Podcast E25: Developing Discernment

In this insightful podcast, Mette Miriam Sloth delves into the pervasive guilt that many women experience today. She highlights the significant impact of social media and the constant influx of information on women's lives.

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  Understanding the Roots of Guilt

  Guilt can feel like an unwelcome intruder, invading our lives and thoughts. It can arise in various situations, from the everyday challenges of balancing work and family to the constant pressure to live up to societal expectations.

  The Amplifying Effect of Motherhood

  Motherhood can often intensify feelings of guilt. As women navigate the complexities of raising children, they may experience heightened self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy.

  The Influence of Social Media

  Social media platforms, particularly Instagram, can contribute to guilt and self-comparison. The curated images of seemingly perfect lives and the diverse opinions on motherhood, partnership, and womanhood can leave women feeling overwhelmed and questioning their own choices.

  Anchoring in Self-Awareness

  Developing a strong sense of self and understanding your core values is crucial. When you know who you are and what truly matters to you, you become less susceptible to the opinions and judgments of others.

  Mindful Consumption of Information

  Pay attention to how you feel when you're on social media or consuming information. If you experience negative emotions, it may be a sign to limit your exposure or adjust your habits.

  Guilt as a Compass

  Guilt can serve as a guide, pointing towards areas in your life where you may want to make changes or explore further.

  Embracing Your Emotions

  Be curious about your feelings and allow yourself to fully experience them. Instead of suppressing or ignoring guilt, use it as an opportunity to learn more about yourself and grow as a person.

  Taking Responsibility

  Take ownership of your emotions and actions. Instead of blaming others for your guilt, work on understanding and managing your own reactions.

  Navigating the Guilt of Others

  It can be challenging to deflect the guilt projected by others. However, it's essential to learn how to set boundaries and protect yourself from their negative projections.

  The Sensitivity of Personal Growth

  As you engage in personal development, you may become more attuned to the emotions of others. This can make it more difficult to be around people who don't take responsibility for their own feelings and actions.

  The Power of Saying No

  You have the right to say no and pursue your own path. Setting boundaries and prioritizing your own needs is not selfish; it's an act of self-care.

  Love and Freedom

  Love and freedom are interconnected. To experience genuine love in your relationships, it's vital to grant both yourself and others the freedom to be who you truly are.

  Practical Tips for Managing Guilt

  Mette Miriam Sloth offers valuable advice on how to navigate guilt:

  • Explore the feeling: Investigate the underlying reasons behind your guilt. Is there something you need to address, or is it simply noise you can ignore?

  • Shift your state: Engage in activities that bring you joy and peace. This could involve physical movement, listening to music, watching a lighthearted movie, or spending time with loved ones.

  • Practice self-compassion: Remember that changing old patterns takes time. Celebrate your progress and be patient with yourself when you stumble.

  This podcast provides valuable insights into the guilt that many women experience today. Mette Miriam Sloth's advice and perspectives can empower women to understand, manage, and overcome the negative spiral of self-blame and doubt.

