By Anika Khara
Shame, even that word makes us cringe. When we talk to people about their fears, they can freely admit surface level fears like height or spiders and sometimes even share deeply about fear of failure, or maybe pain. For some reason as a society, we are comfortable with fear and we talk about it as the big problem that we need to overcome but mention shame and everyone clams up. That tells me that we are on a hot trail to something deeper…
When you look at fear, we have fear of a physical consequence and fear of emotional consequence. Both include the fear of shame. If you lost your job, you’d have a physical consequence of losing income, not being able to afford your life but you’d also be fearful of the shame of letting down your family or self, shame from internal and external sources.
Shame isn’t only connected to fear, it is a deeply seeded operating system we use in our decision making. Can you say that you live totally and fully in your authenticity? Or are there parts of you that you hide or minimize? Why? Are you afraid of judgement, of not being accepted? Maybe its your own internal shame; the programming from our growing up that tells us parts of ourselves are bad, that pesky voice I mentioned earlier. Maybe it’s external shame, others or society telling you how to be and how not to be to avoid humiliation. Avoid humiliation, thats a main goal we are conditioned to live by, but why?
Shame is a parasitic monster sucking our life of joy, self-love and the ability to truly accept and celebrate others, too.
How can we move past this damaging habit? The first step is done! Awareness. Just reading this blog and considering how it applies to your experience means you are aware (at least a bit) of how shame affects you. Now, you can take action.
SHAMELESS
Don’t despair! This is something you can overcome. Self-care is a big topic and has been for the last decade, but I think its time we shift toward self-nurturing. Learning to care for our body and feelings is so important but let’s step into the deeper waters. Self-nurturing means finding the parts of yourself that are broken, hurt or discarded and loving them up. Imagine those parts of yourself like a little bird with a broken wing, wrap them in a blanket, hold them gently to you and give them empathy and care. The deeper layers of your self are in need of more than a face mask and strong boundaries.
We can transmute that shame by finding self-acceptance. Look at the parts of yourself you feel ashamed of, can you empathize? Accept your less-than-perfect self? It helps to remember that every single person harbors shame too, just like you. We need to start taking on self-nurturing and expressing it outwardly too. That person you judged, find a way to call your own bull and find something positive to say about them, then go inside of yourself and find the broken part that makes you want to project that judgement. And yes, have a solid cry.
This life is yours to live and your views are yours to form. Try questioning your view of right and wrong, good and bad, appropriate and shameful. You might just find some programming that you don’t agree with.
When you can get real and I mean REAL with yourself and feel all those pains and shames, you have the total opportunity to change your shame into acceptance and find that inner peace. Beyond inner peace, there is power! Power to know yourself fully, to not be running, hiding or covering up any parts of wonderfully made, you.
To be able to say “Hey! This is me! Unapologetically and SHAMELESSLY me! And I love me.” And when you can really feel that, you can give it to others too.
The Beauty Of Accepting Who You Are is not at all shameless, but coming out of our comfort zones takes a lot of power, not feeling ashamed of ourselves takes a lot of power, so Yes Empower Yourself and everyone around you and That Too Shamelessly….❤️❤️❤️
Love
Anika Khara 💖
Anika Khara 