Shame

The tendency with shame is to either lie underneath it, let it have its way with us, or to move about in our lives trying to avoid or compensate for it.

The truth is no one else, no one outside of us is experiencing our shame—so in the end no matter how much we read about it, conceptualize it or talk about it, eventually there is only one person, the one warrior that can truly resolve it. And that is you. The one feeling it.

Shame is the most painful, visceral representation of what we have decided about ourselves. It is the physical, emotional and mental imprint of that expression, and thus, unlocking what that is is the key to our liberation.

A lot of us spend most of our time wandering around shame by trying to figure out where it came from. Did it come from abuse, trauma, societies expectations? Was it inherited and passed down through my ancestral lineage? And yes, this type of inquiry and investigation is very useful and often gets us closer to it. But if we stay on it’s edges like that we remain its victim. If we are constantly spending our attention on the “why” it exists—we remain powerless to its impact.

Eventually the arrow of the inquiry has to go right towards it. All the reasons for the shame have to become less important then finding out what version of you—again what you have decided about yourself—is thriving in the dark and therefore unconsciously driving your life.

And this is where the warrior comes in. For make no mistake about this, no one, no one else but you can can change your narrative. It will never work to ask someone else to decide for you what you are. And this is Shame’s incredible gift to us—for it is our job to enter the dark, sit down in its hell, listen to what its saying about us, sincerely listen because we want to know, and then find the courage to ask—Is it true?