• Transcript

  Translated transcript of the original Danish podcast

  Host: Mette Miriam Sloth

  One of the hardest things that women tell me they experience in their relationships is basically distinguishing between what is hers and what is his or theirs. It can also be with mother-in-law, mum, dad, children, girlfriends. Basically in who we want to exchange with, who we want to feel connected to when something difficult arises, how do you find out what your responsibility is in that? And what is not your responsibility and how do you deal with that? And we can talk about that for many, many hours, but I'll try to summarise it a little bit briefly to see if you can possibly take something with you and work on it in your everyday life. Some of it is actually about the first steps in figuring out such a mess when there is some conflict, you feel something, and you see the other party feeling something, and you don't really know, and you try through conversations about, I have also become upset that you are also, and I can see it a bit from your perspective. I can also see it from my perspective, and it's a mess. Now the first thing I'm going to do here is to actually start and practice feeling inside of you what the hell is going on. And by that I mean that you move away from the situation, because when the conversation is deadlocked around a conflict, it's better to say, you know what, we'll just go our separate ways, go our separate ways and each work on our own understanding. Of course, if it's with a family member, if it's with a friend, there's not that or even a partner can resist it. So there's no guarantee that the person you're in conflict with wants to take on this work. But you can't really do anything about others. You can do something, it's that you can do something yourself. You can uncover, what the hell is this about? and where do I stand in it, and what should I do with it? Do I need to delimit myself? Do I need to set boundaries? Should I take responsibility and bring something home? What you can then do is actually start practising the skill or the ability to go in and feel. And what you do is that you go for yourself, sit down, and then you will feel your system running after a possible conflict or a misunderstanding, something. Your whole system will be running and you'll have heart palpitations and you might be agitated, you might be angry, you might be hurt, you might feel entrenched, you might feel, you might feel numb. Defences settle in different ways. And what it actually comes down to is that you actually start breathing. A feminine practice. You have to be with what is. It's not to be fixed. It's not to be solved. It's not to be blocked out. There's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with the defence either. You are with what is so that it can open up and communicate to you. And that's something you can practice on your own over time. I did that myself. It can be done. So it's actually not something you need to go to therapy for. You have an extremely self-empowering potential, so it's an opportunity for you. And I will say that it can feel lonely, and it can feel difficult, and it can be practised. You have to have huge, you have to have really tough discipline if you're going to walk the path alone. It is possible. Alternatively, you can use everyday life to start practising closing your eyes, going in and feeling like, okay, I feel scared, or I feel hurt, or I feel afraid of being abandoned. Even if there are no outward signs of abandonment, that's what I feel. Okay, I surrender to feeling and feeling abandoned. Because then you kind of start to get an information about in which situations react very violently without that's really what the person is doing. The person doesn't leave me or the person is allowed to leave me. I can't keep the person, because then I'll end up manipulating them. So apparently I have something about me that makes me insanely afraid of being abandoned. We all have wounds, especially love wounds. So figuring out what that means and taking trips and feeling it and surrendering to it takes a huge amount of courage and dedication and will. But I would say if you have to work on something right now in the time we're living in this timeline be in right now. Two things work on your power and learnt skill. And one the two things are very much connected because sometimes your anger will also come up. A lot of times your anger might come up in your relationships. And female anger has typically been shut down. It hasn't been very girly to have anger and aggression, which is completely hopeless, because of course we're a mammal, so of course we have it. And the feminine, which can express itself through a woman, has no problem. Not actually anger, but has no problem with power. So sometimes there's a power to you just saying, not because you have to hit and get violent, but there can be power. up like just kind of it stops right here and like that that's not mine that's not mine that's not mine that's not mine that's not my responsibility to me of you right here so then it actually needs a huge you actually need to be able to fill power into your field to say hey what you come with here invades my field with in your own trickiness actually has nothing to do with me but to find out if it has anything to do with you, you have to be extremely clear about your own wounds you have to know your own patterns and you have to work on getting them landed so you know when you're being tricked And sometimes the other person is tricked and is going to invade your space, at the same time as you are the trick and will send something back to the other party that is not your own. So it can be a bit of a mixed bag. So it's more to say that this is where it happens, it's there. But it's possible to find a way through. It's possible to work with it. And the way I work with women is that we go in specifically and work, as I see it, somewhat differently than how a classic psychologist sees it. I don't see that you have to come a few times and then it's the therapy that changes your life. No, it's the other way round. It's everything you do in your everyday life when you're not with me that changes your everyday life. But what you do every single day, show up for yourself and work with the things that come up, you learn together with me. So in other words, I hand over a wisdom to you, and I take you into some places where you recognise how it has a hold of your self-healing potential. And then you can take it into your everyday life and use it, because then you'll be stronger here, and over time you won't need me at all, because you can do it yourself. Or maybe you just need me for a service check once in a while when you've just hit something like, okay, this is what's going on right now, this situation has awakened something really deep, we shouldn't always go down into deep darkness alone. I would actually say there are places we shouldn't go down alone. And it's quite important that we have someone with us to hold the torch and help us get us back again. Which has always been a shamanic practice and is still very much more important. And it's one that has a lot of love in it that we can do it for each other. But that is to say over time the way I inherit it is actually become independent of me because you have to stand in your own power and you have to stand in your own compass and then we help each other where we hit the edge here. So okay, I have to explore this, because right here I can't actually discern what the hell is what. And that's where I help shed extra light so that we can feel and sense and see together, and we can slowly and lovingly take things apart. Just like that, okay, there was some guilt and shame, and that's inherited. Just like that. We can lift it up and so on. Okay, here was something where you can take some responsibility for, where you can mature. In that way, we don't even discern, we don't even discern. We unfold. We explore and unfold in deep love what lies down in the darkness, so it can be allowed to come up and be manifested. So it's easier for you to live. It's easier for you to be. And it becomes easier for you to hold your boundaries. Hold your boundaries. Speak up loudly. Be in your power and say no f****** way. All while having a completely bare open heart. So that's the future we're moving towards. It's that we can operate with an open body, open throat, open heart, open shoe while keeping a very firm boundary when necessary. In the past, we've learnt that when we've been forced to set boundaries for self-protection, we've closed down. We have clamped down on ourselves. It's time to open up those cramps, because it's true that our defences have helped us tremendously. The problem is that they have also made us constantly fearful and anxious about life, and every time we shut down, we shut down more and more in order to feel life. So it may well be that shutting down helps you feel less pain, at least at times. But you may not feel the stasis either. You don't have the pleasure of the joy of life. And the deep love is also disconnected. Not because you can't do it. You are capable of the whole frequency band, but the two things are connected. The more you feel the depths, the higher you can go. So we will open up to that together. And you do that by using your skill as the most important muscle you have.