Skáldskapr: Breaking the Guilt/Shame cycle of control

Before we discuss todays topic I’d like to take a moment to mention a new direction that we have been invited to, providing a daily message every weekday.. A new app available of the App Store and Google Play, called Wisdom. Please take a moment to follow our social media outlets, our podcast channels, and our new venture, Wisdom.

This episode discusses the single largest mechanism for mind control that these monotheistic practices have used throughout time to control the masses. With the confidence of the general population not understanding the “mystical powers” that surround them each day, the leaders of this practice were able to exploit it for financial gain. However, the weapon using of guilt has become a mainstay for the Christian faith. Before we get too far after it today, let us seek knowledge and wisdom.

{Ódinn invocation chant}

So our topic today is the shame/guilt cycle used by the Christian faith to enforce their control over the population. This has been one of the biggest challenges in my patient’s road to recovery from extreme guilt and/or shame that resulted in their diagnosis of PTSD. The brain can only take so much processing of this possibly imagined shame before it then attempts to terminate the thought process. There are many different tact that the brain can take when dealing with this scenario, however, almost all of them result in a level of depression.

When we consider how this type of processing works. However, let us start with the foundations that most American’s are programmed with, as this country, therefore many of its rules and expectations are based on, was founded on Christian values. The core tenement to the application of the Christian theology is the idea that humans are not worthy without their god. Therefore, the humans must do everything in their power to ensure that they steer clear of sin. This then avoids the application of guilt/shame that the church depends on for control. Within the Christian faith, there is no room for error here, as their god cannot be in the presence of sin, so its practitioners must be without blemish to be accepted into heaven. This is also why the added story of his son was added. His supposed son paid the ultimate sacrifice to bridge the gap between humans and their god by supposedly dying to absolve all humans of their sin.

While very few can shuffle these minor transgressions, most bury them under other emotional manifestations. These minor instances of feelings of guilt then lie beneath the other emotional instances, which essentially move the baseline emotional operational level higher and higher, until at some point we are impacted by a large emotional trauma. Because the level of emotional operation has been set higher, now the emotional carnage caused by this large emotional trauma then can cause breakage within the bio-electricity within the brain. I have seen a multitude of displayed symptoms of this breakage point:

  • Sullen and Withdrawn – this seems to be a more prevalent type of display with many patients becoming withdrawn and depressed. I have found the emotional control for these individuals are very difficult, and they seem more prone to extreme depression. The unfortunate side effect to this type of response is that it can become quite a vicious circle, in that depression can become an intrinsic circle that many will struggle to escape.
  • Angry and Vengeful – this seems to be an equally prevalent type of display with many patients becoming agitated, then withdrawn, and vice-versa. The cycle of viciousness, then guilt, all stems from the underlying level of guilt the individual may have experienced prior to the massive emotional trauma of whatever event. While this symptom may be less prevalent than the depressive state, it can be much more problematic, as patients lash out at anyone around them, which damages relationships, which then may cause depression. In much the same way, this symptom set can become a circular motion around the drain, leading to a feeling of helplessness.
  • Absent – this symptom set seems to be the most uncommon of the symptom sets I’ve experienced. In many cases, I have found that this symptom set involves a substantial amount on intrinsic pride, or self-reliance, thereby the inability to communicate with others needs to be built before true progress can be made.

There is hope. There is the promise of understanding the factors that led to the build up of emotional challenges can be reduced, thereby allowing individuals trapped in the cycle to break free and experience their lives. In many cases, the idea that we recognize these smaller injections of guilt and shame for what they are, and remove them by addressing the stigma attached, thereby reducing the overall level of stress and psychological trauma. This is the evolutionary effect of sin on the thousands of generations inducted into the Christian beliefs, knowingly or not.

Understanding that the Christian Church injected the idea of guilt/shame as a method of ensuring that the population was “controlled” by their enforcement of their rules and laws. This application permeated the inner sanctity of one’s own home, away from societal control mechanisms, and applied these small nudges of guilt to enforce the church’s will without having to be in your home. As an example, we can review throughout history the idea that there were many actions that were considered “sins” and therefore an attached guilt/shame was applied to the mind in order to prevent that behavior. Within society, the enforcement could be applied by shame, whereas within the privacy of one’s home, the shame could be avoided, therefore an additional step was necessary to control the population. This is where the application of guilt happens, with the lessons ensuring that the fundamental necessity of societal inclusion can be challenged, forcing the individual to accept the rules or be cast out. It was this psychological control that became almost unnoticed in the current modern societies. But please trust me, it’s there. All of my patients have ultimately determined that they had two distinct mental actions associated with these Christian controls:

  • Ignoring, but knowing it had an impact on their psychological well-being. This included those individuals who decided to break from the Christian beliefs, yet maintained knowledge (most likely unknowingly) of their divergence from those beliefs. Most current Americans were raised with the Christian beliefs being repeatedly injected into our psychological development, thereby forming a foundation of “right and wrong” based on this beliefs.
  • Subscribing, and experiencing the build up everyday. This also included the group of individuals who, while not directly participating in practice, maintained the underlying foundation built by these beliefs. While maybe not cognizant of the small injections of guilt being placed in their mind, and would be surprised how much guilt was maintained even when consciously distancing themselves from the practice.

In both cases, we find that the individual experiences the psychological “build-up” of pressure within the mind, thereby elevating the emotional state, in many cases, without the individuals knowledge, or understanding. As mentioned before, a very select few can avoid this collection of guilt factors with their different genetic mental construction, the predominant group may not recognize that they are actually gathering these guilty feelings, thereby escalating their own emotional operational level higher and higher.

Some choose to escape these feelings through the use of chemical alterations of their thought process, either with alcohol, or other intoxicating drugs. However the reality is, the “emotional operational level” is set, so regardless what we do to alter our state of mind, until that level is adjusted, we may be adding to an already high level of emotional stress, and therefore pushing the psychological balance to a point of breakage.

The keys here are:

  1. Talk to someone. Expose the emotional coverings to address those little nuggets of guilt within the mind to reduce the overall levels.
  2. Don’t believe the teachings that would have you believe that everything you had to do is a sin. There are many things we have to do in our lives to survive, and blossom into the full potential that the fates have in store for us.
  3. Don’t try to take the quick road around, drugs and alcohol are not the answers. In addition, there is life beyond this, there are many people around you who care and want to be with you. 
  4. Work with someone to find the reasons of honor, and live your life to the fullest. You are a perfect intersection between what the gods want for you, and what the fates think we need to get there.
  5. Remember, that you are the “captain of your ship”, you are the one who can affect change in your life. Keep the sails open, and man the rudder, while the seas may be rough, this storm will pass.

Please, if you need to reach out to someone, and no one is listening, reach out to me. Contact me via email at akulfhednar@akoutlaw.com. We can have a conversation and I’ll help you see how you can get through this.

Share:

Leave a Reply

Copyright 2023. Alaskan Úlfhé∂nar, and Whispers of the Norse. Property of the Alaska Outlaw Productions LLC, Anchorage, Alaska. All images and names are the property of Whispers of the Norse.