Unresolved shame can quietly damage your life. Here’s how to face it, make amends, and reclaim your value.
Dealing With Shame
Welcome to this week's You Are Destined For Greatness. Got a big one this week. Actually, I think they're all big ones, but I hope this helps.
Today, the subject is something that I've really struggled with in my lifetime, and it's something that we, every human being, will experience, and I'm a good example of it, and I'll tell you more.
So today I want to talk about dealing with shame. So let's just talk about what that is.
Shame is when we judge something that we've done, when we judge our value based on something that we've done. For example, we've done something that we're ashamed of, we feel bad, we think it means something about ourselves because of what we've done. And that, whether it's a conscious thought, or we just feel bad because of what we've done, and subconsciously it's chipping away at our value, and that chips away at our life and our relationships, and it's a bad cycle.
Now, the reason I say I'm such a good example of shame and shame resilience and shame reframing shame, is because one of the things that I've done in my lifetime, I've done a lot of good things, and I've done a lot of bad things. One of the events in my lifetime was so egregious that that's why I say I'm like the poster child for, “It's okay to love yourself.”
But it doesn't really matter what it is, okay? It doesn't matter because the result is the same, okay? And so my result was that subconsciously I believed I was defective, deficient, wrong, messed up, incomplete, not whole, not worthy, not deservedness, and just damaged, okay?
And I didn't want to think that. I wasn't thinking it on purpose. I had just automatically judged what I had done to make that mean those things about me. The more that I thought about that, the more that I internalized those beliefs, and the more that I slowly deteriorated my results, my life, my relationships, and it was a damn disaster. So if I ever caused suffering to start with, I continued to cause much suffering based on my beliefs.
So, now, what happens, it's all the same. Because of what you did, you think that you feel bad. So I'm going to give you the quick, I want you to check out this week's podcast on shame because it's complete. This is just the short version. So please check it out.
Also check out Michelle Maidenberg's, I think there's 34 and 36, don't hold, episodes number 34 and 36, don't hold me to it. But I'm going to give you the quick overview.
How to Recognize Unresolved Shame
First of all, just to become aware, not of what to do as it happens in the future, but let's get the stuff resolved in the past fixed first, because everyone that I've talked to, and I'm sure that's not true with everybody, but everybody in my coaching, in my own experience, has unresolved shame from something, they did a thing and it still bothers them when they think about it, and so that's how you know.
You know that you have unresolved shame, how it feels when you think about it. That means your thoughts surrounding it could have to do with shame. You could be judging yourself, your value based on that thing. So that's how you recognize it. And the first step is to recognize the thing, if there is a thing, or multiple things, or whatever.
I think it's important to know that, again, that this is part of the human experience. It's just part of life, and that's also important to know, that you can think whatever you want to about that thing, okay, or those things.
Recognize, Share, Make Amends, Reframe
Second of all is to, once you recognize it, is to communicate it to somebody that you trust very much. Speak shame, they call it. My system is a combination of my own experience, Renee Brown's, Dr. Michelle Maidenberg's, and I've just got this really simple formula, and it works.
Recognize, share, own your truth, share it with somebody that you trust a lot. Don't go running around telling everybody. Just, but it's, you gotta get it out because shame likes to hide. You know, we don't want anybody to know. I didn't talk about my experience for decades and it was eating me up. Okay, so hopefully yours isn't that bad. Hopefully it's much less, having much less impact on your life. But that's step two.
Connect to Your Values
Step three is, is to look back, well, step three is, excuse me, is to make amends where possible. Now everything can't be fixed, but go and make amends where you can. Make it as well as you can.
And then, you know, reframe, decide what you're going to do in the future, so hopefully it doesn't happen again. So you're going to take care of those things, make amends and make a plan for the future.
And then you're going to connect it to a value. Because here's the thing. You're not a damaged human being because you did the thing. You did the thing, you reacted on something, or you did it out of a reason that's connected to a value because you're a good human being. You're 100%. No matter what you think, that's a fact. I'm asking you to try to accept that fact.
But it helps if you connect it to a value. Now, why, you know, make that mean why, make meaning out of why you did it and connect it to a value, a positive intentional value that you have. That really helps your belief about it of why it happened and makes it okay.
This is part of learning to separate what we do with our value as human beings. Find out more about this, but this is a big one. You don't want that internal weight bogging you down and having stuff running in your background that's having negative impact on your life.
Take my word for it, my friends. Stay with me. Remember, You Are Destined For Greatness.
