Transforming Shame
I came across this video on YouTube that illuminates our shame in a very tangible and real way.
The exercise asks you to close your eyes and to see what image/form your shame takes.
The volunteer in the video revealed that her shame took the form of an abandoned orphan baby on the side of the street. The volunteer herself had grown up without a mother and was an orphaned baby. In the video the volunteer shared that she was too ashamed to show love and appreciation because she felt undeserving of love herself.
When she was asked, “what do you want to do with the baby (your shame)?” She responded that she wanted to love it and express compassion towards it.
And that’s the antidote to all of our shame: COMPASSION.
Whenever somebody rejects you and you feel hurt you also reject that part of yourself. When you reject a part of yourself you are pushing a part of yourself away and therefore creating a fragmentation within. Instead of pushing aspects of yourself away and creating a fragmentation that only serves to perpetuate a fragmented and misaligned experience of life, a powerful solution is to close your eyes and imagine what form the rejected part of you (shame) takes.
When you see the form your shame takes it will be very revealing to you about what aspects of you are creating the most anxiety, fear, anger and discomfort in your life. For example, if you are suffering from social anxiety it is either because you don’t know who you are or you aren’t comfortable with who you are. Becoming more aware of your shame allows you to see all of yourself and once you are able to see all of yourself it is a lot easier to be accepting of yourself.
When I closed my eyes and imagined what my shame looked like I saw this little alien figure. At first I was sort of annoyed and put off by him. I felt ‘weird’ for having an alien within me. And that’s when it clicked for me.
I saw that the alien was actually a very big part of me that had been suppressed and shunned, to the point that now that I was looking right at him, I didn’t want anything to do with him.
My shame about having this alien within me had become so habituated and ingrained in my behaviors that I initially couldn’t see the magical and incredible parts of my inner alien (shame).
I was only able to see how my inner alien could bring me negative judgment and social isolation. I knew that the alien was a part of me that throughout my life I have been ashamed of revealing to others, because of a perceived necessity of social acceptance.
I’ve pushed my alien away from me time after time because I’ve felt like society would reject my alien or see me as an alien. I still to this day become ashamed of my alien and push it away when I can sense others becoming uneasy or uncomfortable with my alien.
That’s the primary fear that arises in my being to this day. I’m afraid others will see through me and see the alien within. And I’m so terrified that the alien will be discovered because then I’ll be seen as different and socially outcast.
When I looked closer at my alien I could see the sadness and innocence in his eyes. He was the one feeling ashamed and isolated. He has suffered so much at the expense of my unconscious beliefs and dishonest words and actions.
For these last couple of days I have been flooding my inner alien with compassion and love. I’ve been nurturing and opening to my inner alien. It has been about giving him the warmth and acceptance to feel safe to function within me in an honest and healthy way.
Whenever I start to feel the fear of judgment bubbling up within I know that it is just my inner alien feeling unsafe because of all the years I have rejected and pushed him away at the first sign of discomfort. Now I turn inward and say, “It’s okay, buddy. I’m here for you no matter what.”
I can’t express strongly enough to anyone reading this how life changing seeing your shame for what it really is can be….
