Should or should not, there is no try (wow, this is not the quote, I’m sorry)
Shame, judgement, and other super fun things.
I’ve been thinking about shame lately. I know, super fun.
It’s this thing that controls so many of us but we never want to look at it. Of course, shame only grows the more you ignore it, that’s its annoying superpower.
If we look at the shame, maybe we can tell it to shut the hell up.
At least I hope so.
I’ve had my fair amount of shame at all points in my life. As an adult, it shows up when I think things like: I should have made more money by now. I should be more successful by now. I should have more to show for all my hard work. Or wait, maybe I don’t work hard enough?! Should I be ashamed of that instead?!
Should-ing all over myself. Shame’s literal favorite.
I like to think we all feel this way. Maybe you’re better at not going down the rabbit hole than I am— I hope you are.
I was primed for shame as someone raised super religious in a very Jesus-y church. I was trained from the time I was a kid in Sunday school to be ashamed of everything— my thoughts, my feelings, my gender. I’m not ashamed of those things anymore but my little neurotic brain was primed to let it overtake me in other ways.
Shame keeps us small and keeps us from showing up authentically. If there’s one thing I wish for everyone it’s to not go through life with walls up and filters on. Not the brain kind of filters and for sure not all the make-my-face-look-like-a-sex-robot filters we feel like we have to use, less we feel shame for having pores.
Of course, people will actively still work to shame us. I had an instance happen recently that was small but gave me a big reaction. Always interesting. In my therapist’s voice: “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical” (he’s Irish so I hope you read it that way).
And honestly, nothing can shut me up faster than someone trying to shame me (hot tip!) When they happen, I actively have to fight the urge to shut down completely.
And I’m still working on that part. Showing up even when it’s possibly embarrassing (kind of like writing this!).
But I can’t go back to being a curated version of myself.
That version led me to hyper-vigilance at all times, to be clinically depressed without anyone (even my roommate) knowing, and to have panic attacks. Fun times!
So, how do we get rid of shame? I don’t know if we can. It’s kind of baked into our DNA (literally). We don’t want to be expelled from the tribe so we try our best to fall in line.
But what we can do is work on not letting it throw us into a shame spiral.
Here are some witchy and practical ways I’ve found to work on shame:
Write down all the things you feel ashamed of in your life, read it out loud three times, feel it in your body. Then, let it go. Fold that list up….and burn that bitch (safely please).
Do shadow and inner child work with a therapist or on your own. To Be Magnetic has good meditations and workshops on this. No Bad Parts is a great book for this work too.
Read any Brene Brown or listen to her podcast. She’s the Queen of working with shame.
Cry/scream/punch a pillow.
And, I dunno, just know that you aren’t alone. The more you share who you really are, the more you heal yourself and help others do the same.
And of course…I pulled a card around themes of shame and got….drumroll please…
JUDGEMENT!
This card is all about waking up to who you really are.
You see these people, coming out of their coffins and meeting the new day? That could be us (if we weren’t riddled with shame).
It’s time to stop trying to fit in a box (or…coffin?) and strip bare who you really are.
This card is about releasing our guilt and same, and being reborn.
Can we step away from judging ourselves so harshly and find a new way of being?
There is no perfect, there is no right, there is only the person you really are, filter free.