On Monday morning, I finished watching the last three episodes of ‘The Crown’ on Netflix, and remembered back to the days where after doing something like that, the shame dagger would have come out in full force, leading to full blown shame.
I used to pick up the shame dagger and guilt sticks very frequently.
(The way I see it, shame is related who we are, whereas guilt is about our actions.)
In my early twenties, the shame dagger would come out after going out and drinking alcohol, after speaking or not speaking, after spending money on anything that I loved, especially clothes, and any time where I could possibly see myself as wrong.
Some people believe that there is healthy shame and unhealthy shame – for example, that shaming ourselves once we discover someone or a group of people have been hurt by our actions or non-actions is helpful. If you believe that, I respect your beliefs.
I would love to offer why I believe that we don’t need to create new shame in order to respond compassionately to others.
First of all I’d love to ask you – if you discover that your actions or non-actions have been painful for someone else or a group of people, and then you shame yourself, how do you feel in your body?
I used to find that if anyone even started to tell me that what I’d done or hadn’t done had been painful for them in some way, the shame would be so deeply overwhelming that I was all-consumed by those feelings.
I might have been able to repeatedly say to the other person, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” – from that place of shame, but I had no emotional capacity to listen empathically to their experience nor to hear how they felt in response to what I did or didn’t do.
From a Marion Method perspective, that me shaming myself was actually covering up my true nature as Love, which meant that I also couldn’t access my true Lovingness to really listen to the other and their feelings.
The domination colonised culture runs on shame. When people are shamed enough as children, internalise those shame daggers, and believe that there is something innately wrong with them, it is much easier for others to use power-over them.
Likewise, very deeply shamed people may instead disconnect from others and find it hard to connect compassionately with the pain of others. You might be able to think of a few major politicians that appear to be like this.
From the Marion Method perspective, our true nature is Love and Will (innate power).
With shame, we’re talking about key Love-Hurts, whereas guilt is more about Will-Hurts (shoulding ourselves into doing things and punishing ourselves with what we should or shouldn’t have done after the event).
Our true nature is Love, and that Love gets covered over when we experience Love-Hurts, including being shamed.
That’s because being shamed tells us that there is something innately wrong or bad about who we really are. For safety and belonging, we need to believe that the adults around us who shame us know the truth, and we internalise those shame sticks, with whatever language we were shamed for.
There are two key things we can do here to change our relationship with ourselves around shame.
We can express the younger parts of us who were shamed, and have those younger parts heard with deep loving compassion – this is about hearing and releasing old shame.
We can also gradually stop creating new shame, by changing our inner dialogue. The harsh judgments that used to create new shame over and over can be replaced with compassionate internal responses, so that we create less and less new shame.
From the Marion Method perspective, when the younger parts of us who were shamed receive ongoing compassion, the old shame is gradually heard and released, and as we increasingly connect with our Inner Loving Presences, we less and less create new shame. Both of these mean that we increasingly identify with our true nature as Love.
From this Lovingness, we can listen with unconditional love to:
The younger parts who needed to believe that the adults around them knew what they were talking about and there was something inherently wrong with them;
Any feelings we might feel when we hear or see that what we’ve done or haven’t done is painful for others – such as sadness, grief, or shock;
Other people who are feeling pain in response to what we have or haven’t done.
The more we respond from our innate lovingness, the more love there is for all the parts of us, and other people.
We don’t need to shame ourselves into repairing or acting differently towards someone or a group of people.
Rather, we can listen lovingly to our feelings and why we did what we did or didn’t do what we didn’t do, and we can also feel our loving compassion for the other, and act from that lovingness.
Do you feel shame often?
Do you believe that you would be less compassionate and caring of others if you didn’t shame yourself?
Can you imagine having Outer and Inner Loving Presences who respond to you with profound compassion, whatever you do or don’t do?
Can you imagine being able to sit in deep loving compassion for both yourself and another person as they tell you something you’ve done or haven’t done that has been painful for them?
I am so grateful that I very rarely ever shame myself nowadays, and that my internal dialogue is now deeply compassionate, and I have plenty of compassion for others.
If you want to learn more about developing relationships with your own Inner Loving Presences, I will be running a live round of my Inner Loving Presence Process Course soon.
For those of you wanting to become Marion Method Mentors, the Training will be coming at the same time!
Lots of love,
Marion xoxo