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Shame Issues
Copy-write George Hartwell, 2017 What is a Shame Issue? Shame as an issue refers to a weak sense of identity, a weakened fundamental right to be oneself. There is little ability to express one’s opinions and expect to be understood. There is stress about one’s right to be given a place in family or social group. There is a lack confidence in oneself and low self-esteem. A family or church overcomes this by giving each person a place where they can express themselves, be acknowledged and understood. A counsellor helps this by skilled and empathic listening. A marriage where one’s thoughts are listened to and one’s feelings are acknowledged helps overcome this. A person with a weak sense of identity needs a counsellor who does not overpower, control, convert or ‘fix’ someone in a way they have not chosen. Such a counsellor is gentle rather than overpowering; listens well and sensitively and consistently provides a safe place to express oneself without judgment. Provide a place where a person can find, formulate their own opinions, find their strengths, discover their calling and clarify their identity and they will begin to find their voice, their identity, their right to be. On the way to finding one’s identity one may have periods of confusion, with anxiety and depression and increased uncertainty. It can feels so uncomfortable that if feels like one is having a ‘nervous breakdown.’ But there is such a thing as a positive nervous breakdown where old character patterns disintegrate so the newer identity can emerge. During such periods it seems that one is in a transition out of a previous identity into a new one. The old role, or persona, worked for awhile but it got old. The new has not yet arrived. The result is confusion and anxiety. This will pass as a new identity becomes clear, as you practice it and become comfortable with the new you. A counsellor who understands these processes is a great comfort and help. An example of a personality that can become old and fall away is the nice guy, good guy or people pleaser. Each pattern is based on foundational core beliefs. The PeoplePleaser’s inner core perspective is that love is conditional. Therefore, one must do the right things to earn it. Because the People Pleaser does not express his or her own personality but adapts to what people want or expect, it may reflect inner feelings of shame. The People Pleaser avoids expressing himself or herself and puts the focus on pleasing others. People Pleasing can leave one in a state of depression. It is triggered by beliefs such as: I have done something wrong, I am bad, None one really loves me, and I am unloveable. These beliefs are depressing and painful. These beliefs are triggered by criticism and failures. Of course one becomes defensive. It hurts so much to think like this. In individual therapy such beliefs must be brought to the surface. When core beliefs come to the surface and the feelings and perhaps memories they are connected to, change is possible. With skilled professional prayer therapy or with skilled psychotherapy the emotional brain will edit the core belief. This process will help old patterns of behaviour and personality to fall away. One is never the same once these core beliefs are permanently modified. Confidentiality & Privacy Policy
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What does it mean to say you are a spiritual being?
Copywrite 2017 George Hartwell christian marriage counsellor Imagine that you are a spiritual being. That your true core is a spiritual care with a spiritual processing centre, a spiritual perceptual ability and with the ability to choose and act in the spirit. who could think, feel, choose. Imagine your thinking in the spirit. It would be nearly instantaneous. Imagine perceiving in the spirit. You would know what is real in the spirit world. Is that what children experience? Imagine feeling in the spirit. Experiencing hostility or love, agitation or peace, depression or joy as who you are in your inner being. Would we treat depression and anxiety different if we understood more about what this means in the spirit? I know we would. Your choices, your desires, your visions, your goals - would they be different if you were more aware of yourself as a spiritual being? I believe they would. Our spirit - the supernatural part of us, the breath of God in us - that is core of our true self. The human spirit is core to a full and human life. Can you see yourself, your true identity as being spiritual? I don’t mean religious at all. I am talking basic psychology. I am talking about what it means to be human. We are spirit beings living in physical bodies. What happens if our human spirit gets lost inside; is inaccessible; goes missing in action? What if that part of us that makes us human is under-functioning? When that happens things like the following are experienced:
