Unconsciously driven by shame

Recently I had an experience, triggered by an email reply, that brought up intense anger. The person had replied to an email from me asking for clarification on something. Their reply was lengthy, defensive, with a little gaslighting. I felt so wronged and wanted to immediately reply and put them in their place. How dare they speak to me like this!

I drafted a reply with whipped tongue retorts.

But I never hit send.

Instead I applied the tools I learned to manage difficult emotions and I sat with the feelings. I let them be there. I breathed them in. I allowed them to percolate my system.

I realised that the anger was a cover up for something else. Shame.

I felt ashamed for what I wrote to them, that it somehow triggered their reaction. I felt shame for being me, shame for saying what I said. I felt what I said originally was a little sharp and they reacted. I felt shame for speaking like that.

Then it deepened.

I realised the feeling of worthlessness I often experience is shame. Shame for being Íse. Shame for being alive. Shame for having the feelings and thoughts and opinions and beliefs I do. Shame for saying too much. Shame for taking over the room. Shame for standing my ground. Shame for saying no.

This is OG (original) shame. As children, we were shamed for doing something we didn’t realise was wrong in the eyes of others, and society. Now I see shame everywhere, it weaves into my movement. It has poisoned my mind. Shame causes me to react, to feel bitter, to feel less than. It makes me behave as if I am subservient to everyone else, then lash out in anger when I can’t stand it anymore. It’s two sides of the same coin.

Shame is the source of “I don’t feel enough as I am, I don’t feel safe as I am”. I constantly worry about what others think, if I am doing a good enough job, if I will get in trouble etc, that it overwhelms my system and I verbally attack those who are nearest to me. As some form of unbalanced way of establishing my ground.

No one wins, and we all suffer, especially the people I care about the most.

Shame is extremely difficult to face, for its very purpose is to avoid facing the vulnerability of being rejected for who we are. How many of us had an experience of this at a young age? Being told we were not okay as we were and having to change our behaviour to fit an accepted mould. Behave!

I now feel it is at the surface and can begin to recognise just how much it is driving my life. Overweight? Stop eating! Shame on you for not being able to control what you’re eating. No money? Stop spending! Shame on you for not being able to control your finances. It’s a constant, consistent and never ending cycle of suffering that I know better than my oldest friends. I recognise the time delay in feeling shame and then lashing out at another person maybe hours or days later, or reaching for a bar of chocolate, or buying something I cannot afford. Then the cycle begins again as I feel bad for shouting, for eating too much sugar, or for racking up more bills to pay.

It’s incessant.

The good news is it is no longer blindly driving me. I am now aware of its trickery. I can see the puppet strings and therefore it is beginning to lost its power. We can never change what we cannot see. We can never heal what we cannot feel. Once the pattern is brought to light, it begins to dissolve.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much our behaviour is unconsciously driven. We already know the conscious mind is a tiny percentage of our behaviour, but when we start to work on habits, patterns and negative thought cycles, we see just how little we are in command in every moment.

While this has been a pretty difficult emotion to face, I am thankful it has arisen, as finally its power is diminishing and I feel my life beginning to open up more. More opportunities are coming my way, clients are paying me well and on time, and clients who were challenging my fees are fading away. I am being asked to do projects that align with my values, that give me purpose, and I am feeling more optimistic about my future. I am connecting with amazing women who tell me they want to create a network of support with other women, regardless of competition in the field of crowd safety. I am being inspired to create ways of helping others with self empowerment, resilience, safety and living authentically.

As the shame and judgment begin to fade, then all the good stuff can flow in. By holding on to shame, we choke the abundance that could be filling our world. We close off from love of our dearest people and we struggle to appreciate the beauty in our short lives. We owe it to ourselves to call out our shame, we don’t need to bear it any longer. We deserve to be happy, we deserve to be free from suffering and we deserve to experience joy in our lives.