Shame is a soul eating emotion.

Anonymous

That is one of the most powerful quotes I have heard in my life. I never really thought about shame as I began my adult life. As I had different experiences in life, I began to feel emotions like regret, shame and disappointment. Regret was pretty easy to let go because there is nothing you can really do about it. You can’t change the past, and you may even be blessed enough to see how that allows you to grow and move into different paths in your life. Disappointment is relatively easy to let go as well because, what can you do? It’s also not something you can change, and you have to learn and accept that you cannot control anything in life except yourself and things will not always go as you had planned or as you want. As with avoiding regret, experiencing disappointment can also lead you to positive places in your life that you couldn’t have imagined without that experience.

Unlike guilt, which is the feeling of doing something wrong shame is the feeling of being something wrong.

Marilyn J. Sorensen

But SHAME… shame is insidious… it puts down roots in your mind constantly reminding you that you are not a perfect person, that you are, in fact, a bad person. You are a person who is selfish, not worthy, not enough and a fraud. A fraud because you feel anyone who meets you or knows you and thinks something positive about you doesn’t know your shame and it is all an illusion.

Shame is a soul eating emotion.

Carl Gustav Jung

This one is worth repeating.

Personally, my struggle with shame lasted about 5-7 years. I felt that I was a fundamentally bad person after these mistakes that I had made and that I literally could never tell anyone and would have to carry this burden to my grave. I lived in a self-induced torture for years. Even with therapy and medicine, it festered inside of me, never allowing me to feel I was authentic with those around me and never would be able to again because I would never want people to know what an awful person I was.

Sounds melodramatic right?

It is… but that is the power of shame. Specifically the power of shame remaining repressed and silenced.

Shame is not your friend. It depletes your power. Let go of shame and embrace your magnificence.     

Judith Orloff

In an effort to ignore and escape the pain of my shame, I immersed myself in my work and built a wall around my heart. With that wall, no one would get close enough to see my shame. No one would know how immoral I truly (felt I) was. I threw myself into my work with the energy and dedication to prove that I had redeemable qualities. I may be a selfish asshole that hurt others from my past, but I could still help others in the present and get my validation and self-value from my productivity and excellence that I was able to demonstrate in that way.

Your shame hides in many places-in anger, blame, denial, workaholism, perfectionism, drinking, and anything else you compulsively engage in to make yourself feel better. But if you could just learn to be vulnerable for one second, and open up to the pain, you would find there’s no place left for your shame to hide.     

Adam Appleson

The burying of my shame manifested in several of the above forms. While they were effective in my distraction from the feeling of shame, at least on a conscious level, it was creating within a complex knot of emotions, reactions and suppressions to new experiences that I found impossible to unravel on my own. I experienced a great depression, I tried getting help with therapy, with anti-depressants and still could not heal. There were various points at which I wanted to die to end the suffering in my mind and my sprit. I couldn’t see anyway out. At some point I had to acknowledge to myself the truth. If I did not face my past and my demons I would never be happy again, I would continue to deteriorate mentally, physically and spiritually. If I didn’t face it I would never be able to free myself.

As it has been said, the only way out is through…

I had to be vulnerable enough to admit my secrets to someone, anyone at first. Then later to those who were involved/affected by my choices. I took the steps necessary to heal. To take action around several of the other posts written here already. Being alone, allowing myself to feel my emotions vs. avoiding them, look honestly at myself, my choices, my actions without judgement, to mentally accept those things and even finally say them out-loud. It took me 5 months to open up and express my deepest shame. The relief and peace it brought me was unparalleled. I could breath again.

After the relief, the shock at how much time of my life I had wasted by trying to hide this from not only others but from myself set in. Why did I torture myself for so long? HOW did I torture myself for so long?? My fear to face the pain was what kept me locked in my shame. My fear of the pain that would come kept a nice cozy and warm home for the shame. The longer it took me to face it, to feel the pain and open my heart to others about what I was ashamed of, the more comfortable my shame became inside of me and the more used to misery I became.

While this process is still new to me, and I am sure there will continue to be ups and downs as I continue this journey… facing and uncovering shame has freed my heart, sprit and body so much. I can’t believe it took me so long to do.

What are you hiding in your heart? What secret, what story, what past do you feel you can never share? What shame weighs you down and eats away at your confidence, your ability to open your heart and deepen your connection with the people and world around you.

I implore you… face the shame… face the fear. It may be painful, but it will be so worth it in the end. There is no other way to heal and be free.

It is the false shame of fools to try to conceal wounds that have not healed.

Horace