I have a story to tell. The telling of this story has been sticking for me (twice when I have gone to tell it the technology I have been using has stopped working). Part of me knows that it is a key story to be told for me and others, and part of me has been running from the vulnerability and embarrassment I feel around it.
The key aspect of shame is the belief that you have experienced or done something that you will be judged and/or rejected for and that therefore you need to keep it secret. The problem is, keeping it secret, feeds the feelings of shame and unworthiness, and creates a tension and energy block in your mind and body. It takes a lot of energy to keep something hidden and suppressed.
So, to release all that for me, here is my story. I had to cancel my Becoming a Highly Attractive Woman course because only one person registered interest in it. And as I write that now, I am noticing all the thoughts that are coming up – “so what? No one else will think that is a big deal”, “you don’t need to write about this, no one else needs to know”, “no one will care”. This is my subconscious mind trying to protect me and keep me from doing something which it deems very unsafe.
At the time, there were other thoughts. There were a number of shame and failure thoughts and subconscious triggers that came up for me – most of which I tried not to acknowledge i.e. to hide from myself as well as others.
Here are some of them:
I failed.
I failed to launch a course – again. Yup, this has happened several times before.
I embarrassed myself and failed in an open public forum.
How can I teach other people to be highly attractive when this indicates that I am not.
I’m not going to be able to support myself financially from doing what I really want to do.
I have invested a lot of money in training and now I can’t make it work doing what I trained for.
All the people who didn’t think I could do this have been proved right.
In coaching, we call this process of expressing all our thoughts and feelings around something without filtering them, purging. Letting it all come out to be seen and heard and acknowledged. It can be a very challenging process, a very vulnerable process. It is usually also a process that releases a lot of stuck mental, emotional and physical energy, and brings you into a state where you can gain insightful clarity.
The next step is then acceptance of everything that you think and feel. Acceptance that it is there for you, rather than acceptance in terms of it being right or true. Acceptance creates space for transformation to occur, because acceptance releases resistance. Telling this story here is part of my process of acceptance. This is what is there for me and it is okay that it is there.
And this experience has been one of great growth for me. So much awareness and learning has flowed from it. I wrote these celebrations just after I cancelled the event:
I am celebrating that over the last two weeks I have shown up bigger than I ever have – more wholly than I ever have online and that has been filtering through to my real life as well.
I am celebrating having good feedback from other people to that.
I am celebrating that through it I have been getting more clear and confident in MY voice
I am celebrating that I am feeling more comfortable not having to be pretty and perfect to show up.
When I asked myself: “what did I receive from this?” and “how can I expand from this?“, I realised that I had been focusing on what I could do rather than asking myself, “what do I really WANT to do?”
And moreover to think about:
Who do I want to be and how do I want to live
rather than what do I want to do
When you are willing to sit in feelings of shame, failure and disappointment they are significant opportunities to move into greater self-awareness, clarity and flow. Observing the thoughts and feelings that come up, as they come up, can help you to deactivate unhealthy adaptive and protective reactions such as avoidance, procrastination, withholding and withdrawal in relationships, or distraction with alcohol, drugs, porn etc. Also, when you bring something out into the open, you significantly decrease its control over you. You take back your power.
Thank you for reading my story, and for witnessing me in my journey.
Layla Martin talks about getting to a powerful point in your personal development where you can totally be with uncomfortable thoughts and emotions in acceptance of their part of the overall spectrum of life, even to the point of finding a form of pleasure or being able to bring pleasure to the pain and discomfort – of eating it for breakfast.
This blog post is me eating shame for breakfast – taking shame’s call to hide and turning it on it’s head.
And I would also like to create a pathway for more open, accepting and empowering conversation about failure, and to separate it from feelings of shame.
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