This vulnerability and honesty about the deep secret so many of us carry is phenomenally powerful. Amazing work here, digging through the trenches of the soul to bring to light the things buried there. Shame is never just personal--it's a perversion of the human spirit that's been passed down through the ages. When we can bring awareness to it and clear it from the body, I dream that we are clearing it from this world.
Love this, Allysha! What I have been getting is I don't need to kill the messenger, that being shame. I need to clear the message. That message being exactly what you said, "a perversion of the human spirit that's been passed down through the ages." Call it the patriarchy, the corporate mind-f**k, etc. Seeing behind the veil of these distortions and corruptions is what helps me empty it out of my system. And yes, I too believe that when one person does this work, it supports the collective whole!
I’m listening to the book “Sand Talk” about indigenous wisdom for the modern age, and it really shows that there may once have been an important role for shame—helping people to find their place in the tribe and be contributing members of society. But the shaming behaviors elders directed towards youths were held in the sacred container of village where the value of the person was never in question. Instead of being tied to self-worth, shame was tied to actions in a way that led to healthier choices. Somewhere in the history of humanity, the whole picture got muddled and we forgot that a person can never be bad.
Interesting that you bring this up Allysha! As I was researching Aedos I read something similar around indigenous tribes and how they used shame. Fascinating! I had always assumed shame was equated with self-worth. Obviously because of our current cultures use of it and how it has been ingrained over time. Yet here I am learning that shame was not originally used that way. Quite healing actually!
Thank you! This is so powerful. Shame holds so many people back. When you wrestle with it, as I have done, trying to be victorious only leads to dead ends. Inviting it to sit at your inner table is how you learn to work with its valuable teachings. ❤️
You're absolutely right! When I try to push it down and get on top of it, it only wrestles me into a pinned position. It really is about inviting shame to my table. Kindness does wonders. ❤
When shame comes up for me, it's usually because an old wound has been activated and one of my inner children needs soothing. I have carried, and still do carry, a deep fear of Judgment and Punishment. It's nowhere near as vast as it once was, thanks to lots of Shadow work! I listen to the story shame tells me, then I rewrite it, and that usually helps. I have rituals I can turn to when it doesn't work.
Yes, to the shadow work, that has been my journey too. Not an easy one, but fruitful none the less! The important thing for me was to see was how I kept the shame going by believing the lies and then retelling them to myself. YUCK!!! Then that supported me into looking at the origin of these messages. Now that has been a rabbit hole!
Victoria, I love that you rewrite the stories that shame tells you and that you have ritual as a backup. I do the same thing, powerful medicine here!
I love this one, Julie! So deeply relational. I remember reading once that shame is like a dart that we throw into an already painful or uncomfortable situation. But then if we shame the shame, we just keep throwing darts at it. Your process for accepting and embracing all of it, including the shame is so perfect. Thank you so much for sharing all this wisdom! ❤️
Thanks Jenna, Wow that analogy with the darts, describes shame really well. And why I came around to the importance of truly meeting shame as it is, to bear witness, and find the "upsides" that it offers. Definitely a work in progress, but just in the simple movement of turning towards shifted so much! Much love to you Jenna! ❤️
Thank you for sharing what Shame means to you and thank you for sharing your prayer, the one that you say at the altar in the mornings...that is so powerful. I feel that there would be a positive sense of change in the air if we all were able to acknowledge the All of Us at our Table. Thank you dearest Julie.
Thanks Sam! It was an empowering piece to write. An alchemy that transmuted my inner landscape. It brought this practice into a lived reality. Not that it wasn't before, the gift was that it went deeper and wider. And my whole view on shame changed, I am much more gentler with myself because of it. Thanks for your loving words here, I so appreciate the mirror you provide and the support you so generously give! Deep love to you Sam! ❤
This is so interesting Julie, that deep dive into shame brings so much insight, but it's a journey that we rarely want to venture on. There is so much to bring courage and support here allowing ourselves to be open to what comes through and hold ourselves in that space. How beautiful and rich that makes this part of us. An opportunity to see shame in a completely different light.
You hit it right on the nose Louise! It is a journey we rarely want to venture on. It is fascinating to me to see at times I would rather have the quick fix than meet the hardship, shadow or dysfunctional pattern. Even though the quick fix prolongs it. Funny about that! I am really glad to have gone on this deep dive with shame. I am forever changed by it. Is the shame gone? Nope. But my relationship and how I see it is not the same. I am less reactive and more curious.
