Shame – it’s something that affects many of us. I’m not talking about the feelings one get after having a few too many the night before and feeling like you may or may not have said something wrong. That’s guilt which is also shit but in my experience doesn’t come from a place where the body goes in on itself.
That huge wall of anguish, the feeling that the whole self is wrong. You’re not right. You’re jobless or not earning much, you’re partnerless, familyless or ‘not enough’. Actually I can substitute the ‘you’ for ‘I’ here. I’ve been a walking ball of ‘less than’ for most of my life. I had it drummed into me a lot as a kid, especially by the English education system of the 1970s and 80s which saw schooling as a form of crowd control rather than seeing children as individuals.
Shame gets into our bodies as well as our heads. We feel it as tension, a lump, a void and we can experience it as sadness, anger and disinterest. It disempowers us and leads to addictions. It leads to difficulties in relating and underbeing.
How do we burst it and leave it as a watery drip on the bathroom floor? Here’s three ideas.
- Speak and share the f*ck out of it. With the recovery work that I’ve done, I’ve also heard many peoples’ stories. Without exception, everybody’s life is rich beyond belief and there are always people who resonate with your shame, simply because they’ve experienced it themselves in some form or another. Sharing it and hearing others’ stories helps to divide that bubble into halves, quarters and eights. Remember you are not alone and you are also not your shame.
- Check in with your vulnerability. All too often, we walk around with our armour on, thinking we can ‘do’ the world like a proper grown-up. Sometimes we can, but at other times we are flailing about in our own mess or trying to avoid it in various ways such as addictions and compulsive behaviour. Feeling vulnerable is ok. Acknowledge it. Breathe it and let it be.
- Get back into your body. Shame is heady and our minds can destroy us. One of my routes back into the body is through nature and I often take my clients into the trees to help them refind their bodies. Breathing and embodiment exercises also help. We need our wonderful minds but often they’re not doing us any favours and we need to give our hearts more space.
Get in touch if you’ve got bubbles to burst and we’ll talk further 🙂