I had it set in my mind and even began to write about red flags or some of the other issues that I’ve mentioned. However, something happened to me this week and I feel like making sense of it, which is extraordinarily difficult under the circumstances but I am going to try. I truly have begun to believe that lessons must be extracted from even the most horrendous scenarios to facilitate self-reflection. That’s not spiritual mumbo jumbo either….it is real talk. Given the choice between curling into a fetal position and crying (tempting) and picking myself up, dusting myself off, learning, and moving forward, I’ll take the latter. Every single damn day of the week.
I want to write about something that is incredibly difficult to talk about and perhaps even more difficult to experience. Shame.
Shame, or humiliation, comes in a variety of forms and comes at the most unexpected times. It can be surprising or expected, momentary or long-lasting, and obvious or quiet. It is simultaneously incredibly private and pervasively public. I have never experienced shame where it does not cause me immense pain, and I have usually found that I get a sort of hangover after the thing itself seems to pass. Humiliation tends to leave lingering droplets that feed the voice that expresses unworthiness.
I know I will get to a day where I no longer have to disclaimer, but I don’t think we are quite there yet. Thus, I will explain that this is my experience with the emotion. I recognize that shame is not a one-size-fits-all situation and this is not a doctrine of sorts. These are my thoughts and feelings and if someone can relate to them, I’ve accomplished my goal.
That said, I have learned a couple of really interesting things about shame. First of all, the party or person that should feel ashamed of their behavior (if anyone really should) is typically not the one who feels it at all. It is usually the victim of bad behavior that experiences this emotion. Also, shame is sneaky because it often comes disguised as anger, sadness, disappointment and a myriad of other emotions. Humiliation often emerges as a response to failing to conform to what we believe to be a societal norm (more on this later), or at a minimum, to our perceptions of how others view us. Last, but certainly not least, shame is tricky because when we think we’ve moved through the emotion and we are in the safe zone, it rears its ugly head again.
Ironically, my feelings about shame came to a head when this event happened and most people who knew responded by saying the following: “you shouldn’t be embarrassed, _____ should.” So, not only was I definitively feeling embarrassed but the legitimacy of this feeling was being challenged. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am grateful for these amazing, loving people in my life that were trying to comfort me. However, I was stuck in this incredibly torturous middle world where I was feeling something very real that I wasn’t permitted to feel because it “didn’t make sense.”
So, here is the first thing I am going to offer you. A gift, if you will.
YOU ARE ALLOWED TO FEEL EMBARRASSED AND ASHAMED AND HUMILIATED WHENEVER YOU WANT. YOU ARE PERMITTED TO FEEL LIKE HIDING FROM THE WORLD. YOU ARE FREE TO FEEL THAT ANXIETY THAT BUBBLES UP WHENEVER YOU CONSIDER THE THING THAT MORTIFIES YOU. I want to be clear that I am not advocating for you to beat yourself up or to stay in that gloomy space. I am just allowing you to feel what you are feeling so you can get it out and move on.
I also want to share some of the things that humiliate (or have humiliated) me. This act in itself is embarrassing, but I feel like if we are going to keep it real, there cannot be caveats or escape hatches. So, here is my short list:
-I was left after nearly five years in what I thought was a good relationship
-I found myself single again at nearly 38
-I was left for someone else who was found while I was still in that relationship I believed to be good
-I was suckered and unfailingly believed someone who I thought was trustworthy (aka I was conned)
-The person who left me got married a few months after leaving me
-I had to go on the big international trip we planned alone
-My worldly possessions were left out in the open in the lobby of my building while I was at work
Yeah, that’s the short list. It goes on from there. Can you imagine? I can see why people might say I shouldn’t be embarrassed and yet, I was, I am. I felt and still feel mortified imagining what people must think of me and tortured thinking how they view me. I kept [and keep] hearing in my head “what’s wrong with her?” and “what did she do to him?”
I don’t have any revelatory or brilliant words of wisdom here, other than shame does not serve you. It really doesn’t. It doesn’t cultivate self-realization or growth. It doesn’t get you to a better place. It also muddies the water when you did something not so fantastic to another person and need to explore the emotions related to that experience. That doesn’t mean you don’t get to feel it. It simply means that like everything else, you need to feel it and then move through it.
I do this exercise called cementing that I learned years ago from a professor in college (I would love to give credit, but I can barely remember what I ate for breakfast so apologies GWU professor in the Psychology Department). Take things down to the cement. Explore the worst case scenario or the “true meaning” of that thought running through your head and then discover what that means to you. For example, the worst case scenario is that I am alone for the rest of my life. I am never again in a loving relationship. Okay, but I have a good job, friends, family, and fabulous experiences. My life is rich in so many ways that I can have gratitude for, that the “missing” relationship doesn’t ruin my life. It is simply one factor. That thought isn’t easy to absorb and it doesn’t remove the feelings that I have, but it helps keep me grounded and realistic. It helps me remember that my life isn’t over and that each thing that happens is just a challenge to help me grow as a human.
One more little point here that I need to make is to stress that you should not let shame stop you in your tracks. Don’t change your travel path home, places where you shop, or workplace routine. Do not hide from life thinking that will allow you to escape the feeling of disgrace. It will feed that feeling. It will grow it to innate proportions and you will find yourself staring at an insurmountable wall. The only action that dissipates the feeling outside of righting your thinking over time is real-time proof that your worst case scenario is not reality. You can only experience that proof if you throw yourself back into action. The beautiful part is that the vilest possibility is that you are right about someone’s reaction and now you’ve just learned who a person really is and you needn’t waste another moment on them. You are WELCOME.
I am NOT saying this is easy breezy. It is a horrible experience. It is painful and slow and it sucks on every level. I am saying that if you can step outside and look from 10,000 feet away; you can find your way through to the other side. You can find yourself saying “yeah, I was pretty embarrassed, but I’m okay now.”
Until the next…
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 