Ahhhh…shame. Closely linked to my perceived self-failure when I am feeling at my worst. I have not yet done this work, but I always dance around its edges. A lot to think about.
I get it! Shame for me has been the hardest to meet and work with. Still working it. Yet with that said, it does feels like huge strides have been made recently. Which I am completely grateful for.
Thanks Prajna! Moving away from our current cultures association with shame through self-worth and overuse of it as a means of degradation, has been mind blowing and opening! Seeing how shame was used and understand in older, even ancient times more as a tool for ethical behavior. Not as an indicator of being a bad person, has really shifted my perspective. Just another layer removed... I don't need to kill the messenger (shame), just the message.
Julie, this was timely (as usual!) - welcoming all parts is such big medicine. I have been musing a lot recently about welcoming parts of me that I didn't realize I was keeping at hands-length, definitely including shame. I appreciate your words and perspective.
Thanks Emma! Yes, big medicine! This has been a very powerful practice for me. I am taken by how the words that come out of me shift the focus to what I need to see. Opening new gateways in my being that expose what I did not even know I had excluded. Hard to see at times, yet in that inclusion there is an incredible beauty. ❤️
Julie- I haven’t learned about Aidos and so this is a refreshing find. You beautifully weaving difficult topics like shame makes this find all the worthwhile.
Thanks so much Thalia! I did not know about Aedos either. And exploring her and her message really brought me a greater perspective, a medicine I didn't know I needed!
Thank you for writing this. Shame is a hard one for me too… it’s one of those emotions that I can feel there is wisdom on the other side of it, but I’m so caught up in the fog of it that I can’t make out what the wisdom is. This post was a beautiful reminder that shame is a teacher too, and we can choose to work with it in a way that ultimately leads to us to stepping more into our fullness. 🙏❤️
Thanks Rhianna! Yes, that fog that obscures the way. I relate to that! The haze that covers the deeper truth of our inherent gifts of love, intuition and strength. A veiling of our true nature and the intention of those that shame. For me that is our over-culture as the patriarchy, keeping women in "their place". I have done a lot of deep inner work around this wound and the resulting messages. Examining how I participate and keep it going. Writing this essay and exploring Aedos helped me look beyond shame as the messenger to the one who actually created the message. Gaining that greater perspective and seeing that shame was not to blame really helped me. Blessings on your journey, Rhianna! ❤️
Thank you for your thoughtful response Julie. Yes, the patriarchal wound of “keeping women in their place” runs deep, and is something that has been brought to the surface for me lately. I also appreciate you talking about how you’ve participated and kept it going as well … it’s so engrained in our psyche, in our subconscious, that we internally override our feminine intuition, sensitivity, and love. At least I have noticed that is how I continue the over-culture of the patriarchy within myself, among other things as well. There so many layers to this conversation haha I feel it’s hard to capture in a simple paragraph! ❤️🙏
Shame is a big one for me too. For me, it’s been deeply rooted in motherhood and being wrong for who I am. Thank you for sharing the upsides of shame, while I find myself highly resistant to acknowledging them for myself right now, I know it’s the path I’m on. For now, shame is something I breathe through as it rises and I remind myself I am whole just as I am. 🌹 Beautiful post 💜
With you Alysia! "Being wrong for who I am" is the core for me too. Like something is inherently off, being defective in some way. For this there is no upside! Only to declare the greater truth and debunk the lies. Our culture does a thorough job at cheapening and degrading women. This is not okay. With that said, exploring the upside of shame and listening to what Aedos had to say, shifted something in me. I still need to work on the lies, but now I see how shame was capitalized on, used to humiliate women and keep them subservient. This is an extreme and unhealthy use of shame. Shame of itself is not bad, I truly understand its place now. I was focusing on the messenger instead of the over-culture and patriarchy that created the message!
This is such a powerful shift! I’d never considered it this way, but that makes so much sense. The healing deepens and continues 🔥 It helps to know others have that same “defective” feeling about who they are, and it’s not just me. We are doing the clearing now!
