NINE WAYS TO BEGIN WORKING WITH YOUR SHAME 1

NINE WAYS TO BEGIN WORKING WITH YOUR SHAME 1. You were not born feeling shame about yourself. Know that shame is learned. 2. Know that shame is not your fault, even though our shame tells us it is. 3. Know that as adults we can learn skills and get help in handling shame like learning to manage rejection. We can gain enough confidence to take chances and come out of hiding. There is always hope. 4. Know that you can surround yourself with friends and partners who accept and love you for you. You can find people with whom you can safely share your accomplishments and failures. You can find people to share in your joy and excitement. You can find people who share your interest in being real and authentic. 5. Practice changing your habitual reflex to shrink and hide. Slowly start experimenting with expansive feelings like joy, pride, interest, and excitement when they arise, by acknowledging them. Notice if you immediately dismiss good feelings. 6. Know that arrogance, contempt, perfectionism, pretenses, bullying behavior, and aggression in general are often a cover for underlying shame. 7. Practice offering compassion to the part of you that feels ashamed or bad in the moments you are suffering most. 8. Practice working with your shamed part by asking it as though it were another person you were talking to, "How did you learn to feel ashamed? From whom or where did you get this message?" Then be patient and listen to your shamed part. It might tell you something new. 9. Practice finding and validating the core emotions you have felt as a result of being shamed either in the present or in the past.

— from The Instruments (Awareness/Perception/Expectations)

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