Feeling Bad about Who We Are- Healing Shame

For the Beauty of the Earth Painting by Addie Hirschten

I once had a therapist, the late Pat Sheehan, who was a brilliant and lovely woman. I remember her saying something to me that stuck and made it so easy for me to spot and understand shame. She said, “Shame is feeling bad about who we are”. I like to think of it this way as well, shame is the feeling that something is inherently wrong with us, that we are somehow bad on the inside. I remember feeling this way. I also run into this a LOT when working with people. I recently had a session with a client who said she had known that she needed to get help for a long time, but was so afraid of saying something out loud and being judged, that it prevented her from getting the help she needed sooner. I’m positive she is not alone in this. Yet, it is in silence that shame lives in, not by speaking it. Silence locks shame into place and helps it grow until it becomes all-consuming. Speaking the thing in which we are terrified to speak, is like a key that unlocks the door to shame, giving it freedom to leave. What I know to be true in doing my shame-busting work, is that every time I have said something into a safe and therapeutic container, such as a counseling session, it has felt like relief. I see this in my clients as well. Relief. Relief there is no judgment. Relief that it is not as bad as it seems. Relief that there is freedom in letting go of it. If you feel like you are holding something in, find someone, a safe person to let it out to. In the words of John Mayer, “Say what you need to say”.

Sometimes the thing that we spend our whole lives trying to bury and protect ourselves from is the very thing that will set us free and has the potential to unlock our creativity.