Occasionally I'll be scrolling social media and see a post that says "we need to bring shame back." And oooohhhhhhh at first I would get my hackles up. I'd think about all the clients I work with where shame is a visceral experience that hits them in the chest like a wrecking ball swinging from a crane. Or drags them underwater like a monster from the depths and doesn't let go.
Protective mama bear would roar to the forefront and want to rip into the opinion that shame needs to be "brought back."
But then I would soften and think, actually, I understand the sentiment. There is a lot of online behavior that could use a good dose of reflection. But is shame how we get there?
Because the energetic reality is: shame never left. It internalized and then it warped.
Have you ever seen pictures of an oil spill? Or washed a greasy pan in a sink of water that's not quite soapy enough? Next thing you know, you're merely smearing around grease and not actually cleaning anything?
That's what it looks like when shame is present in our Organ Realm (where it's first available for embodiment). But instead of oil and water not mixing, it's emotions and shame.
Once it’s embodied as an oily impenetrable energy, we don’t feel shame in a clear way.
What once would have caused us to reflect and look critically at our actions or words and feel remorse, is now a fun-house mirror inside of our bodies. We numb to it, because the emotions that bounce around are so distorted we can’t feel them properly.
Shame is no longer an external mirror, but a falsified internal state of being. There’s no place for accurate reflection.
We don’t feel ashamed, we become shame, we are the shaming witness, and from that place we can’t take meaningful action to change our behavior...because we think we are the behavior.
Therefore, it will always be my stance that shaming someone who has embodied shame is ineffective. I'd even go so far as to say it's harmful.
However, once you've
- worked with shame,
- found where it lives in your body and energy, and
- yeeted it back to the Origin, where it can no longer exist in that form
You can enter into a new relationship with shame
One where shame isn't presenting you a distorted version of "who you are" (or who the shaming witness wants you to think you are), but one where you can see a more authentic reflection of yourself in the situation.
But before we can do that, we have to understand where we carry it.
I'd like to invite you to place a hand on your chest and one on your belly, in close relationship to your Organ Realm. Take a couple of breaths and ask: 'Where does shame live in me right now?'
Notice without judgment how it feels to ask that question. Observe the first response that pops to your mind or heart.
You don't have to take it any farther than that, but if you want to, surround that space with a bubble of love.
In conspiracy with your soma,
Ash
For further reading on shame:
An energetic exploration of shame
Why shame enters at the Organ Realm
Threads of the times I've talked about shame