Here are some practical suggestions for releasing shame and embracing love and wholeness. l) Feel your pain. This is an essential step in understanding where you've been and what you've experienced. You need to recognize the suffering that you've felt or you've denied in order to move beyond it. Through hypnosis, for example, it's possible to re-experience old pain in a safe, gentle atmosphere. Once you have truly gotten in touch with your pain, then you can begin to release it, not before. 2) Re- connect with your inner child. If you have experienced deep shame, your inner child has likely been traumatized and terrified. It is extremely beneficial to befriend, nurture, and heal the child within you and to create an atmosphere of safety so that this part of you can experience the freedom and acceptance which it was denied in the past. 3) Learn to love yourself. This is obviously not an overnight process. By surrounding yourself with supportive friends, family members, and professionals who continually validate you for who you are, you will gradually learn to appreciate your talents and positive attributes and eventually learn to embrace yourself as a unique, valuable, and lovable human being. Reading Louise Hay and other such books may be helpful. 4) Integrate your parts. I have found specific techniques such a Voice Dialogue and conscious or hypnotic parts therapy to be of tremendous useful- ness in increasing awareness of the various, often conflict- ing, parts of you with the goal of establishing wholeness and integration. 5) Support groups . It is often comforting and growth-producing to share your pain as well as your insights and awarenesses with others who have also been through similar experiences. Choose a group that both feels comfortable and stimulates your evolution and don't be afraid to leave when you've learned all that you can from it. 6) Finding your spiritual home . Whether it be a l2-step program, a New Thought church, a yoga class, Native Ameri- can healing circle, guru, or your own spirit guide, connect as deeply as possible with Source. There is no better way to heal shame than to recognize the true perfection and purity that you are, to release all that prevents you from being whole, and to embrace the Holy Spirit which fills your being.

Drs. Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman and Robert Ullman is a naturopathic and homeopathic physician and cofounder of the Northwest Center for Homeopathic Medicine in Edmonds, WA. She is coauthor of The Patient's Guide to Homeopathic Medicine and Beyond Ritalin: Homeopathic Treatment of ADD and Other Behavioral and Learning Problems. She can be reached at (206) 774-5599.