“Shame is a soul eating emotion.”
~C.G. Jung
“Shame derives its power from being unspeakable.”
~Brené Brown
Shame. It’s such an uncomfortable feeling. So uncomfortable that you may not even want to read this article. You think that if you leave it hidden in the shadows, outside of conscious awareness, maybe, just maybe, you can pretend it’s not there.
But it is. And for some of us, it’s dug in deep.
If shame stays where it is, unseen and unexplored, it will continue to affect you. How? It’s behind the self-critical voice in your head, unsatisfying dynamics in relationships, feelings of lack and unworthiness, and choices that keep you from fully living.
Shame feels so personal! It’s a painful feeling of humiliation—that you’ve done something wrong or that there’s something disgraceful or embarrassing about you. It’s the secret emotion that sits in you like a poison.
And the last thing you want to do is bring it out in the open. You think that if you do, you’ll get stuck in your worst fears about yourself.
But here’s the possibility for you—the light that can begin to untangle shame: if you navigate shame with wisdom and heart, you find tenderness, compassion, courageous vulnerability, and the relief that comes from no longer hiding from yourself—or keeping yourself hidden from others and the world.
You move from feeling separate and shut down to being much more at ease with yourself. The boundaries that disconnect you from everyone and everything begin to fall away. Almost like being born anew, you are open, light, and available to life.
You can make the choice to let your pain rule you by keeping it in the shadows. Or you can befriend, explore, and welcome it into the light of conscious awareness. How? Here are 10 potentially life-changing ways to move through shame.
Getting to Know Shame
1. Be a courageous explorer
If you’re just beginning to explore shame, you’re going into foreign territory. Just like the ancient adventurers who took to the sea not knowing what they would find, be courageous, curious, and open.
Practice: Set the stage for your exploration of shame. Bring your attention inside, and touch into the qualities of curiosity, openness, and especially compassion that are natural to who you are. Find them, then let yourself feel them deeply.
2. Find the gap
You might be very used to feeling shame, but you may not know it well. In fact, you may have been trying to avoid it at all costs because it’s so painful.
But here we take a different approach by befriending our experience. What is shame exactly? How does it feel? How does it appear in your thoughts about the past and yourself?
Answering these questions invites you to find the gap between you and shame, and it’s the gap that begins to set you free.
Now you’re relating to shame in a new way. You can study it, inquire about it, and see what it is—this feeling that’s had such an impact on you.
Practice: Imagine you’re studying an object you’ve never seen before to figure out what it is and what it does. You’ll find a gap between you and shame. Observe your experience of shame and be curious about what you notice.
3. What’s the story?
Shame doesn’t appear from nowhere. It’s a form of conditioning that lives in your mind, heart, body, and spirit. Maybe you were somehow made to feel ashamed of yourself when you were young—ashamed of who you are, your capabilities, your body.
There’s probably a story of shame that you’ve carried for a long time, but here’s the good news: it’s actually an identity that is optional. Start to consider that this shame story doesn’t have to define you. Get ready to say goodbye to it.
Remember that who you are is not this story. Your essence is whole, inherently peaceful, and boundlessly free.
Practice: Stand up and feel yourself in that familiar story of shame. Just try it. Now, take a big step to one side and leave the story behind. Feel yourself without the story. How does it feel?
4. How does shame live in your body?
Every emotion has a physical component to it. Getting to know shame includes knowing how it lives in your body.
It may take some time to discover the physical experience of shame because it’s become so familiar to you. Get quiet and bring your attention to your body. Then notice any physical sensations, places of numbness, and energies. Whatever you find is just right.
You’re opening to what has been here anyway by making friends with the way shame shows up in your body.
When you realize you don’t need to live the story of shame and you become aware of body sensations, the heaviness of this identity begins to soften. It’s the road to freedom.
Practice: As much as possible, even a hundred times a day, bring your attention into your body and just be the loving space for whatever you notice.
