Why shame thrives on secret-keeping

The journey to self-love is long and winding.

And when you’re in a place of self-loathing it can look like an unreachable destination.

Saying an affirmation like “I am worthy of love just for being who I am” used to be cringe-inducing for me because it felt untrue.

I’d fantasize about being more attractive, wealthier, and more social and believe that then I’d be happy.

Then I’d love myself.

Happiness, or love, became conditional on the circumstances of my life.

Rather than something always accessible to me.

Ironically, these fantasies helped me to feel good in the moment. I’d notice sensations of warmth and thoughts of hope.

It was self-soothing.

But the fantasies also implied that I was inherently unworthy and that I needed to change.

Unconsciously I was caught in a loop: fantasies made me feel good, perpetuated the feeling of unworthiness, and so I’d fantasise again to feel better.

Self-love seemed impossible.

That’s why I believe the best place to start is with self-acceptance. It’s less threatening to our current coping strategies.

“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.” - Carl Rogers

Intrusive thoughts

About 5 years ago I started having intrusive thoughts. The kind that are unsettling and shameful.

I felt like there was something wrong with me.

And the more I pushed them away, the more they came back at me.

I noticed that if I was feeling good about myself, these intrusive thoughts would appear.

It was as if I was refusing to allow myself to think positively about myself.

It took months to work up the courage to tell my therapist what I’d been thinking. I was afraid she would judge me, or worse, that I’d be on my way to some institution.

When I finally voiced them, I immediately felt lighter.

As if by the very act of speaking them into existence, their energy left my body and floated out into the air.

See, shame dissolves when exposed to light.

And that’s because shame thrives on secret-keeping.

What is shame?

Shame is the feeling that you are unacceptable. That there is something intrinsically wrong with you. And at the root of it is the fear of disconnection.

Like the monsters under your bed, the longer you’re unwilling to look the greater your fear builds.

We worry that if people saw these parts of ourselves we’d be rejected.

And we blame ourselves.

As children, we tell ourselves that whatever we experience is our fault. It’s an illusion that gives us a semblance of control.

But this is what leads to self-hatred.

So when we expose shame to the light, we see what’s really there.

We face up to the parts of ourselves that we’ve rejected for so long.

We see the thoughts for what they are: just thoughts.

We feel what we haven’t allowed to be felt.

We experience acceptance from others where once we feared rejection.

We can stop blaming ourselves.

Self-acceptance is a journey

It takes courage to dredge up the parts of ourselves that we’ve kept hidden for so long.

But until we do, we will never experience self-acceptance. We will never experience self-love.

Working with a therapist or a coach can be incredibly beneficial for this work.

But even journalling is effective - writing down the unfiltered thoughts you have, wihout self-censorship.

To this day, voicing how I truly feel is an important part of my self-care routine.

I no longer avoid the feelings of ‘being bad’ or ‘doing bad’.

Because as with intrusive thoughts, when we push something away, we give it energy.