Shame

I’ve been feeling it lately.

The fear of not being good enough.

And I’ve realized it’s a belief that I picked up a long time ago and with good intentions.

Being raised in a pretty strict religion, there was a lot of emphasis on “choosing the right” and being righteous. Making God happy by making good choices and avoiding sin. The righteous receive blessings and the wicked are punished.

My brain absorbed those thought like a sponge and what I interpreted all of that to mean was that for God to love me, I needed to be my absolute best. The goal was perfection. Anything less was failure.

Sure I’d mess up occasionally, but the focus was on the least amount of mistakes possible. Always striving for better. More loving, thankful, generous, giving, and patient. Always striving to be more.

But here’s the catch, I’m not perfect.

I mess up. I lose my shit some days. I believe the worst about others sometimes. I’m not always loving and patient and sweet with my kids. I misjudge situations, take things personally, and miscommunicate.

And when I’m not perfect, the first thing that comes up for me is shame. And from there, I usually want to blame. To try and run away from the fact that I’m human and imperfect by blaming others for my feelings and actions.

Where this gets me though is even more disconnection.

The disconnection that started with abandoning myself from the shame that I’m imperfect, then morphs into disconnection from others as I blame them for my actions.

It’s a lose-lose for everyone, but as long as my goal is perfection, the cycle continues.

I use to live perpetually in this cycle, especially when I was married. My life was a constant struggle and striving to be better and less “me.”

But you can’t run away from you.

Coaching is what brought me back to myself.

Learning that FEELING is just part of being a human being, and that I can FEEL anything.

Jealousy, fear, sadness, and confusion. Nothing has gone wrong when these feelings are present. They are just part of living a human life.

And when I allow myself to be fully human and allow these emotions, I stop resisting and reacting to them.

Then when I’m “imperfect,” I stay with myself instead of running away into shame and blame.

This practice is what has changed everything for me and makes the biggest difference in my client’s lives.

They learn that you don’t have to be “perfect” to be “good enough.” You are “good enough” just as you are.

Imperfections are built into the very fabric of being a human. And when we embrace the fact that we will fail, and mess up, and fall down, we let go of the shame and blame and can feel more connected to ourselves and all the other imperfect humans around us.

“I can’t trust myself.”

By the time I was starting to consider divorce, I had already had many years of practicing this belief.

I had developed a pattern of looking to people outside of me for guidance and insight into what I should do in my life.

This looked like taking copious notes at religious meetings and then trying to checklist everything that had been mentioned.

Listening to every comment from my spouse on my appearance – “don’t like bangs, too much jewelry” – and changing it accordingly.

And oversharing with my friends and family in the hopes that someone would tell me the right things to do.

And then, when I would actually decide on my own, when things got tough or didn’t work out like I’d thought, I would beat the crap out of myself mentally. “This was such a stupid idea. What were you thinking? You look like an idiot. Don’t ever do this again.”

It’s like a part of my brain had become this negative animus that was there to constantly shame and judge me whenever I struggled or wasn’t perfect.

It was a seriously sucky way to live. Always worried about what others thought. Always trying to control their thoughts about me by taking actions that I thought they would like.

It was exhausting and felt like a hamster wheel because, newsflash, you never have control over what another human being chooses to think about you.

But coaching changed all of this.

I learned that I could CHOOSE my beliefs about myself.

That the statement “I can’t trust myself” was just a thought. And after seeing what that thought was producing, I could choose to let it go and believe something else about myself.

Slowly, little by little, I started to understand how the negative thoughts I had about myself weren’t helping me at all.

Instead of “motivating” me to change and helping me “get better,” they were creating the very things I was trying to get away from – fear, inadequacy, anxiety, depression, abandonment of self, people pleasing, and hiding.

I slowly started to develop trust in myself by changing my thoughts and my life has steadily improved ever since. I now actively practice thoughts that help me develop trust in and love for myself.

Change is not impossible, and it’s also not as hard as you think. What you believe about yourself is not set in stone, and it absolutely is not a fact.

I work with my clients, step by step, to find these old beliefs about themselves that no longer serve them, and to try on new beliefs that start creating the life they want. Because when they know they can trust themselves, then the choice to stay or go becomes clear and they move forward.

“I’m Not Good Enough.”