Going Deeper
5. How you speak to yourself
Our inner self-talk can be so painfully harsh. And if you look at the root of what drives it, you’ll find shame, the feeling that there’s something terribly wrong with you.
Once you begin meeting the shame directly—by not being so captured by the story and feeling the physical sensations—this inner bully starts to not even make sense anymore.
Let’s tell the truth. Are you actually that incompetent, inadequate so-and-so you think you are? If you look at these inner statements with the objective eyes of a scientist, you’ll be able to punch holes in them immediately. You’re so much greater than these false limits.
Commit to recognizing this voice and letting its reign over you diminish.
Practice: This inner voice is unkind and doesn’t serve your peace and happiness. Turn your attention away from these self-critical thoughts and let them float on by like clouds. Be the sky—vast, empty, and serene. Start to live here as much as possible and the critical thoughts begin to lose their power.
6. Know how and why you isolate
Living with shame is lonely and isolating. It makes you believe that no one would want to get close to you, which justifies you pushing them away. You assume you’ll be rejected.
Recognizing the urge to isolate is essential to moving through shame. Because it’s a sign that your shame identity has taken charge. When you find yourself assuming what others think about you, this is your golden moment to let your thoughts be.
Practice: Shift your attention into your body, and breathe with great compassion for all that you are. You’re beginning to form a new, healthy relationship—with yourself. And this makes you more available, authentic, and courageously vulnerable. Others will love you for it.
7. Is there fear there?
Shame and fear often go hand in hand. You’re afraid of being seen for who you are. And at the same time, you fear being alone. You’re afraid you’re damaged goods, doomed to a life of misery.
As you get to know shame, become aware of various fears that may be lurking. Bring fear, too, out of the shadows and meet it lovingly.
Practice: Check to see if fear is present. Let down your resistance and allow it in, especially how it appears in your body. Like a long-lost child returning home, embrace the fear, but don’t let its story control you.
Moving Forward
8. Find the strength in being vulnerable
Vulnerability gets a bad rap these days. But what it actually offers you is the relief from having to hide from yourself, the simplicity of just being as you are without having to change anything.
Whatever you feel right now is your present moment experience. Resisting it creates endless suffering, and welcoming it in is the path to inner peace. This is the medicine for the secret of shame.
Be as you are. Not in the story of who you think you are that is denigrating and destructive—you’ve lived there long enough. Instead, shift your attention away from these thoughts, and allow your current experience as it is. These sensations…this breath…touching…hearing…looking…speaking…
It’s so relaxing because you don’t have to hide or hope. You can just be.
Practice: Begin to get comfortable being with whatever you are experiencing in any given moment. Be like the sky with clouds coming and going.
9. Sacred honesty—with yourself
When you live in shame, you’re constantly lying to yourself. You draw yourself into a trance that makes you believe you’re inadequate, unworthy, and just plain wrong. The truth? It’s inaccurate.
Healing from shame invites radical honesty. Are you up for it?
Whenever you’re feeling separate and lacking, question your experience. Find the gap (#2 above), and recognize the thoughts and feelings in your body that have taken hold.
Then realize that who you are is so much more than this identity. You are whole, unbroken, and infinitely at peace. Keep returning here. Become more and more transparent so the light of truth shines through.
Practice: Investigate your direct experience with a discerning eye to see what is true and what is false. Live in the truth of yourself as whole, full, pure, and resilient.
10. Wide open heart
Shame is all about limitation, holding back, and keeping yourself separate and isolated. And where is your heart? Wounded, stuck, and closed.
Begin to open into your loving nature. Move your attention away from your head to notice the beauty and tenderness around you. It’s been here all along, you just haven’t noticed. Let yourself be alive in the simple experiences of daily life. So precious!
Practice: Expand into gratitude, wonder, and intimacy with your experience. Instead of being absorbed in shame, meet everyone and everything with fresh eyes. When you notice that you are closed, open…open…open…