©Miriam A. Mason
What is shame? What purpose does it serve? How did it give us an advantage evolutionarily? And where are its limits?
Given the way current culture wraps its members up in shame, it seems to be taking a huge seat ahead of many other potential shared cultural ideas. There are fat-shaming signs, there is child shaming on the internet, there is shame if you are ill, there is shame if you are disabled or differently abled, there is shame in the very truth that could set us free.
There are some techniques I've been experimenting with around stopping those shameful feelings one has in any given situation. A financial burden that a husband feels responsible for (even though he is not), for example. It's the cultural idea that men should be able to support their family. To be unable to do so is a profoundly shaming thing for a male in our culture. but what does that shame actually accomplish in the face of adversity? Does it help us solve the problem? Does it provide us with nourishment enough to think of ideas to cope with the problem? Does it call imagination and new kinds of thinking forth? Does it help, actually *help* in any way when taken to the extremes our culture has taken it?
I don't think so. I think it detracts. It causes us to freeze, it turns on our fight or flight chemical factory, it adds stress and a compounding difficulty to an already incredibly difficult situation. Shame detracts from everything it touches. Why on Earth are we so dependent up on it? Does it actually work for our benefit? No.
So...
1. Imagine your brain is a big beautiful lush garden, with deep pools of insight and places of unfathomable light and beauty. It is also a place with dark dangerous area, places that pull us in, and make us unable to visit the other better, more productive, more creative parts of inner gardens.
The place where shame lives is probably fairly centrally located for many of us. Make a special event: cordon it off with an alarm system. When you find yourself stepping into that part of the garden, the alarm system will set itself off loudly. Bing bing bing!! Alert!!
Step backwards. Turn around. Look at the deep peaceful reflective pools and the brightly lit places. Look through the leaves at the bright sky above them. Walk toward those places. Shame sometimes has tendrils that reach out and try to grab from behind, but keep walking towards the beauty.
It will be difficult at first, but eventually, that alarm will go off all on its own, reminding you that you are walking into a place where you will find no help for your current difficulties. The less you use that place of shame, the smaller it will become, until it shrinks down to the right size, in which you keep your clothes on appropriately and practice kindness towards others. Perhaps it's not even necessary for those things, finally. Perhaps it can be gone entirely. Perhaps it's time we evolved past using primitive shame as a tool at all.
2. Write down one or more statements directly to yourself like the following:
"You know why you are feeling really bad right now? It's because of one thing. That one thing is shame. All the other icky things that I are feeling are pretty much controlled and invoked by that one thing. And you know what? I don't need it. The more I can do to understand that shame is at the root and pull myself away from that shame, the better I can functionally deal with the difficulties life throws at me. All the shame does, is slow me down. Realize I didn't deserve this, this isn't a punishment from the world to me. It happened. Life happens. It doesn't have to mean shame happens. I love me. I are a beautiful being and I am smart and will figure this out. I hereby kick you out, shame." Read it. Out loud. Then go do something that makes you feel good, so your smart brain can figure out and get accustomed to whatever problem you are facing.
If anybody else has ideas for how to lessen the grip and power of shame in each of us, I would love to see in the comments.
We need to be bigger than shame. Because we are. We really are.
I'm sure I will edit this page more, as I develop more ideas for it. But I really wanted to focus on it, because I watch it destroy my own will as well of those of the ones I love dearest. It's important to understand it, talk about it, air it out, take new perspectives and be open.
Again, comments and input are welcome and invited. How do you cope with old shame? What tools do you use, or do you?
** Watch This Space **
~Miriam
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