Silent Struggles
the quiet battle with shame and shadows
Hello, my friends! Welcome to another happy Sunday in June. I hope everyone is having a smooth transition into summertime, baby! I’ve been enjoying Buffalo’s nature and weather so much. It makes me extra grateful to be back home.
I wanted to talk about shame today. Shame is a complex topic with many layers- layers that touch many facets of our lives. It is one of the biggest self-evaluative human emotions. I will only be able to scratch the surface in this article, but I hope this leads you to explore more about this topic for yourself. I’d even encourage you to respond to this email, and let’s talk about it!
I recommend everything Brene Brown on this topic. She is the most well-known shame researcher and probably has the most available resources. Some of what I talk about today can be accessed on her site here.
I don’t want to get political here because this is a healing space, but I will say that women carry their own unique burdens with shame due to certain cultural and societal influences- influences that, I’ll be honest, I hope are dying.
Men also have their own unique burdens – I won’t take that away from them. Perhaps this is why we struggle so much in romantic relationships, which we can discuss later.
For now, I’m sticking to what we as women can do to help ourselves because our healing is contagious (and we want everyone to catch that sh*t 👌). I want to mention here that shame is a big emotion. Even reading this can trigger a lot inside. Please know that you are loved, and carrying shame is within all of us- even the best of us. We all have our imperfections, so you’re in the best company ❤️
What is Shame
I’m going to quote Brene directly because I find her definition to be very powerful. “Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging—something we’ve experienced, done, or failed to do makes us unworthy of connection.”
Think about that for a moment. Really let that sink in. Think about how you go about your day. Think about any struggles you might have right now, especially mentally. And think about how much of that is rooted in shame. How much do you hold yourself back from reaching out for help? Do you find yourself holding back from a myriad of things in life because you don’t want to experience shame? We fear being exposed because we don’t want to suffer disconnection.
We even fear disconnection from ourselves, so we will go as far as hiding things from our own psyche, creating shadows in our personalities. I’ll talk about shadows a little more in a moment.
Shame is responsible for so many bad things among humanity because it disconnects us from the Divine. As I said above, this only scratches the surface, so I will go straight to what it’s doing to us as women. Shame is the reason we are mean to ourselves, talk down to ourselves, lack patience with ourselves, and believe we can’t do anything about our circumstances. It stops us from believing in our own abilities.
Shame undermines our values and makes us behave in ways that are out of alignment with ourselves. It drives paranoia, resentment, and ruminating thoughts. When shame runs deep enough, we turn it on others, usually in vengeful or projecting behavior. We all know how we feel when on the receiving end of someone else's shame (it usually leaves us feeling not good enough for their love). And I hate to break it to you because I love you so much, but we all project our shame onto others, even if just a little bit. It’s a very human thing to do.
Living a peaceful, balanced, empowered, and resilient life requires healthy self-talk, self-image, confidence, vulnerability, connection, and belief in oneself. Shame is the barrier to all of those things and more.
Shadows
Shadows are the parts of ourselves that we have cut off, tucked away, and refuse to look at because we have deemed them ugly, and looking at them would make us feel shame. We all have shadow parts of our psyche. They usually get stashed in the unconscious, where they drive some of our behaviors against our will. Especially self-sabotaging behaviors.
As an example, imagine a woman who faces societal pressure in her personal and professional life. She might constantly strive to meet these expectations and feel immense pressure to be perfect in all aspects of her life. However, the shadow here could be a deep-seeded fear of failure and feelings of inadequacy. These feelings are repressed because acknowledging them would mean admitting vulnerability and imperfection- which she perceives as shameful.
Shadows are repressed because we believe that facing them is scary. Looking at these parts of ourselves can be hard, but once you get it over with, the feeling of relief is so rewarding. Plus, you realize it wasn’t as scary as you thought.
Change Starts with Us
I bring all of this up because shame is a dangerous emotion. It is not the same as guilt or embarrassment (Brene does a fantastic job explaining the differences here). When we say, “Have you no shame?” what is more effective is, “Have you no guilt or embarrassment?”
When we begin to heal ourselves of toxic emotions like shame, others around us start to heal, too.
We want this because we are not separate from our environments - everything is connected. To raise our consciousness and have a better life experience, we need to do the work on ourselves first. Don’t wait for your environment to change. Change yourself first, and you will start to see your environment change.
On a more positive note, I want to talk about some things we can do to start working on this within ourselves so we can recognize how to navigate this in relationships. At the end of the day, we are human, and we are here in this life to connect. If the connection is not fulfilling, then something needs to change. So let it be with us first.
Awareness. First things first, where can you observe shame in yourself? There are many opportunities in your day. Notice how you talk to yourself in your head. Is it positive or negative? Notice how you think about others- do you judge them often? Do you use harsh language when you think about yourself or others making mistakes? Are you always criticizing yourself or others? Do you expect everyone to meet your standards, and if they don’t, it just ruminates in your head? Are you quick to assume that you already know what that person is thinking or their intentions? If you think you know without having asked, you may be projecting. Something to think about.
Be honest with yourself here; expose your shadows, don’t grow more. Don’t judge yourself either; you’re simply observing for awareness purposes, not growing more shame.
Empathy. According to Brene, empathy is the antidote to shame. Shame cannot exist where empathy is present. I agree with this wholeheartedly because I see it in my sessions with clients. Witnessing with empathy removes the layers of shame and shadows, bringing back wholeness to the personality.
To start practicing empathy within, speak kindly to yourself. This may be a tough one for some because it will require a complete re-wiring of your thoughts, but it can be done!
If you want to say something mean to yourself for a perceived personal failure or even in the mirror about your body image, replace the negative backlash with positive compliments.
Don’t fake it either; you’ll know your own bs. Pause, take a moment, and look at yourself with love from the outside- then come back to your head and say the nice thing. Yes, you do deserve it. You’ve literally done nothing so terrible that you don’t deserve your own love and kindness.
Curiosity. The energy of curiosity is a great healer of many things. I invite you to try a personal challenge. Pick one day to live your entire day in the mindset of curiosity. Curious about anything and everything that comes your way that day. No expectations, simply curious. When you are in this state, you cannot blame, shame, criticize, or be let down. Try it for a day (or more) and see what you learn about yourself and your thoughts.
Gratitude Journaling. Another way to reinforce positive brain rewiring is to write daily entries about things you are grateful for. This helps shift focus from negative to positive aspects of life. Give yourself credit for the good deeds you do each day; don’t focus on the negatives.
Meditation. There is this specific meditation called loving-kindness (more details here and a short meditation here). This is a Buddhist meditation used to learn empathy. It is amazing. Try it and repeat it every day for 30 days. Notice the difference in your life.
That was a lot, I know, but this is a complex topic that deserves much attention. Please reach out if you want to discuss more.
Next week I will have more details on my launch party and giveaway items! I also want to start a small series on resilience, as I think it’s a great topic for summertime energy.
I love you all so much, and you will be in my gratitude journal tonight! See you here next week. Please feel free to share this newsletter and spread the love 🌈