What is shame? Shame is defined as “A painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior.
Recently I was visiting my hometown and had a moment of clarity, while spending time playing video games with some old primary school friends. The moment of clarity was shame.
“What the fuck are you doing”.
Was all it took to pull me out of the current moment and into my mind. My mind was screaming at me, shouting. I couldn’t silence the voice, or hold the weight that was bearing down on my neck. It felt like I was being stalked by a predator in a horror movie. My hands felt loose in the controller. Counter to the previous squeezed with intensity. I stopped caring. What I was doing didn’t matter. I was forced into the moment, instead of the illusion of the screen.
What was I doing?
Acquiescing on the same bullshit that has hung around since high school?
Who’s gotten fat, who’s broke, who’s now pregnant.
None of that matters.
Who cares?
I felt shame. I felt like anything else in the world was more important than what I was currently doing. My conscious was screaming at me that I was wasting time, and all the other time that I’ve wasted brought to the forefront on my mind via Apache helicopter. Different flashbacks went through my mind. I saw other moments similar to this one. I thought of my goals, what I could be doing instead of this. While this moment only lasted for a few minutes, it gave me some of the most crucial points I needed to acknowledge and the steps I need to take to get out of this feeling.
I needed to remove these people from my life.
How do you react when you feel shame? Shame is your body giving you an edge, or cutting you with it. You decide how you want to grab the knife being handed to you. Blade first, or handle. Cut, or be cut.
When you feel shame, identify the trigger.
Identify the shame. Use the five why’s to figure out why this is happening to you. The most important thing when you feel shame is to dig. What is the root? Why do I feel this Atlas weight on me? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with my current actions? Is the shame yours, or a shame that is set by culture? Big difference between the two. Shame because of your own deed is shame that needs to be addressed immediately. Cultural shame means you need to stop being a bitch. Stop identifying with a culture you find unflattering. Stop letting others dictate what you need. Create your own. Don’t feel guilty for being different. Let me help you out:
Most everyone you will meet is wrong about everything.
Don’t let their opinions move you. If you feel shame about something you’re doing analyze it. Is it because I’m doing the right thing and someone disagrees? Or am I genuinely making a mistake counter-intuitive to my own path?
I used to feel shame all the time when I was younger. I was picked on nearly every day of my youth and never stood up for myself. My mother told me to walk away, and never stand up for myself. Believing my mother was the greatest person in the world, I did this. In conjunction with many other choices I now see as being for my worst interest, reinforcing this negative behavior. Every time I walked away I was hit with shame. Because I knew the answer was confrontation. I was afraid. I didn’t listen to myself.
You need to listen to yourself in order to grow.
Your family may be holding you back.
Their word is not law. It is advising that could hurt you, or help you.
Your word and mind is law. Not theirs.
Whatever you believe to be true is true.
If you believe that you need to listen to everyone else’s opinion of you, you’re right. If you believe your meant to be the next Steph Curry, you’re also right.
Walking away from problems does not make them better: it makes them compound.
Like in walking away from attackers is a good strategy. What happens if you walk away from your electric bill, or your taxes? What happens if defenders walk away from the hordes of ISIS attackers? The problem compounds, until it reaches an unavoidable climax. Or doesn’t, and your suffering never ends.
Shame shows you what you need to change at the deepest parts of yourself.
I’ve never felt shame for eating out. You may, if you need to lose weight. I’ve never felt shame for working. You may, if you’re doing the wrong thing. Shame won’t show you actions that don’t matter. Shame is a giant red emergency button your body is slamming on over and over again. Pay attention to it. Shame triggers will be different for all of us, but they’re all equally important. Like mine from my youth: I should have confronted my aggressors, not ran away.
How did I benefit from that shame?
I no longer run from anything.
shame is cancer.
Think of shame like an X-ray. you’re bombarded by radiation, poison, in order to show you the bigger problem. Once this problem is fixed, you no longer need the x-ray. This is shame. Shame is identifying a serious problem within your world using poison. Think: Toxic Shame. You need to fix it. Or the cancer will grow, and expand to control your fate for you. Rather than you controlling it. Cut out the cancer in your life by any means necessary. After your operation is complete, you can begin to think like a billionaire.
Are others sources of your shame?
If others are consistently providing you shame triggers, you need to cut them out. Cancer does not have to come in the form of actions. Shame cancer can come in the form of people too. A nagging spouse that belittles you through passive aggression, a boss that tries to control your future and your income. Cut them out. Family is stage 4. Much more difficult to remove since it’s been there the longest. Once gone, you can finally be free. You can finally breathe without chains tightening around your lungs.
You don’t want to feel shame in your life.
You will. I don’t feel it often, but when I do I know something needs to change immediately. Usually when I feel it I drop everything and start using Andreian breathing techniques. I’ll do this to slow my heart-rate and my mind. I want to know exactly what caused this feeling. I want to journal it, dissect it, find out how it ticks like I’m disarming a bomb in a crowded area. The entire crowd is me.
When do you feel shame?
Is it brought on by something you do, or someone you know? Let me know. Below are some areas where I feel shame and their triggers. Let me know if they match up with any of yours.
shame trigger: Video Games.
Likely Cause: A loss of time where I could be building. Leisure at an empty pursuit.
Shame Trigger: Sex with women I’m unattached to.
Likely Cause: I’m changing my morals, cutting of my standards at the ankles with a surgical blade the size of Texas. I’m changing myself to fit an event that I would never acclimate to in proper state of mind.
Shame Trigger: procrastinating dreams.
Likely cause: Postponing my goals for a false sense of safety. Knowing that I can accomplish anything I want if I put the time in. Knowing that I’m not putting in said time required.
Becoming vulnerable to shame.