JUDY EMERSON Author and Personal Coach

An oft-quoted Bible verse, Mark 3:25, “If a house is divided against itself it cannot stand” is often applied to geopolitical divisions threatening the stability of a society. I don’t have the keys to those dilemmas.

But what about our own hearts? Are we divided against ourselves?

That same verse speaks to us as well, if we are at war within our own hearts. Our lives “cannot stand”—they wobble and threaten to collapse—if we sabotage ourselves with shame, self-hatred, judgment against our own actions. Whose side are we on, if not our own? We split ourselves in two—acting as prosecutor and defense fighting for dominance within a single life. And if our actions and attitudes broadcast to others that we’re unworthy to be loved, would it be any wonder we’d have trouble sustaining loving relationships?  

If our early caregivers were unskillful, they might have criticized us unjustly—and as small children, we internalized those voices—they live in us still. We might have suffered painful events in childhood that we explained to ourselves by childishly assuming we must have caused the trouble, and we may have come to believe we’re deeply unworthy. Children often do this, because the idea of being defenseless against such devastating and unexplainable circumstances might be so terrifying that they seize on the idea they’d had some measure of control in the event. That’s their very best thinking when young, even when it’s so rarely true. Children need support to understand the context of a scary world, but they don’t always receive the patient attention and information they need. So they often carry the burdens of early hurts for decades, arriving at adulthood with profound internal divisions, self-rejection embedded in their deepest ideas of themselves. Unexamined, they often pass these unconscious patterns to the next generation.

The good news is that we can learn to forgive ourselves for what was never our fault in the first place. We can make healthier choices with less struggle against ourselves, when we commit to use encouragement rather than beating ourselves relentlessly with blame and shame. Old habits take time to soften and release, but we can begin to treat ourselves with more respect when we have support to prompt awareness of the context of those old choices.  As we treat ourselves with compassion, we find ourselves more authentically living into our own values. And we come to understand we were worthy of care all along.

If you’re in need of support, I’m here to help.

Email me at judyemersonauthor@gmx.com.

-Judy