Day 8 - How Shame Blocks Connection

In the last 24 hours, I’ve been deeply contemplating the reasons for and repercussions of shame and judgment. These experiences have the ability to grip humans so vehemently that we are robbed of the opportunity to share parts of our existence. The parts that feel that they are broken, damaged goods, wrong, bad, incomplete, crazy, strange…the things that make one believe that hiding and suffering alone is the only option. Shame facilitates disconnection, but not necessarily without reason. In another light, we might see that shame and the fear of judgment are protectors trying their best to keep us safe from any perceived external harm. Whether our perception is accurate is a very different story, and yet regardless of validity, there is likely a very good reason for what’s being experienced.

I like to say everyone is doing the best they can with the tools, skills, capacities, and life experiences they have and have had.

I’ve been actively doing my best to let others know what’s been happening for me as I’ve been navigating my own messy humanness, and it’s not come without the stories that I’ve had to overcome to squeak out the rawness of what seemed so very real to me in various moments. When shame and fear of judgment, or rather self-judgment, have felt all-consuming, it’s required me to remember that there are allies on my side who love and support me unconditionally. Sure these allies may be people, but I also speak of allies in the non-human world too. This process has also invited me to deepen my relationship with self-acceptance. For example, if I don’t accept myself, I’m more likely to need others to approve of another to be ok, which places my power in the hands of another. An unsustainable, unreliable, and wildly unsatisfying situation regardless of how I spin it. Continually outsourcing my power in this way impacts my ability to trust myself and listen to my inner wisdom, further feeding into the cycle. If I don’t accept what’s happening because of shame or fear of judgment, I may be less likely to share or fully have access to my experience. The more I accept who I am, the more I cultivate the ability to not require the approval of others to be myself. It is a life-changing practice of internal resourcing, which in turn redefines my approach to life to one of sustainability, empowerment, and authenticity. My precious energy is not spent micro or macro adjusting to be accepted by inherently unpredictable and unreliable sources. This is a pivotal and vital shift to grow through.

In the past when I did not have known allies nor tools, it’s been isolating, lonely, and painful to sit in my spirals with no foreseeable way out. Every time I’ve found myself in a hole, I’ve received the opportunity to practice reparenting myself. Reparenting has looked like summoning the courage to pick up the phone to ask for support, self-soothing, talking to myself out loud as if I was talking to a child (my inner child), moving my body to release stuck energy, sitting under a tree, immersing myself in Nature, practicing Mythosomatic Qigong, amongst many other things. It requires immense patience, compassion, and curiosity. It’s an active call to the mature parts of me that are capable of responding and showing up with more perspective and experience than the wounded or traumatized parts. With consistency from my ‘mature adult’, the ‘wounded child’ has the opportunity to cultivate a deeper trust and choose to heal. As I learn to embrace the spectrum and uniqueness of my humanness, the grips of potentially being judged cannot have the same type of hold on me. It would be amiss to not also recognize that it has required devotion and commitment to growth for me to develop the ‘mature adult’ that I have to call upon. If what I’ve shared above feels unfamiliar or hard to access, I strongly recommend getting professional support.

With the work I get to do in my coaching and facilitation, I see these moments where self-acceptance feels limited or nonexistent. Shame and fear of being judged or rejected are often mentioned and it is a profound experience to witness a person choosing to share after experiencing what I can only imagine as an internal battle with their demons and dragons. As I said before, there are really good reasons that shame and fear of being judged exist. Each moment that we reckon with shame and make whatever is happening explicit by sharing, we have the ability to heal in connection. If these parts stay unspoken, they have the power to continue to trap and disconnect you in some way. Trauma is a break of connection (whether that means body/self, other, family, community, etc) so we must choose to heal in connection.

Every single person on this planet is going through something you know absolutely nothing about. If I was to guess there are parts of them that say, “everyone else has this figured out except me, there must be something wrong with me.” And so it goes that the shame and fear of judgment block the ability for connection to occur. Despite the fact that what I may be struggling with could be something you could help with, and what you’re struggling with might be something I have plenty of resources within, when shame gets in the way neither of us has access to support and connect with one another. And so the vicious cycle continues.

When we place ourselves in present moment-based containers, like Circling and Authentic Connection, something rather miraculous occurs. One of the many things available is that they provide a context to take off the heavy armor that one often holds that blocks connection. It takes immense energy to block connection yet we are often not conscious of how much bandwidth we are actually investing. There’s no set agenda to get somewhere and magically experience healing, and yet time and time again this is just what seems to happen when we have structures in place that help us orient to connection, curiosity, and the present moment. By saying ‘yes’ to what is here right now (even if you don’t like it), a doorway to connection appears.

I spoke to a fire that feels lit within me a few days ago, and this certainly feels like more of it.

I’d love to hear from you if you’ve experienced Authentic Connection or Circling with me.

What are your thoughts about shame and connection?

The past is already gone;
the future is not yet here.
We only have the present moment.
If we miss the present moment,
we miss our appointment with life.

~Thich Nhat Hanh