Shame? No way, you might say. It is the fear of not belonging, after all, which means it’s inherently about others. It’s an evolutionary thing made to help us stay save in the cave. It’s our emotional hardware to keep us in check. And yet, is it? What if it was possible to develop a different, nourishing view?
I personally have lived with shame storms for a long time. So pretty much whenever I did something socially courageous, I could be sure of an intense aftermath. I accepted it as unavoidable and began to arrange my life around them. Meaning I would either avoid feeling the shame in the first place (mostly). Or put up with long, gruelling recovery times (sometimes).
At some point & with the support of my coach, I began to choose more into sitting with the impact. My ability to sit with my own shame grew, and it did lose some of its power over me. However, it still sucks to sit with the storms. And recently, with my own breakthroughs around spaciousness, trust and flow, I felt like I began to outgrow my own old shame story. Impossible things kept happening and I became curious.
What if shame didn’t have to be the unavoidable default at all?
And… what if shame actually wanted to tell me something, something about myself? What if shame whispered a story into my ear, a story about abandoning myself, and not so much about abandoning the others at all?
I mean it doesn’t even evolutionarily make too much sense to be terribly afraid of not belonging to some random stranger, does it? Even with friends – do I really make sure I belong more when I go home and beat myself up for everything that might have been out of (some made-up) line?
So… What if shame – especially the intense and stormy kind – actually showed up because I’d abandoned myself and my values to please others? And – to bring it back to belonging: Not “just” with myself, but on top abandoned my own tribe, my own people?
What if at some point my own inner knowing resorted to slapping into my face, because otherwise I just wouldn’t listen?
Do you have to courage to ditch the old and create something new?
With old patterns running it’s always worth having a look at why we kept them and how they used to serve us. So if you’re curious what it has given me to feel all of this shit at this point, the answer is quite simple: A sense of control. When I relate to my social interactions as something I can control, I “only” need to be good enough to succeed. It allows me to hustle, to DO something – instead of slowing down, going inwards.
Getting curious in the moment and be open to feel what’s there to feel in the moment, no matter the momentary discomfort. Say the scary thing in the moment. The only way is through, and it’s not an easy choice.
I have created a vision for myself. A vision in which I hold shame in reverence. A reminder made to help me see where I abandon myself, where I speed up and seek control.
A vision in which I am deeply present with my people and serve them with all of me – rather than have a part of me constantly hiding away, making sure I’m only saying those “right” things.
I am incredibly excited about exploring this future 💖