VBB 310: Lois Hollis Says, Shame and Guilt Are Not Yours!

Christopher [00:00:01]:

Virgin Beauty Bitch Podcast: inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear of being defiantly different. Your hosts, Christopher and Heather.

Let's talk, shall we?

Christopher [00:00:20]:

Some people have friends they've known since childhood, friends who might treat them like dirt, but they keep these friends because they have never known life without these people. Would it shock you to learn that you have two friends who are exactly like this? They treat you badly, but you keep them anyway. These friends have names, and they are Shame and Guilt. But today, we're going to begin a process of moving on from these two toxic companions with help from Shame Guilt educator Lois Hollis. Welcome, Lois to Virgin Beauty Bitch.

Lois Hollis [00:00:57]:

Thank you for that introduction.

Christopher [00:00:59]:

When did you, when did you become aware of shame and guilt in your life and what damage they were doing to you?

Lois Hollis [00:01:07]:

Well, in my 50s, all of a sudden, my emotions were crashing down on me. And it was a surprise because I was very conscious of my emotions and, you know, taking care of this and that and always felt not good enough, you know, that one, even though I got hundreds and A-pluses, I still wasn't good enough. So, my mind doesn't stop until I get a solution. I don't know if that's good or bad, but my mind couldn't understand why I felt that way. And why do I have depression and anger and all these emotions that I really don't like, but they're they are? And I was in that group counseling, and they said, what do you do about shame and guilt? And I went, oh, shame and guilt. I never thought about shame and guilt. So I went to the library.

Lois Hollis [00:02:09]:

They said it was a sickness of the soul. That's about all they said. But my mind started wondering, and I found through my own self that shame- guilt was attached to my emotions. Like, I was angry, but I was shameful. I was anxious, but I was shameful. Like they always showed up in my emotions. It didn't matter if I was depressed, or anxious, or angry. They were always there.

Lois Hollis [00:02:42]:

And I couldn't understand why are they there? I'm just angry, or why are they there when I have all my emotions? My mind keeps going on this. And somehow, I figured out that shame guilt was the gasoline that made me anxious. It changed my compassion into depression. It changed all my positive, beautiful emotions to negative ones. So that's when I knew I was on to something. Because without shame-guilt, I was happy and successful. And then, when I had shame-guilt, I was anxious and angry and unsettled and didn't feel good. How could this happen? Well, I kept on digging and digging, and finally, I realized that shame-guilt is an energy.

Lois Hollis [00:03:46]:

It's not an emotion. See, shame-guilt affects the emotions. What happens to your computer when you get a computer virus? It doesn't work, does it? And it's, it's not specific. It isn't only like Microsoft Word doesn't use. It's like your printing doesn't work, and nothing works. And so that's how I saw shame yield as a virus that affects you, your emotional self. That way, I understood that when this shame energy comes into you by someone saying, oh, you're stupid, you don't know how to do that, or you're ugly, or you shouldn't wear that terrible dress or change your hair color or whatever, that's a shaming response.

Lois Hollis [00:04:40]:

And it affects every part of your body. It just doesn't affect your emotions. It affects your spirituality and your physical. It's like a computer virus. It affects everything. So, if it's isolated and it affects everything, then we can single it out. And that's what I found is that everyone's fine until they get hit with a shame-guilt response, either by ourselves or by someone else. You know, somebody will say something to you, and you're going for that day.

Lois Hollis [00:05:17]:

I think we also had that experience, and that's something to think about because we're all very powerful people. How can one sentence from somebody take away your whole day and cry at night? That's pretty powerful. How is that possible? So it isn't that you're a depressed person. You just have shame-guilt energy pointed at you. Now, that's the trick; it's to find out what shame-guilt is. And the problem is that our society says shame and guilt. They said shame is bad and guilt is good because then you become a better person. Guilt doesn't make you a better person, right?

Lois Hollis [00:06:06]:

I don't see that. The church says you should have guilt and do penance, and then God will love you. I found out God loves me. I may not do something right, but God still loves me. I don't have to have guilt to teach me to do penance. If I did something wrong, I correct it. You know, if I gave you wrong information, I would correct it, so why do I need guilt?

Christopher [00:06:39]:

I mean, in society, parents use it, right? The schools use it, churches use it. We use it on each other.

Lois Hollis [00:06:46]:

That's the whole point. Yeah, I came across a book in the library. Well, it was really A thrift store. And it was how to shame your child into obedience. Wow. That doesn't sound like a happy childhood. How to shame your child into obedience.

Lois Hollis [00:07:09]:

I'm going, hey, wait a minute, this doesn't sound right then. I did research on tribes that live in the desert. For these children, shame and guilt aren't even words they use in their vocabulary. And they're all very successful, confident, beautiful people. And they did it without shaming and guilting them. Isn't that interesting? So your mind keeps wondering, what is this shame-guilt crap? It makes people do what you want them to do, not what's in their best interest. And since it's an energy that's outside of us, we're not born with it; we're raised in it.

Heather [00:07:55]:

There are so many layers to what you've said there and different access points to how and why a person feels shame-guilt. You know, when I think about even how, just a couple different layers to explore for me at least is obviously as a woman, there's a lot of things that over time have been shamed, like periods or menstruation or menopause or having a sexual pulse or there's so many layers of what you should or shouldn't do that it's attached with shame or guilt as a woman that I think that that is one layer. There's a shame and guilt that you feel if you've made a mistake, like if you've shown that you are human and possibly you have the possibility of a failure, which, of course, we all do. But I feel like that's a very deeply embedded one. And then even kind of more colonial thinking, you know, when, when superpowers have gone to colonize other areas, they were shamed and guilted for being who they were as a tribe. So I completely agree that like it's, it's purposeful to keep people under control, but it is insidious in how we've adopted it and internalized it, to allow it to, as you said, you know, give us all this anxiety on a day to day basis. And to really be shackled by these different access points that have made us feel that way for different reasons.

