What Is Attached to Shame?

 

 

 

“…My dearest longing was attached to shame…” – Mary Bothe

Shame comes about early in childhood and becomes a pattern in our lives.  Typically, it is in the realm of social mores, and, in this area, we can be very vulnerable to the dictates of what is proper, good, right and acceptable.  We can easily be conditioned to feel shame/guilt and do not feel “Enough”, and, even, feel like we do not deserve compassion and care because of initial sense of being devalued in some way ( or we sense that we were “not enough’ of something by others, typically someone who we feel should love us.  For me, it was that you were loved, IF….  I was not who I was, not who others thought I should be, and I had shame embedded.  In part, when your birth mother abandons you, a young child thinks it was because they were not ‘good enough’ so rejection.  It is huge and it swirls around in the fringes of body reactions to shame/guilt, of mind, of emotions, of soul.  Even though I was a mature educated woman who knew better, it was still embedded in my very soul.  I did not become whole until I met my birth mother and knew her story, the WHY.

When we desire something, when we long for something, we are vulnerable because, for one, we do not think we deserve it, we believe we were not meant to have it, or we are too harsh and critical, judging ourselves as if one incident, or a few, cemented the fact that we were not ‘worthy’.

When I learned about the Primal Wound, I knew I had deemed myself worthless, powerless, to life and those important people in my life.  I disempowered myself and longed.  Do not think it goes away when you get what you long for.  Sometimes we will do something to make sure we do NOT get it or we will toss the object, person, place of our longing, because we, ultimately are our own executioner.  When I lost my soulmate, I figured God decided I was not good enough for such a good soul.  I longed for my old life back, which was futile, of course.  It was as if I thought that I could have done everything better, been good enough, to change what was inevitable for him, for us, for me.  I have worked on it, hard, for these years since.  I have had to slough off the shame/guilt of so many things I regretted, and when they resurface, I quickly remind that Evil Inner Voice (Ego/Lizard Brain) that I AM enough.  I am me, everyday a new me, and I am enough.

Shame is inherent parts of being human.  When the feeling of Self-shame/guilt comes, the primitive part of our brain sense that we are in some kind of danger.  At the moment of an incident of present shame happens, we change.  We try hard not to show it, we become confused, time slows down and is magnified, we move into flight or fight mode.  Some go completely blank or numb.  We become critically self-centered at the moment, and whenever the memory resurfaces. 

We can try to disassociate ourselves from that which caused us shame.  We can try to numb it, erase it in addictions of any kind.  We can revel in our powerlessness, our helplessness.  We can become contentious, contrary, oppositional.  We can not be able to trust, to empathise, to continue to feel ashamed because it is more comfortable than healing’s work.  We can sabotage our potential, our reach for our dearest longings. 

We can forge that there is a THEN and a NOW and there is truly no sense in bringing the past (and who you were then) …you are not that person, that child, that thing.  You are a brand new you every day.  Why drag some old stuff into the adventure and joys that are awaiting you each day?  Today is your real self.  You are not your past.  You are your today.

Be honest with yourself.  Are you that other person you let intrude in your today?  Heal the loneliness that shame brings you like a sad ‘passed on child’.  It is gone and over.  Self-nurture yourself.  No one can heal you.  You must heal yourself.  I wish you today’s new you!  I wish you who I think you are because you showed me a YOU that I enjoy and adore.  You matter.  Your shame/guilt does not matter to me.  I see you fresh and new and you get to be exactly who you are this moment to me.  You are who you long to be.  Blessed be. 

©Carol Desjarlais 9.10.21