First Friday Inquiry Jam is tomorrow! 7:45-9:00 am Pacific Time. It’s for everyone, it’s free (donation if it feels right). You can listen-only through the Broadcast, or dial-in with phone or WebCall and have the opportunity to do The Work. We’ll start with me guiding you through filling out a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet.
Your sharing out loud, whether you’re in the hot seat doing The Work or listening, asking a question, offering an insight, is a beautiful way to connect us all together with this powerful process called self-inquiry. Join me HERE. If for any reason the dial-in or WebCall is full when you try to connect, join using the Broadcast feature.
***********************
 |
So later this very day, Thursday at 1:00 pm PT I’ll be over on facebook live, on video. I do this to answer questions and share some of the biggest topics we notice come up and create arguments with reality!
Today, I want to talk about shame and guilt, because it’s coming up right and left lately in my Year of Inquiry group, solo sessions with people, and of course in troubles with food and eating or other compulsions.
Shame feels so awful to experience, right?
Must get rid of it….ASAP!!
But like other emotions and feelings (anger, for example) it may be here for an important reason. I mean, feelings, including shame or guilt, exist in reality, right?
So instead of wanting to crush them or freak out if we feel shame, maybe we can wonder about the message it brings.
Shame feels awful, no doubt about it. Nauseated, horrified, self-attacking (Why did I DO that? What’s WRONG with me?) and secretive.
Shame seems to say “hide this and never, ever, ever let anyone know about it”.
But what if we turned towards the thing(s) we feel most ashamed of and looked at them more closely, accepting them as a message or important dynamic we need to understand?
A wonderful exercise offered by Byron Katie in her book “I Need Your Love–Is That True?” is to write down your most shameful experiences.
Ugh. I know. Gross. Do I have to?
Well, no one has to do anything….but to take a look at what you’re ashamed of can grow you up and open your mind in a way you might not have thought possible. So why not do it? It’s crushing and hard and depressing to keep the experience hidden, so bringing it out to the open fresh air may feel horrible to see as it lays there so ugly in the bright sunlight, but better than the alternative of continuing the way you’ve been going.
It doesn’t mean announce it on facebook.
You can find a trusted advisor to work with, someone who you know can work with shame with an open mind, too.
And if the trusted advisor is you (it is) then you can do it on your own–as long as you tap into the part of you willing to be accepting and open, no matter what.
Long ago, even when I stopped binge-eating and vomiting and over-exercising, I would NEVER want anyone to know I had been bulimic. It still feels like there’s an ever-so-slight worried feeling, like an old smell or sound that isn’t pleasant, as I think of sharing how I struggled with a decade of insane eating.
I used to think, at that time, I’d rather be a drug addict or an alcoholic because those sounded more rebellious and wild or Rebel-Without-A-Cause at least, not so ugly as stuffing your face or making yourself throw up in secret. I actually remember thinking I wish I was that kind of addict, because then I’d also fit in completely at AA meetings.
But that was not the way of it.
And the most important thing is not the overeating at all, but instead the inner workings of other events and ways of being I thought of as shameful.
I thought I should never be angry, selfish, rude, boisterous, bossy, grabby. I had so many “rules” about what I should behave like and what other people should also behave like, it was overwhelming to try to be my “best self” all the time.
I just wanted to be offline for once, to live freely without all those rules and regulations.
So a great place to begin your research into what ails you, what brings you to feeling shame, what your shame is telling you, is to simply write a list of what you’re most ashamed of.
I like to suggest writing only five. (Let’s not get carried away, OK?)
Then, you can begin to study these situations not as if you are the problem, but looking at it as if you are a part of a whole. Watching what thoughts you had running. What frightened you most, what upset you, what threatened you, or angered you?
What I know is, when you identify a person, place, thing, event that bothered you or deeply disturbed you in the past….
….and begin to investigate without freaking out….
….you may find a freedom you never thought possible.
It all begins with the question:
Is it true?
1:00 pm PT Facebook Live on shame today, for about 15 minutes. Ask questions (writing), listen, comment. Let’s talk about shame. https://www.facebook.com/WorkWithGrace/ If you can’t make it live, it’ll be there as a recording right afterwards.
Much love,
Grace