This vulnerability and honesty about the deep secret so many of us carry is phenomenally powerful. Amazing work here, digging through the trenches of the soul to bring to light the things buried there. Shame is never just personal--it's a perversion of the human spirit that's been passed down through the ages. When we can bring awareness to it and clear it from the body, I dream that we are clearing it from this world.
Love this, Allysha! What I have been getting is I don't need to kill the messenger, that being shame. I need to clear the message. That message being exactly what you said, "a perversion of the human spirit that's been passed down through the ages." Call it the patriarchy, the corporate mind-f**k, etc. Seeing behind the veil of these distortions and corruptions is what helps me empty it out of my system. And yes, I too believe that when one person does this work, it supports the collective whole!
I’m listening to the book “Sand Talk” about indigenous wisdom for the modern age, and it really shows that there may once have been an important role for shame—helping people to find their place in the tribe and be contributing members of society. But the shaming behaviors elders directed towards youths were held in the sacred container of village where the value of the person was never in question. Instead of being tied to self-worth, shame was tied to actions in a way that led to healthier choices. Somewhere in the history of humanity, the whole picture got muddled and we forgot that a person can never be bad.
Interesting that you bring this up Allysha! As I was researching Aedos I read something similar around indigenous tribes and how they used shame. Fascinating! I had always assumed shame was equated with self-worth. Obviously because of our current cultures use of it and how it has been ingrained over time. Yet here I am learning that shame was not originally used that way. Quite healing actually!
Thank you! This is so powerful. Shame holds so many people back. When you wrestle with it, as I have done, trying to be victorious only leads to dead ends. Inviting it to sit at your inner table is how you learn to work with its valuable teachings. ❤️
You're absolutely right! When I try to push it down and get on top of it, it only wrestles me into a pinned position. It really is about inviting shame to my table. Kindness does wonders. ❤
When shame comes up for me, it's usually because an old wound has been activated and one of my inner children needs soothing. I have carried, and still do carry, a deep fear of Judgment and Punishment. It's nowhere near as vast as it once was, thanks to lots of Shadow work! I listen to the story shame tells me, then I rewrite it, and that usually helps. I have rituals I can turn to when it doesn't work.
Yes, to the shadow work, that has been my journey too. Not an easy one, but fruitful none the less! The important thing for me was to see was how I kept the shame going by believing the lies and then retelling them to myself. YUCK!!! Then that supported me into looking at the origin of these messages. Now that has been a rabbit hole!
Victoria, I love that you rewrite the stories that shame tells you and that you have ritual as a backup. I do the same thing, powerful medicine here!
I love this one, Julie! So deeply relational. I remember reading once that shame is like a dart that we throw into an already painful or uncomfortable situation. But then if we shame the shame, we just keep throwing darts at it. Your process for accepting and embracing all of it, including the shame is so perfect. Thank you so much for sharing all this wisdom! ❤️
Thanks Jenna, Wow that analogy with the darts, describes shame really well. And why I came around to the importance of truly meeting shame as it is, to bear witness, and find the "upsides" that it offers. Definitely a work in progress, but just in the simple movement of turning towards shifted so much! Much love to you Jenna! ❤️
Such power and vulnerability in your words,
Such acceptance and gentleness
Such courage and empowerment.
Thank you for sharing what Shame means to you and thank you for sharing your prayer, the one that you say at the altar in the mornings...that is so powerful. I feel that there would be a positive sense of change in the air if we all were able to acknowledge the All of Us at our Table. Thank you dearest Julie.
Thanks Sam! It was an empowering piece to write. An alchemy that transmuted my inner landscape. It brought this practice into a lived reality. Not that it wasn't before, the gift was that it went deeper and wider. And my whole view on shame changed, I am much more gentler with myself because of it. Thanks for your loving words here, I so appreciate the mirror you provide and the support you so generously give! Deep love to you Sam! ❤
This is so interesting Julie, that deep dive into shame brings so much insight, but it's a journey that we rarely want to venture on. There is so much to bring courage and support here allowing ourselves to be open to what comes through and hold ourselves in that space. How beautiful and rich that makes this part of us. An opportunity to see shame in a completely different light.
You hit it right on the nose Louise! It is a journey we rarely want to venture on. It is fascinating to me to see at times I would rather have the quick fix than meet the hardship, shadow or dysfunctional pattern. Even though the quick fix prolongs it. Funny about that! I am really glad to have gone on this deep dive with shame. I am forever changed by it. Is the shame gone? Nope. But my relationship and how I see it is not the same. I am less reactive and more curious.
