Working With Shame

“Shame on You!”

“Don’t you have any shame?”

Shame is meant for perpetrators to hold themselves accountable, but our society is built for them to project it onto their victims. That is one of the foundations of the patriarchy, along with fear, control, and deception. Does this sound like abuse? That is because it is.

Shame comes from being shamed.

Unlike guilt, a normal response to making a mistake where amends can be made, shame is the weight of wrongness forced upon you by others who harm instead of heal.

Shame becomes a default reaction to abuse survivors as it inflicts suffering in the form of:

• Self-criticism and loathing
• Visceral fear, rage, and disgust turned inwards at self
• Body tightening, pain, disease, and dysfunction
• Dissociation and distrust in oneself

Like a poison slowly spreading in your body, shame affects every cell and mutates it like cancer. People with high shame tend to acquire mental disorders, auto-immune disease, and chronic pain.

Undoing shame involves removing the imprint from others and re-installing:

• Safety
• Trust in self
• Instinct and intuition
• Authenticity and identity
• Expression of suppressed emotions
• Regulation of body

My story with shame

I was at the point of surrendering to psychosis or surrendering to my body. I had wars in my head between my inner abuser and my core self about what was “right” and “wrong” about me. I decided I would either die or become free. I don’t know why or how I came to this decision but I had been fighting for so long, I was beyond exhausted. I didn’t want to be in war anymore. This was the point where everything changed.

I stopped listening to my therapist, my partner, my friends, my books, everyone. I let my body and my screams do their thing while I sat and observed. And the weight lifted. For the first time in my life, I was able to sense myself underneath all the weight of trauma. I was so small and so hidden but I was there. It became my mission to connect with her and help her grow so I could finally face the shame of my abuse and process it to heal.

This was five years after unsuccessful therapy (although there were many good points) and two years of temporary psychosis because my partner repeatedly abandoned me during the worst time in my life. No one seemed to understand, not my support groups, online groups, friends, and definitely not family or acquaintances.

It was me, myself, and me—and Mother Nature, my one constant. So I surrendered to her and my body.

The next part of my journey began, and I began to heal.

I will post an audio recording of this in my paid membership subscription. I want to keep it private because of my present circumstances. I will be posting more of my personal stories in this membership. If you want to join us, please check it out. It is only $5 a month.

Online Course

I have created an online course, Working With Shame. I share the strategies I use to undo my shame from the root up and rebuild my core self. Check it out in the Shop.

Learn how to work with shame using three strategies targeting the root of the problem and audio sessions to understand how shame impacts you.

Included in the course are:

3 Strategies to Work With Shame

• Externalizing shame
• Internalizing safety
• Restoring our sense of self

6 Exercises

• Befriending our instincts and intuition
• Let it out
• Internalizing safety
• Finding safety when there is little of it
• Should to nourish
• Restoring your values

3 Audio Sessions

• Why we need to externalize shame
• How to make meditation and nervous system exercises safe for trauma survivors
• Rebuilding the lost sense of self

In addition to the above, recommended books and my poetry about shame.