Marriage serves as a second opportunity to grow into emotional maturity. Here is another time of bonding that nurtures our spirit allowing us to grow more fully into our identity and opening up greater awareness of our feelings, our likes, our talents and our life mission. More joy is experienced from life. Couple Prayers
Copy-write george Hartwell 2017 Weekly Blessings Weekly blessings a format that is short, simple, positive and achievable. It is important that no-one dominates. Each person feels respected and plays on equal part. My solution is to have a weekly time of prayers associated with some feedback and goal setting. Each one sets some goals for the next week. Lets say three goals. Write these down somewhere and you will have a record of your goals and answers to prayer. Ask the other just to pray the blessing of God upon these goals. You do not have to add a lot of fancy words just a prayer of blessing upon your partner/spouse. Once this is started you may have a time of thanksgiving for goals accomplished and prayers answered. You can make note of that as well. Choose a regular night of the week for this and then just keep it up. Set goals for the week - maybe three. Share your goals with your spouse and let them pray a simple blessing on your goals. Mutual Goals Visualized When you have a mutually agreed on goal to achieve then agree on what the end result looks like. What is your desired outcome. When you agree together in prayer picture this outcome. Agree on it and pray that it be done in Jesus name. Note #1: Spend time with God in listening mode before you set such goals. Prayer is not imposing on God but agreeing with God or partnering with God. Note #2: To set spiritually realistic goals with your faith capacity ask yourself, ‘Is this something I can see happening?” If it is something you can see happening then it is something within your heart faith capacity to pray for. If it is something you can see happening, then move ahead and pray for it. Prayer when the other is verbally critical or aggressive There are three prayers to use when your partner is very upset and expressing it. 1. You are the Lord ‘What should I say.’ Or should I say anything? 2. Forgive your partner by letting go of any need to get back at them, to hurt them. ‘I let go of my anger at my partner expressed as any kind of hurt, revenge or getting even.’ 3. Be a channel of the bitterness, hurt and sin that your partner is expressing toward you. Channel it to Jesus. Let the work of Jesus on the cross absorb it. “I let this flow through me to you Jesus.’ Please take care of this that my partner is expressing. Attachment, Connection and Bonding
G. Hartwell 2017 Being in relationships with attachment, connection and bonding is as important to our emotional health as food is for our body and money is for our household budget. Through bonding we grow in emotional health becoming more successful, more effective, more fruitful in our relationships. When we are in a mature emotional state others feel good about being with us. They are able to trust us and bond. They are able to grow in emotional health as well. It takes time to trust; time to grow; time before one becomes emotionally and spiritually mature. So patience is needed. Secure, strongly bonded children are happy and have good self esteem and self confidence. The same is true of adults. Happy adults and children - those with good self-esteem: 1. Are more independent under group pressure.
Emotional adulthood is about balance between caring about others, expressing ourselves and dealing rationally with the facts. The less mature we are the more we are controlled by our emotions or stay fixed in a particular personality style. Our bonding style is established so early in life they none of us will remember the events that so effected our life. 1. If mother and father loved us with open hearts. Looked us in the eyes. Connected with us personally, affectionately and playfully when our capacity to love and bond was brought fully to life. 2. If neither parent were available to play, connect, hold and comfort us then our capacity to love, connect and bond is not fully activated. If they did not connect eye to eye, we will have difficulty connecting eye to eye. If they did not hold us with love and comfort us when we needed security we will lack full open trust in others to be there for us. Life gives us ongoing opportunities to grow in strength in our human spirit. As we choose to express whatever love we are capable of, we can increase the flow of love from God through our spirit. As love flows through us we are nurtured as well by that flow. The Key to Life - For the measure you use , it will be measured out to you. Luke 6:38 The Key to life then is to grow to greater maturity by participating in this flow of life to the fullest extent possible for you . This participation is outlined by Jesus in Luke 6:27 - 38. First of all is to love everyone even those who you are offended at. Love your enemies, says Jesus vs. 27. The specifics of love include: Do good Bless: Pray for: Giving to others: Forgive (‘and you will be forgiven’ meaning you will stay in the flow of love.) The result of this participation is outlined by Jesus in Luke 6:38. ’It will be given to you ..running over’ This means that you will stay in the flow of God’s love and blessings. Forgive and you will be forgiven you will stay in the flow of God's love, forgiveness and grace. What you sow, you will reap. This flow is a secret key to the more regular experience of love, peace and joy instead of anxiety, anger and depression. Secrets of the Heart - G. Hartwell 2017 - www.HealMyLife.com
