Thanks for joining me on this short teaching exploring shame.
This is meant to be listened to in tandem with the welcoming shame practice found on my profile.
Many of us have learned to push away what we see as negative emotions based on a variety of reasons,
Perhaps religious,
Cultural,
Or social.
Yet we know that it's not healthy for us to repress emotions,
And our meditation practice helps us create space for what is present within ourselves,
Even if it's hard to face.
We want to learn to understand our emotions better,
What they're trying to tell us,
And identify how they show up in our body,
So that then we can work with our emotions and use the gifts that they bring instead of fighting against them.
In this short teaching before the meditation,
We will explore how shame serves as a guide to help us live by our own moral code.
My teachings and the following meditation have been greatly informed by my study of Internal Family Systems Therapy or Parts Work,
Somatic Experiencing,
And the book The Language of Emotions by Carla McLaren.
I need to start with a few disclaimers to clarify a few things.
First,
Let's distinguish between guilt and shame.
Often guilt and shame are used interchangeably,
But they are different.
Guilt is a factual state,
Not an emotion.
Either you're guilty or you're not,
Based on some moral or legal standard.
So it doesn't really make sense to say,
I feel guilty,
Because you could be guilty and feel happy about it,
Feel sad about it,
Feel shame about it,
But it doesn't change the fact that you are guilty or you're not guilty.
On the other hand,
Shame is the emotional consequence of wrongdoing or of feeling like you did something wrong.
So throughout this teaching and meditation,
I am going to use the word shame because we are talking about an emotional state.
At the top,
We also have to talk about toxic shame.
Unfortunately,
We often have such a bad relationship with even the word shame or the concept of shame that we struggle to connect it with and see anything useful about shame at all.
Most of us have been taught about shame by being shamed.
Shame has been used as a form of control by authority figures in school,
Largely by the culture.
In general,
Our culture doesn't trust other people to moderate our own behavior.
And probably throughout your life,
You were coerced to embody someone else's ideas of right and wrong.
If you were raised in a religious worldview or some other kind of fundamentalist worldview like I was,
I was told from a young age that I am bad at my core,
That I am a sinner from birth.
And this kind of worldview that tells children in particular that they are bad,
Inherently bad,
Can really cause shame to burrow deeply into your body and into your psyche.
So I want to say that it is good to tread with caution and compassion because often this deep long-standing shame can be very resistant to you working with it and for good reason.
But when we are constantly in this blocked state of repressing shame or thinking that feeling shame is bad,
We will keep doing wrong or we might just feel frozen because we aren't allowing ourselves to moderate our own behavior.
A first step here is just getting curious about what our shame feels like and exploring where our shame originated,
Which we will do in the meditation after this teaching.
Now let's talk about understanding shame as a healthy and good thing.
The primary gift that shame brings is to help bring you into integrity according to your own moral code.
And shame,
When you can listen to its guidance,
Can help lead to restoration,
Atonement,
And modified behavior in a way that feels right to you.
Shame is the internal counterpart to anger's external role.
In my previous meditation,
I talked about how anger helps you to set external boundaries and shame sets internal boundaries that help you respect yourself and how you want to show up in the world.
So in an internal family systems framework,
Often we have these kind of hidden parts that are known as exiles and exiles can carry a lot of shame from the past and are often harder for you to access because your system has developed layers of protection to keep those exiles safe.
So I want to say too that when you are trying to work on your own with shame,
It's very normal to come up with a lot of resistance.
And again,
It's maybe helpful to try a practice around connecting with shame with the knowledge that it might be overwhelming or your experience might be limited and it could be a good opportunity to bring the work that you're doing on your own to a therapist or some other trained professional,
Someone that can support your process in working with shame.
If you're noticing,
Wow,
My feelings of shame are really strong,
It could be helpful to just start by noticing throughout the day when you feel shame and like writing it down and maybe writing up,
Writing down anything that comes up when you feel a shame sensation in your body,
Which we're going to talk about next.
So shame can manifest in various parts of the body.
It can often feel like heat rising or like a flush,
Kind of like when your cheeks turn red,
Right?
It can feel like an intensity,
It can feel like an internal pull in your gut or in some other body part that might carry shame.
Shame can be paralyzing,
It can kind of leave you speechless or stop you in your tracks.
You might feel tension in your shoulders,
In your chest,
A lump in your throat,
Or this kind of like sinking feeling in your stomach,
And you often might feel embarrassed or exposed.
Shame can also feel like I'm in trouble or I'm going to be caught doing something wrong.
It can feel childish,
Particularly if the shame entered into your life early.
So you might work with how old does this feeling feel?
You know,
If you're thinking,
Oh,
I always feel like I'm in trouble.
Can you pinpoint an age for that feeling?
You may notice changes in your breathing pattern,
Like shallow or rapid breathing.
Shame can also cause you to kind of hold your breath or make you feel like you can't catch your breath.
You might try to make yourself physically smaller,
Even subconsciously,
Slumping shoulders,
Crossing your arms,
Avoiding eye contact.
And then lastly,
You might become hypervigilant or more sensitive or even feel like shaky.
Again,
These sensations of shame can be really powerful,
So please offer yourself tons of compassion when you're exploring your shame.
So shame helps us to answer the questions,
Who has been hurt and what must be made right.
Shame,
Like anger,
Acts as a guide,
Helping you see when you may have crossed your own internal boundary.
So you can see your healthy shame as a form of anger toward yourself,
Like a healthy way of keeping yourself in check.
When you're in a healthy relationship with your authentic shame,
It can help you to live the life that you want according to your own ethics and moral code and help you to be in right relationship with others.
It can help you to recognize your own shadowy behaviors and also give you this ability to also recognize questionable behaviors in other people.
It can help you with discernment.
In her book,
Carla McLaren says that when we are in a healthy relationship with our shame,
We will see the world as a place of grace rather than living in fear of punishment.
When we can trust our shame to help us restore integrity,
We will flow easily into happiness and contentment,
Knowing that we are living in line with our own moral code.
So I hope you'll join me in the meditation that follows as we get in touch with our shame to create space for its healthy expression in this safe container of meditation.
As we journey together,
Remember that shame,
When approached with respect and curiosity,
Is a guide.
Practice trusting yourself,
Welcoming your emotions,
And allowing shame to play its role in protection and restoration.
