Shame and guilt. Not who you are, but what you’ve come to believe. And how you’ve lost yourself along the way…
There are emotions we’d rather avoid at all costs—ones we suppress, deny, dodge, or drown out with a smile: “Yes, everything’s fine.” (Inside, a gnawing ache remains.) Shame and guilt are two of those challenging emotions.
They shape our behavior, often without us even noticing. They whisper that we’re not good enough. That we were too much. Or too little.
They have a masterful way of keeping us trapped in old stories.
Shame says: “There is something wrong with me.”
Guilt says: “I did something wrong.”
What we often forget is where these feelings come from. Sometimes, shame arises in the present—due to adult choices we’re not proud of. But often, shame is much older. It settles deep in our system, usually in our early years.
As children, we take everything personally.
When you grow up in an unsafe environment—with emotionally absent parents or caregivers, physical rejection, violence, or abuse—a child draws conclusions:
“It’s my fault.”
“I am broken.”
“I am too much.”
Or: “I must adapt to deserve love.”
These beliefs become imprints. Unconscious agreements that lodge in the body. And later, in adulthood, you might suddenly feel shame about your emotions, your needs, your body, your anger, your vulnerability… perhaps even your confusion.
And guilt?
It’s often tightly intertwined with loyalty. A deep-seated sense of responsibility toward others—parents, siblings, partners…
Caring for others comes at the expense of yourself—a false belief.
We avoid choosing our own path, fearing it would be ‘selfish.’ And so we keep giving—until there’s nothing left. Sometimes we become ill: burnout, depression, overwhelm, or other bodily illnesses.
As long as you continue to deny yourself, you remain untrue to your own integrity—untrue to what you deeply know: “I want to be free. To be my real self.”
In my work, with psychedelic plant spirits and Leela processing therapy, shame and guilt often make themselves known.
Shame, guilt… they’re so fierce because they carry a judgment! And that judgment blocks genuine feeling.
These emotions aren’t “negative.” They are raw, confronting, sometimes sad. And they serve as an important gateway. An entrance to deeper contact with yourself. But only if you’re willing to move through them rather than around them.
What does it mean to move through them?
Set judgment aside. Judgment is a barrier—it keeps you trapped in thinking and self-sabotage.
Pierce the outer shell—the rational mind—by cultivating curiosity. Be willing to know.
Realize you don’t (and no longer) know everything. That opens the way to feeling. Truly feeling is another kind of knowing. The body doesn’t invent—it reacts instinctively: safe or unsafe.
It calls for surrender, beyond analysis and explanations. It calls you to move toward discomfort and reconnect with your body. For it is there—where words no longer serve—that true feeling begins.
The place where the child within still whispers, or perhaps where once you were a baby, even prenatal in the womb. The body remembers what the mind has long since forgotten.
This inner work grants you liberation, healing, processing. Deep insights and new longings arise here. It is profoundly beautiful to reconnect with yourself. It’s – if you ask me – the most intimate contact you can experience with yourself.
It requires a safe container to truly connect. It’s vulnerable and often challenging. It needs someone to stand alongside you as an anchor—especially when all you want to do is hide. That is what I offer.
How? Through two pathways:
Small-group weekend retreats with natural Plant Spirit psychedelics
One-on-one Leela processing therapy
Here, we enter a field of truth when walls come down and masks fade away.
If you feel it’s time for deeper self-inquiry, healing, processing—know this: you don’t have to do it alone. You are allowed to relearn your own truth, even if it’s marinated beneath layers of guilt and shame.
With all that you are, even what you keep hidden or unconsciously suppress, you are more than welcome.
It is precisely the shadow work, opening the “box of Pandora,” that creates space to see and acknowledge yourself. Resolving your own struggle by giving it space. Recognizing yourself.
The gift? Self‑confidence, more ease, and spaciousness to live a freer life.
Would you like to explore whether a psychedelic plant-ceremony or Leela journey is right for you? You can schedule a no‑strings‑attached intake here: contact form
Or if you’d like more information, explore the offerings:
Leela therapy 1:1 program
Warmly,
Carlijn
