Lesson 8: Banish shame!
Forgive Yourself and Start Fresh
by Mary Hayes Grieco
Lesson 8: Banish shame!
Healing Shame
Shame is the hardest self-forgiveness issue of all to deal with, and it can operate as an obstruction to facing into the list of your other specific and do-able self forgiveness work. You will recognize the feeling of shame as a deeply dark and hopeless feeling about yourself, and the belief that you are too flawed and different, too separate from other people and the goodness of life – and none of this stuff will really work for you anyway!
If you think that you are grappling with shame as a main self-issue, read on, after doing a nice job with these foundational exercises in the earlier lessons.
Do the Daily Harmony Exercise – short version (Lesson 4>>)
Your Inspired Intentions – Say ‘em loud, say ‘em proud! (Lesson Two>>)
“The blocks in my system are going to easily dissolve and leave me soon.”
“I am becoming a soul-illumined person, alight with Love, enjoying my life,
as it is, and purposefully serving the world.
I am becoming relaxed, loving, vital, and PRESENT
to myself, others, Earth, and Spirit.
(It’s my birthright and I’m worthy of it.
It’s the golden goal of the human adventure.”)
Listen to: “The gift of self-forgiveness”(2:11)>>
And now … If shame is your present obstacle,
take some time over several days to absorb the rest of this lesson.
TAKE YOUR TIME!
This is super important.
This is a core thing, and it’s about YOUR core.
Healing Shame
from Unconditional Forgiveness
by Mary Hayes Grieco
Shame is an unhealthy and extremely toxic emotion that makes a person very sick inside. While guilty people feel they have done something bad or wrong, shameful people feel that who we are is bad and wrong.
Shame says to us: Who do you think you are? You’re no good! You’re unworthy and undeserving. The real you is defective, and you must hide your real self at all costs lest people see it and abandon you.
In a way, shame is a case of false identity, because it is like a core of darkness that lives inside us where the light of the soul should be. Instead of identifying ourselves with the strength and energy that is in our souls, we identify with the dark, broken identity that shame has created.
We are disconnected from the light of our souls, even though it is right there, available to us at every moment. Shame is the driver behind social isolation and addiction, and we spend an enormous amount of energy hiding from ourselves and from others.
Shameful people have difficulty getting their needs met in life and in relationships, because they cannot accept their own needs. They cannot receive goodness, because they believe that they do not deserve anything. Shame-based people are afraid of intimacy, are socially isolated because they cannot bear the possibility of being seen, and cannot stand being challenged. They may be hyper-sensitive and defensive, unable to take even mild criticism from someone else because they generalize it to make their whole selves wrong.
People who are unconsciously steeped in shame and a sense of worthlessness may be aggressive and attack others because they are projecting their own shame outwards everywhere—trying to be the punisher instead of the punished. Shame is like a ‘hot potato’ people toss to others, lest they be the ones caught being bad and wrong.
What causes a person to be filled with shame? There are many reasons that people become shameful, all of them rooted in hurtful experiences that were never healed: experiences of being overpowered, violated, or forced to do and be things that they didn’t want to do or be. The worst cases involve interpersonal atrocities like physical or sexual abuse carried out by loved ones. Chances are those perpetrators were desperately caught in the cycle of shame themselves. They seek to release the internal pressure of shame from abuse they have endured by becoming perpetrators instead of victims, even though that release is temporary.
We must remember that shame is a liar!
Have you ever seen a ‘bad’ infant? I haven’t. We are each born pure and good, and our essences retain that innocence and purity inside, despite our bumpy journeys and all the “hits” our personalities have taken. Spirit still sees us as precious, innocent children who are mastering our developmental tasks.
What if we looked at our own adult struggles with the same affectionate delight and encouragement with which we watch a precious toddler learning how to walk? Toddlers stagger forward, fall down over and over again, cry with frustration, and reach for a hug and a kind word. Then they get up and try it, again and again, until it is a mastered. Onward! To the next learning task!
Our psychological and spiritual journeys are just like that. Spirit watches us with bemused encouragement, holding us blameless, and reaches down to lift us up when we raise our arms in frustration and cry out. When we are sufficiently comforted and have released our stress, we toddle forward again.
Let’s be honest here and acknowledge that if the healing of shame is your main challenge, you’ll have to be patient, fierce, and diligent for a long time in order to heal it. You are not going to be done with it in a day or 21 days or a year. You can start making great progress with healing yourself and feeling better – starting right now – but we must bear in mind that toxic shame is a pernicious negative state, and if you have a shame problem, it will become triggered every so often by different people and situations.
The first step in mastering shame is to welcome it as one of your life teachers. Perhaps it’s part and parcel of your spiritual life purpose to wrestle this dragon to the ground, and to claim your worthiness and your place at God’s table. Be proud of yourself for being in a serious lifelong recovery from shame. The things that caused it were not your fault. But now it is your journey to heal those stories. You will turn your wounds into wisdom because your soul is greater than your shame.
How to Approach Healing Your Toxic Shame
1. Decide it’s OK to feel good about yourself.
2. Start to recognize the voice of shame as a liar.
3. Take a fierce stand against the voice of shame within: shout it down! Say a new
truth. Shut up! There’s nothing wrong with me – I’m a good person!
4. Vigorously cast the dark energy that is inside you way out of your space – at least ten feet away. If you want, imagine you are throwing it into the Giant Universal Compost Pile, where it can slowly decompose, away from you, without harming you any more. It might also help to take a walk, go work out, punch a punching bag—expelling the energy of shame with movement and vigorous positive thoughts (shout your Inspired Intentions out loud, if you can, as you move the energy of shame out of your space.)
5. Identify a few formative experiences in your earlier years that installed the energy of shame.
6. Make a plan to heal and forgive each one of those formative experiences.
7. Do some inner child work, and/or traumatic stress work if necessary. (EMDR)
8. Conduct a self-esteem campaign for a full year.
9. Work with a therapist or group to say your truths without shame and to practice revealing your real feelings.
10. Attend Adult Child of Alcoholics/Dysfunction meetings, and team up with a friend or two to work through their excellent workbook. A powerful healing journey for your Inner Child.