For me, tears of Shame are about a feeling of disgrace, an embarrassment to others, and to myself. It is about humiliation and dishonor on some deep level of my heart where there is nothing left but a need for separation and severance, to hide out from myself and from others, so that I do not have to feel it…or risk annihilation—either self-annihilation, or being murdered by another for being so hopelessly flawed and unacceptable.
When Shame hits for me, it makes me want to turn inside out of myself, get beside myself so that I do not have to be present to feel it, let alone, to know about it. The pain of Shame is so great that it sucks the breath from my lungs and sends me to the depths of hell.
Shame feels like riding a bucking bronco—one that I often cannot even allow myself to know that I’m riding before I begin the dance of hiding, of defending myself from it, so that I do not have to experience it consciously.
Shame automatically goes underground in me.
Chocolate—and a lot of it, is usually my go-to drug to help me keep Shame out of my awareness.
What is the texture of Shame?
Shame is prickly, heavy, hot, overwhelmingly scratchy and rough. It feels bad. It feels wrong. It cuts me until I bleed at my very core.
Shame is prickly, heavy, hot, overwhelmingly scratchy and rough. It feels bad. It feels wrong. It cuts me until I bleed at my very core.
What does Shame smell like?
It smells acrid. It smells like burning flesh. It smells like death.
It smells acrid. It smells like burning flesh. It smells like death.
What is the shape of Shame?
The very first shape I see when I go into my inner-sight is that of a very heavy anvil, plummeting from on high, over a cliff and directly onto Wile E. Coyote’s head! The next shape I see is that of a beautiful spiral galaxy, with a huge black hole in the center, sucking up everything in its path into the vortex of a hell like no other.
The very first shape I see when I go into my inner-sight is that of a very heavy anvil, plummeting from on high, over a cliff and directly onto Wile E. Coyote’s head! The next shape I see is that of a beautiful spiral galaxy, with a huge black hole in the center, sucking up everything in its path into the vortex of a hell like no other.
How does Shame taste?
It tastes bitter, brackish, sour, toxic, down-right poisonous, ultimately fatal.
It tastes bitter, brackish, sour, toxic, down-right poisonous, ultimately fatal.
It brings with it a landslide of other emotions and feelings: Fear, Distrust, Judgment, and Pain.
What color is Shame?
The first flash of color I see is yellow—the yellow of cowardice. Perhaps this is because Shame brings me to a place of spinelessness, of fearfulness, of great weakness and despair. Ultimately, when I hang on for the Shame ride, there is blackness…darkness so pervasive that I cannot see anything beyond it. I do not want to see anything beyond it because the fear of it is so big. I only want it to go away.
Shame sucks the breath out of me, makes my skin crawl, my teeth grit and my jaws ache from the clenching and the bracing of myself against it.
The first flash of color I see is yellow—the yellow of cowardice. Perhaps this is because Shame brings me to a place of spinelessness, of fearfulness, of great weakness and despair. Ultimately, when I hang on for the Shame ride, there is blackness…darkness so pervasive that I cannot see anything beyond it. I do not want to see anything beyond it because the fear of it is so big. I only want it to go away.
Shame sucks the breath out of me, makes my skin crawl, my teeth grit and my jaws ache from the clenching and the bracing of myself against it.
But…
If I can stay present in the feeling of Shame, allowing it and embracing it, (which often doesn’t happen because I usually have already shored myself up against it, defended myself out of feeling it, somehow gone unconscious at the first hint of it in my energy field,)…but…if I can stay present with it, beyond the darkness is Light.
The Light is tiny and far off at first, and then, ever growing in depth and girth and brightness until it is all there is! In it comes deep compassion, love, acceptance, healing…and great gratitude for being brought through it--IF I can stay on that bucking bronco long enough to find the Light in it!
--Thank you Looney Tunes for my borrowing of Wile’s Photo.
Copyright 2012. Transformation of a Mystic. Barbara F. Manning
