Shame.

A top of mind topic in the last couple of years for me has been the subject of shame.

A reason I love Brene Brown so much is she discusses the topic of shame head on unapologetically.

 I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, everyone has their shit. I don’t care how pretty your life looks. Your perfect family, relationship, looks, success and on and on. My theory is, the more perfect someone seems, the deeper their shit is. 

The people I’m drawn to the most are the ones that let their ugly show. Not the ugly in the sense of their nastiness towards others, but the ugly they’re not proud of, but own it, because it’s part of their story.

 I am no exception to the topic of shame. I’ve got my ugly. Oh boy do I have my ugly. It slapped me in the face and off my high horse of self importance and seeming integrity a couple of years ago. It’s taken years to bounce back from and candidly, I still battle with it. Every day. 

While I do battle with shame every day, ironically, there is a lot of good that has come out of it. Fairweather friends have dropped out of my life teaching me what it’s like to be judged and also teaching me (to try) not to judge others. Every time I catch myself judging someone else, my shame pops into my head reminding me 

“Oh, no, don’t you dare.”

Telling people my story of shame, has appeared to help others with theirs. I think because I post a lot about love and positivity and yada yada yada, people think I live a charmed and perfect life. Don’t get me wrong, I have come to learn to love my life (most days). I love where I live, I love job, I love so many people in my life, and I’m grateful every day for all the good.

BUT, it’s a constant practice of reshifting my mindset. Again. And again. And again.

There are days where I struggle getting out of bed. And there are days where I’m paralyzed with debilitating anxiety and there are days where I just say “fuck it, I don’t want to be happy today and I am just angry.” 

And you know what? That’s ok. I’m allowed to not be happy all the time. YOU are allowed to not be happy all the time. Anyone that’s happy all the time – well, let me know what drugs you’re on – I’ll have some of that.

I have spoken with so many people who are mad at themselves because they’re not happy all the time and to that I say, 

“Well, Jesus Christ who is? I’m certainly not”

That brings me back to the topic of shame.

We put so much pressure on ourselves to be as good as or better than the Jones’s. That’s exhausting. Peel away the layers to that onion and you will find depression, anxiety, addiction, infidelity, divorce, abuse and other not so great stuff that’s part of being human. My shame has taught me that we’re not two dimensional. We’re not good or bad, black or white. We’re all complicated and multifaceted, a million people and layers. At any given moment we can be givers, takers, liars, honest, assholes, amazing, and on and on and on.

I found part of my healing process rising from my ashes when I fell from grace, if you will, was sharing my story of my deepest shame. Almost as if I wanted people to hate me as much as I hated myself in that moment. I didn’t feel like I deserved love. I felt like I needed people to know that I wasn’t the person they thought I was and I was looking for penance.

Ironically, what I found wasn’t additional punishment and judgment from people, it was an overwhelming amount of compassion. When I told people my shame, they shared theirs. “Oh you have shit? Let me tell you mine.” Shockingly, people let their guards down because I shared vulnerability with them. They felt they could be vulnerable with me.  Over and over and over again. In sharing my shame, it helped with my healing, but apparently it helped with others’ healing, as well.

 This is another reason why I’ve decided to write what I write and how I write it. It’s a healing mechanism for me, but I have also found through the countless messages, texts, emails, etc from people – both whom I know well and not at all – it’s helping others.

 A good friend called me this morning at 5:45am. Their voice breaking through tears. This friend struggles with alcohol. Very few people in this person’s life know about their struggle. On the surface, they have it all together – great job, great family, great life. This person is easily one of the best people I know. They know ALL my stuff and love me despite the ugly. And in turn I love them despite all their ugly. No one knows how much this person struggles with shame. They confide in me because they know I won’t judge them. This person was broken this morning and I was taken back to my rock bottom two years ago. Shame is a hard cage to break out of and the only one that can really get you out of it is yourself. The support of others is invaluable, but the catalyst is you.

All I could tell this person was that I love them and that they would get through this. I told them to lean on others going through the same thing and that it was nothing to be ashamed of and they weren’t alone. And maybe this moment, they’ll be able to look back on a year, two years, however long from now and help someone else that may be struggling with the same shame and be able to tell their story of rising from their ashes.