This life is full of experiences. We crave only the “good” ones and spend most of our time trying to avoid the “bad” ones. It’s inevitable that during the course of our lives, we will have experiences that are embarrassing. It sucks and we move on. But what about the SHAMEFUL experiences? Do we really move on from those? Or do we tuck them deep down into the bottom of a drawer and try to hide them from everyone?
What is the difference in energy between these two words?
Embarrassment
Shame
For me, shame is the one we don’t talk about enough (we don’t talk about ANY of this enough!) But who among us doesn’t carry/experience shame? Who doesn’t have these hidden things that we protect with everything we’ve got? We’re scared that people will find out about this or that and then the world will really know the truth….that I AM a fraud…that I AM a piece of shit.
Brene Brown says that shame needs three things to survive…Silence, Secrecy and Judgement.
I suppose today I’m trying to break free from at least the Silence.
What if we finally just decided to liberate ourselves from shame? What would that look like?
How many people are suffering thinking that their stuff is more embarrassing than the person next to them? And meanwhile the person next to them is thinking the same thing! I have NEVER heard someone tell their story in an authentic way without it being a liberating experience. For that person and for everyone else witnessing. For that person (usually) it’s that it’s become too painful to hold on to their secret and they feel that they are giving an admission. They just surrender and share. And it liberates them! Every . Single . Time! Why do we all think that our shit is worse than everyone else’s? And our resistance (dare I say…refusal) to talk about it is what gives it fuel…what keeps it so powerfully imprisoning.
I have had many themes in my life. Lessons that seem to come up again and again and again. They are brought to my awareness through an array of different circumstances. But the energy beneath it all shows me that I have one theme that regularly comes up….I have the desire to be FREE!
To be truly FREE!
And so how does that show up in life? I keep manifesting situations where I feel my freedom is threatened.
When I was 19 years old, I stole something from the grocery store (I think it was Shopko actually). I don’t even remember exactly what it was. It was some kind of hair product. I had money on me to buy this product. I didn’t even really like or need the product. Why did I steal it? (Insert SO many things we could look at here…to be continued on this part).
I then was caught and was arrested. Yup, I was in the back of a cop car with my hands behind my back secured in handcuffs. People watched me be carted out by the cops while they entered the store to do their shopping. The cops let me call my friend to pick up my car so it wouldn’t get towed. I then went through the embarrassment (and such shame!) of my friend now knowing what I had done. Who was she going to tell? What would they all think of me? And then the experience of being in jail for 9 hours while they processed me. The underwire was removed from my bra, the earrings taken out of my ears…I was fingerprinted and my mug shot taken. After the whole ta-do I then sat outside the jail waiting in a cowering fashion for my Dad to pick me up. And when I stepped into his car, I brought an OCEAN of shame with me. I was bad. I was wrong. I was a fraud… a piece of shit. I had embarrassed myself and let down my parents. I was SWIMMING in shame. He didn’t even have to say a word. I had already assigned this all to myself.
I had gone through the system. I had experienced the energy of a number being assigned to me. I had sat in that energy… in a pit (a literal pit) with all the others. I was now in this club. And this was a shameful club to be a part of. I was taught that life was black and white….and it’s my duty and my job to remain always in the white or else I’m a bad person or a failure.
SO MUCH SHAME ATTACHED TO IT ALL!
No one lives only in the white. It’s literally not possible. But we’ve been told that it’s BLACK and WHITE and if we don’t live only in the white, we have done it wrong. And to do it wrong means….I’m a bad human. I’m an embarrassment. I’m all wrong. I should be punished. I should be ashamed of myself.
What heavy energy to carry!
There has been this theme for me throughout all of October….it’s all been showing me that the lesson here right now for me is….LIBERATION FROM SHAME. Release the secrets! Stop the secrets! Secrets are cancer. Secrets literally are cancer. And NO ONE doesn’t have secrets. Why are we not talking about this? What’s been kept in the dark needs to be brought to the light! And you know what we will find? That all of us live in the grey for most of our time. All of us think that our shit is more embarrassing or shameful then the next persons’. I know that I chose the last name of “Gray” for me in this life for a very specific purpose. Part of which is…to remind me of this truth. All of us play in the grey and we must shed the story that it’s only BLACK or WHITE. That is the story that keeps us in chains. I’m DONE with this game! It cannot be continued to be played out in my life if I refuse to participate.
I don’t accept societies’ labels that they want to put on me. You can try to label me, but I decide if that label will be accepted by me or not. If not, I send it back to you….no thank you. You can take this back. I get to be the one to tell my story. It’s the most pure thing I have. My story is the most authentic thing I have. It’s the most treasured thing we all have. We all have our story….and it gets to be our own. I do not accept that someone else can tell my story.
But then what? I guess I must then choose to tell my story.
So, that is what I’m doing. And that’s what I’ll continue to do. I will use this thing called the Internet and social media to own my story…to liberate myself from shame. I do not need to stand on a platform in front of the world and share all of my secrets in order to be liberated from shame….I get that. There’s a thin line between … publicly flogging myself because I believe I need to suffer and be punished… and … what is truly liberation from shame.
But today to share this, it feels good. It feels like I’m taking the reigns of my life and owning my own story. I’ve tried to own many things in life. To have enough money, to buy a house, to own a car…but I’ve been really realizing that the most precious and authentic and pure thing I own is …. My story.
And no two stories are alike.
How liberating it would be if we all just decided to share our stories? Without filters.
Guess what? I make “mistakes”. I make big messes sometimes. I hurt people. I get lost in judgement. I can act like such a victim. Then the next moment I can act like I’m so superior. I create chaos at times. I fall down often (and in the most ungraceful ways imaginable)…. and………I am a human. I have a soul. I deserve to be loved. I deserve support. I don’t need to be endlessly punished in order to prove that I’m sorry enough.
This is all about my souls’ journey. I can feel that this is part of liberating me so that I can be unburdened enough to create my “what’s next”, then after that there’s another “what’s next” and another “what’s next” and on the journey continues. I can see that there’s SUCH freedom available here! To walk through each moment with the full knowledge that I really have no idea what could/will happen from moment to moment to moment, but to know that whatever does happen, I am the one that holds the power as to: How I will respond, What energy I will hold and how much love I show (to myself and others). It’s conscious surrender. It’s not “Ok, fine! I surrender. I give up!” or “I surrender…I am a piece of shit”.
It’s “I surrender to the flow of the Universe. I walk consciously through each moment of this life. Whatever will be, will be. And I’m here for it all”.
I can FEEL the pain of so many others that have felt this exact same way (or are feeling like that right at this very moment). There are so many people suffering and they feel alone. I chose to release that belief. That is no longer my story. We are the many. We just need to reach out to each other. We just need to share our truths. Share our stories. In sharing something so authentic and pure, it opens up the space for freedom and bliss to be truly experienced.
Whew! I already am getting the beginning feelings of an authenticity over-sharing hangover.
Posting anyway.
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