JUICY STUFF TODAY - I AM NOW OFFICIALLY OBSESSED WITH EXAMINING MY OWN THOUGHT PATTERNS AND NO LONGER A PRISONER TO MY OWN SHAME
thank you to my therapist, friends, journal, inability to give af anymore + monthly meetings with a mentor - I have finally stopped running from myself.
I come bearing great news - you can actually work through your shame (If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear. vibes)
pisces, the season of feeling began last week, closing out our astrological year —
each year I feel more fervently that the year doesn’t really begin until spring with Aries season. after all, we’re feeling the energetic shifts constantly, so- being planetarily attuned makes more sense to me. furthermore, as I grow in my capacity to be present to my own body and spirit - I am beginning to deepen my understanding that there really is no timing but our own timing.
we are in life school if we so choose to see it that way -
alternatively titled, am I making a case for simulation theory?
it’s become increasingly clear to me that we can’t “run away” from our problems. they will come to us through different people and circumstances and surround us until we learn through them.
if something needs your attention, if something is triggering you, you can put it on hold for a while, but the call is going to keep coming. THIS IS MY LIVED EXPERIENCE IF THAT ISN’T CLEAR.
BUT HERE IS THE COOL THING - You are in school and around you in whatever lesson or layer you are in, are all the tools needed to break out - you just need to find them. the biggest jumps i’ve ever made in circumstances and lessons have come from the darkest times in my life - which for better are worse are asking to be talked about in public ! im a real 8th house energy kinda guy
the more I become and unbecome (disrobing from the masks of shame we’ve chosen to cloak ourselves with) - the fact that my job is life and life is my job is my number one priority above anything else - (basically the john dewey - “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself”) is indisputable at this point.
my greatest desire is to live my life from my heart - I no longer am driven to succeed so that people think I am cool or interesting because that’s literally pointless - achieving for benchmarks is devoid of meaning for me now (unsubscribing is quite a process tho) it’s been a wild battle and literally taken me more than a decade to get to this point - but i’m not here to convince you that i’m right - im just here to report on my lived experiences.
my life as life school became very clear to me during the pandemic; at the height of my marriage falling apart - god (yes, please respect my church girl roots) dropped in a literal angel into my life who spoke openly about what was going on in her life which allowed me to be honest about what was going on in my life.
as someone who’s default setting is diamond edition self-gaslighter - my usual game plan of ostrich-ing (squeezing my insides even tighter and substancing out) couldn’t operate with her bracing honesty. I was so struck by how much she had her own back that I was like, woah, wait, I can do this too! I had been doing enough self-work at this point that I was equipped and able to meet this moment (but let me be clear, my hair had already fallen out a little bit in secret patches from my denial that my marriage wasn’t working)
my home training that i’ve been fighting my way out of was to consistently paint a picture that everything was hunky dunky on the homefront (my best acting to date is acting like I was even remotely okay from the years 2003-20161) and I would dog in a burning room2 for WAY LONGER THAN NEEDED because I can withstand hotter than hades internal temperatures due to conservative christian programming (and so many other things that I don’t feel the need to catalog atm)
LET’S DISPEL A MYTH RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW-
IF YOUR LIFE IS FALLING APART THAT ACTUALLY IS A NEUTRAL EXPERIENCE.
I have been through enough chaos to understand this now. When something breaks apart, let it. Allow spirit to move through you. When I’ve resisted what is happening around me, I am more than likely prolonging my suffering.
shame is one gnarly lil guy - frequently, its held me hostage. with my divorce, I was so embarrassed to admit my marriage needed to end because it had kind of just started and I was deeply fearful of the judgement of “failing” at marriage. what did this mean about me? I promise you though, people saying “yeah I told you so” is the least of your problems compared with trying to save a situation that is untenable. Why would I even consider staying in a situation where I am not being served ??
Do you want to be happy or control perception? you cannot do both.
If someone breaks up with you, you hate your job, you get divorced, whatever it is - are people gonna gossip about it? honestly, yes. but who cares. seriously. who cares!!!!
when we talk about other people - it is never really about the other person. we’re working out our perceptions and values and speculating on what we would have done in that situation. the court of public opinion doesn’t have to be a reason to not live your life. denial will literally get you nowhere. and sit in denial??? NO OMG - WE’VE GOT TO STOP PUTTING SO MUCH MEANING ON THINGS.
