Shame ;; - Blog Posts
"No one who dies here ever really dies."
I really need this today!
Please give me ideas or ask questions.
I don’t know what was more emberassing. Being disciplined to tears by my White Bull in front of my husband or that my husband watched with his little hard on leaking until he was allowed to stroke himself off.
Not to be a pessimist, but can we??? Get a new writer on Uncanny? Please and thank you?
Each in the pants of the other- from episode 6
Denials.
Listen, all you folks out there with AvPD: you’re amazing.
Every day, against all odds, you show up on my dash.
You live in a world that has taught you to feel unwanted, defective, unseen. But you keep on existing anyway.
You’re all warriors. And you are beautifully fierce.
Don’t listen to the voices – those around you, or within you – that say you’re weak or incapable. You aren’t. Because every single day, you are here, fighting and winning. Even in the moments that feel empty and unnameable, you are learning and growing and gathering strength.
I see you collecting these little things that feed your soul. Assembling the tools you need, for the hard work of staying alive and being well.
You are astonishing, and brave, and powerful. Someday, you’ll carve out a life where you can finally become yourself.
You are real. You matter. And you’re not alone.
Not that anybody asked, but I think it's important to understand how shame and guilt actually work before you try to use it for good.
It's a necessary emotion. There are reasons we have it. It makes everything so. much. worse. when you use it wrong.
Shame and guilt are DE-motivators. They are meant to stop behavior, not promote it. You cannot, ever, in any meaningful way, guilt someone into doing good. You can only shame them into not doing bad.
Let's say you're a parent and your kid is having issues.
Swearing in class? Shame could work. You want them to stop it. Keep it in proportion*, and it might help. *(KEEP IT IN PROPORTION!!!)
Not doing their homework? NO! STOP! NO NOT DO THAT! EVER! EVER! EVER! You want them to start to do their homework. Shaming them will have to opposite effect! You have demotivated them! They will double down on NOT doing it. Not because they are being oppositional, but because that's what shame does!
You can't guilt people into building better habits, being more successful, or getting more involved. That requires encouragement. You need to motivate for that stuff!
If you want it in a simple phrase:
You can shame someone out of being a bad person, but you can't shame them into being a good person.
Know Thyself 🌀
I'm not your critic,
not your gaping wounds of the past.
I'm not your reactions
they tell your stories.
I'm not your fear
of losing yourself.
I'm not your shame & hate
for being yourself.
I'm not your fear
of intimacy.
I'm not the mirror
you mistake me for.
Thats the mirror
of yourself.
Hidden behind a mirror
Ridden with shame and fear
Performing for the world
What you think they want to see
Denying that you're lovable
In self hate and doubt
Running away in anticipation
But wishing that you'd get found
I'm torn between trust and mistrust
And the thought of my betrayal of you
Fills me with guilt, shame and disgust.
I'm so sorry that I hurt you bad and
I wish I wouldn't have done that to you
So I tear my heart apart in deep regret.
Glances
I despise
Entering the stage
As I'd be a kind
Of tragical disgrace
Spots too bright
They melt my face
And I feel like
A tragic disgrace
Doesn't matter
which side I light
Cause the shadow
Remains behind
This is your reminder...
Guilt is temporary but shame lasts as long as you hold on to it. Be strong, grow, and gently let go.
Open up
It's important to me to show the people around me how I feel. Dropping the mask, putting me through to others. This is not an easy task and requires a lot of effort. Feelings of shame and worthlessness are spreading. Opening up to this vulnerability is unfamiliar.
— from Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
"[...] Revising the perceived sad ending of the entry, Geryon again borrows from “Red Meat,” this time its final fragment, writing, “All over the world the beautiful red breezes went on blowing hand/ in hand,” shifting away from self-centering and instead highlighting red’s continuance without him and its propensity for connection, despite Geryon’s own alienation. Redness is not exclusive to boys but can belong to breezes too."
— from Anne Carson: “Red Meat: Fragments of Stesichoros” by Kristi Maxwell
(via (Big Dutch - Mashup) Tyrese - Shame bw No New Friends - Poetic Justice - Video Dailymotion)
The Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1944–1947
Come with me girl, I'm taking you to the real thing
I’m thinking what would be worse for Lawrence to give to Dahlia
Taco Bell or Chipotle 🤔
I messed up some conversations today with very kind people and it makes me feel very sad, I was too self centered and didn't pay attention to their needs. I wanted to stop but couldn't because of the burn out... Sometimes when I feel pain I don't see others, and I am so sorry for that... I wish I could fix relationships i have ruined by not paying attention 😔
(via " Pastel Holographic Watercolor Sticker: Validating Fear, Normalizing Emotion" Bucket Hat for Sale by Queueka)
(via "Sheepy Rumination - but why?! " Magnet for Sale by Queueka)
(via " Pastel Holographic Watercolor Sticker: Acknowledging Shame, Embracing Self-Worth" Magnet for Sale by Queueka)
check into the hotel bella muerte
[“One of the very hardest things about preventing and ending violence is that most of our work isn’t really about getting someone to stop being violent. Most of the time, that’s not the heart of the thing. The even-more-rigorous struggle is to cultivate all of the awareness and skills that would have been necessary for the violence not to have happened in the first place.
Which is why, when we talk about violence, we always end up talking about everything: slavery, binary gender, the original disconnection of humans from the rest of life on this planet, and so on. Solving violence is rarely as much about the moment at hand as it is about everything else that preceded it.
Which is where shame comes in.
As a therapist who has spent the last decade working with movement folks who are survivors of intimate violence—as well as with many people who have caused harm—I see shame as one of the most pervasive, painful, and insidious barriers to our efforts to fulfill the aspirations of transformative justice.
In order to develop real responses to the myriad harms in our lives—or even the capacity to develop real responses—we need to understand shame and develop tools for working with it, individually and collectively.
(…) Shame is different than guilt. While guilt focuses on our behavior (“I did something bad”), shame creates an identity: “I am bad.” Shame keeps us stuck, isolated, and hiding. With no way to escape from the totality of our belief (“I just am wrong”), we may do some of the following:
hide what we feel is bad about ourselves and try hard to pass as “good.”
overcompensate in other parts of life through overwork, caretaking, or perfectionism to make up for whatever is “wrong” about us.
defend ourselves from any insinuation that we might have done wrong, attempt to rationalize, or justify our actions.
blame someone else, try to divert responsibility, or shift the focus onto another.
attack anyone who draws attention toward the source of our shame, try to have power by dominating or shaming others.
numb through self-harming use of alcohol, substances, food, sex, technology, and so on.
Most of us use all of these strategies in different moments. Overaccountability and underaccountability are two sides of the same coin: “I can’t stand how bad I feel and can’t imagine making it right (overaccountability) so I’m going to hide that it (whatever it is) even happened, or lie about it or blame someone else (underaccountability).”]
Nathan Shara, Facing Shame: From Saying Sorry to Doing Sorry, from Beyond Survival: Strategies and Stories From The Transformative Justice Movement