People do shameful things all the time. Like calling their ex’s number for the hundredth time even though they know they are blocked. Just call him Sarah, you won’t die: Shame will not kill you.
I think shame is where it all started. The day Eve picked an apple and realized there was nothing more shameful than her own nakedness. She was the first person to feel it, and from her, women down the ages have been feeling it. You are born from it, only to live in it.
I was once in love with someone. Or I think I was. I don’t think I can really tell what to love is…being human and all. Is it the sacrifices? Or the selflessness? Or maybe the familiarity of time? I don’t know, anyway, it took me a whole lot of self-analysis to realize what it is that I called love in that person. It was their lack of shame. I think the absence of shame is innocence. They had that childlike innocence of walking naked without any shame. They were so bare I could not help but be mesmerized. They lived dangerously in a world that glorified masks.
We live in shame. Too afraid to do anything because we know we cannot handle the shame that comes with it. That shame of what people will say about us. Our prestige and status. How people see us, and how they should see us. Most importantly, what we will say about ourselves. We are our own worst judges. There is no meaner judge than the one who lives in our heads. So we walk around pointing fingers at everyone, not realizing that they are just but reflections of our own nature. Every time you look at someone and pinpoint something judgmental about them, it’s like acknowledging the presence of that trait in yourself: An admission that you are capable of doing it too, or rather, want to do it too if not for shame.
People often criticize what they are afraid to do themselves ~ Mark Manson ~
Validation is the antidote to shame. To avoid shame, our society has learnt to live within laws and rules. Society says, ‘If you follow all the rules, you would never have a reason to be ashamed because we will approve you’. That is why, from an early age you are taught how to people please. You have to please the majority in order to be accepted into the club: The pack survives while the lone wolf dies. For early man, alienation from the pack meant literal death. So, it’s no wonder that today, the mind still associates disapproval from others as a death sentence.
Why are we so afraid to be ashamed? Maybe because big changes happen when we are in our own nakedness. For Adam and Eve, it was the knowledge of good and bad. We are told they outgrew the garden, became like God, and had to be kicked out. So, there are so many ways we grow, and the unavoidable way is often through shame. You get exposed, you are vulnerable, shame follows, and in those moments two things could happen: You could succeed at achieving something more than yourself, or you could learn an invaluable lesson. Either way, growth will be happening
