Lots of inner dialogue this morning as I carried the rock of shame, identified some hidden shame messages that have run as a constant in my subconscious, and examined the ways shame works to cause destruction.
I also spent a good share of time comparing and contrasting guilt and shame. Guilt, I believe, has transformational purpose. In fact, we must individually and collectively face wrongdoing in order to grow and heal. I’m watching that right now in our country. If we can’t honestly face our country’s patterns of racial injustice and our role in it, we won’t be able to move forward in growth and transformation. The same is true for myself and my patterns. I am learning to face-and here’s the important part- objectively and without judgment, my shortcomings and character defects, and acknowledge and grieve the harm caused by them in order that my mind, heart, and actions transform.
The sticky tricky thing about shame is that takes shortcomings and wrongdoing and works in judgment to define our being by them. Rather than learning from guilt and moving forward, shame works to embed permanent, destructive messages about our very essence into our narrative. Shame, I am discovering, so powerfully disrupts and diminishes the flow of love, creativity, and positive energy by constantly whispering, “See, you are bad. You are not enough. You can never change. You are irredeemably flawed and unlovable.”
As I contemplated shame on my walk, I realized there is actually zero purpose for shame other than destruction, diminishment, disconnection, death. To combat the shame narrative, I realized two things: 1) Shame’s power feeds on hiddenness, and so I began to speak it aloud and expose it out into the open air of the Camino. 2) Overriding the shame narrative begins to happen when we set our minds on that which is true and noble, right and pure, lovely and admirable, excellent and praiseworthy…..and we include ourselves in this.
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