I recently had a small shame breakthrough and I wanted to record an episode about it immediately so that I could help clarify for you the listener (and for myself) exactly what a shame breakthrough actually is. At its core, it seems to be about unearthing a large chunk of shame-inducing conditioning from your subconscious in order to confront the fact that it has no basis in fact, logic, or your own consciously chosen values. A shame breakthrough is about discovering a piece of ideology that you inherited from your culture or family at such a young age (or so repeatedly) that you took it for granted as an objective “fact of life”. This dogmatic belief became part of the very fabric of your world, as seemingly true and fundamental as the sun rising and setting. But if you really look at it, you discover that there’s nothing holding it up except shame.
It seems that as children we construct a view of the world based on what we see around us and what we are taught explicitly and also unconsciously by our culture and family. This includes what is “right” and what is “wrong”, what is “good” and what is “bad”, and who is “us” and who is “them”. Practical facts about the natural world, like gravity, mix with cultural opinions, like “race”, on seemingly equal footing. This becomes our “reality”, the “water we swim in”, the air we breathe. We are so immersed in our culture that it becomes invisible to us. And part of the glue that really holds all of this together is a terrifying unconscious dread that if we don’t learn the rules then the people we love, the people we respect, the people who protect us and nurture us, will reject or abandon us. And that feeling is called shame.
The real trip is that every time I uncover a new aspect of my shame that I wasn’t previously aware of, I realize that not only have I been judging and punishing myself unfairly, but I have also been unconsciously propagating that shame into the world! That means I have probably been subconsciously shaming YOU. Shame spreads like a virus between the people we love, trust, and respect, so if you’ve been listening regularly and buying into what I’ve been saying, it’s possible that you picked up a bit of my shame as well. Sorry!
At the core of this most recent shame breakthrough is the dogmatic belief that wanting attention is “bad”. My therapist helped me reframe my judgemental attitude about being an “attention whore” with the new perspective that wanting to “be seen” is a completely natural and healthy part of being human. It goes to show how powerful new perspectives are (especially in therapy) for revealing and demystifying our shame and dogma. Now I’m using self-compassion to learn to love the part of me that (for better or worse) desires to be seen. Though it seems paradoxical, I’m starting to think that the best way to positively change and grow is actually through radical self-acceptance!
