I am going to expose a bit of my shame to you and the ways I have been hiding it from the world and myself.
This is my fear: I am not enough, I’m not doing enough, and not only am I failing to meet my obligations to you…I am failing myself.
Harsh, right?
But that is often what shame “sounds” like. It is the voice of “should” or “shouldn’t”. It is a tone of fear from somewhere deep inside that we are not doing enough, not good enough, just…not enough. Or maybe too much. It’s really the same thing. I, as I am, need to be “fixed” or “hid” for surely I am not lovable as I am.
This is the place in my chest that gets tight and then I spend hours staring at my phone; scrolling and searching for meaning that cannot be found on a flat screen. I ask myself:
“What do you need? What does that need feel like? What does it taste like? What does it sound like?”
A low groan escapes my lips and suddenly I want to cry.
This is a somatic practice. This is my heart speaking through my body. Not my mind telling me stories.
This is not me rationalizing with my current addictive tendency which lately has looked like staring at the screen of my phone and talking about a relationship (gossiping) that I am feeling distress over. Talking about it, not to the person in question. I am avoiding this person which is what I often tend to accuse them of doing, avoiding me. But true to emotional and relational projection, the thing I am accusing them of in my mind (not aloud or directly) is avoiding me while meanwhile I am avoiding not only them, but what feels like so much of my life.
Here we must beware of “black and white” and reductive thinking.
I am not actually avoiding everything, though some tiny part of me that wants to be seen as “big” who feels very small would have me believe that is the case. Beware of that all or nothing thinking; it is an exaggeration and a trance.
To get a more holistic picture instead of some trauma-drama slice I need to ask myself: “What’s really going on?”
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