Can shame be a doorway?

Just like the seasons we are also always evolving and healing. Personal growth can also cycle back round for our attention.

I did an Instagram reel on "healing fatigue" recently, using a video of a sand beetle I saw on holiday - the endless journey of this little creature up and down, over the beach seemed to capture something of the "ongoing-ness" of "doing the work" and there's a bit of that in this blog post. How old ways emerge again needing our attention. And woven into this, how it can be the feeling of shame (one of the absolute hardest of all emotions) which can draw our attention to where we need to heal.

Shame has felt around a lot in my work of late, in quite a few sessions and it came up for me too on holiday. I have been posting about it on Insta, so perhaps it will resonate for you too...and if not right now, then I am sure it will cycle back round and feel relevant at some point. Us humans, we all know shame.

What does your shame feel like?

Mine shows up like a thick oily, oozy feeling inside - black, badness. Like the very core of me is wrong. I feel both made up of it and somehow consumed by it; eaten up from the inside by my shame.

That's when it is really bad.

Other times it feels more evasive and pernicious - nasty whispers and pokes; self-criticism, jibes, picking me apart. It's living with an internal bully who manages to make me feel like I should be doing more as I am never enough and also that anything I might do will be worthless anyway.

This shame creates restlessness - an inability to choose an option, a sadness inside, a feeling of, "What's the point anyway?" and "How the hell am I still working on this stuff?" (Remember that little sand beetle....?)

Yours might feel different.

Do you know when it shows up?

How does it feel in your body?

What thoughts does it bring with it?

What impact does it have on you?

I'm going to hazard a guess that the net result of your shame is a combo of:

Stay small

Stay alone

Because that's the gift that shame brings. A belief you are unwanted, unacceptable, unloveable. And that the answer is to remove yourself from view, withdraw, shut down...to disappear if possible.

"No one can see this" Shame hisses into your ear.

"No one will want to know this part of you."

"It's too much, too bad, too broken, too wrong..."

Shame promises judgement, rejection and isolation.

Shame binds

And that's the trouble with shame; it binds us. It wraps us up and keeps us far from what helps. A nasty spiderweb of an experience. It feels powerful and often like it is speaking the truth.

What starts to untangle us is the opposite of what shame advises. It's opening up the experience; maybe to ourselves first and ultimately with others. It can help to journal because then we can start to see more of what the shame is saying and what it might be about...sometimes that information helps to reality check the shame a bit, sometimes we can see it's to do with a past experience that is emerging to be processed.

Chatting with a friend on Instagram today about shame, she noticed the power of it. And I think speaking it out or writing it out shifts the power dynamic. It stops shame being in charge and allows us to take back some control...

I find these questions helpful:

What is it shame wants me to do or not do?

Why has that been important to me in my past?

Does this still serve me now?

Often shame contains a twisted form of protection - avoiding trying, avoiding connection, avoiding taking up space.

Perhaps there was a time you needed this. Is the need still here now?

I also notice that we inherit patterns of shame from our parents and carers or family culture. How did your parents keep themselves small? What was hidden or unspoken or judged in your home? Is that at play now?

There's also shame in our society - versions of strength, success and roles where we feel our experience and feelings fall short and aren't wanted.

Sat on the beach on my recent holiday I could feel old shame active. I say old because it is known to me and VERY processed. Yet it rears its head still.

When I was in the shame - held internally and not explored - I felt shit, to be frank. Lost. upset, restless, self-critical.

Once I had let it out through journaling, it shifted. I could see that the shame was telling me to doubt myself and not to publish my book. That it wanted me to cover up - literally cover my body and bikini but also cover up my heart, my purpose, my voice. All of me.

I kept going with the journaling...

And I began to see that these struggles track back to my family - the issues my Mum and Dad have struggled with and their parents before. Shame that I know is out there in other families and in our culture. I could feel it in me and yet the story in the shame was bigger than me too.

A shame around needs and feelings and pain.

A shame of taking up space - too big, too much, not wanted, too messy.

A shame that keeps people isolated and surviving by numbing rather than connecting.

A shame that stops people celebrating their gifts and sharing them.

A shame that gets held and then passed on.

There was so much more to be known in my shame...

...and once I could see it. Things shifted.

I got angry!

The shame began to feel less locked in.

I felt a desire to shake it off. To break a cycle. To do what is needed. I had a cry for how painful it is for me and for others l know and love (and others I don't out in the world...).

I got intentional and moved out of feeling stuck in the pit.

I decided that it being hard to be out in the world talking about mental health, won't stop me from sharing. Because it is the sharing that changes things - for me, for others and (I hope) in our wider world too.

The shame was calling me to listen - I thought it was a trap but it was actually a doorway. A doorway not just for me but one that all of us can find and walk through. Keep on going little Sand Beetle Emily! There's more healing and evolution here for you!

And it's also not just about you. Shame is so often about the change needed out there.

Believe me when I say, I know that it is awful to know shame

But believe me when I say it connects us all. We all know it. The wound of unacceptable, unloveable, unwanted might feel like your hidden pain.

But it's the pain in all our hearts, in our families and society and our shared humanity.

Can knowing this help you to open up that shitty shame parcel a bit? To explore what it is here to tell you about your past? And what you might move to in your present?

I offer this to you as we move to our next season...

What is there for you if you can walk through the shame doorway and come out the other side?

What more of you, is your shame calling you to find, when you stop avoiding it and sit down with your shame and fears?

Can this be a meaningful focus for you in this next cycle and season ahead?

Always with love,

Emily x