Ahhhh…shame. Closely linked to my perceived self-failure when I am feeling at my worst. I have not yet done this work, but I always dance around its edges. A lot to think about.
I get it! Shame for me has been the hardest to meet and work with. Still working it. Yet with that said, it does feels like huge strides have been made recently. Which I am completely grateful for.
Love this and befriending the puppy shame, gotta throw her a bone
She’s always drooling to chomp…
Well done
🌹👺💙
Thanks Prajna! Moving away from our current cultures association with shame through self-worth and overuse of it as a means of degradation, has been mind blowing and opening! Seeing how shame was used and understand in older, even ancient times more as a tool for ethical behavior. Not as an indicator of being a bad person, has really shifted my perspective. Just another layer removed... I don't need to kill the messenger (shame), just the message.
Julie, this was timely (as usual!) - welcoming all parts is such big medicine. I have been musing a lot recently about welcoming parts of me that I didn't realize I was keeping at hands-length, definitely including shame. I appreciate your words and perspective.
Thanks Emma! Yes, big medicine! This has been a very powerful practice for me. I am taken by how the words that come out of me shift the focus to what I need to see. Opening new gateways in my being that expose what I did not even know I had excluded. Hard to see at times, yet in that inclusion there is an incredible beauty. ❤️
Julie- I haven’t learned about Aidos and so this is a refreshing find. You beautifully weaving difficult topics like shame makes this find all the worthwhile.
Thanks so much Thalia! I did not know about Aedos either. And exploring her and her message really brought me a greater perspective, a medicine I didn't know I needed!
Thank you for writing this. Shame is a hard one for me too… it’s one of those emotions that I can feel there is wisdom on the other side of it, but I’m so caught up in the fog of it that I can’t make out what the wisdom is. This post was a beautiful reminder that shame is a teacher too, and we can choose to work with it in a way that ultimately leads to us to stepping more into our fullness. 🙏❤️
Thanks Rhianna! Yes, that fog that obscures the way. I relate to that! The haze that covers the deeper truth of our inherent gifts of love, intuition and strength. A veiling of our true nature and the intention of those that shame. For me that is our over-culture as the patriarchy, keeping women in "their place". I have done a lot of deep inner work around this wound and the resulting messages. Examining how I participate and keep it going. Writing this essay and exploring Aedos helped me look beyond shame as the messenger to the one who actually created the message. Gaining that greater perspective and seeing that shame was not to blame really helped me. Blessings on your journey, Rhianna! ❤️
Thank you for your thoughtful response Julie. Yes, the patriarchal wound of “keeping women in their place” runs deep, and is something that has been brought to the surface for me lately. I also appreciate you talking about how you’ve participated and kept it going as well … it’s so engrained in our psyche, in our subconscious, that we internally override our feminine intuition, sensitivity, and love. At least I have noticed that is how I continue the over-culture of the patriarchy within myself, among other things as well. There so many layers to this conversation haha I feel it’s hard to capture in a simple paragraph! ❤️🙏
Agree, soooo many layers! ❤
Shame is a big one for me too. For me, it’s been deeply rooted in motherhood and being wrong for who I am. Thank you for sharing the upsides of shame, while I find myself highly resistant to acknowledging them for myself right now, I know it’s the path I’m on. For now, shame is something I breathe through as it rises and I remind myself I am whole just as I am. 🌹 Beautiful post 💜
With you Alysia! "Being wrong for who I am" is the core for me too. Like something is inherently off, being defective in some way. For this there is no upside! Only to declare the greater truth and debunk the lies. Our culture does a thorough job at cheapening and degrading women. This is not okay. With that said, exploring the upside of shame and listening to what Aedos had to say, shifted something in me. I still need to work on the lies, but now I see how shame was capitalized on, used to humiliate women and keep them subservient. This is an extreme and unhealthy use of shame. Shame of itself is not bad, I truly understand its place now. I was focusing on the messenger instead of the over-culture and patriarchy that created the message!
This is such a powerful shift! I’d never considered it this way, but that makes so much sense. The healing deepens and continues 🔥 It helps to know others have that same “defective” feeling about who they are, and it’s not just me. We are doing the clearing now!