Lois Hollis [00:09:22]:

Because it was made known that this is the way you raise children. And it just grew. And your parents said it, your aunt said it, your uncle, you know, the politicians, the priest. So you're like, wow, I guess it's normal. Shame- guilt is not normal. It doesn't belong to us. Now, this takes a little stretch of the imagination.

Lois Hollis [00:09:56]:

Shame-guilt is an Energy form. Okay? Energies need light to get more energy. So it must take energy from you, a human, to survive. So that's why some people say, well, why is shame guilt so intense? You know, it's intense. Why is it? Why don't I need it? I said it's intense because it uses your light to live. We need food. Well, we need light energy from God, too,

but the shame-guilt energy needs light of its own. They can't make their own light. We can make our own light.

Christopher [00:10:38]:

So once you have it isolated, what hope do we have then of overcoming that shame-guilt?

Lois Hollis [00:10:44]:

Well, this is what the hope is. We're talking about something that has not been talked about. So, how are we going to defeat our enemy if we don't know our enemy? Isn't that what Samsung. Know thy enemy. And so that's what I do. I'm an educator. I'm teaching you about shame-guilt. And you'll recognize it because I teach you what it is, how it acts, and how you feel when it comes upon you.

Lois Hollis [00:11:12]:

And what do you do about that? You say, get out of my life. Now, Shame guilt has one problem. It dissolves in detection.

Christopher [00:11:24]:

So it's just awareness.

Lois Hollis [00:11:25]:

Awareness. Very good word. Another word to write down is Dr. David Hawkins, H A W, K I, N S., and what he did was he gave a number, a numerical number to every energy enlightenment is 700,000 to the 30th power. And then it goes to anxiety and anger all the way down. Do you know what the lowest is? 10 for shame, and 15 for guilt, or vice versa.

Lois Hollis [00:11:58]:

So when you. And do you know what's after 10? Suicide. People commit suicide when they're in shame-guilt because they don't see a way out. Because there is no way out. You're at the bottom. It's dangerous. You're living in an energy that's the lowest vibration that a human can exist in.

Christopher [00:12:22]:

So, Lois, why have we adopted this is like drinking poison every day. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Lois Hollis [00:12:28]:

Because we were trained that way. You're trained to eat with a fork and a knife, right? Or a spoon. It's all training. We've been trained. That's how when we were 1 year old and 2 years old, and the teachers, everybody taught you shame guilt. Think about it. Think about your teachers and sports. You don't run like your brother.

Lois Hollis [00:12:52]:

It's everywhere.

Christopher [00:12:54]:

It's been such an effective tool; I believe it's why we still use it and why we're still so dependent on it.

Lois Hollis [00:13:01]:

Because we're used to it. So, there are two ways of handling it. We have to stop people when they shame and guilt us and say, hey, can you say that another way? See, I don't like those words. You can say that to somebody, and they will respect you. They will respect you. And then the inner critic. Our inner critic was taught to shame and guilt us.

Lois Hollis [00:13:27]:

So we have to make friends. And I teach that as well. I have a video on teaching it. So once we got our critic on our side, we're good to go.

Heather [00:13:40]:

Can you tell us more about what you found about the inner critic and helping them get it on our side?

Lois Hollis [00:13:45]:

Yeah. And we don't hate them. We don't holler at him. We give him love. What am I giving you? I'm giving you love. I'm teaching you how to teach your inner critic. I can't teach your inner critic. You can.

Lois Hollis [00:14:05]:

You give them love. There's no reason to be critical. But your inner critic was trained by your mother, father, teacher, brother, priest, nuns, and who else? Everybody. So doesn't that lift you that it's not necessary? Remember Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz? She goes to see the Wizard. Oh, she's so nervous. She goes up the Yellow Brick Road. So nervous. What does Toto do?

Heather [00:14:42]:

He pulls the curtain back.

Lois Hollis [00:14:47]:

Her doggie reveals the man behind the curtain. That's what I'm doing. I'm pulling the curtain back. And what do you see? A little old man, bald and grey, with a big machine that makes green smoke. Shame-guilt is just a bunch of green smoke. That's it. The jig is up. That's all I can say. It's green smoke.

Christopher [00:15:07]:

Well, first, you have to become aware of that. This shame-guilt, how it affects your life, and how much trauma it brings to your life.

Lois Hollis [00:15:16]:

Oh, it ruins everybody's life. It's horrible. So, I have a website. I have videos and films. Please use them. They're all free. loishollis.com l o i s h o l l i s.com, and I have three websites on my website, so you'll get a lot out of it. I have been very active.

Christopher [00:15:41]:

Like I said to you before we started this conversation, a lot of the people we speak to, and we speak to a lot of women who cite shame-guilt as one of the toughest things they have to deal with in their lives. So it is miraculous to get this kind of insight and share your kind of knowledge.

Lois Hollis [00:16:03]:

Yeah. The only thing you have to do is be attentive to it and work it. So it's very doable. You just have to get over the mindset that people try to shame you all the time for whatever reason they want to, and they still do it. But that's not a way to teach a child.

Christopher [00:16:24]:

I agree 100%. Well, thank you so much, Louis. It's been really eye-opening to get to know your knowledge and to share it with others. You have been listening to the Virgin.

Heather [00:16:40]:

The Beauty and the Bitch.

Christopher [00:16:41]:

Find Us Like a Sheriff's Come On Back without the Shame and Gult. To become a partner in the VBB community, we invite you to Find Us @virginbeautybitch.com, Like Us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and Share Us with people who are defiently different, like you.

Until next time, thanks for listening.