A breakup doesn’t mean you are broken. Losing your job or not getting a promotion doesn’t mean you are worthless, you just aren’t in the right place anymore, so it’s time to look around and see what clues are happening outside of you.
oh man, we’re really going here today, but I can’t stop myself - when I was a teacher and a parent would blow up at their kid (or me) in parent teacher conferences I was always so bummed out - because the point of conferences isn’t to hear that your kid is perfect - it is to get to understand how they learn and help guide them in their life as they learn to navigate their skills and likes + dislikes. (I’ve been out of teaching for so long that I would be open to starting a super experimental school - for those of you who are interested in this information)
the point of life FOR ME is to engage with MY spirit so deeply (so right angle coded) that I can just allow the ride to take me
while deeply uncomfortable to move into - if you do it enough it becomes clear- our job is to go to life school and stay the course to the best of our ability.
I want to be clear that life school isn’t the same as prosperity gospel. when you align with your body and spirit and soul you will be spiritually fulfilled- but I cannot guarantee safety or riches
What I can tell you is that it is freeing to move into a new level where I am more centered in my truth - I can no longer tailor myself for the court of public opinion. I can’t. I won’t. the cost is too high. I finally get it when people say what someone else thinks of me is none of my business.
For me as someone who has dealt with chronic shame - seeing life as life school has helped me live my life with more detachment (in a good way) because with this detached view I can see the tools that are surrounding me at any given moment. and I promise you, there’s something or one(s) that is waiting in the wings, ready to help you along your path. Back to my divorce, as I opened up to my community about what was happening and what I needed, I was met with such generosity and love. Friends and strangers opened their homes and hearts to me and what was an extremely painful chapter is also one of my most beautiful because of the outpouring of love and support I got from my community.
When I hold too tightly to my expectations and perceptions, I have to keep playing the same level again - experiencing the same patterns through different people and places.
Push through the shame - because on the other side is your life.
thanks for being here - as always, if you want to work with me 1:1 book here - and just so you are in the loop, I’m raising my rates 3.1.25 (i’ve held them steady for the last 5 years)
my subscribers have grown recently so I wanted to circle back and include in the piece below that I wrote on shame last February - keep reading it read in its entirety
SOMEONE QUICK, CALL GOOD WILL HUNTING BECAUSE I NEED SOME HELP WITH THIS EQUATION
SUNK COST FALLACY = EGO + BEING COMPLETELY UNMOORED AT THE THOUGHT OF WHAT ELSE WOULD I DO WITH MY TIME AND ENERGY IF I WASN’T DOING X?
YES MY LITTLE POUND PUPPIES, SUNK COST FALLACY RIDES AGAIN!
How Do We Change Course when we’ve been investing in a strategy that doesn’t serve? And can we blame the word of God?
ALL THIS AND MORE ON THIS SPECIAL LEAP DAY EDITION!
As we discussed in my last missive (about the 5 of Cups linked below) my natural programming is to be a victim of the past.
MY SAFE SPACE? Haunting my mistakes like a lil victorian child ghost. Just holding myself hostage to my cruelest thoughts, sending myself to the depths of hell of my own design.
As I’ve been unpacking my shame spirals ^ see above newsletter, lol - I’ve realized how insidious my shame is, even as I begin to unpack it, I feel embarrassed about my perfectionism, about the shame, about the self-sabotaging. Why is this happening to me? I must be… and I’m like OH MY GOD NOT TODAY SATAN, THIS IS HOW IT BEGINS.
I am not watching the new season of True Detective…
but from a podcast I listen to - I’ve heard that Jodi Foster’s character is constantly terrorizing her colleagues with the phrase“wrong question!!” NEEDLING THEM TO SEE EVIDENCE STRINGING TOGETHER IN A NEW WAY (AGAIN, MY CONJECTURE BECAUSE I HAVE NOT WATCHED THIS SHOW)3
WRONG QUESTION?
That struck me in the case of clearing out shame. Perhaps the question isn’t WHY IS THIS MY BELIEF 😩😩😩 but instead is WHAT IS THE BELIEF 🤔🤔🤔
Why is it that instead of happily integrating new information when faced with new solutions and new information - I am flooded with shame for not knowing?
As I have been meditating on this; prodding around asking, where did this come from? Why am I so afraid to make mistakes, to be wrong? I was led directly to my Christian past…
ORIGINAL SIN, HOW ABOUT ORIGINAL TRAUMA?? Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimized by the Bible!
it starts with the story of Adam and Eve.