What are the secrets of the heart? The heart has processed all of our personal experience and created our own personal model of life from them. That means the perspectives, beliefs and motives of our heart are solidly rooted on our personal experiences and means in our memories. Emotions live in our memories so emotional healing means healing of our memories. Passions and motivations live in our emotional memories so healing of our emotional memories shifts our motivations and passions. Learned attitudes resulting in learned behaviour patterns are stored in our heart (unconscious or emotional brain) so healing of our memories will correct our attitudes and social patterns All of our emotional memories are stored as events, dramatic events, personal events in our heart. Memories that are not personal will not have an emotional tag and will not be stored in our emotional brain. Instead, a non-personal, non-emotional memory will be stored in our verbal, intellectual brain. So our heart contains the memories most important to us, our protection, mission and success. We can recall nonemotional memories more easily then emotional ones. For some reason the heart treasures memories and does give our conscious mind easy access. However we need to get access in order to get healing of our emotional wounds/memories. You experience emotion when an event triggers a memory stored in your heart ( emotional-brain). When a cluster of memories is triggered it is an opportunity to get in touch with those memories; bring them to conscious awareness and discover their secret. How we try to change and why it does not work. What this means is that you cannot change the heart by telling it something different. But we all try and keep on trying to change what is most fundamental to us with instructions, education, insights and plans. We discover in time that none of this shifts our heart. The heart is not interested in words. It pays attention to emotional experience, in particular stories. It is the story that the heart remembers not just the feeling and not just the lesson learned. The feeling and the lesson are imbedded into the story and kept like that in the heart. The heart is a treasure chest of stories. The Secret Way to Change your Heart However the stories can be edited and rewritten if you know how. One of the secrets of the heart is how to rewrite the story. This has only been discovered recently. Every time you retell the story with emotion it can be edited and rewritten. Every time you recall the story with emotion is can be edited and rewritten. 1. It can be edited if we remember it differently. Maybe someone remembers the same event and adds some details. These could be incorporated into the story in the emotional memory. 2. The conclusion embedded into the story can be edited if at the same time that we remember this event we also remember other significant events that shift or correct the perspective imbedded in the emotional memory’s version of the story. 3. The perspective embedded in the story can be changed if through listening to God we perceive a significantly different perspective from God - a revelation. This is called prayer therapy. Here are the steps involved. 4. Pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in finding the memory connected with an fresh emotional experience.
Mission:My mission is to have the joy of seeing lives healed - emotional and inner healing - through Listening Prayer Therapy and to train others to do the same.
Education:·B.A., Social Sciences, University of Toronto, 1967. ·Ontario High School Teacher's Certificate, Queen's University, 1969. ·Masters in Clinical Psychology, University of Calgary, 1980. ·Theology, St. Albert Seminary, Edmonton, Tyndale College.(2 years). My Experience ·Ontario High School Teacher (2 years) Psychology Department, Alberta Hospital Ponoka (4 years) Instructor University of Regina (summer) Family counsellor, Athabasca, Alberta (3 years) Child Therapist (1 year) Private practice - Mississauga/ Toronto (34 years) Training in Christian Therapy Agnes Sanford, 1975, Calgary, Alberta. John and Paula Sandford, 1979, Alberta Leanne Payne, PCM, 1987, Michigan, USA. Tyndale Christian Counselling Practicum, Toronto, 1989. Art Zielstra, Listening Prayer, Ontario, 1999 John Regier, Marriage transformation, Colorado Springs, 2003 |
AuthorGeorge Hartwell M.Sc. Christian Marriage Counsellor, Phone sessions available, fee $120 per hour. Archives
July 2018
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