I have spent the past decade clear that I don’t need to carry the shame I collected as I grew up. I have worked hard to clear it, to not listen to the incessant criticism from within myself, and to move through life with a sense of my worthiness and wholeness. I certainly do better than I use to. Recently, however, I realised at a new level that this was not working. For all the work I have done there is a strong part of me that really does care that I don’t measure up. This ‘caring’ part of me continues to hear criticism from others, or reads upset and anger as criticism, then takes it on board, magnifies it into condemnation, and cripples me with the sense that I am not good enough, am unacceptable, and that it is my fault that other people are unhappy with me. Words like “pathetic”, “repulsive”, “worthless” are strongly part of the vocabulary. The logical and more adult part of me knows this is false, but recognising that there really is something within me that does care and does still carry immense shame has been a freeing process; painful but freeing.
I have spent some time getting to know this shame-carrying part. It is young. It feeds off the emotion of situations that played out when I was a child, and it does not respond to the adult wisdom. It hurts. It is a child that needs tenderness. Now as I see it more fully, recognise its struggle, my struggle in that child part of me, I am discovering a great companionship with myself, and freeing of myself from shame-filled tendencies. Gone? Not at all. But lighter, and diminishing, definitely.
Simultaneously I am very familiar with the role in me I refer to as my Hanging Judge, that sounds in a strong, unrelenting, dispassionate, deeply critical and unforgiving voice. He is a voice patterned from my experiences in growing up, and he dumps buckets of effluent over anything I am doing that does not fit his concept of right.
The beauty of this process is I have also recognised the vital and expanding, life-filled and engaging part of me that carries no shame, my Vital and Courageous Pathfinder. I realise that at key moments throughout my life this aspect has asserted itself and taken me on a course divergent to the Judges strict directives. Sometimes from a place of rebellion, and other times in a quiet and gently assertive manner, steering me into new territory, and a new way of being.
These all contribute to my way of relating to others. At present I am more comfortable charting my own course, less interested in being subservient to the will of others (and they were not necessarily seeking that), and feel greater comfort and ease in my own skin, regardless of the direct or indirect feedback from others. Suddenly I have increased clarity. Where I was shrouded in a clinging dampness that suffocated the life out of me, I now feel lighter, and am more willing to step out, try new things, and engage with life. I have begun a direct dialogue with my “voice of shame” [the Judge], and I am promoting my Pathfinder so it has a stronger presence and role within me. This is freeing me to make easier choices and assert within myself what is right for me, rather than kowtow to the voice from my childhood indoctrination. I like where this is taking me, and while there is plenty to work with that is unsettling, the path feels rich and potent. I am more my own person. The fog is clearing a little more.