YOU MIGHT THINK I AM JOKING BUT I AM NOT.
For those of us who grew up in the Christian faith, this is canon - which means it’s so deeply engrained our brain training that we don’t even realize it is there.
I LOVE STATING THE OBVIOUS, but I think like This is Water by David Foster Wallace, looking at the obvious is incredibly potent and brings out powerful insights.
When we’re retraining our brain we’re looking for stories and limiting beliefs that we’re bumping up against, that are governing our behavior.
And if you are a woman who grew up in the church then take a good look at this FUNDAMENTAL STORY AND TEACHING, where women implicitly and explicitly learn that our MERE existence is shameful, that our existence is less than men, and that making a mistake leads to catastrophic consequences…
Does that give you compassion for yourself when you get flooded by paralyzing shame at the thought of looking at how you’ve maybe made a mistake?
When Eves takes a bite from the apple and realizes she naked, what if instead of learning that God was angry at them for not listening and banishing them eternally, God was like, hey, what did you learn from doing something I told you not to do? [Side note - Should we do an iconic Bible story re-imagining with God as a Gentle Parent?]
Growing up, I absorbed the message that when you make a mistake it makes YOU bad (SEE THE BIBLE, SEE OUR CULTURE, SEE MANY THINGS THAT SHAPE OUR EXPERIENCE TO INTERNALIZE THIS FEELING)
the funny thing I’m realizing as a allow myself to sit in the discomfort of examining my thoughts and beliefs and behaviors is seeing that shame is a shapeshifter, it begets more of itself.
Shame doesn’t cancel out shame and yet so often we serve ourselves more and more helpings thinking it will somehow DO SOMETHING ELSE.
SHAME IS GOOD FOR ONE THING AND ITS BEING STUCK
If I think I have done something shameful, then the pile-on begins. I am bad. I am embarrassing… I am unworthy…the list goes on.
Shame is paralyzing. Shame renders me unable to cope. It keeps me from looking at and having compassion for making “mistakes,” that aren't even really mistakes, but are just a part of the growth cycle.
Sunk Cost FALLACY is a FALLACY because of SHIFTY OLE Shame
Shame makes us think we can’t change, that we’re not good enough to change, that we must stay in a pit of our own making. I do want to wander down a religion is mind-and-power control, but I don’t have the energy for that, but you can do the mental math and get where I’m going.
THE ANTI-DOTE TO SHAME IS LOOKING. AND I MEAN REALLY LOOKING.
The thing about shame though, is that in my experience, it is only dissolved through love and compassion.
Our eyes see what our brain thinks they should see and SHAME IS A POWERFUL TOOL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST SEEING. It is the ego protecting itself. the ego wants to keep the charade up as long as possible because stopping and admitting to working on a broken program? It feels awkward, it feels embarrassing, it feels painful.
Shame melts away when we look without judgement. When we sit through the flooding of shame to be with ourselves in the reality of the present moment.
Really seeing is being vulnerable, compassionate.
We all have a lens we look through. We can call it conditioning, we can call it a belief system - but our mind is trained to see things a particular way. We can move out of that training when we sit with the discomfort of, what if I am wrong?
Instead of saying, I AM WRONG, I AM SO STUPID (lament, shame) we could ask the question gently, what if I am wrong? (love and compassion version) (thanks Jodi4)
As a former classroom teacher and education graduate student - I have the literal research and first hand experience to tell you that growth and learning can only happen in an environment that is supportive.
Children cannot bloom through shame. Guess what mf’ers that goes for us adults too. I’d fish out my graduate thesis to find the studies but that was a long time ago and I am very tired, but here’s the summary of my work - in order for learning to happen, children must first be in a safe and warm environment - WHY WOULD WE THINK WE’D BE ANY DIFFERENT AS WE ARE JUST BIG CHILDREN!!!
If you are still stuck in Adam and Eve black and white shame thinking brain - because that is what was imprinted on you as a child, we’re going to take away the blame. Our original beliefs are not our fault.
Growth is facing yourself, looking at the flaws in our thinking, seeing how our little minds brought us to this point AND LOVINGLY CHOOSING DIFFERENTLY FOR YOURSELF.
as always, more to come
I love you all.
LOL im not sure if I am kidding or not at this point
otherwise known as actively avoiding the reality that my life was falling apart
(if you know me than you know that speaking about media i’ve never consumed is my passion)
see extended true detective bit above