anxiety, or depression—begin as energetic contractions stuck within the body.
The solution? Expansion. Relaxation. Release.
Take a moment to notice a negative experience like shame. Can you feel the tightness—the contraction—in your body or mind? It might feel as though your entire being is closing in, like a black hole pulling you inward.
The antidote is to consciously expand. Gently open your energy and your body. When you do, other aspects of your consciousness naturally begin to follow suit. Instead of contracting into negativity, choose to relax, expand, and release.
This is the Work of a Life-Time
This is a sacred muscle that we can keep growing for the rest of our life…
Your Rewiring Back to Love™ Workout 💪
Transform Negative Experience into Clarity & Energy
It can be helpful to remember that you can take action and make changes about a challenging situation AFTER you’ve done this exercise. This technique does NOT REPLACE making changes and taking action in a practical way – but you will NOT see your life clearly while this contraction is present. Handle the contraction in your energy and body, and which loving expansive actions are the best to take will be abundantly clear AFTER you’ve done this exercise.
- First choose a situation that can trigger a negative experience for you. You can choose anyone that you want. You can trust the one that pops into your consciousness first. Or feel free to find the one that is the most challenging for you in your life right now.
- Describe the situation. Let yourself feel and think negatively – and write it down freely and without censorship. Now is the time to blame, and complain and have a tantrum or a pity party, as fully and completely as you can.
- Be aware of the energy in your body. Where do you feel the contraction? The tension, the tightness, the pain, the discomfort, the negative sensation?! Write it down. Describe it in as much detail as you can.
- Now be aware that the real you – the Soul – the Authentic Self is the part of you that is observing, watching, holding for this experience. You are NOT the negative energy. You are experiencing the negative energy. You have the power to let go of ANYTHING that is NOT YOU.
- So just now, for a minute, practice relaxing, expanding, releasing that contraction or negative experience completely. Use your imagination. Use your body. Use your breathing. Use your loving. Use your prayer. Use whatever shows up for you uniquely, to support you in relaxing and releasing this stuck, contracted energy within!
